One Punch, One Life, One Question

Once again there is hauntingly familiar news of tragedy and teenagers. Yet another young person has died too soon.

But not via terminal disease, fateful accident or act of God. But an act of judgment.

Sickles High School senior Christopher Fannan was within a week of graduation when he ran afoul of an act of violence. Fannan was among a crowd of teenagers hanging at Steak ‘n Shake early last Sunday morning. There was a brief confrontation with some young men, and Fannan found himself on the receiving end of a fatal punch.

One punch, one life, one tragedy.

But amid the police investigation, the crisis-counseling sessions and a Steak ‘n Shake vigil, one question begs to be asked. Publicly. Yet again.

What were high school kids — imminent graduation notwithstanding — doing out at 4 a.m. Sunday? There are a number of things that can happen at that hour. Almost all of them are bad. Some tragic.

Orlando Not Serious?

Those wondering about Tampa’s in-state competition for the 2004 GOP Convention can stop speculating. Miami is only serious about the Democrats, and Orlando doesn’t seem serious at all. Orlando was underrepresented with mainly staff people in a recent pitch to the Republican National Committee.

With good reason.

Orlando’s bridled enthusiasm is a function of its tourist-mecca status. The issue is that attendees of a national political convention actually spend a lot of time at the convention — as well as in break-out rooms, lobbies, restaurants, bars and private parties. This is not the Disney World, Universal crowd. It’s not as if the hotel rooms wouldn’t be filled otherwise.

Building Downtown Hope

The recently concluded architectural exhibit at the 400 Ashley Drive “cubes” was a bittersweet experience.

The ambitious, urban-design vision for downtown Tampa by talented University of South Florida architectural graduate students was holistically impressive. Its focus ranged from eclectic variations on a residential theme to open spaces to the razing and relocating of the undersized convention center.

The bitter is that this is 2002, not 1962. That there is a Poe Garage on the riverfront. That Fogarty wants too much money for its Channelside property. Etc.

And yet it’s a reminder that downtowns must never venerate the status quo. Money and politics will always impact — and typically drive — development, but somebody has to articulate a vision beyond expedience and fight the good downtown fight. The Torontos and Portlands didn’t happen by accident.

Here’s hoping USF Professor Trent Green and his architectural proteges can build some momentum as well as visionary models.

The Potemkin Village of Arms Treaties

George Bush travels to Russia this week where he and President Vladimir Putin will co-sign a ballyhooed agreement to cut their countries’ respective nuclear arsenals by two-thirds. Putin, eager to ingratiate and integrate with the West, will cite the treaty as progress with a partner. Bush, eager to give as little as possible, will issue a similar citation. For good measure, he’s even declared that “This treaty will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War.”

Hardly.

In reality, the world is no safer for this agreement. It’s the Potemkim Village of nuclear treaties. It’s a numbers game only a legerdemain artist could admire.

By U.S. count, each side currently has between 5,000 and 6,000 warheads. Both arsenals would be cut to 1,700 to 2,200 by the end of 2012. This should be good news.

It’s not, because most warheads taken out of service will not be destroyed. Repeat, not destroyed. Many U.S. warheads will be put in storage — like so many recalled Firestones sitting behind the showroom. Others will be kept to cannibalize or to test for reliability.

We are all too aware that U.S. security is too far from failsafe. This is unsettling.

But it’s downright scary when you consider stored nukes in Russia. Erstwhile Soviet Union republics have already proven problematic when it comes to accounting for their Cold War nukes. A meaningful treaty, one worthy of the “liquidate-the-legacy” rhetoric, would have relegated the old nukes to the literal ash heap of history.

Instead, the world’s most pressing nuclear issue — stored warheads targeted by terrorists — goes unaddressed. This isn’t disarming. This is disturbing.

But it will be a great photo op for Bush and Putin. The Potemkin prop is already in place.

All The News That Fits

Perhaps it was an oversight.

Last Sunday’s St. Petersburg Times and Tampa Tribune both reported prominently on the outrageous story of the elderly Tampa couple who had been viciously beaten while on a morning walk.

The Times’ account noted that Victor and Mildred Hall, both in their 80s, were attacked by someone “described only as a black, 200-pound man in his 20s or 30s.”

The Trib’s account noted that police were looking “for a man between 20 and 30 years of age, 6-foot to 6-foot-2 and about 200 pounds. At the time of the incident, he was clean shaven and wore blue jeans and a gray pull-over shirt.”

How curious is it that the Trib , which bothered to note what kind and color pants and shirt the suspect wore, as well as his clean shaven state, left out his race? Is that not relevant?

Political correctness and profile paranoia are bad enough, if that’s what this was. But never at the expense of pertinent information that could help effect the arrest of an obvious predator.

Then, again, it might have been an oversight.

GOP Convention Worth Pursuing — Just Not At Any Price

Coming to a downtown near you: the 2004 Republican National Convention. Featuring the Bush Brothers, the mother of all security scenarios, anarchist demonstrators, world class traffic jams, media critical of Tampa for not being New York and a government bill for some $12 million.

Not coming to a downtown near you: the Bush Brothers, lots of people in silly hats hanging out of trolleys, red, white and blue bunting forever, direct exposure to international media, de facto status as a global player and $200 million to $300 million in economic impact.

However you label it — “Son of Olympic Pretension” or “Gulf War Super Bowl: A Super Sequel” — this much should be acknowledged. Ambitious, second-tier cities such as Tampa don’t often have such opportunities. When they come along, they shouldn’t be dismissed like so many turn signal-challenged Canadians poking along in the passing lanes.

America’s quadrennial political orgy is worth pursuing. Just not at any price.

To quote Salesman-in-Chief Dick Greco: “Look, we can put this thing on; we have the facilities. But what I’m not familiar with is the types of dollars it takes. You hear all kinds of numbers, none of which are small. We need to assess what the cost is to the county and city. If the answer is ‘too much,’ I have no problem saying, ‘We looked at it, and it won’t work.'”

The numbers — including that $12 million from local governments — range from $40 million to $65 million.

“I’ll be out of here in 10 months,” noted Greco. “I wouldn’t want to saddle somebody with something that can’t work.”

The city — working toward a June 17 deadline for formal bids — is currently debriefing Philadelphia and San Diego, the two most recent GOP Convention hosts, to get a better handle on costs and how the money was raised. Where it’s raised is no secret: corporate coffers and party fat cats. The former is the biggest challenge; this area is hardly a hotbed of headquarters for corporate America.

“That’s the key issue,” acknowledged long-time commercial developer Dick Beard, in reference to the depth and heft of corporate support in the Tampa Bay market. “In order for a corporation to participate, they’d have to have a relationship. I don’t think we have all the answers yet. Would Bank of America, for example, be a player? It’s not yet clear if the business community is 100 percent behind this.

“But I can tell you this,” added Beard, chairman, R.A. Beard & Co., “this is purely a business decision on the part of the city.”

Beard is among the insiders on the bid. He, along with Mayor Greco, Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau President and CEO Paul Catoe, and 18 others recently met with the GOP National Committee in Washington. They came away impressed that the committee seemed impressed with their Powerpoint presentation of the area’s assets, including the Ice Palace, 20,000 hotel rooms, Ybor City and creative use of cruise liners.

“I think we turned their heads,” assessed Catoe. “In fact, the deputy chair (Jack Oliver) went out of his way to sincerely and personally commend us. Very strong accolades for Mayor Greco and Dick Beard. They understand that we have everything logistically that it takes to put this on. Our experience with three past Super Bowls and a Final Four impressed them. And we have the strong support of St. Petersburg. Things like mass transit are non issues; were it otherwise, we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing. They use charter buses.”

Also part of the contingent that traveled to Washington was Margie Kincaid, Hillsborough County chairman, Republican Party of Florida. The veteran Republican official may be second only to Greco in sheer effusiveness about Tampa. But she puts away the chamber of commerce pom-poms when it comes to hardball politics.

It’s a given that the political parties don’t just look at hotels, restaurants, attractions and modes of transportation when choosing a national convention site. A political quid pro quo is always factored in. Whereas a Republican convention in Los Angeles or New York City won’t likely change where their state’s electoral votes go, the same can’t be said of a Florida venue. Chadfest 2000 is still seared into the body politic. It’s no secret the president must carry Florida to be re-elected.

“This will be the battleground for the president’s re-election,” said Kincaid. “The Democrats will throw everything at this state. In fact, it’s why I think the Democrats will pick Miami. It’s also why the Republicans will pick Tampa. Hillsborough is a bellweather county. So goes Hillsborough, so goes the state. And nation, if you recall.

“By the way, Paul Catoe is my hero. I’ve never seen such a beautiful presentation. And Greco was really good. And that was the place to be really good.”

And Greco, she hastened to remind, is a Democrat who supported George W. Bush for president.

Gubernatorial Race Getting Down to Business

Spokespersons for both Jeb Bush and Janet Reno are indicating that Bill McBride may now have a business-related campaign issue to defuse. That’s because his old law firm, Holland & Knight — the state’s largest — has been experiencing cutbacks and now layoffs.

Suggestion: If you want to go after McBride, go no further than his liberal agenda. Order off the menu.

But to target McBride because H & K is not immune to the nation’s economic slowdown seems lame. And since when is freezing the pay of and laying off lawyers considered such a liability?

On-Campus Parody Lightens Up USF

Let’s hear it for Sgt. Mike Klingebiel, the University of South Florida’s police spokesman. Somebody finally stepped up and intentionally tried to be absurd — and maybe put things in perspective on the USF campus.

Sgt. Klingebiel did, of course, unhinge some of the perpetually uptight element with a satiric e-mail, but a lot of folks did get a laugh — even President Judy Genshaft, according to her spokesman.

After legitimately thanking USF personnel who gave to a benefit auction, Sgt. Klingebiel morphed into parody saying that unfortunately some stuff was sold by mistake. To wit: USF’s administration building and its contents, as well as the Legislature, the latter, in effect, poking fun at a farce. His e-mail also noted that once again no one wanted to buy the sterile Lifsey House, the official presidential residence that is less homey than the on-campus blood bank.

Actually, USF got off easy. Selling off a branch campus or buying out Seth Greenberg’s contract would have been fair game.

One can only speculate on the reaction, from the president on down, had the e-mail parody referenced the best material. Namely, the theater of the absurd that is the Sami Al-Arian travesty or the plaintiff dragnet that became the racial discrimination suit against the women’s basketball program.

Both incidents were sources of national notoriety, and key reasons why USF is wrapping up such a stressful year — and in need of self-lampooning levity in the first place.

Bishop Bob On The Case?

I don’t mean to trivialize the horrific scandals overwhelming and undermining the Catholic Church, but here’s a suggestion. And it has nothing to do with the really heavy issues: criminalization, celibacy, pedophilia, homosexuality and female priests. Another pope, less frail and less conservative, in another time might eventually and meaningfully address some or all of those. Maybe.

But for starters, why don’t we begin moving away from all of this “Father Bill” and “Father Kevin” and “Father Steve” stuff. Such Father-first-name familiarity is arguably symptomatic and symbolic of a priesthood too enamored of being liked — and parishioners liking the more informal comfort zone.

It’s really a double-edged cross.

The “Father Phil” syndrome has helped demystify the priesthood to the laity and tempered the formality between priest and parishioner. But in the good name of humanizing and personalizing God’s own emissaries, has this practice helped make priests too, well, approachable? And approaching? Perhaps arm’s length is an ideally respectable and respectful distance.

Recall that Father Flannagan did a pretty good job with Boys’ Town without being “Father Eddie” to thousands of orphans.

Perhaps the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg, which might like to be seen as proactive on something, would want to consider taking this small, symbolic step. Then, again, Bishop Bob (Lynch) is pretty busy.

Waiting Room Hell

Had Dante foreseen it, he surely would have included the waiting rooms of car dealer service departments as a level of hell. Bad magazines, bad TV and bad news abounds. It’s the worst kind of downtime.

And that’s before you realize that “Family Feud” is on the waiting room’s big-screen TV. Why is this show still on? Why was it ever on? Does anyone watch TV at 9:30 a.m. who isn’t in a waiting room?

Anyway, it was the Epsteins against the Olsens, with the former, featuring two lawyers, a personal trainer, an artist and a financial planner, taking an early lead. That was due to uncannily intuitive answers to: “What I wouldn’t want to see when I returned to my car.” A flat, a ticket, a bird dropping, etc.

From what I saw of the Epsteins celebrating their early score, I perversely started to root for them. They were obviously high-five challenged, and the chance for bodily harm loomed likely.

As for that other storyline, the part would have to be ordered and, no, they had no loaner.