Author: opinionstogo

Chavez’s Chutzpah

There’s a lot not to like about Venezuela’s populist clown President Hugo Chavez, but let’s not include the political one-upsmanship he pulled recently in Massachusetts. That’s when Chavez authorized discounted home heating oil this winter for low-income Massachusetts residents through Citgo Petroleum, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company.

Make no mistake, this is all about politics, although poor people in the nation’s second-richest state will, indeed, benefit. It’s hardly happenstance that Chavez is working with Democratic Rep. William D. Delahunt and a local nonprofit energy corporation headed by former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy. And it comes at a time when U.S oil companies have been reluctant to do what Citgo did, and Congress continues noncommittal in response to rising oil prices.

And don’t you know that deep down Karl Rove, President’s Bush’s political trickster and guru, is begrudgingly saluting Chavez for pulling off a humanitarian stunt that embarrasses the world’s foremost economic power.

Send A Message To Looters And Lootees

We shouldn’t need any more rhetoric about how important evacuations are in times of impending natural disasters. It’s sufficiently self-evident.

But we now know how critical it is to provide for those with no personal transportation. And we acknowledge there will always be those too stubborn to leave.

But we also know this: There are many folks who won’t leave – or having left will prematurely return – because of the threat of looters. It’s a real threat – and a real logistical nightmare as a result.

So try this. In addition to mobilizing the National Guard in a timely fashion, let it be known up front and well in advance that local police as well as the Guard have orders beyond arrest. If necessary, they will shoot to kill. And they won’t have the luxury to reflect long on what constitutes “necessary.” It’s called anarchy prevention and — by extension — property protection. It’s also called sending a message.

To would-be looters and would-be lootees.

Celebrate Safely: Know The Drill

Much has been made of what most observers called excessive force imposed by security after the emotional USF win over Louisville at Raymond James Stadium. Some overly-exuberant Bulls’ fans disregarded warnings and orders to stay off the field. They trespassed and, as a result, were greeted with batons, Tasers and handcuffs – not high-fiving players.

Obviously there was plenty of overreaction to go around, especially on law enforcement’s part. Is Tasering commensurate punishment for the handful of trespassers after USF’s biggest win ever? This was a celebratory crowd, not a Bastille-storming mob.

Probably the best way to avoid repetition, however, is for USF to win more games like this. Then everybody will know the drill.

Rap And Roll?

When you’re a baby boomer and the music of your formative Philadelphia years was a continuous loop of Elvis, Jerry Lee, Fats, Little Richard and tons of Doo-Wop, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame evokes a special time. Not what Canton, Ohio or Cooperstown, NY are to football and baseball fans, but close enough.

When it opened in Cleveland in 1995, Little Richard cut the ceremonial ribbon. Chuck Berry and Bruce Springsteen performed.

Now, 10 years later a new group of inductees includes rap pioneers Grand Master Flash & the Furious Five.

Say it ain’t so.

Heavy metal noisemaker Black Sabbath and the punk-rocking Sex Pistols are (nominee) reaches enough. But at least carrying a tune and playing musical instruments were not incompatible with their acts.

But oxymoronic rap artists?

Would Canton take Ryan Leaf?

Would Cooperstown take Wilson Alvarez?

Security Absurdity: Putting Up With Pat-Downs

The homeland war on terrorism impacts relatively few terrorists. Security concerns necessarily inconvenience the masses.

It’s the nature of asymmetrical warfare. It’s also the price we pay not just to improve our chances of avoiding an atrocity and staying alive – but living our way of life.

Having said that, we can still do some pretty stupid things in the good name of national security and self preservation. The National Football League’s pat-down policy comes readily to mind.

It’s perversely egalitarian; everybody gets searched. As a result, you have 2-year-old tykes, senior citizens in wheelchairs and Cindy Gruden submitting their hips, bellies and backs for frisking. You never know who may be packing mass-destruction heat.

About the only thing more outrageous is the Bucs asking the Tampa Sports Authority to pay for it. Most NFL teams cover the increased security that comes with a post-9/11 world. But Malcolm Glazer isn’t most owners. The TSA is paying $9,500 per pat-down game at Raymond James Stadium. And it’s still out $237,000 for past unpaid security bills since 2001.

To be fair, the Bucs have a technical case. Its stadium agreement, which dates to 1996, stipulates that the TSA pay for security. The TSA construes that to mean the 1996 level of security. No one was anticipating the post-9/11 ratcheting of security measures.

That was then and this is now, says the TSA. That was then, and this is an extension of then, say the Glazers.

To be fairer, still, the Bucs should at least compromise with the authority. There’s plenty of precedent around the league for teams doing a lot more. But the Bucs remain public-relations and good-will challenged when it comes to their bottom line. Even for relatively chump change.

Obviously, Malcolm Glazer would rather be checked for explosives than write a check.

Fox In The Hunt

It’s not quite stop-the-presses news, but it is now official.

Long-shot, wild card Al Fox is in the race to succeed Jim Davis in Congress.

And that means something else is also a certainty.

The other Democratic candidates – Hillsborough County Commissioner Kathy Castor, State Senator Les Miller and Tampa attorneys Michael Steinberg and Scott Farrell — will not be able to finesse their positions and hedge their bets on Cuba. They won’t be able to maintain the incongruous position that while it’s inhumane for the Bush Administration to have tightened the screws on Cuban family visitations and remittances, it remains quite acceptably humane to maintain the long-running, counterproductive and cruel economic embargo. At least not without being called on it.

The 61-year-old Ybor City native and long-time Washington insider and lobbyist says Cuba is “the one issue that nobody else has.”

For sure, nobody else has his take. He’s vehemently opposed to the embargo and in favor of sitting down with Fidel Castro and normalizing relations. That’s a gutsy – some would say ill-advised and still politically untenable position — for a Florida politician.

His reasoning:

*”My position is what’s best for America, not what’s best for Cuba. The embargo is a relic of the Cold War. It costs us buckets of money.”

*”I support sitting down with the Cuban government as it is. It’s a sovereign country, and we don’t have to like it. For that matter, I don’t like North Korea or Saudi Arabia.”

While Fox insists he’s not a one-issue candidate, this is the one issue that will draw the most attention and generate the most debate heat.

He’ll likely not be the next U.S. Representative from District 11, but Al Fox will make sure the winner doesn’t get a pass on Cuba.

Photos Of Pubic Interest

Good call by Hillsborough Circuit Judge Wayne Timmerman in barring public access to graphic police photos of Debra Lafave. Let’s hear it for common sense and good taste.

Three points:

First, the letter of the law permits genital photos for identification purposes, whether the accused is drop-dead comely like Lafave or androgynously weird like Michael Jackson. Whether stirrup shots were necessary, is another matter. Lecherous is not a synonym for legal.

Second, the prosecution has made it clear that it has no plans to present the photos as evidence during Lafave’s trial on lewd-and-lascivious-battery charges.

Third, there is Florida public records law, there is the people’s right to know and there is the media’s penchant for pandering. Two local TV stations, WTSP-Channel 10 and WFTS-Channel 28, did not distinguish themselves by filing written, albeit routine, requests to see the photos before Judge Timmerman made his ruling. The matter is now moot, but the principle isn’t. What was it about pictures tantamount to gynecological close-ups that were so compelling?

Boston: Some Politics, Some History

A couple of observations from a recent trip to Boston:

*Speculation keeps revving up that Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is positioning himself for a run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Ideologically, he’s working hard on his GOP bona fides. He’s increasingly disinclined to compromise on gay marriage; is now gearing up to take on liberal state lawmakers on welfare overhaul; and is intimating that wiretapping mosques as a means of intelligence gathering in the fight against terrorism has merit.

He’s also been accorded positive national media coverage for his willingness to take in thousands of Katrina evacuees.

And Romney recently opened his summer home to several hundred Republicans from New Hampshire. It was a party fund-raiser. As vice chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Romney was an appropriate host to the Granite State party operatives. They responded with a gift: a copy of “Why New Hampshire?” — a book on the first-in-the-nation primary.

*Here in Hillsborough County – from Plant City to Ybor City – we are blessed with history that we take great pride in preserving. Hence, our numerous designated historic districts.

But history is relative.

Staying in the Colonial Inn, in the heart of Concord, Mass., was fascinating — even if you were not a history buff. The waiter’s presentation included historical tidbits – such as the year the Colonial Inn, the part we were dining in, was built. It was 1716. More than a half century before there was a United States.

History can also be humbling.

Name Game Redux

Here we go again. St. Petersburg, which is quite the happening place and the downtown model for what Tampa would like to be, still has an identity crisis.

Over the Devil Rays.

Seems that the national media persist in occasionally confusing Tampa Bay with Tampa, thus short shrifting St. Petersburg as the actual site of Tropicana Field. Miffed to the max was St. Pete City Councilman Bill Foster, who drafted a resolution requesting the Rays to formally put St. Petersburg in their name. As if.

It’s the Rays’ call legally until the team’s contract with the city runs out in 20 years. But they’re not about to abandon their regional identification, even if the national media don’t know the difference between Tampa Bay and Green Bay.

In the mean time, the Rays’ host city still gets 81 St. Petersburg datelines a year, which go across the country – and sometimes farther. And should the Rays get competitive and attract network TV coverage, those waterfront-vista shots will render all this poor-me pique irrelevant.

But the day the team agrees to call itself the St. Petersburg Devil Rays will be the day we read of the Foxboro Patriots.

In-Your-Face Motivation

Perhaps you saw the photo. If not, you’ve seen their like before.

It showed a seventh grade English teacher in Tampa taking a whipped cream pie in the face, much to the delight of an auditorium full of middle schoolers. The context: It was part of the school’s celebration of a successful magazine fundraising drive and recognition of its track team.

Here’s another context.

In a profession crying out for the best and brightest and beseeching society for respect, this doesn’t help, however well intentioned. There are plenty of fun, creative ways to motivate and reward children shy of belittling slapstick.

Granted, the Mr. Chips approach is probably passé — but Soupy Sales?