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?

Mayor Pushes Tampa’s New Global Game Plan

As local news stories go, it was a one-day wonder. Mayor Pam Iorio announced an initiative and named a committee to spearhead it. Another day at the office.

Then it was back under the headline radar, giving way to disaster contingency jurisdictions, the fiscal ’06 budget, storm water fees, the art museum soap opera and a testy city hall-city council contretemps.

This initiative, however, is too important and this committee too high-profile to be relegated to a bureaucratic lost-and-profound department. The charge is to drum up more worldwide trade, a challenge more formidable than pitching a Super Bowl.

The economic implications are far-reaching and long-term. The global marketplace is not an option; it’s a necessity. How much longer can phosphate define our international trade identity?

For too long Tampa has not taken full advantage of its Hispanic history and proximity to Latin America or the international potential inherent in a world class airport and one of the country’s busiest seaports. It’s evidenced in the dearth of international flights out of Tampa International Airport, in a stillborn free trade zone and in a nominal – albeit incrementally increasing — container cargo business at the Port of Tampa.

As to the nine-member Mayor’s Global Business Committee, it includes a lot of the right people. Notably Louis E. Miller, the Executive Director of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority; Richard A. Wainio, Director of the Tampa Port Authority; Arthur Savage, President, A.R. Savage & Son Inc.; Bronson Thayer, Chairman of the World Trade Center – Tampa Bay Inc.; as well as Mark Huey, Tampa’s Economic Development Director. It is chaired by the savvy Jeff Knott, Vice President International for Rooms To Go Corp.

“Our global business mission is not well-focused and needs to be more coordinated,” understated the mayor.

Indeed, the rule of thumb for local entities engaged in foreign commerce has long been to work independently in research and marketing. Sharing of information was tantamount to spilling state secrets. Proprietary has too often been confused with parochial, such that the enlightened self-interest of this market is undermined. And “this market” must mean more than Tampa. The sooner that regional partners, such as Pinellas County, are brought into the fold and the master strategy, the sooner the Tampa Bay area gets on the globe – not just the map.

Another critical issue is the chronic need for a clearinghouse on raw data, such as what exactly is imported and exported – both products and services — and the amount of foreign investment.

The mayor thus put forth a formal focus on quantifiable goals. There are no theoretical bottom lines here. The proof is in the numbers. It’s how you keep score in the global trade game. Tampa and the Tampa Bay area have to play as if they’re behind and want to become major global players.

They are, and they can.

Bean There, Done That

It’s no secret that the relationship between Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa seems like a wreck in progress right now. As a concept, the city-as-economic-hub might as well be the quantum theory to the county commission. Tampa, along with Plant City and Temple Terrace, is seemingly just another incorporated city – only one with an attitude.

But should this area suffer the brute force of a major hurricane or other disaster, Tampa will be a lot more than Temple Terrace on steroids. It will be ground zero. But it also will be, in effect, everybody’s ground zero.

That’s why Mayor Pam Iorio has been adamant about the city’s role in any disaster scenario. That’s why it has been disheartening to see how the county-city dynamic has been playing out here between Iorio and Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean. Think: Son of Civitas.

Of course, the county is responsible for coordinating all emergency activities within its purview, which is everything within its boundaries. State law and county ordinance codify it. And any effective chain of command only has one person at the top, where the buck necessarily stops. That’s Bean, who’s also the designated emergency management director.

That said, however, why wouldn’t the county administrator want the mayor on board as her out-front, go-to person for Tampa, the county’s flagship and its most vulnerable area?

What can’t continue, however, is the ongoing antipathy between the city and the county. It’s debilitating on a good day; absolutely disastrous should a disaster strike — a time when we all have to pull together as residents without label.

Hopefully, cooler heads will truly prevail, and Iorio and Bean (and Commission Chairman Chaperone Jim Norman) will sit down – outside the posturing context of a press conference – to hash out the appropriate role for the mayor of the county’s keystone. A good start would be for Bean, who’s ultimately in charge, to stop sounding like Alexander Haig in the process.

Channelside’s Signature Departure

In retrospect, a lot of folks are agreeing that the departure of the Signature Room Grill from Channelside was not all that shocking. High-end chop houses are usually incompatible with informal entertainment and dining venues. A 1930’s dinner club ambience with jazz – nestled between Bennigan’s and Hooters was not a recipe for success.

And speaking of Hooter’s, which was directly under the Signature Room, here’s a December ’03 quote from Signature Room owner Rick Roman in answer to a question about his (under construction) restaurant’s juxtaposition to Hooters: “We love the exposure.”

Funny line, but not enough did.

Great Or Ingrate?

Do the Devil Rays have a reputation for being cheap? Yes. Do they deserve it? Yes. Is the Delmon Young flap a prime example? No.

Rays’ outfield prospect Delmon Young, who still needs a lot of work in the field, has been adjudged the minor leagues’ best player and a can’t-miss future major leaguer. He expected to be called up to the big club once his minor league season was over.

He wasn’t. That’s because the Rays, with the smallest payroll in Major League Baseball, don’t want to accelerate his service time – which has salary and free-agency implications.

The 19-year-old Young was outraged and called out the parent team for being cheap and inconsiderate. He also intimated his loyalty to the organization was likely negligible at best. It was a prime topic of interest on ESPN.

A footnote: In 2003, the Rays paid the then 17-year-old a bonus of $5.8 million.

By early next season, Young should be in the Bigs to stay. He has the tools to make it big. But nothing is guaranteed. Including growing up.

Judging When To Go? Not Always A Justice’s Call

Until he passed away last week, 80-year-old William Rehnquist had been in obvious failing health with thyroid cancer. The frail chief justice had vowed nobly to stay on the court until he was no longer able. Given the nature of a lifetime appointment, it was his call — even though he had recently missed five months of work and a tracheotomy made it difficult to understand his voice. He died on the job.

The nomination of John Roberts to replace Rehnquist, the speculation surrounding the successor to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and the political dynamics of confirmation hearings will dominate court news for a while. It would be easy for the issue of mandatory retirement to fade from public discussion until, say, 80-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens takes ill.

The issue cannot continue in such an ad hoc fashion. We’ve already had justices who were certifiably senile (Stephen J. Field in the 1890s) and obviously incapacitated (William O. Douglas in the 1970s). It should be an irreconcilable incongruity that we can both revere the institution that is the Supreme Court of the United States and permit occasional compromise of its integrity. There’s a reason that Florida judges are required to step down at age 70. It’s that important.

Some historians and law professors have suggested a mandatory retirement age of 75. Perhaps, but the problem with that – as with any arbitrary number — is that you force out those still at the top of their game. Maybe mandatory mental acuity evaluations – starting at 70 or 75 would have merit. If that seems unbefitting the highest court of the land, well, consider the indecorousness of Justice Douglas dozing through arguments.

It’s one thing for Supreme Court justices to want to choreograph their departure and synchronize their retirement with a given presidential cycle. If they’re healthy, they’re entitled.

But if they’re incapacitated, it can’t be their call. It’s not fair to the law and the country.

New Orleans: No Race Cards Needed

Although it was a disaster of unprecedented dimension, Hurricane Katrina still fit the basic paradigm. Lives were lost and saved. Behaviors were heroic and predatory. Responsibilities were shouldered and ducked. Damage was assessed and reconfigured. And fingers were pointed and blame was assigned – feds, state and locals.

It comes with the territory, including catastrophic.

But here’s one that shouldn’t: Making a case that race was a factor amid the chaotic effort to evacuate a city of 500,000. From civil rights leaders and pundits to Kanye West and Howard Dean, the rhetorical question has been raised. Given that the majority of the population of New Orleans is black – most of whom are poor — did racism play a role in how fast help was sent in?

First, there’s a better question. Given that New Orleans is the only major American city below sea level, given its hurricane-vulnerable location, given the endemic poverty and lack of evacuation wherewithal among many of its residents and given the advance warning that always precedes a hurricane, why wasn’t the city better prepared? First responders are always the locals. Why were hundreds of school buses, for example, unused and under water? Why was the city sans plans to evacuate its jails? That much, at least, wasn’t a flawed FEMA’s fault.

The barrier islands have been disappearing for a century, and the levees have been deteriorating for decades. Myriad matrixes and scenarios have long predicted a doomsday eventuality. New Orleans may be the “Crescent City” and the “Big Easy,” but it’s also, tragically, the “Big Dereliction of Duty.”

Nobody knows New Orleans’ residents like their own. Do we hold the black mayor, Ray Nagin, accountable because it’s his watch? Or “his” people? And how culpable are all his buck-passing predecessors?

But here’s one definitive answer. Excluding hardcore holdouts, those who didn’t evacuate were too poor, too transportation challenged, too fearful of the unknown and too isolated — not too black. It’s irresponsible, wrong and counter-productive to suggest otherwise.

Katrina’s Silver Lining

Silver linings are where you find them. One from Katrina is the outpouring of private-sector help – from in-kind and hands-on to cash – from around the country. It’s a reminder of what Americans have always done in times of crisis.

Of no less note, however, is that many countries – from Canada, Cuba and Venezuela to China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka — have reached out to the United States with offers of aid. Some of it is nominal; some is substantial. Some has political overtones. None of it is unimportant.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice underscored the significance.

“I hope that will remind Americans that we are all part of the same community,” said Rice.

A concomitant hope would be that the Bush Administration, which has maneuvered the U.S. into a worldwide, unilateralist posture on several fronts, will be similarly reminded.

Bolts Slighted In New Look

The countdown is on for the return – and maybe reincarnation – of hockey. The revenue-hungry NHL now has a salary cap, which augurs long overdue financial sanity. On the entertainment front, where hockey must compete with more entrenched sports and other diversions for the consumer’s dollar, the NHL has introduced dramatic shootouts to decide ties and rule changes to speed up the game. The latter is intended to keep its top stars unshackled and showcased for the media.

So why in the name of Marty St. Louis and the defending Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning did the NHL and NBC agree to a national TV schedule that only shows the Bolts once?

The Lightning, with its up-tempo style and talented, telegenic trio of St. Louis, Vinny Lacavalier and Brad Richards, would seemingly be a perfect fit for the new-look NHL. Instead, the Bolts get a lone TV appearance – at Philadelphia on Jan. 28 – while Philly, Detroit, Dallas, Colorado and New York (Rangers) appear four times apiece. Boston and Pittsburgh will be on three times each.

This is smart marketing? This is thinking outside the rink?

Spanking New Survey

Survey USA – in partnership with the Tampa Tribune and WFLA News Channel 8 – recently released details of a survey that said three out of four Floridians agree that it was OK to spank a child. Interestingly, nearly as many (70 per cent) said it was not OK for a teacher to do the spanking.

A query not posed: “Is it OK to impose on a school a child who needs spanking — but obviously doesn’t get it at home?”