March 08th, 2018

Well my friends, I am red-faced with embarrassment.  But as I like to believe that I am, if nothing else, an honourable person, I have to be brave, cowboy up and face the music.  In two separate cases recently, I wrote as fact, things that, as it turns out, were not.  

​These were not intentional lies but more a lack of proper research on my part which is probably just as  bad.  I'm not sure why I didn't slow down, wait and do my due diligence, but clearly I did not.  Shame on me!  So here I am trying to make it right with a sort of Blog retraction or perhaps just a blog correction.

​Earlier this week I wrote about the fire at a beach access park here in Venice.  That particular park is called Service Club Park because various area service clubs are the ones who raised the money to build this lovely little park.  Sunday it caught fire and the board walk to the beach and parts of the picnic areas were destroyed.  This is what it looks like now:

The original reports indicated that the fire was set intentionally. That is the information that I worked from.  I should have waited for the fire marshall's final report because now it is being reported that the fire was an accident.  It was apparently a "warming fire" that got out of control.  So while the destruction caused by that fire is very real, the reason behind the fire is different.  I blogged about it as an intentional fire (again as per the first reports) and that was incorrect.  I should have waited until I had more information and I was calmer but instead reacted in a knee-jerk angry manner.  I am truly sorry.

​For anyone who is interested, this is what it looked like before the fire.  It really was such a nice little park:

 
​Ok the second correction is equally embarrassing. I should have known better and not only done more research but also used my brain and thought long and hard before writing.  It was a different day, I believe it was late last week.  I wrote a thing about a recent discovery in the waters off Venice Island where very very VERY old skeletons were found.  Again  the original report was that they were estimated as being millions of years old.  Well that is just insane.  What is wrong with me? How did I not realize that was incorrect? They are Not millions of years old.  Thousands of years yes, millions no.  What an idiot I am!  I got so excited about the archeological marvel that I left my good sense in a pocket somewhere.    The correct estimated age of these skeletons is roughly 7,000 + years which is still impressive and pretty dang old.  It's still a wonderful find, still a wonder and I still wish they would just honour the wishes of the Seminole Indians and leave the remains alone out there where they were buried.  

​So there you have it folks. In the interest of keeping my good name and reputation of being honest intact, I hang my head in shame and leave you with these two corrections!  I apologize and promise to do a far better job in the future with accuracy and better research.  To the best of my knowledge these are the only two times I have made errors in the roughly 18 months that I've been writing this blog, so maybe, just maybe, you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.

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