[ajakk]

Originally Posted by redwitch

There is no question that Ritchie and the Sentinel have an agenda against the Morses (it's a Democratic paper; the Morses are diehard Republicans). Anything written in the Sentinel should be taken with a grain of salt and investigated.

The "articles" in today's Sun are NOT articles -- they are letters to the editor appearing as articles or columns. They should be taken with the same grain of salt that should be applied to Ms. Ritchie.

As to the Relay for Life incident, I'll happily take the word of F16 and Whalen, both of whom were at the meeting and both of whom are very active in Relay, where it was announced there would be no Relay on Villages' property. ACS has always had the policy that it will not share proceeds with another entity -- it is in their Bylaws. To make them the heavy in this patently unfair.

So, maybe someone can explain how it was that the Morses donated the land and the cost of building to the Moffitt Center on TV property and it is now a lease deal? The Sun did originally say the Morses were donating the land and building and that $6.3 million in contributions were needed for the equipment. Now, the land and building are not donated and the money has decreased because some of the equipment was found to be already available.

I still see no advantage to having a Moffitt on TV property and one in Leesburg. At best, it seems superfluous. Tell me one is a Moffitt center and one is a Shands center and it might make more sense -- there might actually be some difference in treatment plans between the two facilities, but not if both are from the same cancer center.

As to Morse bashing, I'm the first to admit I'm not a fan of the Morses and do feel they are a bit too greedy. I also believe that Harold Schwartz's vision would never have occurred without Gary Morse's hard work. I also believe that the Morses are a great business family and have created something truly remarkable here. That doesn't mean they are perfect. Nor does it mean that everything they do is altruistic or greedy. It means they fall in the middle -- some things are truly done with the best of intentions; some things are done because of personal beliefs; some things are done out of pure, unadulterated greed and the belief they can get away with it because they are the Morses. Regardless, we shouldn't blindly revile them nor praise them without getting all the facts possible. In the case of the Moffitt Center, it will be hard to get the facts -- too much of it is closed off to the public and too much is already lost in rumors, half-truths and lies. Some of us do the best we can with the information we have. We may interpret things incorrectly but we do the best we can with what we have.

Could not have said it better!