Two Lives’ Legacies

Two lives of note ended last week, only one, however, were most people aware of.

When Peter Jennings, 67, died, it felt almost like a death in the family. I’m part of the Huntley-Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, Walter Cronkite generation, and I still appreciate a familiar, professionally reassuring, nightly network anchor presence.

To me, Tom Brokaw was better on the “Today Show,” and Dan Rather belonged on “60 Minutes.” But Peter Jennings, the suave, long-time anchor of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” was the quintessential pro. He was a self-taught student of world events who never stopped learning or listening.

Even as America would periodically turn inward and network news operations looked to cut costs, Jennings always made the case for the big, international picture – and requisite staffing. In the worst of times, he was at his unflappable best.

By definition, the “news” will be the unexpected, which is often the unpleasant. Jennings made the best of it.

That other life was that of a friend and former colleague, Ron Faig, 55. Until his retirement a few years ago, Ron was the broadcast specialist in USF’s Office of Media Relations. He was technologically savvy and knew everybody on campus. He was very good at what he did. He was also a pretty good jazz guitarist and a devoted father to his daughter Sarah.

But that’s like saying Abe Lincoln was a lawyer. It still doesn’t tell you nearly enough.

More than half a century ago, Ron just missed the onset of the polio vaccine-era. As a result, he spent his last 53 years in a wheelchair. He was always taken aback by photos that showed him in his first two years. He never remembered walking.

Ron’s body was frail, his braces were heavy and there was nothing routine about any part of his daily regimen.

Except this: He made everybody he came into contact with better for having met him. Few leave a more impressive legacy.

He was dealt a cruel hand. Many – or most – of us might have adopted a “Why me?” attitude throughout life that would have been self-limiting. It wasn’t Ron’s way. If he would never play the victim card, who could?

He also was hilariously politically incorrect and loved defying stereotypes. He also appreciated the therapy of a good pun.

I’ll not forget the first time I met Ron. He came rolling out of his cramped office of monitors, speakers, microphones, cameras, wires and wobbly cassette stacks. “I am,” he said by way of introduction and grasping his wheels, “the real USF spokesman.”

In so many ways, he was.

New Hall Of Famers Tell It Like It Was

Like a lot of Tampa Bay area sports fans, I “looked in” on the recent Baseball Hall of Fame induction of Tampa’s – and Plant High’s – Wade Boggs and former Chicago Cub second baseman Ryne Sandberg.

Boggs and Sandberg were an appropriate Cooperstown tandem.

Both were modern-era players who played the game the old-fashioned way. They never forgot that baseball was a team sport, and a lot of little things have to go right for a team to win consistently. They both respected the integrity of the game – and those who had preceded them.

Moreover, neither was among the more gifted, natural athletes of their time. Their success was a tribute to dogged discipline, uncanny concentration and career-long perseverance. Professionalism wasn’t so much a compliment as a given.

The honorees also said some things at their induction ceremony that obviously resonated with their live audience of family, friends and fans – and hopefully beyond.

Boggs, the hitting machine with the Golden Glove, elevated his remarks from career chronology and inclusive gratitude (despite skipping a page from his speech) to transcend the game. The former Red Sox, Yankee and D-Ray third baseman sagely noted that “Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but how we react to what happens. Not by what life brings us, but the attitude we bring to life

City Signs On With Winners

Here’s the good news about those recently installed, “Welcome to Tampa, City of Champions” signs. The red, white and blue numbers look pretty spiffy. And why not capitalize on a niche that identifies the city as a winner? Of a Super Bowl, a Stanley Cup and even an Arena Bowl. They are a notable upgrade on the dated “All American City” signs they replaced.

The bad news is the precarious shelf life of such signage. It’s inevitable when your identity is forged from the sports arena, notorious for its “what-have-you-done-lately?” ethic.

In the case of the Lightning, the answer is nothing – just waiting and wishing for the confoundingly stupid lockout to end. Fortunately, however, a reservoir of good will seems to await the defending Cup champions.

As for the Bucs, Super Bowl XXXVII now seems a Roman-numeraled eon ago. It’s what happens when your post-championship seasons are disappointing and disheartening. For now, “City of Champions”/Super Bowl seems to mock the reality of 7-9 and 5-11 the past two years, records more reminiscent of Leeman Bennett’s tenure than Jon Gruden’s.

But the NFL is a league of cycles and parity. The Bucs will be back. And when they return, those signs will be chest-thumpingly current again. Unless, of course, it takes too long and Tampa is re-named an “All-American City.”

Penguin Power At The Box Office

By now you’ve all heard of the captivating film phenomenon, “March of the Penguins.” It’s a documentary about flightless birds in Antarctica that has turned into a commercial hit. So successful, in fact, that when it opened (in limited distribution) in late June in Los Angeles and New York, it grossed $36,000 a screen – more than twice the per-screen average for “War of the Worlds.” On Aug. 5, distribution expanded from 700 theaters to 1,300. There’s even unseasonably early Oscar buzz.

Locally, it has another week and half to go in its exclusive, 3-week engagement at the historic, single-screen, 1,446-seat Tampa Theatre. In its opening weekend “Penguins” did more than 4,000 admissions (in eight screenings), and that was without benefit of a Sunday matinee – pre-empted by the summer classic movie series. The first-weekend average, according to Tampa Theatre president and CEO John Bell, is typically between 1,000 and 1,500 admissions.

“We had seen how well it was playing nationally, so we are not surprised,” says Bell. “We were expecting this kind of business. We’ll be adding viewings.”

The last time Tampa Theatre did this kind of business was five years ago when the Internet-hyped “Blair Witch Project” brought in big numbers. This time it’s a lot more satisfying to explain the large crowds.

Narrated by Morgan Freeman, “March of the Penguins” is a totally engaging, even poetic, chronicle of a unique cycle of life played out in the brutally harsh, yet starkly aesthetic environment that is the ice-floe ambiance of the South Pole. The contrast is underscored by the indefatigable Emperor Penguins’ long, arduous survival treks in incongruous, lockstep Charlie Chaplin gaits – periodically interspersed with belly-flopping slides.

You’ll smile; you’ll laugh. You’ll “ooh;” you’ll “aah.” You’ll wince; you’ll mourn. You’ll feel empathy you didn’t think you could conjure for penguins.

It’s birth, death, intimacy, struggle and commitment — as you’ve never imagined it.

You couldn’t have.

Gruden Speaks To Whispers

Speaking of Jon Gruden, he was the subject of a recent front-page story in USA Today. It referenced the consecutive losing seasons in the context of impatient fans and relentless critics of the erstwhile “boy wonder” head coach.

Here’s Gruden’s response to growing “whispers” that he won the big one largely with “someone else’s players”:

“The reality of it was, did you come in here and inherit a team that was accustomed to winning Super Bowls? Or did you come in here and inherit a team that was 9-8 and got their brains beat in (in a playoff loss) to Philadelphia and had rock-bottom chemistry?”

Iraq’s Constitutional “Details”

In inexorable fashion, Iraq now inches its way to within days of parliamentary approval of its new milestone constitution. Only a few details remain outstanding.

Among them: The somewhat dicey question of whether Iraq should be a federal state. Not all clans are comfortable with this concept.

And then there’s the official language issue. Not everyone (read: Kurds) thinks Arabic for everyone is a swell idea. And there’s that neighborhood precedent; Iran nixed Arabic for Farsi.

And then there’s the controversy about the official name. A lot of locals think the country can do better than “Iraq.”

And then there’s this matter of Islam, which is pretty much the underpinning for the holy terrorist war now plaguing the planet. No other religion seems so easily “hijacked”; none so intimately associated with suicidal mass murder. But Islam, to be sure, will have a role. The only question is whether that role will be domineering or just dominant.

Other than these constitutional loose ends — and an insurgency in its death rattle — Iraq seems good to go.

Katherine Harris: Get Over It – Get On With It

Perhaps Adam Goodman should declare his candidacy for the Senate. As the media consultant/spokesman/interpreter/apologist for the Katherine Harris senatorial campaign, he’s out in front more often than she is.

This time it’s to explain what Harris meant by alleging that newspaper cheap shots included doctored photos. “

Betting On Pre-Season Games

There are sports fans. There are sports fans who gamble. And then there are the compulsively stupid.

Already issued from Las Vegas bookies are point spreads for the opening round of National Football League pre-season games. That heralds the football betting season.What needs to be kept very much in mind is that “pre-season” is really an NFL euphemism. The operative word here is EXHIBITION. These are scrimmage upgrades that feature cameos by established players and try-outs for bunches of players who will be found wanting by NFL standards. All bets should be off.

But some gamblers can’t wait. Bet on it.

Random Searches: A Profile In Stupidity

The recent suicide bombings and misfirings in London have Americans growing more anxious about security and debating pre-emptive measures. For New York City, which has a certain horrific event seared into its collective consciousness, this is not an academic exercise. As a result, it has instituted searches, albeit random, on its massive subway system.

It didn’t take long for the chattering class to get on the case. Where there are searches, there could also be profiling. Riding while Muslim, as it were. The media and civil libertarians have been re-asking a familiar – and seemingly rhetorical — question: Is profiling ever permissible outside actuarial charts?

Secretary of Transportation Norman “ACLU Mole” Mineta notwithstanding, the correct answer is “YES.” An excellent example would be the context conveniently provided by the war on terrorism. In fact, when we stop asking this question, we will have made progress. We would be stupid as a society at war to discard any would-be weapon, even a marginal one — and that’s what profiling is when it comes to non-airline transportation.

But it’s less than marginal when it’s RANDOM. It’s an ineffective, counterproductive misallocation of inadequate, transit-security resources. As if these terrorist atrocities were perpetrated at random. Here a grandmother from DesMoines, there a politician on a presidential ticket. You just never know.

Well, absent a radical change in martyrdom volunteers and who gets their ticket punched for Paradise via mass murder, we do know. They are 20-and-30-something Middle Eastern or East African males with backpacks. (And if the M.O. changes, it will probably be the Chechnyan model: young, Muslim suicide bomberettes.) Can’t we acknowledge such an ipso facto reality and then, without turning into racial, ethnic and religious vigilantes, make use of that?

Growing up in Philadelphia, I’m familiar with subways and the logistical nightmare presented by any kind of search policy. But if I’m a passenger – a human being not a debating point or a legal nuance – I want some odds, even long ones, in my favor. This is the worst of times for politically correct tunnel vision.

If this wholly imperfect approach, with potential scenarios for insensitivity, alienates those in the Muslim and civil liberties communities, so be it. For what it’s worth, I’m pretty alienated myself that I would have to furtively glance around and calculate who’s likely commuting to work and who seems destined for a bonus round of virgins.

After London, no American can rationally expect the U.S. to keep dodging the soft-target, suicide-bomber bullet. Nor can we assume there aren’t terrorist cells already in this country. Nor should be assume that they may be comprised mostly of guys from, say, Sweden or Lichtenstein.

Having said all that, the best form of security for mass transit is still intelligence gathering. Without that, we’re pretty much relegated to a Maginot Line with surveillance cameras.

This calls for a major ratcheting up of Muslim cooperation and insider- information help about awakening “sleeper” cells. If it means taking one for the home team (THIS country), as a trade-off for perceived betrayal within the Muslim community, then so be it again. Mutating cells need a network for support, safe harbor and “handler” scouts, sometimes referred to as MEWC’s (Middle Easterners With Cameras).

The best reaction for America’s loyal, law-abiding Muslims, which is virtually all Muslims in America, is to loudly denounce Islamaniacs in drumbeat fashion and rat out any terrorists in their – OUR – midst. That sort of mass murder-and-mayhem-preventing intelligence is the best defense against London-like attacks that are likely being planned even as we search — randomly or not.

It’s also the best response to any affronts associated with profiling.

Iranian President Hostage To Rumors

As it turns out, the new president-elect of Iran was not part of the notorious element who took American Embassy hostages in 1979. U.S. government officials now say they have turned up no evidence to support the claim that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was among the Americans’ captors.

Apparently Ahmadinejad’s involvement was limited to merely being a leader of the student movement that organized the embassy attack and the taking of the hostages.

Oh.

Other than that, he had absolutely nothing to do with the outrage against American citizens.

In fact, he no longer references any of it on his resume.