Author: opinionstogo

Use Asian Model To Bridge Graduation Gap

Now comes another study, this one from Harvard University, to remind us that the racial gap in graduation rates remains stubbornly, unacceptably large. “Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis in the South” reports that in Florida 45 percent of black students graduated in four years; 52 percent of Latinos; 54 percent of Native Americans; 63 percent of whites; and 80 percent of Asians.

The study’s recommendations include the usual references to better tracking and more support for dropout prevention programs.

Here’s a suggestion. Use the Asian model. It works even when students don’t speak English natively. It’s called family, work ethic and expectations of success. And government can’t parcel out any of it.

Customized Spas Making Big Splash

For many Floridians, having a refreshing, man-made body of water in their backyard is no mere amenity. It’s a Florida lifestyle necessity.

Over the years, the needs would include more elaborate pools with more sophisticated bells and whistles and increasingly lush landscaping.

But the fastest growing segment of the backyard waterscape business is spas, according to the National Spa & Pool Institute. There are now more than 6 million spas and hot tubs in the (contiguous 48) United States – 10 per cent of them in Florida. Only California has more.

“Almost everyone today wants a spa with their pool,” says Jim Holloway, vice president Holloway Pools Inc., a Tampa-based builder of classic, concrete pools and spas. “Ten years ago, we hardly saw any. There are even folks who only want a spa.”

The explanation is easy, says Laraine Hancock, a yoga instructor who had Holloway build a stand-alone spa – with accompanying, bricked-over patio slab — in her South Tampa backyard.

“We don’t have kids, and I’m not into swimming laps,” explains Hancock, 58. “It’s therapeutic; it lends itself to entertaining; it’s relatively low maintenance; and it’s the aesthetic centerpiece of our backyard.”

Hancock could be Exhibit A for the surge in spa popularity, says Wendy Parker, the director of marketing for the Florida Swimming Pool Association.

“Baby boomers have more disposable income than any generation before,” she points out. “A priority is creating backyard living space. For that, a spa works wonderfully well. Some like the feel of a resort. It’s more for adult entertaining. Often they’ll add grills and barbeque islands.”And a lot more. Spas with custom art work can easily cost at least $50,000.

“Spas now have every accoutrement you can imagine,” says Parker. “It can get very personalized. It’s way beyond cup holders.”

Indeed, it can range from electronic controls that work from a cell phone, fountain-type statuary and variations on a lighting theme to murals, foggers, oxidizers, sound systems, therapy jets, below-the-water-line tiles and 24-carat gold step edges.

In fact, spas can now be customized with glass tiles containing digital images. As in corporate logos, family photos or commercial aquatic scenes.

“As long as an item isn’t copyrighted, we can print it,” says Phil Williams, the owner of Seminole-based Tilesque. “There’s certainly a market for custom looks. We’ve seen exponential growth the last year or so.”The myriad of aesthetic and comfort options also has created an inevitable niche: design consultants. Their advice is a lot more than “Just add water.”

“The visual element is much more important today, and many contractors don’t have the time to spend on design,” says Brian VanBauer of Miami, perhaps the state’s pre-eminent designer. “We do lots of stand-alone spas. Space is at a premium. Smaller lots. Zero lot lines or townhouses. A lot of aging baby boomers with aches and pains.

“Probably two thirds of our projects involve some sort of covered area outside,” adds VanBauer, whose international clientele includes the Tampa Bay area. “Cabanas, trellises, gazebos. You have to focus on the clients’ needs. They’re all different in their own way.”

Shooting Impacts Ybor Perception

That recent, headline-grabbing shooting in Ybor City – in the parking lot beside La Tropicana Café – was unfortunate and troubling on a couple of levels.

Two Haines City visitors were pistol whipped by (five) armed predator-cowards, but were not seriously injured. Traumatized to be sure, but not hurt badly. They won’t soon forget the frightening experience.

And, chances are, they won’t soon return to Ybor. That – and the attendant publicity — makes Ybor City another victim.

An ironic one in that the incident, in which three of the perpetrators were wounded and one killed by plainclothes officers, actually belies falling crime statistics in the historic entertainment district. More aggressive law enforcement has resulted in lower numbers across the board – rapes, aggravated assaults, robberies, burglaries and vehicle thefts – for the first four months of 2005 compared with the same period in ’04. Murders for the period remained the same – zero.

“The vast majority of the time – even late — things are pretty comfortable,” says Tom Keating, president of the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce. “I think the word is out that people are paying attention.”

Keating was alluding to the beefed up police presence, including plainclothes officers on the streets, uniformed officers on horseback and off-duty cops in clubs. He also salutes the ongoing liaison between police and the business community.

“We do a lot of events here,” Keating explains, “and we need to know what happens and what is happening on a regular basis. The interfacing with police – and I want to single out Cpt. Marco Trigiano – has been outstanding.”

He also underscores the importance of merchants looking out for one another.

“This isn’t a business district,” he points out. “This is a business community. The people are very aware and very good about covering each other’s back.

“A shooting is not some daily activity, to say the least,” says Keating. “But the real trick is getting more traffic – literally more eyes on the street – in the early part of the evening and then de-emphasizing the really late night.”

Someone else had something pertinent to say about the shooting incident. That was Tampa Police Department spokeswoman Laura McElroy, who stressed a TPD bottom line.

According to a Bay Area daily, she said, “A police shooting is something you never want to have to deal with. But this is the best outcome. The officers walked away, the victims walked away, and the suspects are paying a price for their actions.”

In a revolving-door criminal justice system, one which all of the Ybor predator-perps were well acquainted, this qualifies as justice ultimately dispensed.

Bottom line, indeed.

Say It’s So, Joe

Penn State, which opens its 2005 football season against USF, has had one winning season in the last five. For many observers, that’s reason sufficient to conclude that the game has passed by its legendary coach, 78-year-old Joe Paterno.

It’s all about recruiting, any knowledgeable fan can tell you. The bluest blue chippers don’t see themselves prepping for the pros in boring uniforms under the tutelage of a septuagenarian who looks like he should be re-soling shoes. He might be somebody’s icon — but not theirs.

Now comes this small wire item buried in the sports page last week. It seems that a PSU defensive tackle – one expected to be a key player this year – has been expelled for violating regulations regarding sexual conduct. Specifically, he violated a Code of Conduct about “confining another student against their will.”

Say it ain’t so, Joe. What are you doing in an arena where to be competitive you have to be increasingly dependent on Hessians with attitudes rather than legitimate student-athletes? It shouts volumes when circumstances dictate that a proud university needs to put in writing that it’s not permissible to “confine another student against their will.”

Paterno doesn’t need any more of this. His legacy should have been everything that had happened prior to the last five years. A couple of national championships, a handful of undefeated seasons — and the “noble experiment,” which meant high graduation rates and rare rap-sheet references.

Say it’s so, Joe. Step down after this season before any more high school hot shots know nothing other than a PSU program that loses more than it wins. Step down from compromised standards that result in a written proscription about confining people against their will. And step away from the caliber of players who can’t even abide by that.

Hear, Hear On Sound-System Law

Amid the usual maelstrom of political activity that is the culmination of any legislative session, lots of stuff gets signed into law that stays under the radar for a good while. Well, here’s one you should be hearing about shortly — and coming to a traffic stop near you.

Thanks to a provision in a transportation package signed by Gov. Jeb Bush, in less than two weeks it will be illegal, essentially, for auto sound systems to out-decibel jet engines.

Technically, it means that police can start fining ($70) drivers if their sound systems are audible from 25 feet away – as opposed to the current ineffectual buffer of 100 feet.

The usual suspects – those who sell the pricey systems and those who impose them on the rest of us — are taking the usual, whiny, self-serving umbrage. They could care less that they create decibel hell for fellow motorists.

But it’s not just awful music played awfully loud; it’s also dangerous. Public safety takes a hit anytime motorists can’t hear the siren from an ambulance or a fire truck.

But mainly, it’s just really rude and ear-splittingly obnoxious. There ought to be a (viable) law. Now there is.

Jackson Finding: Not Guilty But Not Innocent

Lay persons – especially partisans – regularly interchange “not guilty” and “innocent.” One is a legal term, the other a moral judgment. If ever there was a time when such a misappropriation was inappropriate, it would be the lurid Michael Jackson case.

He was adjudged “not guilty” and walked. But, please, he hasn’t been innocent since the ’70s.

Subtitles, Please

I caught a British movie, “Layer Cake,” last week at Tampa Theatre. In all likelihood, it wasn’t very good, but I can’t be absolutely sure since I understood less than a third of the dialogue.

Thus, I propose a new cinematic rule of thumb: If a movie for American consumption contains more than one character with a blatant cockney accent, it needs subtitles. Ebonics is easier.

Iran And Its Axis Of Envy Generation

A prominent piece in last week’s Time magazine, entitled “Fast Times In Tehran,” jogged another memory from a trip to Iran just prior to Sept. 11, 2001.

The Time piece tells of how the autocratic mullahs have managed to buy off – using rising oil revenues – a younger generation increasingly more sybaritic than smoldering. Through more subsidies on more commodities, some relaxed social mores and generous loan policies, the government has – for now, at least – largely co-opted organized political dissent.

The expected election of pragmatic establishment fixture – read: cunning centrist – Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as president underscores the political torpor. There will be no groundswells of affection for the departing and disappointing Mohammed Khatami, the would-be reformer and lame-duck bust, after two ineffectual terms.

And yet there is the sense that the despotic regime, in buying off a generation may have bought less time than it supposes.

I harken back to a conversation in a shop in an Isfahan bazaar. It still resonates.

It’s a perspective on the U.S. – as well as Iranian youth – from Akbar Heshani, a well-traveled, educated, English-fluent carpet merchant. Heshani’s worldview is of someone who has lived in the West and visited world capitals worth visiting.

“First of all, I think America is a great country, and I love Americans. I think a lot of Iranians would say the same thing.

“But there’s also a lot – at least to me – that doesn’t make good sense. You have more freedoms than we do, and I won’t kid you, a lot of average Iranians would like more access to the internet, better television and videos, wine to drink at a restaurant, and so forth.

“But we don’t think, quite honestly, that Americans handle their freedoms with responsibility. Your ‘free press,’ is also free to pander to the worst in human nature. In fact, they helped make the (1979-80) hostage situation, which was shameful and regrettable, much worse by playing to the crowd, which was the same 500 students night after night at the (U.S.) embassy. Your entertainment media gets violent and pornographic, and it’s reflected in kids getting murdered in your schools. With a ban on alcohol, we don’t have Iranians killing each other on the highways.

“I know this seems so repressive to Americans, but we don’t want your excesses.

“But as for our young people, who weren’t around for the Revolution, I think they would like some excess. I guess all young people do.”

Precisely.

For all its nuclear nationalism and post-shah “Great Satan” rhetoric, Iran isn’t the tribal, jihadi-crazed mess that is Iraq. Nor is it the xenophobic basket case with nukes that is North Korea. And it’s not pseudo-ally Saudi Arabia, the infidel-hating epicenter of radical Islamic Wahhabism.

Frankly, there is legitimate hope that when the educated, consumption-enamored Axis of Envy generation finally comes of governing age, it will move to reduce theocratic excesses to symbolic trappings and assert itself as a mature global player – not a rogue religious state.

There is still a very viable future for Iranians – Persians – who don’t want to be a global filling station and don’t see the West as neo-Crusaders. Nor do they want to repeal the last dozen centuries.

Amid all the Islamic subplots – including those involving our corrupt, undemocratic, ostensible friends – the next generation in Iran may be our best bet to avoid a zero-sum religious war. These are people we ultimately should be able to work with. There is reason for optimism. They like our excesses.