Category: Uncategorized

As we’ve all heard, the Four Green Fields original location has shut down. Two takeaways. I once asked owner Colin Breen why he didn’t have wall-to-wall TV screens as a part of contemporary decor and customer lure. “We want people to talk to each other,” he explained. And while animated conversations with Bob Buckhorn were always engaging, I also recall an especially memorable exchange with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, who noted, in effect, that violence in Northern Ireland was no longer necessary leverage. Within a generation or two, he said, the Catholic demographics—resulting in majority status—would be a de facto game changer.

* Starting in 2024, Disney will have SEC football broadcasting rights. All games will appear on its networks—including ABC and ESPN—for 10 years. The payout: $300 million per year. CBS currently pays the SEC $55 million annually.

* Movies with buzz that disappoint: “Mank” and “On The Rocks.”

* Twist of fate: This year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame honorees include Nine Inch Nails and the Notorious B.I.G. Not, inexplicably, included: Chubby Checker. Again.

* “There’s no plan B right now.” That was the response of Tampa Bay Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg to the question of what the Rays will do if the split-cities, Montreal option doesn’t work out.

* Nashville: Whatever the timing, it’s still a prime candidate for MLB expansion or relocation.

* Gator fans—and anyone else watching that fog-shrouded UF-LSU game—were blindsided by a late call that cost the Gators a shocking, 37-34 upset loss. When Marco Wilson tauntingly tossed an LSU player’s shoe about 20 yards downfield, he was called for “unsportsmanlike conduct” and instead of a punt with less than 2 minutes to go, LSU got a fresh series of downs and drove to a winning field goal. The penalty was stupid and classless—and not an acceptable version of “celebration.”Worse yet, UF now faces top-ranked Alabama for the SEC championship. Two weeks ago Alabama destroyed LSU 55-17. And none of this–absent a stunning win over the Crimson Tide–helps Kyle Trask’s Heisman chances.

* “He’s anathema to most E.U. politicians, who see him as personally to blame for Brexit.”–Center for European Reform Director Charles Grant, in reference to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

* “Most European countries are doing their best with government messaging, restrictions on hospitality and indoor house visits, testing, tracing, soft-touch border restrictions and face coverings, whereas the U.S. looks like a free-for-all.”–University of Edinburgh professor of global health Devi Sridhar.

* “If the status quo continues, students of color stand to lose 11 to 12 months of learning.”–McKinsey & Company report.

* “With the casting of a majority of the Electoral College votes on Monday for Mr. Biden, and then his inauguration, we will make a start in restoring America as the country best positioned to lead the world’s struggle to solve the climate crisis.”–Former Vice President Al Gore.

* “The Constitution itself places no limit on the president’s authority to act on matters which concern him or his own conduct.”–Attorney General William Barr.

* “Trump has no incentive to stop his efforts to overturn a valid election. To the contrary, with blowhards like Ted Cruz available to provide a patina of respectability, and nearly all elected Republicans refusing to recognize the election results, he has every reason to hit up his fans for more donations and to continue insisting he is the rightful winner.”–Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post.

* “I want to be clear: The Supreme Court is not the deep state. The (Texas-initiated, election-results) case had no merit and was dispatched 9-0. There was no win here.”–Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger.

* “The Republicans behaving radically are doing so in the knowledge–or at least the strong assumption–that their behavior is performative, an act of storytelling rather than lawmaking, a posture rather than a political act.”–Ross Douthat, New York Times.

* “Unless (Trump) changes course and follows the Richard Nixon (concession) precedent, he probably will take on a label of ‘sore loser’ that will follow him, and remove any possibility of a further political career.”–Political author T.R. Reid.

* “It is the Republican Party that disproportionately represents a multiethnic, non-college-educated working class.”–Josh Hammer, Newsweek.

* “Trump’s 2016 coalition was a minority coalition in terms of the popular vote, but it was almost perfectly distributed to take the Electoral College. Going forward, the demographics of the electorate are moving in the wrong direction for the GOP.”–Jonah Goldberg, Tribune Content Agency.

* “Let it go. The election is over.”–Jeb Bush.

* “With every deep state conspiracy and illegitimate claims of fraud, our democracy sinks deeper and deeper into divisiveness.”–Pasco County Elections Supervisor Brian Corley.

* “I’m not arguing. I’m just explaining why I was right.”–T-shirt philosopher.

* “The 2020 (hurricane) season (June 1 to Nov. 30) was the busiest on record, and I’ve urged the federal government to lengthen the season to better capture the increase in activity.”–Florida Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy.

* “I think the history-making nature of this appointment, combined with his 41-year career in the military, makes him the perfect choice for this.”–Former Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, on President-elect Biden’s choice of retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin III, the former commander of the U.S. Central Command at MacDill AFB, as secretary of defense. Austin, the first black commander of Central Command, would also be the first black defense secretary.

* “We believe this (Tampa-hosted) Super Bowl 55 will be one of the most unifying, memorable and meaningful Super Bowls in our history.”–NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

* This is personal as well as professional. It comes with being part of the Trump-demonized mainstream media. It comes with being labeled “an enemy of the people.” It also comes with wanting what’s best for your country.

We all know that Trump won’t be morphing into the sort of retired-president status his predecessors pursued. He’ll be working on a family-brand, media empire; proof-reading a few pages from a ghost-written memoir; suing somebody; and likely prepping for a 2024 Oval Orifice run. No more Trump Steaks and Trump University comebacks.

But he will need enabling—beyond GOPster sycophants and base deplorables. He’ll need the media—not just the Breitbart, InfoWars and Fox & Friends lapdogs. He’ll need the mainstream media watchdogs to keep him, uh, relevant—or at least prominent in most news cycles–while out of office. And that is, alas, right in the “good copy” wheel house of print and visual media. As are readers, ratings and sponsors.

But, sometimes, “country first” is more than an idealistic directive to self-serving politicians. In this case it means the mainstream media—which, as we embarrassingly recall, greatly abetted Trump’s reality-TV, celebrity candidacy with its gratuitous, over-the-top coverage of his smarmy, 2016 vaudeville rallies. That means not repeating the “This just in”/“Breaking News” gambit of four years ago–when the “Apprentice” crackpot was like an intersection accident that witnesses couldn’t help staring at.

We all deserve better than the Trumpian version of “if it bleeds, it leads.” That’s because we are all part of a democracy demonstrably vulnerable to the unhinged, autocratic whims of a narcissistic cult leader whose followers await high-profile, civil-war dog whistles. This is much more than a mainsteam media mulligan; this is now the serious media’s role in a come-to-Jesus inflection point for our assailable republic. Joseph Pulitzer had it spot on. “Our republic and its press will rise or fall together.”

* Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for the coronavirus—as well as for farcical fealty and mask indifference.

* “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”–Attorney General William Barr, no longer sounding like the president’s personal lawyer.

* “Trump’s agenda is to use these recounts and lawsuits to raise money, to have money to freeze the field in 2024, and to be an effective surrogate and spreader of money in 2022.”–GOP donor Dan Eberhart.

* In the opinion of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, there’s no way the world can curb climate change “without U.S. leadership.”

* Lou Holtz, 83, recently received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from “the greatest president in my lifetime.” Embarrassing—and not just because it puts the former Notre Dame coach in the presidential medal-receiving, acolyte company of Rush Limbaugh. That suck-up blarney line references a Holtz lifetime that includes the FDR Administration, among others.

“Yes, we did.”

* President-elect Joe Biden has not only chosen a well-regarded foreign service veteran, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but he plans to restore the position to cabinet rank. It’s yet another signal—domestically and internationally—of the return of U.S. commitment and leadership at the UN.

* “Any (COVID relief) package passed in lame-duck session is—at best—just a start.”–President-elect Joe Biden.

* “Georgia is going to determine ultimately the course of the Biden presidency.”–Barack Obama.

* “I’m not going to tell anyone how they need to speak to their community, but by the same token, they need to understand that candidates have to be able to meet people where they are, and they have to be able to articulate it in a way that’s absorbed.”–Stacey Abrams.

#AloneTogether

* “The vaccine’s critical. But it’s not going to save us from this current surge.”–Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator.

* “I will be taking (a vaccine), and I may end up taking it on TV or having it filmed just so people know I trust this science.”–Former President Barack Obama.

* According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, nearly 12,000 people died from coronavirus during the week ending Dec. 4. That was more than any other cause of death.

* Amazon added 427,300 employees between January and October, an increase of more than 50 per cent—an average of 1,400 new workers a day.

* “If you change planes, you’re hitting one more airport. And there is a huge amount of risk in the airport.”–David Freedman, infectious disease expert at the University of Alabama Birmingham.

* According to the Small Business Administration, the Paycheck Protection Program saved more than3 million jobs in Florida.

* 8%: The October increase in residential customers of Duke Energy Florida and TECO having their power shut off.

* “I’m opposed to mandates, period.”–Response of Gov. Ron DeSantis when asked about a statewide masking requirement.

* “Our county (mask) ordinance remains in place. It hasn’t changed. What has changed is we’ve gotten lax.”–Pinellas Administrator Barry Burton.

We know commuting around Tampa Bay can be time-consuming—as well as dangerous. And that we’ve long venerated the asphalt solution. Statistically, the Tampa Bay workforce spends 1.2 million hours per day commuting. That’s a 30 percent increase in 10 years. No wonder scenarios involving air taxis, gondolas and Hyperloops are now part of the transit talk.

* “Twenty-four-hour news networks are built for one thing, and that’s 9/11. … So in the absence of urgency, they have to create it. You create urgency through conflict.”–Political satirist Jon Stewart.

* “The chief driver of the post-election contention of the past several weeks is the petulant refusal of one man to accept the verdict of the American people.” That’s from an editorial in the National Review, one that NR founder William F. Buckley Jr. would agree with.

* “Fox News is now a hive of villainy in Trump’s eyes for not reading from the approved script.”–Fox contributor Jonah Goldberg.

* “I am sorry but we never comment on ‘The Crown.’”–Donald McCabe, Queen Elizabeth’s communications secretary.

* Historic win: Congrats to the USF women’s basketball team for its 67-63 overtime win over 6^th–ranked Mississippi State. It was the first win over a top-ten team in program history. Go, Bulls.

* “It’s a big ‘if,’ but if (the Bucs) don’t make the playoffs, I would look for B.A. (Bruce Arians) to retire.”–Former New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum.