Author: opinionstogo

Going Native In One’s Own Culture

Ever feel like an alien in your own culture?

You know the feeling. You pick up your daily newspaper and at some point check, for whatever reason, “Today’s Birthdays” and are lucky to recognize one name out of 10. And that’s if Walter Cronkite or Mickey Rooney have added yet another digit. But being ingénue-challenged isn’t the worst of it.

Some other signs, I can attest, are cluelessness about who is or was or might be an American Idol winner. Or why it’s even considered “news.” Or why certain people, from the Osbornes to Anna Nicole Smith to Paris Hilton, would have appeal – on any level – let alone as “reality” TV subjects. Or who’s a “survivor,” an “apprentice” – or fearless around worms or whatever. And why anyone could conceivably care.

Or why anyone would seemingly need directions when it comes to wearing a baseball cap or boxer shorts. Or why there’s a market for rap.

Or how it came to be that so many 20-something blondes became such serious broadcast news conduits. Or how Jon Stewart became the second coming of H.L. Mencken.

Or why professional educators can’t just say: “Of course, you can’t wear flip-flops to school. And lest there are any more such loopy queries, remember this: ‘We’re the adults; you’re the kids. You are allowed to be silly; but we’re obligated to call you on it. You’re going to school – not the beach. At least look the part.”

Or how some teens can leave a home where some parentally-responsible adult resides and head to school looking like they’ve answered a casting call for “Lolita.”

Or why anyone should have imposed upon them the insipid details of inane lives as conveyed via cell-phone conversations anywhere in public. Make that “like anywhere in, like, public.”

But every now and then it’s kind of a kick to feel like a veritable insider in the popular culture. So that’s my story as to how I came to watch the Academy Awards show last week. Plus, I had actually seen four of the movies nominated for “best picture.” And, yes, I would have seen them all had I not Brokebacked out.

A few Oscar observations:

*George Clooney’s looks and personality lend a semblance of credibility to his politics. To be fair, he should look like Michael Moore. Same ideology.

**Last year the edgy Chris Rock. This year the smug Jon Stewart. Who’s next if Billy Crystal keeps begging off? Andrew Dice Clay?

*“It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” Indeed.

*Who’s responsible for letting Lauren Bacall go on? She’s been an actress for the ages. She’s been sassy and classy. Now she’s as vulnerable as she is venerable. She deserved better than to be seen losing a teleprompter encounter. It was sad, and it never should have happened.

* “Crash,” a movie seemingly made for diversity workshops, wins best picture. It wasn’t even best polemic; that was “Munich.”

Rock the Vote Rocked

By all accounts, the youth-and-civics group Rock the Vote is on hard times. Although it’s been around for 16 years trying to empower the MTV generation, it’s been rocked of late by lackluster fund-raising, debt, staff defections and law suits.

What it likely means is this. Absent inspiration provided by the marketing power of the music industry, 18- to 25-year-old voters will have to be motivated by what has to motivate everybody else. Issues and giving a damn.

Hopefully, that’s not asking too much.

Hypocritical Stance

Thanks, Austria. For nothing.

At a time when the West has been trying to make the case that freedom of expression is so precious that it supercedes the right not to be offended, Austria convicts a controversial historian for the “crime” of denying the Holocaust. British author David Irving was recently sentenced to three years in prison for his bizarre, revisionist writings.

However revolting Irving’s writing – absent violent incitement – it’s a hypocritical stance to have over-reacted as the Austrians did. Being the birth country of Adolph Hitler is not reason sufficient for a law that applies to “whoever denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media.”

The Austrians should be called on it by all those (justifiably) critical of outrageous Muslim overreaction to those notorious Danish cartoons – as well as Muslim efforts to censor a French production of a Voltaire play satirizing the Prophet Mohammad (and all forms of religious frenzy).

You either unequivocally believe in free speech – or you don’t. The Holocaust doesn’t get you a pass. But it does get you a hypocrite’s censure.

Revelations?

*Among other after-the-fact developments, Hurricane Katrina induced a dialogue over the obvious divide between New Orleans’ haves and have-nots – typically reflected along racial lines. It also – inevitably — prompted polls. Among them one by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. It discovered that the rich and poor view the causes of poverty differently.

Stop the presses. The poor, it was determined, largely believe they were dealt a bad hand, while the rich were much more likely to say poverty largely results from lack of effort.

*A book surprisingly creating a bit of a buzz is “Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers – and How You Can Too.” It’s written by two Korean-American sisters, Dr. Soo Kim Abboud, a surgeon, and Jane Kim, an attorney, who wrote it to counter the stereotype that Asian students perform better in school because they are, well, smarter.

The secret: Totally involved, strict parents (who typically come in pairs). And strict includes limiting their kids’ access to pop culture and the telephone.

Now we know.

Succession Scenarios

It’s now official.

The Secretary of Homeland Security stands 18th in the line of 18 would-be presidential successors. As the last position added to the Cabinet, SHS queues up behind everybody else. Specifically, right behind Jim Nicholson (at #17) the Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs.

Perhaps, however, this wasn’t the time for seniority to have been determinative, unless, of course, the case can be made that the person responsible for homeland security is decidedly less important than, say, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (Alaska’s Ted Stevens at #3). That the Secretary of Labor (Elaine Chao at #11), for example, is ahead of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Michael Leavitt at #12) isn’t significant. But the nation’s top domestic security official – in an era when national security will be at the forefront of the war on terrorism for the foreseeable future – is arguably much more than last hired. The SHS is the point person in the defense of the homeland – not a high-level functionary. An ill-fated hire at, say, Interior (Gale Ann Norton at #8) is correctible. The wrong person at Homeland Security could be catastrophic.

As it’s turning out, maybe Michael Chertoff deserves to be behind, say, Mike Johanns (at #9), the Secretary of Agriculture or Margaret Spellings (at #16), the Secretary of Education. But that would be a function of imprudent Administration hiring – not an appropriate symbol – and valuation — of a national priority that pragmatically equates to survival of the country as we know it.

Upgrade anyone?

Tampa’s Trolley: A Streetcar Named Scapegoat

Last week’s unprecedented gathering of the boards of HARTline and Tampa Historic Streetcar was most notable for what it didn’t do. It didn’t make any radical changes.

That means the 2.4-mile TECO Line Streetcar System will still be operated by HARTline – not transferred to the private sector. That became a foregone conclusion – to almost all in attendance — once it became apparent that it wasn’t practicable for HARTline to just farm out its operational obligations – given its maintenance commitments.

What was reinforced, however, was the philosophical divide that continues to fester between the county and the city. The Streetcar Named Scapegoat is the perfect foil.

Because of its eroding endowment and non-commuter patronage, the streetcar is an easy target. For perversely populist politicians as well as carping columnists.

Would that it were viable mass transit – not just an economic development tool valued by Channel District developers, convention planners and visitors. It is what it is right now: an urban design amenity. It’s not a novel concept. Nor is its substantial underwriting by federal and state grants aimed at internal-combustion alternatives.

And as downtown and the Channel District ratchet up their residential components, and traffic in the core commensurately increases, the streetcar’s role should evolve in importance – and eventual expansion.

But that is then and this is now, and endowment shrinkage is a legitimate concern.

Perhaps the next time the boards of HARTline and THS meet, a consensus will result on how best to boost revenues. For openers, they should look to those who benefit most. The time for residential property assessments can’t be deferred much longer. And the time for the business community to step up with more sponsorships and advertising is yesterday.

Unconventional Luck

The Tampa Convention Center is enjoying a spike in good news. Not only will the new, 360-unit Embassy Suites hotel open in June, but another hotel (approximately 340 units) is planned next to it by the same developer (Whiteco Industries). Then diagonally across from the center is a block under contract for a proposed four-star hotel.

Now the center has received word that a big convention it thought it had lost to Richmond, Va., will now be coming here – in 2012. It’s the 1,000-delegate United Methodist General Conference with its estimated $20-million economic impact for Tampa.

The downside is the way it happened. The Methodists backed out when they discovered that the city’s minor league baseball team was the Richmond Braves, an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. The Methodists contend that American Indian monikers are an expression of racism.

Eliminating Washington because of the pejoratived Redskins or Cleveland because of the Indians’ caricatured Chief Wahoo would make some sense. But “Braves?” That smacks more of wearing your political correctness on your sleeve than rooting out racism as an act of conscience.

“Braves?” It’s a good thing we’re Bulls, Rays, Bucs and Bolts – unless you’re counting the best high school basketball team in Tampa: the Chamberlain Chiefs.

Where does it end?

Frankly, who could blame Richmond if, in a moment of frustration and civic pique, it didn’t just decide that if it were going to be branded “racist,” it might as well get its lost money’s worth.

“The Methodists have shown themselves to be the ‘Indian givers’ they are.”

So there.

Tampa’s Challenges

The Committee of One Hundred is an arm of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. Its charge is economic development – not cheerleading. That was recently underscored – and then some – by the Committee’s newly-installed chairman, Bob Abberger.

The regional director of development for the Trammel Crow Co. didn’t revel in Tampa’s ratcheting reputation as a major metro market. Instead, he laid out the challenges Tampa must meet to truly transcend its service, manufacturing and tourism economy – and attract more corporate headquarters, international businesses and biotech operations.

It means, Abberger emphasized, evaluating the competition and homing in on areas of relative and serious concern: affordable housing, wage levels, labor scarcities and that key infrastructure tandem: overburdened roads and underperforming schools.

Abberger knows this is not a zero-sum game. The Orlandos, Jacksonvilles, Raleighs and Atlantas are hardly wart-free. (Try comparing, for example, Tampa and Atlanta when it comes to crime rates, public housing scandals, gridlock scenarios or the quality of the rivers that run through them.) Tampa is a player with still-untapped potential that has been generating momentum. But momentum is worthless if not built upon.

Abberger’s message was as on-target as it was timely.

USF’s Coaching Dilemma

Whether USF did the right thing by keeping head basketball coach Robert McCullum through at least next season remains to be seen. In all likelihood, the university has deferred by a year what seems inevitable: the replacement of a good guy who can’t get it done at this level. It will mean only two – not three — seasons of a contract buyout next year.

Under McCullum USF has played 86 games and won 27. The Bulls have lost 20 games or more in two of his three years at the USF helm. In its first season of Big East play, the Bulls went 0-15 – pending the outcome of the season’s finale against Georgetown. The team was on a year-long collision course for a worst-in-its-history season. Nostalgia for the Seth Greenberg era is never a good sign.

But what has been determined is that USF, however tempted, will not be going after former University of Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins.

Good. Huggins gives “outlaw” a bad name.

Allowances – notably injuries and departures for various reasons – can be factored into McCullum’s woeful record. He’s had success earlier in his career, and he comports himself in a dignified fashion. His Bulls were never criticized for work ethic and scared some really good teams along the way. He could yet return this program to respectability, if that’s the goal, although he would have to do it in the country’s toughest conference, the Big East.

In short, don’t count on this being anything other than a one-year reprieve. He’s still not shown the ability to recruit competitively, and that’s truly the name of this game. It’s especially critical in basketball where a program can literally be turned around over night with a couple of prized recruits.

But at least USF, desperate as it is to escape its embarrassing rock bottom-feeder status in Big East hoops, has shown it’s not about to make a deal with the devil. At least for next year, McCullum will be the coach – not Faust.

Philly Port Politics

A recent visit to Philadelphia yielded some insight as to how the United Arab Emirates’ flap is playing in one of the six major (container-heavy) ports most impacted by the prospect of Dubai Ports World operation. Not unexpectedly, the political grandstanding had rippled from the statehouse in Harrisburg down to the City Council level.

The Council voted unanimously for a resolution that hammered the UAE for having been “an operational and financial base” for some of the 9/11 hijackers. That was a Philly no-brainer.

The follow-up question for Council, however, was less nuanced but far trickier. Might even be a lesson here for other such governmental bodies during these high-anxiety, geo-politics-goes-local times.

A Philadelphia Inquirer reporter had an unmarked map of the Middle East and asked the 16 council members to find the UAE. Fifteen didn’t. Most couldn’t come close, but all had a ready retort, usually self-deprecating on geography but (ostensibly) self-serving on politics.

Not atypical was Councilman Jack Kelly who noted that wherever the UAE was, it wasn’t on the Delaware River or even in the United States. “I don’t care if it’s in England, if it’s Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Italy,” he declared. Presumably with a straight face.