Get Out The Informed Vote

Another political staple at this point in the cycle is the “Get Out The Vote” campaign.

Now, if it’s helping, for example, the elderly and the incapacitated to exercise their franchise, it is a noble, democratic undertaking. But if it’s a partisan exercise in persuading the otherwise uninterested to show up and vote in lock step, then I say: “If that’s what it takes to motivate you to get to the polls – as opposed to more-than-obvious economic, geo-political and social imperatives – then stay home. That way you don’t offset the ballots of informed voters doing their duty.”

Sign of the Times

            It’s that time of the year again, and we’re now seeing those holiday-themed fliers in the mail and inserted into our newspapers. One such was a reminder of seasonal items now available at CVS/Pharmacy, Rite Aid, Walgreens and others.

Let’s see, there was a $1-off coupon for Sue Bee honey products that was accompanied by a courtesy recipe for Applesauce Honey Nut bread. And an offer of free shipping and handling for personalized Christmas cards. And an ad for Identigene, the at-home, DNA Paternity Testing Kit. Compact enough, presumably, for a stocking stuffer.

Rays’ Impact

            And speaking of the Rays, their improbable World Series run has brought a welcome economic boost to Pinellas County – from hotel rooms to those Fox Television cut-away shots of beaches that no ad budget could afford.

            And don’t forget Port Charlotte, which will begin hosting Rays’ spring training in 2009 – or about four months from now. The hallo effect from a World Series team always includes increased interest and attendance the following spring. The Charlotte Sports Park’s $27-million renovation includes an expansion from 5,000 to 7,000.

            No one could have foreseen this when the deal was done in September 2006.

Philly Connection

            Now that the Rays are in the World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies, I find myself being asked – and not just by family members in my hometown of Philly – if I have allegiance issues. The answer is no. A resoundingly emphatic no.

            Apart from being the best national sports story in years, the Rays are part of the community I live in and proudly call home. And I’m here by choice – not inertia. You have to be born somewhere.

            Go, Rays.

McContext

            *If John McCain is still a “maverick,” then Alan Greenspan is still an “oracle.”

            *Oxymoronic message: “Country First”/ Sarah Palin for Vice President

            *Ever notice that right before a debate, even before he thanks the sponsors, acknowledges his counterpart and gives a shout-out to a convalescing Nancy Reagan, John McCain is already writing stuff down on his yellow pad? Well, it’s last-minute reminders – because the candidates can’t bring any prepared material with them. Just an educated hunch, but from the way the last debate played out, it might have been:

                        ^ “Joe/Plumber. ‘Share wealth.’

^ “Get last word. Interrupt.

^ “Bill Ayers.

                        ^ “Defend Sarah. Reformer/oil/‘special needs.’

                        ^ “Raise taxes/Share wealth.

                        ^ “Surge/STILL wrong.

                        ^ “I’m not Bush.

                        ^ “Ayers.”

            *Lost amid the economic thrust and parry of that last debate was Senator McCain’s reference to Joe Biden’s “cockamamie” idea of separating Iraq into three sovereign entities reflecting their historical Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish enmities.

            Anyone recall the upshot of that similar, post-colonial construct, Yugoslavia?

Checkin’ In At Checkpoint Charlie

BERLIN, Germany – I hadn’t seen Charlie in a generation. The years have been kind.

Back in 1972 “Checkpoint Charlie” was notoriously known for being the border crossing between what was then East and West Berlin.  

            I had been there as a journalist. The memories cascaded back.

*There was that grim, little guard house, plopped down in the middle of Friedrichstrasse. Perhaps the only thing iconic that ever looked like a back yard Wally Watt shed.

*And Friedrichstrasse itself, which was then dominated by drab storefronts, abandoned apartments, empty lots and a modest museum dedicated to those who had died fleeing from East Berlin.

*I vividly recalled the winter of ’72 and visiting with Checkpoint Charlied G.I.s, who were glad to talk to another American – and yet leery about who I might really be. After about 20 minutes of both somber and animated conversation, one of the soldiers said: “How ‘bout that Super Bowl? Were you surprised to see Miami beat Dallas?”

“Actually, I’m surprised you said that,” I answered. “Dallas won,” I replied.

“I know,” responded the G.I. through a nominal smile. “Just checkin’.”

Checkpoint Charlie checkin’.

Later the subject of Willy Brandt, the former mayor of West Berlin, Nobel Peace Prize winner and then chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, came up. I thought it was cool, ironic — and refreshingly egalitarian — that in such a sobering context the man in charge was not on some authoritarian pedestal, but often referred to as “Schnapps Willy.” It was said endearingly – not derisively.

You could bet that nobody referred — at least in public — to East German leader Erich Honecker in such a delightfully irreverent fashion. And if anybody had earned the right to some serious tippling, I figured, it was Brandt. I said as much.

After much agreement and some salty slapstick, a soldier said: “I noticed that you referred to him as ‘Villy.’”

“Well, that’s how it’s pronounced,” I said.

“But most Americans wouldn’t say ‘Villy,’” he countered.

“Well, I guess I’m not most Americans,” I explained, which probably sounded more smart-ass scribe than Stasi spy. “You know, when in Rome…”

Not that it needed underscoring, but visiting an Allied checkpoint in Berlin back then was an immersion in Cold War reality on a number of levels. In the age of dueling super powers, this was the world’s most infamous tripwire. This was where American and Soviet tanks faced off against each other in 1961. Where emotional demonstrations were routine and escape attempts from East Berlin sometimes ended brutally and tragically.

No surprise that nothing was to be taken for granted — including a lone journalist, purportedly American, showing up at Checkpoint Charlie in the winter of the free world’s geopolitical discontent.

But that was then, and this was not.

            *For one thing, the farther north you now go — past a cheesy, Checkpoint Charlie replica — the more gentrified and glitzy is the formerly dour Friedrichstrasse. A Westin Grand Hotel, Galeries Lafayette, a Bugatti dealer.

            What was once a ghost town artery now teams with conspicuous consumption brand names — Rolex, Patek Philippe, Hermes, Escada, Gucci – plus fancy restaurants and numerous software firms. This is hardly what Honecker had in mind.

Not far is the reconstructed Reichstag (complex), the Brandenburg Gate and the notably accessible U.S. Embassy. Construction cranes are ubiquitous – as are blue, above-ground water pipes.

*The immediate Checkpoint Charlie area, however, has had a less dramatic makeover. It went from grim to generically commercial. A couple of Underground stations, mid-rise office buildings, a produce market, a (Kamps) pastry shop, a storefront museum, other businesses that cater to Checkpoint Charlie tourists, an (outdoor) pictorial chronology of the Cold War and some vendors hawking, of all things, Soviet-era memorabilia. As if.

But back to that Checkpoint Charlie replica. In front of it was a pile of sandbags and an American flag. And a local Berliner in an American G.I. uniform. And a kettle where those wanting a photo could deposit one Euro for a personalized picture of commercialized, back-dropped history. Call it entrepreneurial, but it seemed, well, sacrilegious.

*In the context of America’s involvement in the Middle East and the ongoing hit

our international reputation continues to take, it was gratifying and prideful to be privy to a context where the U.S. was seen as a force for unfettered good. A time when fighting for “freedom” and “democracy” weren’t glib, geopolitical euphemisms for ill-considered, foreign-policy ventures – from Vietnam to Iraq. At Checkpoint Charlie, Americans are still the good guys.

            *And speaking of good guys, how welcome it was to discover Jesse-Owens-Allee, the street that runs along Berlin’s Olympic Stadium.

*Perhaps it is just something inimitably German. But I’ve never seen such

strict pedestrian adherence to red lights. There could be no traffic for as far as the eye can see; there could be a pedestrian lane no more than 20 feet across; there could be no police presence. Nobody breaks rank. And, no, the cops don’t morph into storm troopers over jay-walking; crossing on red is just not done.

            *Arguably, there is no more poignant memorial to what war has wrought than the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on the Kurfurstendamn. The original church, which dates to the 1890s, was virtually destroyed in the bombing raids of 1943. The shell of a spire and part of the entrance hall still remain – now juxtaposed to adjacent memorials.

            *It’s been well documented how Germany has come to moral grips with — and self-understanding of — its Nazi past. Numerous museums and memorials around Berlin are dedicated to the reign of terror, the extermination policy and the memory of Holocaust victims.

            The most moving was the Memorial To The Murdered Jews of Europe, not far from the Brandenburg Gate and the Tiergarten. One room contained diary entries and letters. One in particular left me emotionally limp. It still does.

“Dear Father! I am saying goodbye to you before I die. We would so love to live, but they won’t let us and we will die. I am so scared of this death, because the small children are thrown alive into the pit. Goodbye forever. I kiss you tenderly.” Your J. 31, July 42

Philly Connection

            Now that the Rays are in the World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies, I find myself being asked – and not just by family members in my hometown of Philly – if I have allegiance issues. The answer is no. A resoundingly emphatic no.

            Apart from being the best national sports story in years, the Rays are part of the community I live in and proudly call home. And I’m here by choice – not inertia. You have to be born somewhere.

            Go, Rays.

A Candidate, A Plan, A DVD, A Test, A Tradition

          *Can Buddy Johnson, Hillsborough’s supervisor of elections, quit while he’s merely behind?

Publicly-chronicled personal and professional embarrassments (remember that “details”-challenged deposition?) might have induced a less, uh, determined candidate to step aside. Not incumbent Buddy who elects to press on — in notably high-profile fashion, no less.

In a campaign where the incumbent has been out fund-raised more than two-to-one by his opponent, Johnson has made news yet again. This time with print and electronic voter-education materials that prominently feature — Johnson. The less-than-nuanced brochure message: A vote for the larger-than-life Johnson equates to “A New Vote of Confidence” in the optical-scan machines.

No one is questioning the funding, per se. Most of it is from Help America Vote Act grants that try to prevent the sort of election debacles that, well, Florida is notorious for. But many see Johnson as unnecessarily eponymous with voting – and unnecessarily conspicuous

Arguably — and ironically — Johnson already has a high enough profile.

*Whatever the final details of the massive financial package negotiated in Washington, every member of Congress and the talking heads of cable television will have a ready take on what made it ultimately palatable – fiscally and politically. From higher limits on insured bank deposits to the visceral fright at seeing a trillion-dollar stock market plunge at the initial news of a non-deal.

But one key political tenet ultimately proved catalytic: When in doubt, (including those politicians who knew they would be against it before they were for it) go euphemistic. Except for those escaping in golden parachutes, nobody wanted anything to do with a “bailout,” which was code for “reward those who deserve the most blame – at the expense of those who deserve little or none.”

But once legislation started being referenced as a positive act of “rescue” and “recovery” — with their connotations of inclusion — it became politically viable.  

The psychology of semantics is not unlike abortion adherents or opponents preferring their “pro choice” or “pro life” labels or second-hand cars selling better as “pre-owned” rather than “used.” 

Once Congress bailed out of the bad rhetoric that precluded political cover and added enough sweeteners, not even Shrieker of the House Nancy Pelosi could prevent a deal.

*Not yet seen on bumper stickers: “Privatize Wealth, Socialize Debt.”

  “There are no atheists in foxholes nor libertarians in a financial meltdown.”

*WWMS? Imagine, the turbulence in the financial markets has yielded this from Liu Mingkang, chairman of the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission: U.S. lending standards, noted Liu, had become “ridiculous.” China, he sagely pointed out, has been curbing mortgage lending amid a real estate boom in order to keep debt manageable. Added Liu: “When U.S. regulators were reducing the down payment to zero or they created so-called reverse mortgages, we thought that was ridiculous.” What Would Mao Say?

*By now, most folks have heard of – and many have seen – that  DVD about radical Islam that’s been bundled inside a number of newspapers, including the two major dailies in this market. The documentary, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West,” analogizes contemporary radical Islam with pre-World War II Nazism. I had seen it last year when it caused a First Amendment furor at the University of Florida because of those “Radical Islam Wants You Dead” posters around campus.

A couple of points:

First, “Obsession” is what you would expect: heavy-handed, graphic, agenda-driven propaganda. But true enough to impact and scare. Had Michael Moore or Oliver Stone had this same point of view, they could have made “Obsession” – after including damning American foreign-policy context.

Second, it’s unseemly and insulting for the distributor, the Clarion Fund, to deny that it’s trying to influence the presidential election. We’re only a month out, and it’s specifically targeted to swing states, such as Florida, and key electoral demographics, such as Interstate 4-corridor independents. More fear-mongering, dark-side political pandering is not what an already polarizing election needs.

Third, “Obsession” unfortunately leads to an inevitable stereotyping of Muslims, the overwhelmingly majority of which are not radical jihadists. Or even close. But even a small percentage of a billion – who cherry pick the Koran for rationales to murder infidels and apostates — is no trifling number. Would that it were.

Fourth, “Obsession” ends with Edmund Burke’s famous quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” It still applies.

*Oxymoron: “Country First”/Sarah Palin for Vice President.

*Here we go again. Another gathering of college admissions officials has stoked the argument over whether standardized tests (principally, the SAT) should be optional. In some institutions, that’s already the case. The other choice: Should they just be jettisoned altogether?

That’s because such tests can be imprecise; they can be culturally biased; and they can be skewed in favor of those taking test-prep courses.

Here’s another option. Make them mandatory – and keep evaluating their relevance in the context of the test-taker. As we know, the task of admissions officials can also be complicated — and undermined — by grade inflation. Not all curricula are created equal. Not all teachers have meaningful standards. There’s always a need for a more objective tool.

But weigh it; don’t overuse it; and don’t overreact to its inherent limits.

*Remember as a kid when a good Halloween fright usually meant scary music and some shadowy, cob-webbed ambience and probably a lurking zombie or a vampire?

I was reading about Florida’s theme parks the other day and all the investments they have to make in new scares to compete. To compete with each other – and with a popular culture that continually ratchets up gratuitous violence and gore.

Not to sound too impossibly old school, but I do feel for kids who can’t – or aren’t allowed to – be scared by goblins and black cats and graveyards. No, you now need at least a psychopath with a chain saw simulating dismemberment.

Boo.

Rays’ Success Good For A Lot Of Reasons

Imagine.

It’s now October. The autumnal equinox has come and gone. Columbus Day approaches. A quarter of the Buccaneers’ regular season is already over.

And the Rays are still playing baseball.

Not the old, bedeviled Rays or the Martha Rays or the Bob and Rays. Not the team/franchise that was synonymous with “loser.” Not the late-night-comedian punch line for incompetence and futility.

But the reincarnated, worst-to-first, sun-dappled Tampa Bay Rays.

However this all plays out, it’s still one of the best national sports stories in years.

Major League Baseball, which still doesn’t have a salary cap, relegates low-budget, smaller-market franchises such as Tampa Bay to a subordinate status with a zero-sum mandate: Be smarter and work harder than your deeper-pocketed competition or fail. Ask Kansas City or Pittsburgh. Over-achieve or be undermined by a system that, for example, permits one team, the New York Yankees, to have a payroll ($209 million) five times that of the Rays ($43 million).

To their considerable credit, the Rays, under the leadership of owner Stu Sternberg and his front office, gee-whiz kids — especially Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman — have done just that. Their mantra: Target needs; find value in the marketplace – such that it obviates the need for super-pricey free agents – and draft intelligently (to build the organization from within).  

In other words, no more Wilson Alvarezes, Vinny Castillas, Greg Vaughns and Dewon Brazeltons. But more Carlos Penas, Cliff Floyds, Grant Balfours, Eric Hinskes, Evan Longorias and David Prices. Then lock in the better younger players – the foundation and future – to long-term contracts. Small-market teams can’t afford big pay-out busts.

And choose wisely as to who will do the managing. It does no good to recycle the usual suspects. Including, obviously, Lou Piniella. They chose Joe Maddon because they wanted smart, fair, instructive, positive, contemporary, avuncular and classy. Thank you, Los Angeles Angels and Central Casting.

And character counts. When Friedman & Company found themselves saddled with the inherited, talented morale cancer that was Delmon Young, and the societal predator that was Elijah Dukes, they got rid of them. It’s called adding by subtracting, a savvy complement to “buy low and sell high.” In the case of Young, the Rays hit a value bonanza in return: team MVP shortstop Jason Bartlett and starting pitcher Matt Garza. Thanks again, Minnesota Twins.

And nationally, the Rays – with their rags-to-riches-to-Little Engine-That-Could-to-Mohawked-madness storyline – have been the perfect antidote for a sport still reeling from its steroid era. They’ve also given baseball a tutorial on how the little guys can compete and win on an uneven playing field. And they’ve give the Tampa Bay area – and the rest of the country – a welcome respite, frankly, from financial-bailout subplots and presidential-campaign fatigue.

                                          Challenges and Hope

The challenges for the Rays, however, haven’t been limited to salary-cap workarounds and personnel decisions. It’s more daunting than that:

            *The Rays play in a substandard facility necessitating catwalk ground rules.

*Geographically and demographically, downtown St. Petersburg – with nothing west but the Gulf of Mexico and the Corpus Christi market – is poorly located for maximum regional appeal.

*Parking is problematic and mass transit non-existent.

*The Tampa Bay area has a dearth of corporate headquarters, a typically key component in critically important, season-ticket scenarios.

*The body of water known as Tampa Bay has often seemed more like a second gulf — separating Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

*Lifestyle-wise, there have been better Tampa Bay options – i.e. tennis, golf,

fishing, boating, heading for the Carolinas – than baseball in the summer.

But as has been well noted across the annals of sports, winning can trump all manner of adversity. Rays’ attendance — although the second highest ever at 1.8 million and up 30.4 percent from 2007 — is still an issue. However, it’s the year following the break-out season that traditionally yields the biggest attendance spike. 2009 will be pivotal.

Moreover, the Rays have enjoyed a season-long surge in television ratings. In fact, the playoff-clinching win over Minnesota at the Trop drew better TV numbers than the Florida-Tennessee telecast from Knoxville. Then there’s Rays’ merchandise sales: up more than 100 percent.

 And whoever, candidly, thought there would be a “Go Rays, Tampa Believes” banner adorning a side of the Tampa Municipal Office Building? Or an official “Tampa Bay Rays Day” in Tampa?  Or a giant-screened showing of a Rays (Detroit Tigers) game in Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park? Or a Rays-honoring “Party in the Park” in downtown’s Lykes Gaslight Park?

The Rays have shocked baseball by their unprecedented, regular-season achievement and even bridged the bay of chronic parochialism.

Why stop believing now?

Taser Update

More good news.

The St. Petersburg police officer who “appeared” to put his Taser against the head of that out-of-control, mutant Red Sox fan has been cleared of any wrong-doing by a department review. Recall that the obnoxious, besotted, Bosox fan wasn’t satisfied being loud and verbally berating and abusing Rays’ fans. When he was subdued, he had already reached the roof of the Rays’ dugout.

The only down side: he didn’t get Tasered.