“Fear Factor” Middle School

A lot of you likely caught that story out of Pinellas County where the Osceola Middle School principal ate live crickets for lunch as his end of a bargain with students if they showed sufficient academic improvement. Anyone else wonder what schools now do in the formerly good name of “motivation?” All of a sudden, dunk tanks, water-balloon targets and cream pies-in-the-face gambits seem almost pedagogical.

Is this where high-profile, high-pressure “accountability” in schools has inevitably brought us? Is this what “pro-active” and “kid-oriented” has come to mean? Is there any wonder that the teaching profession doesn’t get the respect it deserves? Or maybe, in some cases, doesn’t deserve?

Women As Equine Snacks?

You can’t make this stuff up.

Item: The intriguing piece in Thursday’s Tampa Tribune about a California horse breeder who didn’t like the treats she saw at horse feed stores. Thus motivated, she was determined to come up with a healthier version. And she and a female friend did just that. They have since opened their own equine bakery, which specializes in nutritious treats for horses.

But that’s not the end of the story. The Tribarticle’s headline assured that.

It read: “Women Make Nutritious Horse Treats.”

Who knew?

Look for it again on Jay Leno.

Clinton Nostalgia

On one hand, it’s understandable how the Democratic faithful still get rapturously nostalgic over the return of Bill Clinton to presidential politics. He is this generation’s most gifted retail politician, a wonkish sort who towers intellectually over his successor, and an avatar of better economic times.

But it’s that other hand.

The country was two quarters out of a recession when he took office. Neither the irrationally exuberant dotcom bubble nor the peace dividend from the demise of the Soviet Union were his doing.

Commander-in-chief was not his forte. Alas, he remained “unavailable” and missed a golden opportunity to take out Osama bin Laden long before Sept. 11, 2001.

And he was impeached. Not because of a peccadillo. Not because of right-wing conspirators. Not because he was a victim of high-handed, moral judgments.

But because he was a perjurer, a national security time bomb and an on-the-job philanderer who disgraced his office and country.

But then again, nostalgia isn’t supposed to be logical.

Kennedy-Obama Irony

Anyone looking for irony in the Kennedy-Obama love-in, which has included direct comparisons of Barack Obama to John F. Kennedy, need not look very far.

Recall that when Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed Sen. Obama, he went out of his way to refute all that former President Bill Clinton had said or intimated about Obama. Including Obama’s relative inexperience.

Kennedy even underscored that Obama would be ready on “day one.”

Ironically, JFK wasn’t.

Anyone remember the Bay of Pigs? President Kennedy didn’t have the experience and gravitas to see through a fatally flawed Eisenhower plan and halt it. What he did was halt air cover – and any chance, even remote, that the ill-fated invasion of Cuba could have succeeded.

Kennedy would later prove his mettle by backing down the Joint Chiefs over the Cuban Missile Crisis. But, no, he wasn’t ready on “day one.”

McCain’s Message Needs Refining – Not Reforming

The signs were manifest.

The literal ones: “Florida (heart) Straight Talk.” “Tampa Loves McCain.” “Florida Stands With McCain.” “Veterans For McCain.” “Supporting The Mac: Martinez, Crist, Stallone.” (Take that, Chuck Norris.) And, interestingly enough, “McCain Protecting Your Pocketbook” and “McCain = Prosperity.”

The music: upbeat ’60s Motown (The Four Tops) – and ironic: “I Can’t Help Myself.”

The introduction: as politically high profile as it gets in Florida — Gov. Charlie Crist.

The message: Brief and blunt.

The rhetoric: red meat applause lines.

Those who jammed a break-out room at Tampa Convention Center last week to hear feisty, 71-year-old John McCain were not disappointed. “Keeping America safe” was the unvarnished theme. To be sure, there was a sidebar on better veterans’ health care and a promise that McCain “will call Americans to serve” a cause “greater than their self interest.”

The Arizona senator also took less than 30 seconds to remind true believers that he’s on the right side of technology and innovation and definitely in favor of the government getting “out of the way of business.” That was it on the economy. Except for the unspoken fact that his campaign was battling insolvency.

Make no mistake, this whistle stop was all about trenchant warfare — a national security stream of conscious for the masses. Outgoing rhetorical rounds that referenced “The transcendent challenge of Islamic extremism.” And reminders that: “The central battleground is Iraq

Pissed Off At Creative Loafing

I made the mistake of reading Wade Tatangelo’s “Surviving Gasparilla” piece. I should have quit while I was ahead after the good read that Wayne Garcia invariably provides.

Tatangelo’s sophomoric screed seemed little more than another excuse to work “fuck,” “pissing” and “assholes” into a column. Well done.

Suggestion: Next time, try waiting until you’re sober before turning in your Gasparilla copy. Unless, of course, you really do think the deification of litter and free-lance pissing is some sort of proletarian picnic – or little more than an annual rite of pissage at the expense of unacceptably affluent South Tampa neighborhoods.

“Fuck the floats”? How about fuck the juvenile-entitlement attitude? How about grow the fuck up?

I live all too close to ground zero and make the best of it. I throw my own party on my own private property. And should you or your pal Sal and or any of the other Bud Light anarchists you hang out with decide to trespiss at Orleans and Bayshore, it would be my personal privilege to kick your collective asses down to your “spot” at Willow.

From An Attacking Tiger To Sagging Drawers: A Common Thread

They seem like three disparate incidents:

*The individuals who were attacked by a tiger in the San Francisco Zoo.

*The Riverview residents who were chased from their homes by a toxic cloud.

*The Florida politician who is determined to deal legislatively with those who let their pants hang too low in our public schools.

Then you look closer.

Sure, the zoo’s wall, it turns out, was lower than recommended. But a contributing factor was the razzing or taunting that had occurred. The three young men involved, one of whom was killed, all had marijuana in their systems and one had a blood alcohol level twice that of the D.U.I. threshold.

As for the ammonia leak, residents from more than 300 homes had to evacuate as a result of a local vandal drilling into the above-ground portion of pipeline. Stronger security measures were subsequently suggested by the Hillsborough County Emergency Operations Center, and Tampa Pipeline Corp. says most of the suggestions have already been implemented. The county also lauded emergency agencies for their quick response.

And state Democratic Senator Gary Siplin of Orlando has finally succeeded in pushing a bill to outlaw “sagging” drawers — sometimes called “jailing” — in school. It should reach the Senate floor in March. Siplin thinks it’s not hitting below the legislative belt to mandate that students pull up their pants in such a public venue. No butts about it.

The common thread here is behavior, whether around predatory animals at a zoo, around an exposed stretch of chemical pipeline or around the hips of Florida students.

A concomitant point is that authority invariably plays catch-up in such instances. And that’s because you can’t, ultimately, fix stupid.

Parade Rain

Of course it was the right decision to call a halt to the Children’s Gasparilla Parade. Lightning, aluminum stands and crowded floats could have been the perfect storm of tragedy. And, of course, it was sad – for those thousands of disappointed children and their families.

It was especially sad because the Children’s Parade is no longer just a cute spin-off, a wholesome sop to the sober. It’s also very big – entailing more than 100 krewes and 150 floats – and including continuous shuttle routes, a Bicycle Safety Rodeo, a Preschooler’s Stroll, two Air Invasions and a fireworks show.

And it was sad because the Children’s Parade is the real celebration. The one that doesn’t require a “Safe House.” The one that doesn’t feature ad hoc port-o-lets. The one that doesn’t deify litter.

It’s the one that is about kids WITH their parents, not intoxicated, rite-of-passage teens on the lam from parental oversight. What a concept.

Sober Judgment

Call it a shibboleth moment. Or just an adult-in-charge moment. But let’s hear it for Hillsborough Circuit Judge Daniel Perry, who recently put the hugely inconsequential but highly publicized case of ex-American Idol contestant Jessica Sierra into proper context. Finally.

“You’re not a celebrity; you’re a drug addict,” said Perry.

Good for him. And, hopefully, good for her.

And, frankly, enough of the inanely obsessive, enabling celebrity addiction that now passes for a popular culture.