Author: opinionstogo

USF Going Big Time – Really BIG Time

The University of South Florida: It’s not your father’s USF anymore.

Cosmetically, the Fowler Avenue entrance no longer features that ’60s industrial park ambience. There are on-campus fraternities and dorms that wouldn’t look out of place in SoHo. There’s a snazzy, contemporary Bulls’ logo and a football team that plays in the Big East Conference with the likes of Syracuse, West Virginia and Pittsburgh.

USF, which didn’t graduate its first class until Lyndon Johnson was president, is the second largest university in the Southeast with an enrollment of some 43,000. It anchors the I-4 high-tech corridor. Sponsored research now tops $250 million.

The campus is home to the state’s only accredited college of public health and houses the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer and Research Institute, the third busiest cancer center in the country. Currently under construction is a $20-million Alzheimer’s research institute.

Even with its geographic misnomer of a name, USF is on the map.

Now it goes for the globe — thanks to the Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions. That’s what will be built on the USF campus – thanks to the biggest gift in the university’s history. That $18.5-million bounty – from Tampa doctors Kiran Patel and his wife, Pallavi – will be matched with $16 million in state matching grants. Ultimately, it will be parlayed into a $62.5-million project that will include a conference center, classrooms, an auditorium and quarters for scholars and foreign dignitaries.

It means that USF’s academic credentials will be significantly enhanced as well as its international status.

The timing couldn’t be more propitious. It wasn’t that long ago that USF, a global nonentity, was smitten with the World Islamic Studies Enterprise, a think tank of dubious virtue and value. The WISE guys ultimately brought ignominy instead of enlightenment. “Jihad U” epithets made “Sandspur U” pejoratives seem quaint. An upcoming trial in downtown Tampa is a disturbing reminder.

But USF will now be a real player on the world stage of academe. The Patel Center represents the legitimate big time, an institute that could logically have been located in Washington or New York. It will house researchers and host foreign leaders on a range of planetary topics from global trade and environmental destruction to world hunger and health issues.

Most impressively, the Patel Center’s charge won’t be theoretical or abstract. Its mission will be concrete and solution oriented.

And it will be in our own back yard.

If ever there was a “win-win” scenario, this is it. USF’s profile should ratchet up markedly. But much more importantly, the world will be better off.

The Patels, whose generosity already ensures their legacy, are more than philanthropists and humanitarians. They are natural resources. We are all in their debt.

New Schools’ Boss

People who seem to be in the know seem to like the choice of MaryEllen Elia to run the Hillsborough County School District. You get the idea that she doesn’t suffer fools and won’t venerate the status quo. But there are also those who note she doesn’t have a doctorate and say she won over the School Board by default; the competition was less than stellar.

We’ll know soon enough.

But I do know this after having seen the candidates interviewed on HTV 22. No candidate gave this, in effect, as an answer when queried about priorities:

“Nothing’s more important than neighborhood schools. Certainly not social experiments in the name of diversity and “resegregation” antidotes. And frankly the less time kids spend on school buses the better off they are. Ask Pinellas County.

“Kids fare best when they are in the comfort zone of their own neighborhood schools, where parental involvement – and local sources of leverage — can be maximized. Schools as institutions of identity and pride should be more than quaint concepts from yesteryear.

“Moreover, it shouldn’t – and it doesn’t – matter what the classroom racial ratios are. Learning is learning and in the post-Jim Crow era, to think otherwise is to court racism.

“The problem historically, as we know, has been the relative inequality of schools mired in low socio-economic localities. There will be hell to pay if that is countenanced here. And I’m talking about physical plants, equipment, course offerings and quality of staff. I accept neither bureaucratic excuses nor victim cards.

“Everything else is a subset of this priority.

“Any other questions or topics — including the ridiculous notion of exempting students from final exams who show up every day?”

Tampa’s Super Bay Area Pitch

When NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced that the host “city” for the 2009 Super Bowl was “Tampa Bay,” it spoke volumes. Super Bowl XLIII will be played at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa for sure, but the winning offer ultimately came from this region. No surrounding amenities – such as world-class beaches, golf courses and resorts – no Super Bowl at the RayJay.

Special congratulations go the Super Bowl Task Force and the three principals – Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman and task force chairman Dick Beard — who stepped into the presentation pressure cooker and stepped up to make their oral pitches.

And for all that is said of the privacy-obsessed, public-relations challenged Glazer family, they do know how to close a deal. And more and more, it’s obvious that the go-to Glazer is Bryan, who has become a formidable and effective spokesperson for the area and a respected member of the owners’ fraternity.

Media Quotes

Several outtakes from the book “Bad News” by former CBS News senior foreign correspondent Tom Fenton:

*ABC News’ Peter Jennings: “I have lived in the region (Middle East); I know that not everybody is anti-American. There is less anti-Americanism in the Arab world, I think, than there is in Europe.”

*Iconic, former CBS News’ anchor Walter Cronkite (in answer to the question “Do you watch the CBS Evening News now?”): “Not regularly, no. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there but crime and sob sister material. It’s scandal sheet stuff, tabloid stuff for the most part. That’s too bad. I would like to see it more responsible, if you please.”

*CBS News executive Don Hewitt, who invented the evening news format before going on to create “60 Minutes: “

Outrage Perspective

Amid the scandals, torture and atrocities that have spun out of the Iraqi invasion, worldwide context has been a war victim. To wit:

In a hierarchy of outrageous occurrences, we have a skivvy-clad Saddam Hussein, commodable Korans (retraction notwithstanding), a sexual pyramid, video-taped beheadings and car-bombed civilians.

For added clarity, call it: embarrassment, sacrilege and humiliation on one side and murder and carnage on the other.

These days that’s pretty much a wash – at best.

Powell’s Sage Advice Still Haunts Today

With the inevitable ebb and flow of the war on terrorism — here an unconscionable Abu Ghraib, there a gutsy voter turnout — it becomes easy to forget the most salient – and ironic — piece of advice yet uttered on the subject of America’s “liberation” of Iraq. It was proffered by Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the joint chiefs during Operation Desert Storm. He was weighing in on the merits of “finishing the job” of routing the forces of Saddam Hussein and physically ousting the dictator.

Powell told George Bush the Elder that, however tempting, the United States should not put itself into the position of “occupying an Arab country.” The reason was two-fold. Urban warfare – i.e., insurgencies — would replace aerial bombardment and U.S. casualties would ratchet up rapidly. In addition, the U.S. would inevitably take a public relations hit as crusading infidels occupying Muslim land. And as we’ve seen, a bloody, jihadist pep rally has resulted – further fueled by periodic prisoner humiliations and retractable tales of Koranic commode capers.

But Powell’s sage advice in the first Gulf War – although criticized in many quarters at the time — helped carry the day. It saved lives – as well as face.

Alas, Secretary of State Powell would morph into a diplomatic lawn jockey in the George W. Bush administration. His legacy is now smeared, and his principles forever compromised.

Sept. 11 altered some geo-political thinking and changed a few paradigms. What it shouldn’t have done, however, was to void a rule of thumb that America – “liberation” rhetoric notwithstanding – should not put itself into the position of “occupying an Arab country.”

It made no sense then. It makes for daily carnage and incendiary demonstrations today.

Fleischer Flashback

As someone who has been on the receiving end of media queries, I found “Taking Heat” by Ari Fleischer an interesting – if not riveting – read. Fleischer, the former press secretary of President George W. Bush, gives an insider’s look behind (a few of) the scenes of the White House and what it’s like to joust with the gotcha-driven, White House press corps.

Fleischer takes the media to task for its lack of ideological diversity, obsession with conflict and accentuation of the negative.

He recounts a visit by the president in 2003 to Dearborn, Michigan, home to a large Arab-American population that includes many Iraqis. The reception was loud, and it was friendly. Fleischer called it a “hero’s welcome.” The broadcast networks largely ignored it. ABC kissed it off with “two sentences,” notes Fleischer.

He recalls asking Terry Moran, ABC’s White House correspondent, why the speech received such nominal coverage.

Moran’s answer: “I couldn’t get it on the air. If they had booed him, it would have led the news.”

Bolton For UN Bouncer?

There’s this tradition of the Congress holding its advice and consenting to whomever the president chooses as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. It might be an elder statesman such as Adlai Stevenson or a patrician presence like George H.W. Bush. It could be an opinionated Jeane Kirkpatrick, a charismatic Andy Young or a buttoned-down John Negroponte.

But John Bolton?

Since when does a president send up a certifiably surly, congenital critic of the UN? This singular practice of rubber-stamping appointees only works when the president doesn’t select a UNphobe with all the tact of a punch in the mouth. A Foggy Bottomed Mike Tyson with a track record of bullying subordinates, as well as trying to cook the intelligence books and hype Cuba’s weaponry capacity.

We all know how imperfect the U (oil for food, Syria on the Security Council) N is, but it’s the only such international forum there is and we’re stuck trying to make the best – not the worst — of it. In a world where fighting terrorism is an international imperative, we need all the friends – or at least non-adversaries – we can muster. We don’t need the UN’s permission to defend ourselves, but our national security has never been so dependent on global relationships.

Sending Bolton sends absolutely the wrong message: “You thought we were a tad arrogant, nigh on to unilateralist and diplomatically challenged before? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

The confirmation of Bolton would be more than a mistake. And it would be more than mistaken allegiance to a quaint tradition. It would be a disaster.

‘Noles On Defense

Circle the wagons; here we go again. The intercollegiate silly season is back.

The NCAA, which could have a ton of stuff to scrutinize – such as sham student athletes, bogus courses and skewed higher education priorities – is taking a hard look at its member schools who have Indian mascots and nicknames.

Among the 30 institutions: the Florida State University Seminoles. All were required to turn in “self evaluation” reports addressing issues of racism and discrimination. Theoretically, the NCAA’s executive committee could ban the use of Indian names and mascots – and sanction those that continue the practice.

FSU, which has used “Seminoles” since 1947, historically has had a close working relationship with Seminole Tribe leaders. But that might not be good enough for the NCAA, which listens to a lot of axe-grinding sorts outside the Seminole Tribe who feel any Indian name, no matter the motivation and context, is inherently harmful to Indian self image.

Should that politically correct agenda prevail, FSU could wind up like Stanford, Marquette, St. John’s and dozens of other universities who had to jettison their long-standing, Indian-themed names.

But if that were to happen, here’s a suggestion. Pick a name that would still acknowledge the Seminole nexus, but in a more contemporary, racially-neutral fashion. Call ’em the Casinos.

How ’bout them ‘Nos!