SCOTT MAXWELL: Haiku news twist honors poet search.

Today, we’re talking about theme parks, casinos, politics, chocolate and more.

But first I thought we’d highlight Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer’s effort to find a poet laureate for the City Beautiful. Why not? It’s a way to spotlight Orlando’s burgeoning literary scene, inspire students and enlighten others … all for the pithy honorarium cost of about $3,000 a year.

So, in honor of that news, I decided to accent each of today’s items with a haiku.

(For those of us who grew up in laureate-deprived cities, that means poems of three lines, with five syllables, seven syllables and then five again.) O-Town seeks poet Rhyming nice, not required Pay’s only three grand

Disney wants break

One of the bigger stories slipping under the radar of most local media outlets is Disney World’s quest to cut its tax bill. As the Sentinel recently reported, Disney is mad that Property Appraiser

Rick Singh wants the multibilliondollar company to pay so much in taxes. Among the mouse’s claims: Animal Kingdom isn’t worth $339 million. Considering it has been reported that Disney was going to spend half a billion dollars on Pandora — which is just one of seven areas in that one park — Mickey may have a tough time crying poor-mouth.

Disney wants tax break. I bet you do, too. But you don’t have good lawyers.

Theme park politics

Speaking of Disney, Wednesday’s paper also noted that the theme-park giant is funneling gobs of money into Republican political campaigns — including a whopping $400,000 to Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who wants to be Florida’s next governor. Now, before liberals start threatening boycotts because Mickey is a die-hard conservative, understand that Mickey doesn’t really have political allegiances. He just sucks up to whomever’s in charge. Heck, if the Communist Party ran Florida, Mickey’d be marching through Fantasyland with a hammer and sickle.

Disney wants favors. So Disney cuts checks. Big ones. Cash beats pixie dust.

Casinos score jackpot

Last week, Gov. Rick Scott struck a $1 billion deal with the Seminole Tribe to keep the cards flying at the tribe’s Florida casinos. The tribe basically gets to keep the gambling it has now in exchange for $200 million a year. Gamblers should note that number. It’s massive. It means the casinos must take in about $550,000 every single day to hand over to the state —

before the casinos also take in everything they need to pay employees and building costs, post

profits and pay off the occasional winning hand.

One billion dollars Every nickel from gamblers The house always wins.

Cigna for state House?

This week’s weirdest political story featured State House candidate Dr. Usha Jain, a West Orange Republican — and licensed physician — whose campaign signs say: “ACCEPT CIGNA.” That’s one odd campaign slogan. Yet when Sentinel reporter Jeff Weiner asked Jain if the slogan was an ad for her business or perhaps her publicpolicy position on health care, Jain responded “I don’t even know” why the slogan is there.

Campaign or biz ad? Candidate says she’s unsure. Reaction: What the …?

Um ... that doesn’t go there

My favorite part of the Sentinel’s story about concerns over snortable chocolate — sold by an Orlando company — is where we quote a doctor saying: “You are not meant to have anything up your nose.” Really? There are actually people who need doctors to tell them that? Apparently so … or else there wouldn’t be a market for this $24.99-a-can product.

Chocolate up nose. So that’s really a thing now. What is wrong with you?

A deadly zoning issue in Orange

I’ve covered some unusual zoning cases in my day. But Sentinel reporter Steve Hudak found a new one this week when Orange County commissioners overruled their own zoning board to allow a crematorium to set up shop near existing residences.

Think you have problems with neighbors? You have loud noise. They’ll soon have corpses.

Floridians shine

Our feel-good story of the week comes from Panama City, where beachgoers spotted a family stuck in a riptide and united to form an 80-person human chain that stretched out into the rough waters to rescue everyone in distress.

“Flori-Duh,” they say. But we rally when it counts. We’re not all dolts. Duh.