Author: opinionstogo

It’s Trump; It Towers; But It’s Not Trampa

The recent announcement of the Trump Tower Tampa produced the predictable hoopla, hype and commentary provincialism. It comes with the territory: the wealth, the charisma, the power, the pretension, the hair. Donald Trump is a mogul, a caricature and a brand name. Love him, lionize him or loathe him, he is what he is. And he’s heard it all – and courted it all. Because it works.

As for Tampa, it’s more than reasonable to ask what TTT could mean for downtown. It’s also prudent to ask if the market is here or will be wooed here for the sort of unprecedented prices – topping out at some $6 million — being asked for the “privilege” of living in the opulent, 52-story, $220-million waterfront condo.

As for the commentary, frankly it’s no longer rat’s patootie cute to flagellate Tampa for being, well, so Tampa. Among other things — like it or not — it’s becoming the sort of hamlet that is attracting developers who build the sort of things that columnists can’t afford.

NFL And Networks Are Co-Conspirators

If the National Football League and its network co-conspirators really, REALLY wanted to do something about the over-the-top player antics that periodically bring the league seemingly unwanted notoriety, here’s a suggestion. Forget the pro forma statements of regret. Forget levying fines on the obscenely compensated. But do this: keep the cameras off of showboating individuals after a play has ended.

Sometimes you add by subtracting. This is one of those times.

Go right to replay, put up a graphic or a test pattern or look for trite reaction shots in the stands. Do not, repeat do NOT, linger on wide outs, running backs, defensive backs, defensive lineman, etc. who go into their individual, look-at-me, juvenile hijinks that range from boorish to vulgar. If no one — save enabling live partisans — could get a look, there might, repeat MIGHT, be less incentive to do it.

As it is, completions, incompletions, first downs, sacks, fumble recoveries and interceptions are all provocations to trip the light fantastic as only mugging athletes can. And that’s why touchdowns – occurrences traditionally worth “celebrating” – seemingly require an orchestrated upping of the ante, i.e., the (moon) shot heard ’round the sports world earlier this month.

As to whether the networks, who pay outrageous sums to televise pro football, would want to make such a coverage change, it’s a long shot. Likely a no-shot. They like exploiting the trash-talking as if it were merely gamesmanship; they follow and focus on the sophomoric, classless antics as if they were mere extensions of enthusiasm.

They think there’s not enough of us who know the difference.

They are probably right.

Armstrong Strongarms the Public

We now know that ostensible journalist Armstrong Williams, whose influential take on “No Child Left Behind” was co-opted and subsidized by the Department of Education, is to journalism what Paris Hilton is to acting.

But there’s a lot of blame to spread around when propaganda masquerades as news. There’s also one critical concept — public relations — that needs context.

PR primer

Let’s start with PR. It’s not journalism, but it’s not wrong. It should be an integral part of responsible leadership. It is as valid as it is valuable. Indeed, a company or a government would be remiss if it didn’t use all of its communication tools.

Keep in mind that the PR-government nexus predates the spinsanity of the Clinton and Bush Administrations. As well as Michael Deaver’s orchestrations for Ronald Reagan and FDR’s masterful “fireside chat” strategy. In fact, it was Woodrow Wilson who created the U.S. Committee on Public Information — for the expressed purpose of galvanizing public support for World War I.

For a government entity – with obvious taxpayer obligations – it’s part of the charge to inform the public about what it’s getting for its tax dollars. How well and how scrupulously you do that is what it’s all about.

There’s effective and ineffective. The former can be as basic as a well-written press release that includes a compelling news peg and is sent to the appropriate person. The latter would be a blatantly self-serving fluff item sent cluelessly to a desk or a department.

There’s also ethical and unethical. There’s nothing inherently wrong, for example, with sending video press releases to the electronic media. But mislabeling a spokesperson as a reporter would be unconscionably unethical.

Last year the Government Accountability Office criticized the Office of National Drug Control Policy for a release that used a contractor posing as a journalist. And the General Accounting Office accused the Department of Health and Human Services of sending out falsified “video news releases” that were used by 40 local TV stations.

Media’s role

Then there is media culpability and complicity – as in the aforementioned 40 TV stations.

It’s one thing for government to try to manipulate and manage the news. In a democracy with a free press, however, that effort cannot ultimately succeed without an enabling media — unprofessional, budget-squeezing and lazy.

A media that accepts pre-packaged, pre-spun news as legitimate fare. A media that doesn’t fact-check. A media too enamored of scandal and celebrity staples to scrutinize the details of more pedestrian – but more complicated – news items.

The shilling fields

Thanks to USA Today’s uncovering of a Department of Education contract that paid Williams $240,000 to shill for “NCLB,” we are now privy to one of the more egregious abuses in American PR-media annals. Williams, a high-profile, black syndicated columnist and conservative, cable-TV commentator, has been outed as a journalistic harlot, hooking for the DOE. And, yes, Education Secretary Roderick Paige had given his see-no-evil blessing.

In a comment that redefines understatement, Williams acknowledged that he understood “why some people think it’s unethical” and conceded that “My judgment was not the best.”

Worse yet was the reaction of DOE.

In a stonewalling response that Richard Nixon – or Joseph Goebels — might have admired, the DOE actually defended the mole-in-the media relationship, calling it “a permissible use of taxpayer funds.” Williams was part of its minority outreach program, explained DOE. His contract was for “advertising.”

No harm, no foul. And obviously no sense of shame over being caught trying to undermine a system that depends on informed public debate where “journalists” aren’t paid advocates for a point of view.

Fallout follow-up

But also impacted are legitimate “outreach” programs. There are valid reasons why minorities might want to consider the party of Thomas Sowell, J.C. Watts and Colin Powell instead of the party of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Kweisi Mfume. Why they might want to opt out of Democratic lock-step and consider self-sufficiency as an alternative to historic dependence.

Williams also has made it easier for those who look askance at conservative blacks as so many “Uncle Toms” and so much Republican window dressing.

And coming in the wake of the CBS and other media scandals, Williams has helped make the case for those already disposed to dismiss the media as something less than “fair and balanced.”

In sum, the consequences of Williams’ DOE work – as he himself might inimitably characterize it — are “not the best.”

Armwood’s Example

Mayor Pam Iorio recently made a presentation that concerned young people – at a pivotal point in their lives. It had nothing to do with teenage curfews. Nor did it have anything to do with lobbying for state money for more juvenile detention facilities.

It had everything to do with saluting a group of youths on an incredible achievement. She was out at Armwood High School in Seffner to salute the nationally ranked Hawks on their back-to-back state football championships. It is unprecedented in Hillsborough County.

Two points.

First, these are kids who don’t require curfews – nor electronic monitoring devices. They are hard workers and they are winners – in the classroom and on the football field. They are black and they are white and they work as one.

And none of it happens by accident. Dedicated coaches can only do so much. Obviously, there is a lot of parental reinforcement. That’s often the key factor in who brings home a state championship trophy and who is fitted for a monitoring anklet.

The other point.

Isn’t it refreshing that these high school athletes, a number of whom live in the school’s satellite area in Tampa and commute to the suburbs — can transcend city-county limits to realize their potential? Hopefully, certain parochial politicians have noted it as well.

Moss Gathers No Sympathy

Barring some miraculous outbreak of good taste and civilized decorum, virtually nothing – from fines to taunting penalties – will alter the NFL’s joining the NBA in an ongoing dissent into hip-hop hell. There is no re-bottling the genie of boorish behavior.

The game is largely played by black athletes, very few of whom would be mistaken for the second coming of Gale Sayers or Julius Erving. They are the hip hop generation, and if you don’t like it, don’t watch. That’s why there’s tennis and golf and why there used to be hockey.

Ironically, for all the notoriety caused by Randy Moss’ latest episode, it is one of the more benign examples. The simulated “mooning” of Green Bay Packer fans, it turns out, was more turnabout than turn-off.

Apparently there’s a long-running, stupid tradition among some Packer drunks of “mooning” the opposing team bus after games. Moss responded in kind. Even Tony Dungy thought it was practically funny. As opposed to some of Moss’ other imbroglios over the years, this one wasn’t even illegal.

But if the NFL and its network co-conspirators really wanted to do, well, SOMETHING other than issue pro forma statements and levy fines to the obscenely compensated, here’s what they conceivably could do. Add this directive to the TV coverage guidelines: keep the cameras off show-boating individuals after a play has ended.

Go right to replay, put up a graphic or look for reaction shots in the stands. Do not, repeat DO NOT, linger on wide outs, running backs, defensive backs, defensive linemen, etc. who go into their individual, look-at-me, juvenile antics. If no one save enabling live partisans could get a look, there might, repeat MIGHT, be less incentive to do it.

As it is, tackles, incompletions, first downs, sacks, fumble recoveries and interceptions are all preludes to trip the light fantastic as only mugging athletes can. And that’s why touchdowns – events traditionally worth “celebrating” – seemingly require an upping of the ante, i.e., the (moon) shot heard ’round the sports world.

As to whether the networks, who pay outrageous sums to televise pro football, would want to make such a change, that’s a long shot. Likely a no shot. They like exploiting the trash-talking as if it were merely gamesmanship; they follow sophomoric, classless antics as if they were mere extensions of enthusiasm.

They think there’s not enough of us who know the difference

.They are probably right.

On-Campus Affairs Show No Class

Here we go again.

Because of a high-profile affair between a student and an English professor some months back, the USF faculty is at odds again over whether the university should have a formal policy banning romantic relationships between professors and students. A lot of universities have such stringent policies. More do than don’t.

It’s a shame it has come down to this, but a formal ban – with some common sense wiggle room for the rare exception — probably works best.

Relationship chemistry – any more than human nature — will never, of course, be exempt from the college campus. But this is not about budding romance between peers; this is about something that is inherently exploitative – and too often winds up in a sexual harassment suit.

This is about conflict of interest. Corporations with less noble objectives than universities won’t tolerate it.

And this is less about the civil rights of consenting adults (albeit only technically so in some cases) than it is about the responsibility of an employer to ensure integrity – and protect the vulnerable. It cannot co-exist with conflicts of interest.

To reiterate; it’s too bad this has to be codified. But for those who need it spelled out – and most don’t – this is why: Professors shouldn’t date those they have leverage and influence over – whether as a grade-wielding instructor, a truth-espousing guru or a life-defining mentor.

In short, show some class. You’re the one in charge.

Cause Of Death: Black Sub-Culture

Robinson High School, as we all know too well, was rocked again recently by the murder of a student, freshman John Simmons, and a recent alumnus, Vanderbilt football player Kwane Doster. Two young men with much promise cut down before realizing their potential. In their tragic wakes were the familiar refrains of “senseless killing” and “wrong place at the wrong time.”

All too true. And yet there’s another, largely unstated factor, which won’t be listed on any coroner’s report: death by black sub-culture. That is an urban black sub-culture that is too accepting of attitudes and lifestyles fundamentally incompatible with safe passage through adolescence. Would that misogynistic, thuggish behaviors were limited to BET videos.

In the case of Simmons, who was 15, he was murdered by a 17-year-old at an after-hours street party, where “trash-talk”-induced confrontations had been known to occur regularly. Simmons was shot about 2 a.m.

Why a 15-year-old was out at 2 a.m. and why a 17-year-old needed to be armed for a block party are not rhetorical questions. In fact, to not ask them smacks of racism.

As for Doster, a 21-year-old junior at Vanderbilt, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time at the wrong end of escalating “trash talk.” So-called “trash talk” is an in-your-face insult-a-thon popularized by black athletes — and excused and even exploited by the media. It’s hip-hopped, macho madness expressed as end-game rhetoric that’s not looking to take prisoners.

And when the combatants are armed with more than words, it will take a life.

BCS Overhaul – And More

Another college football season has come and gone, which means another BCS controversy. It also means another round of stone-walling playoff talk by Division 1-A presidents who don’t want to appear crassly driven toward another big pay day at “student athletes'” expense.

As if.

Try this. Match up the top 4 teams on New Year’s. Seed them 1 through 4. That, for example, would have given you USC-Texas (or Utah) and Oklahoma-Auburn. The two winners meet the following week. Not perfect, just a lot better than the Anointment Bowl.

As for prolonging the season, it only adds a week. But to more than make up for time lost by “student-athletes,” the presidents can vote to do away with spring practice. They can also permit “student athletes” – especially in big revenue sports — to be part-time students during their season. They can also agree that member schools will no longer admit those who do not belong academically – or even socially — on a college campus and only make a travesty out of higher education while they prep for the pros.

And while we’re suggesting the improbable as well as the flat-out impossible, add this: Take the mega-revenue from the ultimate national championship game and spread it out over the NCAA member schools to be used for something other than sports.