Media Matters: Doonesbury To Gadhafi

  • Isn’t it about time that more editors exercised appropriate, professional judgment and designated Doonesbury for the editorial page?
  • Reportedly, Sarah Palin made a good impression — and good money — in her foreign-policy-laden speech to a group of investors in Hong Kong. That should not have surprised anyone. Geopolitical overviews, economic analysis, moose-stew recipes, Iditarod summaries, death-panel one liners. Somebody writes her copy, and she delivers it. It’s what she does. And does well.
  • Thank you for sharing: Mackenzie Phillips.
  • Anybody else, upon seeing Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi deliver that 90-minute, tour de farce rant at the United Nations, think “this will be referenced again on Saturday Night Live”? Sure enough, it was. Although it had to be a challenge to satirize a parody.

The Art Of Compromise

Good move, Tampa City Council.

 

Two weeks ago, the council eliminated $2 million in Community Investment Tax money designated for the Zack Street “Avenue of the Arts” project. It was an understandable move prompted by turbulent economic times and the prioritized neighborhood needs of the parks and recreation departments. A week and some serious City Hall lobbying later, the council restored $1 million for Zack in a 5-2 vote. Ironically, Mary Mulhern and arts patron saint Linda Saul-Sena were the two dissenters.

 

But it was the right, pragmatic call.

 

Mayor Pam Iorio and Mary Huey, the city’s economic and development administrator, obviously made the case that this didn’t have to be a zero-sum exercise pitting a reconfigured “artsy” thoroughfare against pools and parks. In short, the arts have economic clout. Cities overlook that reality at their own peril, especially during a recession. For example, we know from recent studies that this county’s nonprofit arts industry generated nearly $300 million in economic activity and was responsible for more than 8,000 full-time equivalent jobs in 2008.

 

In Tampa’s case, two-way, pedestrian-friendly Zack Street — replete with murals, sculptures and engraved, sidewalk poetry — would be the key connector between the Franklin Street business district and the city’s burgeoning waterfront. The latter will soon feature the Tampa Museum of Art, the Glazer Children’s Museum and Curtis Hixon Park. To badly paraphrase Gertrude Stein, Tampa will shortly have a sense of “‘there’ there.” But it can’t afford to leave it there, untethered from in-town.

 

Not unlike the streetcar, an artsy Zack Street is an economic development tool. In this case, a catalytic one that can help realize the synergetic potential between the revitalized riverfront and downtown businesses. It’s what progressive cities do. They find ways to bring people downtown. They know that aesthetics and economics can — and should — be complements.

Populist Pomp

*Imagine, China throws a glitzy street party in Beijing’s rebuilt Qianmen shopping district to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of its communist state. Anyone remember Mao jackets?

 

*The first ever summit of South American and African leaders convened recently in Venezuela. Trade, climate change and populist rhetoric was the agenda. Interestingly, they gathered on tourist magnet Margarita Island, far from the maddening crowds – aka “the people.”

Hail To The New Chief

Bennie Holder. Stephen Hogue. Jane Castor. There’s a pattern in Tampa Police Chiefs. They keep getting better. St. Petersburg should take note – and notes.

 

Hogue, the consummate professional whose six-year tenure ends this month, was a major upgrade. But even Hogue concedes that eventually Castor “is going to be recognized as the best police chief this city has ever had.” It was more than press conference hyperbole.

 

Castor, 49, can’t avoid the historic credentials. She is Tampa’s first female police chief, and she is openly gay. Much more to her credit than precedent, however, is the consensus that she is so much more than a pioneer-role model-future icon. She is so much more than the ninth female police chief in Florida. She is the right person for the right reason.  

 

The Tampa native and Chamberlain High grad is the embodiment of modern law enforcement: a well-educated and well-rounded careerist. She has a bachelor’s degree in criminology from the University of Tampa – where she had been recruited with a basketball/volleyball scholarship. And she has a master’s in public administration from Troy State University. She’s also a graduate of the FBI National Academy.

 

And supervisors and peers will tell you she’s so much more than an impressive resume. Traits such as “common sense” and “quick study” are frequently referenced in descriptions of Castor. She’s principled – but not Peter Principled. Personally, she’s known to be “popular” with the rank and file and to manifest “good rapport” with the public.

 

And with 25 years on the Tampa Police Force — from corporal to sergeant to lieutenant to captain to major to assistant chief – she knows this community like few could. She knows the streets and has worked everything from narcotics to sex crimes.

 

She also knows the big picture issues – and has first-hand experience with the complementary priorities and synergies of police work and national security. Since 2005, she has managed a $56-million budget for the Department of Homeland Security’s Tampa Bay Urban Area Security Initiative.

 

Jane Castor is the total, modern law-enforcement package. She is now Tampa’s top cop – and Tampa couldn’t be luckier.

Should Presidents Go Late Night?

President Barack Obama wrapped up his recent barnstorming tour of network TV talk shows (including Univision – but notably not Fox) with an appearance last Monday on the “Late Show” with David Letterman. Most observers applauded the strategy of the orator-in-chief, even at the risk of over-exposure.

 

The president is that effective a spokesman for his Administration’s priorities, especially health care. And such forums seem customized for the articulate and charismatic.

But an in-studio, one-on-one with David Gregory or Bob Schieffer on Sunday morning is not, arguably, the same thing as a late-night quip exchange with Letterman.

 

I know the president got exposure to a key demographic that wasn’t the MSNBC or even Conan O’Brien crowd. And ultimately he gets predictable questions lobbed up in non-confrontational style. And there are no filters.

 

But here’s my objection, however old school. Context matters. Even if some members of Congress don’t think so.

 

John F. Kennedy went on the “Tonight Show” with Jack Paar – before he was president. Witty and telegenic played well. And candidate Richard Nixon went on “Tonight” with Steve Allen – and played the piano. It was humanizing. Now it’s de rigueur for all candidates to hit the late-night, comedy-and-chat circuit. It reaches a substantial market. It’s a savvy campaign move. It’s what contemporary CANDIDATES should do.

 

But wherever the president goes, so goes the presidency. The office transcends its occupant. It should never be diminished. Richard Nixon didn’t do his “Laugh In” turn after he became president.

 

But back to Letterman. “We’ll be right back with tonight’s Top 10 List and President Barack Obama” sounded a bit belittling. As if it could just as easily have been Joan Rivers or Sarah Palin.

 

Talking about unemployment and the loss of $5 trillion in wealth immediately upon returning from commercial break — Miller Genuine Draft, Cialis, Showtime’s “Californication” and network promos — seemed more petty than presidential.

 

Frankly, I like my presidents with a ready wit, a captivating presence and an articulate command of the issues. That’s what prime time press conferences are for. That’s why Jack Kennedy never returned to the “Tonight Show.”

Academic Accolade For Plant High

Plant High School unabashedly proclaims itself the “Home of State Champions.”

Those words are even emblazoned on the water tower that hovers over the campus. Indeed, the 83-year-old, South Tampa institution has won 14 state championships – from football and volleyball to girls’ cross-country and golf – in the last 15 years.  

 

And while nothing succeeds in the public eye quite like sports, it was — more importantly — reassuring to see that Plant had remained an academic powerhouse. It’s easy to take for granted that nearly 97 per cent of Plant grads go on to college and that it’s consistently ranked among the “100 Best High Schools in America” by Newsweek magazine.

 

But now we learn that no school in the entire Tampa Bay area has more semifinalists named to the National Merit Scholarship Program than Plant. PHS has 11.

 

And the competition was stiffest in its home county. Hillsborough – with a total of 53 Merit semifinalists – has more than any other school district in Florida.

Museum Synergies

We know that it takes more than artifacts to make a successful museum. Among other factors: location and amenities. A prime example: the Tampa Bay History Center. It basks by the Garrison Channel across from Harbour Island – and is proximate to Channelside synergy. It was a coup when it landed the Columbia Restaurant, a destination in its own right.

 

Now the word is that Mise en Place will be working with the new Tampa Museum of Art on the revitalized Hillsborough River waterfront.

Racism Or “Downward Social Comparison”?

So, is the vitriolic backlash against the president largely fueled by race, as former President Jimmy Carter contends? “An overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man” is how Carter phrased it.

 

The Obama Administration, understandably, disagrees.  No one, of course, would recommend that the president appear to be calling out his dissenters, however rude and crude, as anachronistic racists. You can’t win that one – even in “post-racial” America.

 

All you do is further splinter all the issues that need addressing – not scapegoating. It also feeds the disingenuous take of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who recently noted that “It’s very destructive for America to suggest that we can’t criticize a president without it being a racial act.” Nobody looks good in thin skin.

 

Some have zeroed in on Carter’s “overwhelming portion” reference as a classic example of overwhelming inexactitude. America has been purged of neither racists nor polemicists. A fusillade of ad hominem criticism is still not proof positive that racists are “largely” behind it.

 

And some have theorized that Rep. Joe Wilson, R-ULie, really represents a simmering, pro-segregation, anti-Union sentiment still endemic in the land of Dixie.

 

But here’s what I think is really the visceral issue. Psychologists call it the “downward social comparison.” The rest of us would recognize it as the “everyone needs some one to look down on” syndrome.

 

We saw hints of it during certain presidential primaries last year. Elements of the electorate with less-than-upwardly-mobile lots in life who resort to an age-old form of rationalization. Wherever you are in the society’s pecking order, goes the thinking, somebody’s always below you. Often, it’s more racial than socio-economic.

 

For those clinging to such societal consolation prizes, seeing that the president of the United States is a black guy with a Muslim name can only grate. Damn it, life might not be fair, but it’s not supposed to be a larger-than-life insult! In combination with gut issues such as health care and the right to bear arms, an African-American president has created the perfect backlash storm.  

 

So, race is, indeed, part of it. But an “overwhelming portion”? Probably not. Just sizable enough to be alarming. And potent enough to remind us how naïve we were to think that “post-racial” America actually beckoned in our lifetime.

America’s “Status Quo” Policy on Cuba?

Cuba represents signal-sending, low-hanging geopolitical fruit with economic implications for recession-bludgeoned Florida. And yet the Obama Administration hasn’t done much more than undo some George W. Bush Administration restrictions regarding travel and remittances. In fact, the State Department, implausibly enough, recently re-upped Cuba’s status as a state sponsor of terrorism.

 

As a result, many continue to speculate about the Obama Administration’s conservative, incremental approach to Cuba. Is “normalization” even in the mix? The best-case rationale for the go-slow policy is that the Administration doesn’t need yet another distraction diverting attention away from its core priorities. It doesn’t need to hand Rush, Glenn, Sean & Co. ammo about “kissing up to a dictator” and backing off support for democratic reforms.

 

Here’s another take. The Administration, notably Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, senses that the Cuban regime is near collapse. According to Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban intelligence officer who has been living in Miami since the mid-1990s, “The Obama Administration isn’t really interested in petty, back-and-forth discussions with fading Cuban leaders who have little hope of rescuing the economy and saving the revolution. …This is the real ‘new policy,’” Amuchastegui told the monthly Cuba News, “which some experts are already characterizing as ‘keeping the status quo.’”