Birth Of An Indignation

Every 4th of July, alas, we are reminded that Florida remains a retrograde state when it comes to fireworks. Yahooville sham laws permit the sale to anyone of anything China sends us that explodes. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, noise is the medium and seemingly the message – as opposed to a celebration of the birth of a noble experiment, a memorialization of Fort McHenry or a salute to communal spirit.

And anyone else notice the pet-frightening staccato sounds and shrill whistles of the Fourth beginning Friday night, June 30th?

Standing Guard

Imagine, New Orleans’ Mayor Ray Nagin requested the National Guard to deal with a spike in the city’s murder rate. And this despite half a population base having been scattered–and only recently beginning to trickle back in. Keep in mind that while New Orleans prefers culturally alluring appelations such as “Cresent City” and “The Big Easy”, it’s long been saddled with the well-earned “Murder Capital of the U.S.” moniker.

Calling in the National Guard because of murders? The day the Guard–in good conscience–leaves is the day the city disingenuously declares itself, in effect, purged of a disproportionate number of career criminals with high-risk lifestyles.

Another Media Scenario On Wartime Security

For the sake of argument, suppose there had been a 9/12 or 9/13 or some other terrorist-attack date already frozen in calamitous infamy. Can anyone not envision – at some point — this kind of account from a (Pulitzer Prize-winning) news story?

Sources tell (insert major national newspaper of record) that in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States didn’t avail itself of all the tools at its disposal to prevent a recurrence.

Sources, who requested anonymity, cite the failure to fully implement a surveillance program, under the aegis of the National Security Agency, which had the electronic wherewithal to monitor communications between people in the United States and overseas whenever terrorism was suspected. Moreover, it is also charged that the Administration failed to make maximum use of a financial-monitoring program that can scrutinize messages within an international database of money-transfer records.

“I’m shocked, shocked,” responded Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., “to learn that we haven’t done all we could have done to protect ourselves. Does it take a second atrocity for us to respond proportionately? That’s obscene.

“How do you tell the family members of all those who lost their lives from the dirty bomb in Los Angeles that we didn’t do enough to safeguard our own? How do you defend the rationale that the Administration apparently thought we were better off erring on the side of domestic civil liberties – even though the ultimate civil liberty is the freedom to remain alive? How do you explain that in an asymmetrical war with Islamic terrorists for whom death is martyrdom, we failed to utilize some of our most sophisticated, non-nuclear, pre-emptive weapons? How do you reconcile common sense with any of this? Is America’s epitaph going to be: ‘But we meant well?'”

According to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY., “This Administration, for all of its patriotic tough talk about the ‘War on Terror,’ is guilty of gross negligence and dereliction of duty in the defense of America’s homeland. As far as I’m concerned,” declared Schumer, “this is an impeachable offense, and the president of the United States has blood – Americans’ blood – on his hands. This is his watch – and he hasn’t been watching out for America. He cut and ran from his responsibility to protect the American people to the fullest extent possible.”

“In a time of war,” stated the Rev. Jesse Jackson, “we need a commander in chief – not a commander in grief. We are a great-nation – led by an abomi-nation.”

Then, again, maybe the media wouldn’t have handled it that way.

Publication And Context

Chances are, the New York Times won’t be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for reporting on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists. This is one of those Constitutionally opaque areas where reasonable people can agree that a free press is indispensable to a meaningful democracy, that prior restraint is philosophically anathema, that the Fourth Amendment is seriously sacred stuff, that we all think we know what the Founding Fathers would say and that the people’s right to know is sacrosanct — but not quite absolute. You don’t, say, aid or abet the enemy. You don’t give away troop movements. That sort of thing.

The Nixon Administration didn’t want the Pentagon Papers to go public, because it was politically embarrassing and demoralizing. How the U.S. dominoed itself into Vietnam in the first place would further fuel the anti-war furor. But that was not a compelling enough reason to proscribe publication by the New York Times. I still have my copy.

And ironically there was the Times’ acquiescence to President John F. Kennedy’s entreaty to not blow the cover of CIA-funded rebels prepping to invade Cuba. To his dying day, Kennedy regretted being so persuasive. The unco-opted Bay of Pigs plans became, of course, a tragic fiasco and precursor to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

To publish or not to publish is ultimately a soul-searching, ethically-wrenching “hard call,” as acknowledged by Times’ executive editor Bill Keller. It better be – even for the ostensibly apolitical and the would-be omniscient. An unelected media that buys ink by the barrel is a requisite check on government power – but it’s not a leak-reliant trump card in time of national peril.

And context means everything.

Consider the paranoid, adversarial Nixon Administration. Or the newly-elected, young, Eastern establishment, New Frontier Kennedy Administration. Or Fortress Bush – hardly a citadel of veracity from countdown to Iraq to Katrina aftermath to Valerie Plame’s CIA outing.

And speaking of context. The United States is a country at war. Not a police action or a conflict or a Cold War proxy fight. Recall that Ho Chi Minh never threatened to attack America.

This is a civilizational war. The kind you must win. Ask Israel. The kind you err on the side of protecting lives – and ways of life — for.

Bill Keller might not get that. Neither might Jon Stewart. But they’re being protected too.

Mineta’s Dual Legacies

Later this week, Norman Mineta, the longest-serving transportation secretary, will step down from the Bush cabinet. Under Mineta, 74, the Transportation Security Administration was created.

It was Mineta’s call to ground all domestic U.S. flights after the 9/11 attacks. It’s now part of his legacy. It was also his decision to prohibit profiling at America’s airports. Those random searches of wheel chair-bound grandmothers from Dubuque: That’s also part of his legacy.

Local Gubernatorial Ties

All things being equal – which they rarely are – would the Tampa Bay Area be better off with a governor from here? Political consultant and USF history professor John Belohlavek cautions about jumping on that parochial bandwagon. For all of our regional rhetoric, notes Belohlavek, this still remains an area rife with “divided loyalties.”

“Frankly, for the folks in Tampa, I’m not sure that Charlie Crist would help a lot,” says Belohlavek. “And I don’t know what a Gov. Jim Davis would do for St. Pete. What I do think is more meaningful are those areas the region shares, such as resources – power and water. That might make a difference.”

Makes sense. You also have to believe that Mayor Pam Iorio would like her Riverwalk chances if the veto pen were in the hands of a Gov. Davis.

It’s all enough to hearken back to 1986 and the gubernatorial campaign of Tampa’s Bob Martinez. The candidate’s campaign manager, the blunt, hard-charging Mac Stipanovich, was asked (by me): “What’s it worth to Tampa to have one of its own in the Governor’s Mansion?”

“Let’s just say that when you call,” responded Stipanovich with an accompanying wink, “it helps if the governor knows the caller.” For those who know Stipanovich, you know that was about as subtle as he gets.

World Cup: Nationalism For A Good Cause

I’ll admit up front that I’m no expert when it comes to the game of soccer. But in a frenzy of raw chauvinism, I hop on the World Cup bandwagon every four years and root for the ultimate home team. At least in America, it’s still a refreshingly safe, hooligan-free outlet for jingoism. Kick some grass for a good cause; then soccer succor until the next quadrennial gathering.

The World Cup is the most-watched event in the world. It is geographically disparate and culturally unique. Where else would you ever see such exotic pairings as Ukraine vs. Saudi Arabia, Ivory Coast vs. Serbia-Montenegro or Togo vs. anybody? There are also quaint post-colonial match-ups such as Portugal and Angola.

Having said all that, however, I was really steamed watching that USA-Italy game. Granted, the combination of bad refereeing and poor grounding in the rules (on my part) is an unholy alliance, but our guys, quite arguably, got hosed. Had to play half the game with only nine players, and no team in the history of the World Cup has ever even scored a single goal with only nine players. But it wasn’t just me that was choleric over the calls. The American commentators agreed with the American coach that it was awful officiating too.

And then some careless mistakes, an energy deficit and a controversial penalty kick in the disappointing loss to Ghana. Too little, too late, too slow, too bad.

Party on, Accra. Enjoy your national holiday.

The foul mood only led, to use a football term, to piling on.

I mean, do all those variations on a melodramatic dive really require stretcher bearers? If nothing else, it should be a liability issue to promptly send a player back into a game that he has just been removed from via stretcher.

And how about an accurate, contemporaneous clock? Why does this sport, unique among all, settle for an approximation of how much time is left? What’s with the arbitrary adding on of a couple of (“stoppage”) minutes at the end? Why can’t the clock just, well, stop when somebody fakes an injury; the soccer ball caroms up and over the Fly Emirates or Adidas flasher boards; a substitution is made; or the referee runs out of red cards?

Why do I put myself through it?

Probably because it’s just a game in a world at increasing geo-political odds and civilizational peril. Likely because it’s an opportunity to wax nationalistic over something that doesn’t involve foreign policy, pre-emptive strategies or enemies – just opponents.

“The Lost City”

When you only have one screen, as is the case with Tampa Theatre, you can’t afford many – maybe any – misses. Most movies go a week, maybe two. Rarely more. Among the exceptions: “Capote,” “March of the Penguins” and “Brokeback Mountain.” Now add “The Lost City,” the film based on the work of the late novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante that nostalgically chronicles the end of an era in Havana.

It recently completed a three-week-plus run.

As a market with strong Cuban roots, it was thought that “The Lost City” could draw well here, explained Tara Schroeder, Tampa Theatre’s community relations manager. Local Hispanic media and the Cuban Club helped get the word out. And actor-director-co-producer Andy Garcia agreed to do print and radio interviews with local Tampa media.

The first weekend’s gross was $14,300, which is roughly four times a good weekend. That kind of box office prompted Tampa Theatre to extend the run.

“We started getting calls and e-mails early on,” says Schroeder. “A lot of people had personal ties. Some came to see it more than once.”

And some lingered long after one Friday showing for an animated “cinema chat” that was equal parts pre-Castro reverie and post-revolution revulsion.

“I was getting teary hearing people’s stories,” recalled Schroeder.

She was not alone.

Head’s Up On Helmets

Generally speaking, athletes do not make the best — and frequently not even good — role models. Would that veterinarians and cancer researchers topped all lists.

Playing a game is not particularly important; it doesn’t win any victories for humanity; but it does catapult players to society’s center stage. Especially this one’s. And impressionable kids in America’s celebrity-lionizing culture will always be impressionable kids.

Cue Ben Roethlisberger.

By virtue of being the quarterback of the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, he is a major marquee name and a de facto role model. By virtue of being a helmet-less motorcycle rider, he is a major doofus. He also had been – prior to his recent accident — an undeniable traffic distraction on the streets of Pittsburgh, where no one is more easily recognized these days.

Fortunately, Roethlisberger survived his run-in with a car.

He will play another day and continue to be a high-profile role model to a bunch of kids who can only vicariously relate to a world class professional athlete. But by donning a helmet the next time he mounts a motorcycle – or by dismounting permanently – he will have gone where few famous athletes this side of Pat Tillman will ever go.

To a place where hero-worshipers can actually identify with their heroes. It’s time for Big Ben to take one for the real home team.

And who knows, such a prudent act could even help reverse the mindless trend of states repealing helmet laws. The number of “unhelmeted” deaths in Florida, for example, has risen from 22 in 1999 – before the helmet-law repeal — to 250 in 2004.

Vaccine Against Stupidity?

The World Health Organization, which began a global immunization drive against polio in 1988, failed to meet its target of global eradication by the end of last year. One reason: Nigeria, where the disease is making an insidious comeback.

Seems that the mostly Muslim north has been ordering an immunization boycott since 2003. Authorities claim the vaccine is part of a U.S.-led plot to render Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS.

Perhaps Bono, between playing concerts and playing off the West’s colonial guilt, could add another African cause (in addition to holding the corrupt accountable): Educate the stupid.