Month: May 2009

Enabling Moms

Tragically, it has happened yet again. Amid all the awful, sordid news stories out there, is there anything worse than the ones that chronicle the arrest of those accused of killing – and sometimes sexually assaulting – little children? Sometimes babies.

 

This is something that is beyond psychopathic and perverted. Maybe it’s the manifestation of evil. But one thing is certain. Those who would do such despicable things — regardless of their inner demons and addictions — had access. We don’t know the why, but that’s the how.

 

Live-in boyfriends, including the unconscionably creepy ones, are a societal norm. Even society’s old-schoolers acknowledge as much. But all bets are off and the dynamics are different where little children are involved. Sharing a bed is not the same as sharing a household that includes the innocent.

 

These women, making unilateral decisions that impact their children, are not just pitiful,  tragic figures. They are negligent, enabling accomplices in a tragedy — and a crime.

Driving Under The Influence Of Chatter

In case you’ve forgotten, among the issues the Florida Legislature hasn’t gotten around to addressing – while it wasn’t addressing other stuff such as revenue reform – is that of drivers, especially teens, using cell phones. Oh, multiple bills were filed, so there are those who officially think preoccupied, distracted drivers are an issue, if not an unconscionable menace. But there is still no law in Florida that prohibits or limits cell phone use while driving.

 

Maybe next year. Or, like revenue reform, maybe never.

 

The need is more than manifest. After pouring over research, the National Safety Council says that cell phone use increases the risk of a crash fourfold. It equates talking on cell phones — hand-held or hands-free — with drunken driving.

 

“Public awareness and the laws haven’t caught up with what the scientists are telling us,” points out NSC president Janet Froetscher. “There is no dispute that driving while talking on your cell phone, or texting while driving, is dangerous.”

 

As a result, the NSC has called for a cell phone ban for drivers. And for the record, adds Froetscher, there are an estimated 270 million cell phone users in the U.S. – and 80 per cent of them talk on the phone while driving.

 

Then add to the equation the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s finding that teens are three times more likely than the average driver to get into a fatal crash. Also include an AAA study that showed that 25 per cent of 16- and 17-year-olds text-message while driving. And another AAA study that ranks Florida among the worst states for teenage traffic fatalities.

 

Then add common sense. Even the most vacuous, fatuous cell phone conversations can blind drivers to visual cues, slowing reaction time and situational awareness. Why wouldn’t they?

 

We all drive. We’re all on the road. We all want to protect ourselves – and our kids. If the call is that damn important, it’s worth pulling over to make it.

Blair Suit’s Irony

The upshot of the Brian Blair libel suit against Kevin Beckner might be this: A landmark, stop-the-presses case that radically alters how far political campaigns can go in the down- and-dirty, rough-and-tumble give-and-take that is candidate bashing.

 

But chances are, it will be this: Absent convincing proof that statements made against a public official were both defamatory and made with reckless disregard for the truth, the core of First Amendment protections – political speech – will be upheld.

 

Two points.

 

Beckner has fired back with a legal filing that seeks to get Blair’s suit tossed out of court. The filing itself is a veritable laundry list of the considerable public criticism incurred by the ex-wrestler and former county commissioner over the years. Ouch. How ironic that the process of reputation reclamation initiates another rehash of “Blair’s Greatest (Reputation) Hits.”

 

In response to Blair’s contention that “his good name and reputation” have been damaged and need to be restored, the filing — by Beckner attorneys Barry Cohen and Gregg Thomas — countered sardonically that the motion to dismiss does indeed “join in that endeavor.” It said it seeks “to clarify that Blair’s reputation is, in actuality, one that is a discredit to him personally and to the Tampa Bay community.” Double ouch.

 

Second. If you’re retaining Barry Cohen, you’re serious. You may say the suit is frivolous, but you’re not taking any chances.

Moody’s Weighs In

Florida may soon be better known for denying financial reality and deferring responsibility than promoting sunshine. The Florida Legislature is now synonymous with “parallel universe.”

 

Its legislators, led by the “no tax”-mantra GOP, tune out economists as easily as advocates for higher education, social services or wetlands protection. Reasonable revenue reform? Might as well be lobbying for an atheists’ license plate.

 

Most recently, however, Florida lawmakers had to turn a deaf ear in another direction – toward those who can’t be labeled politically partisan or priority skewed. Try Moody’s Investors Service.

 

Moody’s has looked askance at Florida because it found its financial stewardship foundering oxymoronically. It saw a state that was fixated on one-time income paying too big a portion of recurring expenses. It saw a state that lacked a plan for restoring reserves spent down to avoid an unconstitutional deficit. It saw a state that seemed to care more about slogans than solutions.

 

And then it did what bond-rating agencies do in such cases. It put Florida’s top-level Aa1 bond rating on a watchlist for a possible downgrade. One that could happen within 90 days.

 

The likely result, of course, would be Florida paying higher interest rates to borrow money. Which would mean many more millions of dollars the state doesn’t have. The Sunshine State’s perfect storm continues.  

State Legislature: “Gutless And Vision-Challenged”

However all of this shakes out in Tallahassee, including the specter of another less-than-special legislative session, this much seems assured: the Florida Legislature is a parallel universe. This state, which is obviously no longer in a mega growth mode, cries out for real revenue reform.

 

And yet it’s frustratingly apparent that the odds are better that a GOP-dominated body would rather work religiously on an anti-evolution bill or sectarian license plates than apply itself meaningfully to real-world priorities. Ironically, maybe a “God Help Us” plate would be all too appropriate.

 

While it’s understandable that many wax nostalgic for Gov. LeRoy Collins, no one should seek to perpetuate the sales-tax formula that dates to his era. Florida has a 10-figure budget deficit, one that will only be partly offset by the federal stimulus of $13.7 billion over three years.

 

And yet the “no-tax, yes-pander” crowd would rather consider up-front gambling money or under-the-radar-’til-the-last-minute, future oil-drilling dollars instead of equitable revenue reform. This is in addition, of course, to layoffs, service cuts, trust-fund raids, some fee hikes and more tobacco money – aka a voluntary tax.

 

Florida legislators continue to ignore the inadequate, antiquated, inequitable system that still countenances untaxed services, unwarranted sales tax exemptions and inexcusable inertia on untaxed Internet sales. Plus, the legislature remains chronically tolerant of corporate tax loopholes that shift income to lower-tax states and online travel companies that book hotel rooms without paying the full tourist tax.

 

Any wonder that Moody’s Investors Service has looked askance at Florida and put this state’s top-level Aa1 bond rating on a watchlist for a possible downgrade? The likely result of which, of course, would be Florida paying higher interest rates to borrow money. Which would translate, of course, into millions of dollars the state doesn’t have. And it could come within 90 days.

 

The Moody’s rationale: Florida is fixated on one-time income to pay too big a portion of recurring expenses. It lacks a strategy for restoring reserves spent down to avoid an unconstitutional deficit. Other than that, the Sunshine state is an avatar of financial accountability and foresight.

 

In effect, this state’s gutless, vision-challenged Legislature is telling Moody’s and the residents of Florida: “Nothing matters more than our self-serving, ideologically compromised, “no tax” mantra, and nobody matters more than certain, favored lobbyists.

 

“If we can help it — and you better believe we can — there won’t be any equity in taxation and subsequent revenue raising. Ever. It’s part of our birthright as Floridians. We’d rather gut services or drill, baby, drill. So, yeah, you can expect us to just nickel-and-dime-and-dollar higher education, health care, the Moffitt Cancer Center, Byrd Alzheimer Research Institute, the Ringling Museum of Art, Florida Forever, the Inland Protection Trust Fund, high school Advanced Placement courses, juvenile assessment centers, the guardian ad litem program and whatever else you politically puny, bleeding hearts think is so damn important.

 

“And don’t look for the ‘people’s governor’ for help. It’s not the Charlie Crist style. Besides, Jeb took the gubernatorial bully pulpit with him. Crist isn’t just ‘above the fray.’ He’s an empty suit preparing for that empty 2010 seat in the U.S. Senate. We don’t see much of him, whether we’re in or out of session. We hear he’s still waiting for insurance rates to ‘drop like a rock.’”

Sanchez Retrospective

Tampa’s Frank Sanchez, as we know, is President Obama’s nominee as undersecretary of commerce for international trade. Two years ago, Sanchez was a key cog in the Barack Obama campaign – both as a fundraiser and as an adviser on Latin American issues. Now, pending confirmation, Sanchez, 49, will be an administration insider with some clout.

 

Back in 2007, Sanchez and I sat down to discuss a range of positions that then-candidate Obama was formulating. A few excerpts:

 

*Trade: “Obama’s hardly for reversing globalization, but he doesn’t want to give lip service to labor issues and environmental concerns.”

 

*Latin America: “For starters, we need to re-engage with Latin America. Brazil and Chile come readily to mind. For the last six years we’ve ignored Latin America – much to our detriment.”

 

*Cuba: Sanchez underscored candidate Obama’s priority of reversing the travel-and-remittance restrictions on the estimated 1.5 million Cuban-Americans living in the U.S. Indeed, President Obama has already ordered that be done.

 

As to the (then 45-year-old) economic embargo, Sanchez said Obama was not inclined to rush into any bold initiatives – preferring to use the embargo as “leverage” for changes on the island. The operative word was “incremental,” emphasized Sanchez. Do not, he stressed, expect a diplomatic stroke that would geopolitically “turn on a dime.”

Ethnocentrism In Context

Remember when you were in college and you learned the term “ethnocentric?”  As in, the belief in the superiority of one’s own ethnic group. The corollary was “don’t be judgmental. Cultures are neither good nor bad. They’re just different and, well, cultural. Don’t judge them by your (usually skewed Western) standards.”

 

And then along came folks who used rattlesnakes in their religious services. Or tribes who engaged in genital mutilation. And, for all too long, anything Taliban. Pick an abomination. Most recently, it was the couple who were executed in southwestern Afghanistan for trying to elope.

 

Ethnocentrism. There’s a reason why it lives on.

Iranian Intrigue

It certainly seems an outrage that Roxana Saveri, the journalist with dual American-Iranian citizenship, is still jailed in Iran on spying charges. Some observers think she is the victim of internal Iranian politics and will eventually be used as a leverage pawn in Iranian-American relations.

 

President Obama has said he is “gravely concerned” about Saberi’s safety and well being and was confident she wasn’t involved in espionage. Notably not yet commenting officially: CIA director Leon Panetta.

Al-Qaida Strategy?

Accidental Guerrilla, a book by Australian counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, contains at least one reference that won’t be appreciated by keepers of the George W. Bush legacy.

 

The bedrock of that legacy is that the Bush Administration protected America, say what you will about methodology, after the 9/11 attacks. There were no more attacks on the American homeland.  How’s that for a bottom line?

 

According to Kilcullen, Osama bin Laden has given, not surprisingly, a contrarian rationale for backing away from future assaults on American soil. Kilcullen quotes this (2004) statement by bin Laden: “All we have to do is send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the (U.S.) generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses…so we are continuing this policy of bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

 

Kilcullen, ironically, was so well regarded by the Bush Administration that he was asked to give a briefing on Afghanistan to aides of both Barack Obama and John McCain.

 

What Kilcullen didn’t say: The Bush Administration’s legacy is already seen by many as this: After 9/11 the U.S. owned the moral high ground. With the poorly rationalized, ineptly planned invasion (not liberation) and subsequent occupation of Iraq, that moral high ground turned into a geopolitical sinkhole.