More Bucs-Eagles’ Hype — No But(t)s About It

Sunday’s Tampa Tribune had a prominent piece on Warren Sapp that included a sidebar of Sappisms. Included is one that we will all see again. And again. It will be airing in the Philadelphia media and posted on the Philadelphia Eagles’ bulletin board from now until Monday night, Sept. 8. That’s when the Bucs begin defense of their Super Bowl championship against Philly in the debut of the Eagles’ new stadium, Lincoln Financial Field.

“My first victory in the NFL was at (Veterans Stadium),” recalled Sapp. “I opened the Vet with a (butt) whooping, and I closed it with a (butt) whooping. And I love it. I’m going to get to open their new house with a (butt) whooping. It’s coming.”

Unless Sapp ups the rhetorical ante, that quote likely will run like a continuous loop over the next two months–right through the Monday Night Football pre-game hype. Red meat for the revenge-seeking Eagles, their love-hate Philadelphia media and Philly’s carnivorous, mutant fans.

And Sapp wouldn’t have it any other way. No buts about it.

Fewer Cell Phonies On Call At The Theater, In Restaurants

Never have such legions said so little in front of so many. In a Publix check-out line, on a health club stationary bike, at a mall. I think we’d all agree that the world of cell phonies is too much with us.

But now, at long last, there’s good news on the cellphone front. Recent surveys tell us that cellphone users are becoming more mindful of their surroundings and, as a result, seemingly more courteous.

A survey in 2002 found that only 6 percent of Americans thought talking on the phone during a movie or a play was acceptable. Two years prior, that figure was 11 percent. Moreover, 28 percent of Americans thought it permissible to cell-talk in a restaurant.

But before you get giddy with the prospect that America will no longer celebrate the Year of the Boor, consider this: there are nearly 150 million cellphone subscribers in this country. That means that, trend toward courtesy notwithstanding, some 9 million Americans still find it acceptable to chat at the theater and more than 42 million think it’s OK to blab away in restaurants.

Bon Appetit.

Yo, Merriam-Web

Yo, Merriam.

May I have a word? “Youse-guys.” n. Actually a gender-neutral collective noun with informal, utterly inclusive overtones. Formerly a pure Philly colloquialism.

I understand that it still doesn’t make it into your book, the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, now out in its 11th edition.

But “headbangers” and “dead presidents” did? What’s next? Ho?

Yo!

I know that all living languages are constantly changing to reflect usage, which is a pretty good reason not to grow up speaking Latin. And popular culture, of course, will always be a prime source of rookie words — usually accompanied by a prudent etymological gestation period. That’s to make words prove themselves — showing that they’re not just ad hoc slang from the fringe.

As they wend their way through the pop culture — whether “jazz,” “photocopy,” “superstar,” “jailbait,” “spiffy,” “groupie,” “goon” or “porno” — they subtly seep into broader usage. We’ve seen this with other recent Merriam-Webster inclusions, i.e., “comb-over,” “heart-healthy” and “McJob.”

But there’s a difference between pop culture and sub culture. As in mainstream usage and linguistic retention pond. That’s why “skank” still doesn’t pass muster and “monica” isn’t yet a M-W verb.

By the way, “headbanger” is defined as both a hard rock musician and a fan. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Thanks For Not Calling

One of the best ideas since the weed whacker is the “Do Not Call Registry.” The Federal Trade Commission estimates that more than 60 million will have signed on by Oct. 1, when the registry takes effect.

However, we now hear of a down side. Not good for our fragile economy. According to the American Teleservices Association, eliminating so many callees will “wipe out about 2 million jobs.”

Two questions:

*Even if that inflated, self-serving projection were to be near accurate, won’t many of those lost jobs be made up in spam and direct mail?

*Who keeps buying stuff from these people?

A Killer Challenge For Baylor Recruiting

College athletics — ok, big time, revenue-producing, basketball and football programs — are no strangers to scandal. Foremost among them: oxymoronic “student-athletes” and their rap sheet, thuggish, criminal behavior.

But even for the win-at-all-costs crowd, what’s going on at Baylor University is a new low on the sordid scale. The Waco, Texas-based university can’t find one of its players, 6-foot-10 forward Patrick Donnehy, and it increasingly looks as if he has been murdered. The investigation remains centered on Baylor players, including the euphemistic “person of interest.”

So what’s a head coach to do? If you’re the ironically named Dave Bliss of Baylor, you forge on. That means, among other things, resumption of the recruiting game. A campus youth basketball camp was recently held as scheduled. “We feel we have to move forward,” explained Bliss.

What must be a helluva lot harder to explain to recruits — and their parents — is the nature of a program that wishes it were merely reeling from bogus SAT scores or boosters gone wild. What do you say when your program is in the midst of a nationally publicized homicide investigation?

“Well, Mrs. Jones, “we’ve tried to do everything in the appropriate manner and now we have to move on. But please put this unfortunate incident into context. As of mid-June we had 11 players here at Baylor University under scholarship. Ten of them were not murdered. That’s better than 91%. And I checked again last night. Everyone is accounted for.”

All-Star Shame

First the good news. Devil Rays’ pitcher Lance Carter has been picked for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game.

Now the bad news. Devil Rays’ pitcher Lance Carter has been picked for MLB’s All-Star game.

Look, Carter’s a nice guy who’s made a remarkable recovery from major elbow surgery, but he’s not that good. In another era, he’d be another journeyman. Maybe in the minors.

He’s a closer with an ERA over 4.00 and 30 per cent blown saves. He closes for the D-Rays because Esteban Yan was run out of town. He closes for the D-Rays because there’s nobody else.

Carter’s selection is Exhibit A for what’s wrong with the All-Star game. Every team, no matter how bereft of talent, must be represented. That’s a farce. So Carter is in — and David Wells, Mike Mussina, Mariano Rivera and Roger Clemens are out.

And to compound the already fractured, MLB Commissioner Bud “Lite” Selig has declared that the winner of this meaningless exhibition will have a bearing on the World Series. The winning league will see its World Series representative accorded home field advantage.

Imagine, in retrospect, a save or blown save by, say, Lance Carter, determining whether or not the New York Yankees, for example, are home for the seventh game against Atlanta.

Unless, of course, the All-Star Game ends in another tie.

Senior Rite Of Passage: Handing Over The Keys

It’s something we all will face — if we live long enough.

That moment of truth when we are asked to hand over our car keys — and surrender the sense of independence that those keys embody.

Understandably, the issue is emotionally charged.

For the senior motorist there’s already the calendar and the mirror. Now this: society’s signpost that the end is officially near. “Senior moments” work as self-effacing humor — but they’re not funny behind the wheel.

But no one, of course, wants to play the grim reaper to seniors who clutch that driver’s license like a personal touchstone — one that reaffirms their participation in a society that seems to increasingly marginalize them from its mainstream.

But there are other, less sentimental, reasons for such reluctance.

There’s the touchy area of age discrimination. And then the considerable influence of AARP, the advocacy group that has a history of stonewalling any age-based restrictions on older drivers.

As a result, those driver’s licenses of older Americans that are turned in are typically at the initiative of family members doing the right, however demeaning and depressing, thing. That’s because there are no additional restrictions on older drivers. None. No matter how old. And licenses can be renewed twice by mail or online without a vision test. Had Strom Thurmond been a Florida resident, he could have taken his driver’s license to the grave with him.

But the fact that older drivers are more at risk for impaired vision, hearing and/or reflexes is no mere family matter. It’s a legitimate public safety issue.

To this end, there’s legislation awaiting Gov. Jeb Bush’s signature that would require the state to accept more responsibility in the licensing of older motorists. It would require those 80 and above to pass a vision test before their license is renewed. It has the support of the AARP, and it would begin January 1.

If the object of this bill were to be too little, too late in life, this effort would already be a success. Even though there are more than 700,000 Florida drivers who would be impacted by such a law, 80 is unacceptably high as a meaningful cut-off. A range of 70 to 75 would be a practicable — and necessarily arbitrary — alternative. And vision as the sole criterion would fly in the face of what any neurologist would tell you generally about octogenarians.

Monitoring and licensing our elderly drivers is not a matter of governmental intrusion, nor is it a function of age bias. It’s common sense in behalf of the common good. Especially in this demographically skewed state.

Helping older drivers stay safe, while looking out for everyone else, should be the goal. A physical, a vision test and a field test should be part of any relevant licensing procedure.

There are worst scenarios than taking a senior’s keys, many of them tragic. Merely adding a vision test at age 80 is to be blinded to that reality.

Affirmative Semantics From S.D. O’Connor

The usual spin from the usual suspects followed the Supreme Court’s recent decision that race still matters in college admissions. For example, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek — of governor’s office sit-in fame — called on Jeb Bush to now correct the “mistake with One Florida.”

Four points:

*The Court’s decision on the University of Michigan Law School case reaffirms that affirmative action is permitted. But it’s not mandated.

*Back to Bakke. What wasn’t settled 25 years ago remains unsettled today. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor advises waiting to see how the landscape looks in 2028. Chances are, no different.

*Dwight Eisenhower had no idea what he was getting in Earl Warren. Ronald Reagan’s legacy now includes Justice O’Connor, the diversity diva.

*Semantics rule. Strategic word choice has always been a vital part of selling social agendas — as well as creating effective push polls. To wit: the connotations of “the homeless” as opposed to “vagrants.” Or “standards” and “censorship.” Or “pro-choice” and “pro-life” instead of “pro-abortion” and “anti-abortion.” On “affirmative action,” itself a benign enough term, polled Americans consistently have favored “equal opportunity.” Not so, however, when it’s referenced as “racial preference” — let alone “reverse discrimination” and “racial quotas.”

And word has it none of this linguistic legerdemain is about to change. Anyone hear an affirmative action celebrant crowing: “Yea, we won. Lower standards stay”?

Proper To Call Art Inappropriate?

Here’s a word not typically associated with art: appropriate.

It’s at the core of a flap over aborted plans to display work by a respected Tampa artist in the Orlando City Hall. Tampa City Council member Linda Saul-Sena, who likes the work of the artist in question, Jeff Whipple, calls it censorship.

While it’s fair to question Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer’s Kinkadeian taste in art, that’s not the point. The issue is who, other than the artist, is entitled to make the call as to what is appropriate for a given venue?

Former Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood had no problem with Whipple’s work, and she made the decision to exhibit his 25-year retrospective. Presumably, some Mapplethorpe pieces, for example, might not have passed muster. City Hall is a public place, but it’s not to be confused with a museum. Remember the St. Petersburg experience with Jim Crow-era art in its City Hall? It was acceptable for the longest time.

Mayor Dyer may be a philistine, but his input should have standing.

He objected, for example, to Whipple’s self-portrait of the artist with a phone cord wrapped around his neck. And he didn’t much care for a painting that depicts a man with one leg sliced off holding a coffee mug and drill and a woman with bleeding legs holding a coffee mug and a power saw. He either didn’t get the social commentary or, having gotten it, still didn’t deem it appropriate for City Hall.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Whipple said that the content of art to be shown in a public place “shouldn’t be an issue for someone who’s not an art professional to make a decision about.”

Well, former Mayor Hood made one.

Deck Stacked Against Liberia’s Taylor?

Liberia’s cease-fire is typically described as “fragile.” That’s like saying the United Nations can be, well, disputatious. The return of the abyss seems but another atrocity away.

Liberia has been a mess for a long time, but nothing matches the carnage-filled regime of President Charles Taylor. In the aftermath of Taylor’s coup against Samuel Doe in 1989, virtually the entire population of 3.3 million has been displaced and hundreds of thousands have been killed — often brutally. Taylor has been indicted for war crimes by a special U.N. court.

Now, as the U.S. explores the possibility of sending in troops as part of an international peacekeeping — or peace-establishing — force, Taylor has indicated an interest in stepping down — AFTER the arrival of peacekeepers. Details are yet to be fleshed out, and subplot scenarios abound.

Taylor, who was trained in the guerrilla camps of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, is a certifiably dishonorable man. He’s earned that rep the old-fashioned way: he’s been accused of trafficking in weapons and diamonds, conscripting child soldiers and backing rebels known for raping and hacking off the limbs of civilians. He is not to be trusted — or believed.

So, suppose he doesn’t go gently into that Nigerian night for some asylum? What if a bunch of henchmen follow suit? What if Liberia starts to look ominously like Somalia, the sequel? What if the “Q” word — quagmire — looks increasingly applicable to Liberia?

Now suppose the U.S. reissues another — Iraqiesque — deck of most-wanted playing cards? Taylor would obviously be the prize catch. Would Taylor be the Ace of Spades?

How politically incorrect would that be?