Add By Subtracting

Call it hitting a reset button or just adding by subtracting.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are now on a roll – one that is hardly limited to being in the NHL playoff hunt for the first time in too many years. The highly-leveraged “cowboys,” owners Oren Koules and Len Barrie, are out. The dysfunctional duo who brought in Barry Melrose , dispatched Dan Boyle and Brad Richards, jousted verbally in public and needed a league advance to make payroll are history.

In their stead: financial maven Jeffrey Vinik, who paid cash — reportedly about $110 million — for the Lightning, the St. Pete Times Forum lease and 5 ½ acres around the arena.

Without stability, the Bolts had no future. With the wealthy (net worth estimated between $500 million and $800 million) sole owner whose passion is hockey and whose plans include a Vinik family relocation to Tampa, the Bolts now have a chance.

Close Club Mayhem

From August 2008 to August 2009, there were 137 calls for police help from Tampa’s Mirage nightclub. After-hours at the notorious nightspot were no mirage; it had become an ugly, ongoing, brawling scene that often involved guns.  Still does. It’s so disturbing – and predictable – that Tampa Police Department officers — sometimes as many as a dozen — have been routinely assigned there at closing time for the last year.

The most recent incident (last week) picked up by the media involved two hospitalized shooting victims and the arrest of a suspect also accused of pointing a gun at an officer and trying to run over another.

This is an outrage on several, more than manifest, levels. This incubator of violence and magnet for mayhem is still open? TPD officers have to police it? And put their lives at risk for it? And not be somewhere else protecting the innocent?

“It’s a very laborious process,” laments Laura McElroy, TPD spokeswoman. “It’s a last resort for us.”  In other words, this involves the sometimes byzantine process of filing a complaint with the city’s nuisance abatement board. Would that this merely involved a “nuisance.” Perhaps the city needs an anarchy abatement board.

But “laborious process?” “Last resort?” I’m just guessing, but had one of the TPD officers been shot – or worse yet, tragically killed – the other night, we would no longer be so accepting of bureaucratic inertia. So why wait?

Quoteworthy

·        “Keep your friends close, but visit the Republican caucus every few months.”—President Barack Obama.

·        “The Senate has become a body that requires 60 votes to get out of bed in the morning.” –Ruth Marcus, Washington Post.

·        “Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said that if they began to loosen one (‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’) restriction, others might unravel, leading to a louche atmosphere brimming with ‘alcohol use, adultery, fraternization and body art.’ Don’t ask, don’t tat.” – Maureen Dowd, New York Times.

·        “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.” – Sarah Hughes, former U.S. figure-skating gold medalist (2002).

·        “Last year the (New York) Times won five Pulitzer Prizes – and borrowed $250 million from a Mexican billionaire to keep the lights on.” – James Poniewwozik, Time magazine.

·        “If businesses tell us they need a work force to read blueprints, understand trigonometry and speak Mandarin to export products, then that is the information we will gather.” –Pam Tedesco, Team leader for Workforce Florida-funded roundtable that will brainstorm ways to improve STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education.

No More “Swagger”

Anyone else tired of the overuse of — and positive connotation accorded — “swagger” in sports, notably football? Typical use: athletes or teams – University of Miami football comes readily to mind – who have finally regained their “swagger” and are obviously so much better for it. Not to wax too old school, but what’s wrong with merely playing with the confidence that is a product of being talented, practicing hard and hustling every play? Doesn’t that speak volumes? Why condone, encourage – and celebrate – insolence, bluster and conceit? Or is the genie of look-at-me boorishness beyond rebottling?

NFL As Economic-Chaos Metaphor

There are a lot of metaphors – from Bernie Madoff to AIG – for America’s largely self-inflicted economic chaos. Here’s another metaphorical possibility: the NFL.  Here’s why: If current labor-management negotiations remain deadlocked, there could be no NFL games in 2011. Technically it would be a lockout.

 

Put it this way. There’s generic, appalling greed. And then there’s parallel-universe avarice resulting from millionaires and billionaires not being able to agree on how to divvy up an obscene largess, one that amounted to $8 billion in revenues – plus record TV ratings – this past season.

 

Because of television, all franchises are profitable, even those that fail to field a competitive product. Moreover, NFL workforces are trained elsewhere (colleges) and physical facilities typically benefit from public subsidy. Local media provide free publicity. To be at an impasse over a golden-goose game is beyond stupid and selfish.

But it’s not beyond America’s hybrid “socialism.” Nor is it beyond happening.      

Sports Shorts

·         I’m likely in the minority on this one. But even though it came with the Hurricane Katrina back story, the Super Bowl was not something I could get interested enough in to actually watch. Or even go to a party where it was the ostensible theme.  To me, football ended early last month with the bowl games and college coaching-go-round. A quarter of the way through February is too late for football – unless, of course, it’s the Bucs who are still playing into baseball season. By the way, the University of Tampa swept a (baseball) double-header from Georgia College & State University on Super Bowl Sunday.

·         But speaking of the Super Bowl I didn’t see, how weird is it that as awful a season as the Bucs had this year, one of their three wins was against the Super Bowl winner, the New Orleans Saints? The NFL, of course, would delight in reminding everyone that even for demonstrably bad teams, the “any given Sunday” shibboleth still applies. And that “parity” is more than marketing boilerplate.

·         And still speaking of Super Bowl XLIV, what recession? The NFL sold out all 60-plus of its commercial slots – from Teleflora to Tebow. Most went for $2.5 million and up for 30 seconds.

McCain Legacy

Fresh from her six-figure, red-meat dish to the Tea Party insurgents, Sarah Palin topped that with the acknowledgement that she just might run for president in 2012. Just what we don’t need: a graphic reminder that things could, indeed, get worse.

Were that to actually occur, we would be an America that — in the name of populism, in-your-face anger, veiled racism and neo-con sloganeering — would have elected a person less qualified than, say, Ronda Storms to be chief executive. A lot less so. Even Storms’ harshest critics concede that she is neither dumb nor ill-read.

Thanks again, John “Country First” McCain, erstwhile patriot.

Volcker In Vogue

Pragmatically and ideologically, it’s most welcome to see that former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker now has an increasingly higher profile in the Obama Administration. No longer is Volcker, 82, the carping elder in the background muttering about too-big-to-fail-sized banks and grumbling about the inherent dangers of proprietary trading by commercial banks. 

But at a purely visceral level, isn’t it re-assuring to see the icon who tamed inflation in the late 1970s back in vogue? This time talking tough about cracking down on Wall Street excess.

In turbulent times, it’s especially helpful — as in reassuring — if the best and brightest also look it. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, for all of his New York Fed bona fides and financial connections, still doesn’t get a chance to make a second first impression. We don’t need to see the point man for economic recovery being lectured to by preening Congressional committee members.  He still looks like he belongs in an MBA seminar. And not necessarily as the instructor.

Tale Of Two Cities: Update

Time was – and it wasn’t too long ago – that downtown St. Pete could do nothing wrong and downtown Tampa could do nothing but cite plans and point to a street car and a new hotel.  Fast forward to now.

Not to be petty – or to traffic in schadenfreud – but St. Pete is in a slump. BayWalk is a shame, the Pier an ongoing enigma and the Trop, an exercise in obsolescence. Tampa just debuted a park and a museum. Another museum debuted last year. Yet another will open later this year. The Riverwalk continues to infill. The Floridan is nearly restored, there are places to live downtown, Encore was just infused with HUD money, a high-speed rail terminus seems likely and some restaurateurs have been positioning themselves for post-recession success. Tampa hosted a Super Bowl last year and is a finalist for the GOP national convention in 2012.

But no, Tampa, is not the equal of downtown St. Pete, with its spectacular waterfront, attractive residential mix, USF campus, multiple museums, the Renaissance Vinoy, outdoor dining and aesthetic, arts-driven ambience. And no, BayWalk will not remain mired in plywood, the Pier has more tourist-attracting incarnations left and a mixed-use development will ultimately replace the Rays’ cat-walk house.

But, yes, it’s not your parents’ downtown Tampa any more. And, yes, we all benefit when this metro market’s two major downtowns complement each other.

Gasparilla Message Sent

To be sure, the rain was a major factor in the reining in of the sort of crude and lewd conduct that had annually come to characterize the “adult” Gasparilla parade. “Invasion” was all too literal. But check out these statistics: Half as many spectators, three times as many arrests.

A message was sent. “Zero tolerance,” which had been heralded in drumbeat fashion for months, was obviously enforced and reinforced. Next year, presumably without the rain, we’ll see how that message has resonated – and what remains of the learning curve. But so far, so good.

The word is out. An arrest warrant, court date and a dumped open container are sobering disincentives to anyone trying to channel the Gasparilla drunkfest of 2009.

A few more afterthoughts on Gasparilla 2010:

·         For too long, the city tolerated the intolerable. South Tampa homeowners, maybe because they were lucky enough to live in nice houses in an affluent neighborhood, were supposed to take one for the team and not overreact to grossness and property destruction in their midst. Frankly, I think the turning point — in addition to more unified, publicly-expressed outrage — was the cell phone video footage of last year’s debauchery, which went YouTubing everywhere. It made Tampa look awful. Hardly the sort of city that was trying to burnish its image with light rail, new museums and convention-and-tourism ambience. We think Super Bowl; others saw Super Brawl. A viral video is the PR from hell.

·         Ratcheting talk of “attractive nuisance” lawsuit threats — in the aftermath of any serious injury or death — is always unsettling. And Tampa was looming vulnerable.

·         Nobody went from the St. John’s “Safe House” to the hospital this year.

·         Basically, Bayshore Boulevard is one, long “wet zone.” That must seem downright arbitrary to the Bud Blight brigade cruising the neighborhoods adjacent to the zone. No, it’s not an unconscionable double standard, and it doesn’t, of course, excuse illegal acts and boorish behavior — but it hardly helps. There is talk about limiting alcohol to that purchased and consumed in the zone.

·         Here’s hoping the inviting, concert-perfect Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park – and the nearby establishments — becomes party central for the demographic that is being weaned off of pre-2010 behavior.

·         And speaking of Curtis Hixon Park, it was, ironically the scene of the most notable Gasparilla incident. A worker with the sound production crew that was breaking down the stage damaged a corner of the new Tampa Museum of Art with a piece of equipment. Some things you can’t blame on drunken revelers.

·         “Flinging in the Rain”: Hats – or ponchos – off to Mayor Pam Iorio.  She was not deterred by the rain even if her signature coiffeur turned into a flattop. It wasn’t a flattering look, but a becoming effort. Equally drenched spectators appreciated it.

·         Too bad someone on President Obama’s staff didn’t do a better job of backgrounding him on Tampa before his town hall meeting. The UT gathering was only two days before Gasparilla. Some in his audience were bedecked with beads, which the president mistook for “New Orleans” style. What an opportunity he would have had to remind everyone within earshot that “Responsibility is the Key” for Tampa’s signature event. How’s that for reinforcement?

·         Final words: “Children’s Parade.” The right kind of crowd, even gigantic, is not incompatible with a residential neighborhood. Families fueled on lemonade police themselves.