Random Searches: A Profile In Stupidity

The recent suicide bombings and misfirings in London have Americans growing more anxious about security and debating pre-emptive measures. For New York City, which has a certain horrific event seared into its collective consciousness, this is not an academic exercise. As a result, it has instituted searches, albeit random, on its massive subway system.

It didn’t take long for the chattering class to get on the case. Where there are searches, there could also be profiling. Riding while Muslim, as it were. The media and civil libertarians have been re-asking a familiar – and seemingly rhetorical — question: Is profiling ever permissible outside actuarial charts?

Secretary of Transportation Norman “ACLU Mole” Mineta notwithstanding, the correct answer is “YES.” An excellent example would be the context conveniently provided by the war on terrorism. In fact, when we stop asking this question, we will have made progress. We would be stupid as a society at war to discard any would-be weapon, even a marginal one — and that’s what profiling is when it comes to non-airline transportation.

But it’s less than marginal when it’s RANDOM. It’s an ineffective, counterproductive misallocation of inadequate, transit-security resources. As if these terrorist atrocities were perpetrated at random. Here a grandmother from DesMoines, there a politician on a presidential ticket. You just never know.

Well, absent a radical change in martyrdom volunteers and who gets their ticket punched for Paradise via mass murder, we do know. They are 20-and-30-something Middle Eastern or East African males with backpacks. (And if the M.O. changes, it will probably be the Chechnyan model: young, Muslim suicide bomberettes.) Can’t we acknowledge such an ipso facto reality and then, without turning into racial, ethnic and religious vigilantes, make use of that?

Growing up in Philadelphia, I’m familiar with subways and the logistical nightmare presented by any kind of search policy. But if I’m a passenger – a human being not a debating point or a legal nuance – I want some odds, even long ones, in my favor. This is the worst of times for politically correct tunnel vision.

If this wholly imperfect approach, with potential scenarios for insensitivity, alienates those in the Muslim and civil liberties communities, so be it. For what it’s worth, I’m pretty alienated myself that I would have to furtively glance around and calculate who’s likely commuting to work and who seems destined for a bonus round of virgins.

After London, no American can rationally expect the U.S. to keep dodging the soft-target, suicide-bomber bullet. Nor can we assume there aren’t terrorist cells already in this country. Nor should be assume that they may be comprised mostly of guys from, say, Sweden or Lichtenstein.

Having said all that, the best form of security for mass transit is still intelligence gathering. Without that, we’re pretty much relegated to a Maginot Line with surveillance cameras.

This calls for a major ratcheting up of Muslim cooperation and insider- information help about awakening “sleeper” cells. If it means taking one for the home team (THIS country), as a trade-off for perceived betrayal within the Muslim community, then so be it again. Mutating cells need a network for support, safe harbor and “handler” scouts, sometimes referred to as MEWC’s (Middle Easterners With Cameras).

The best reaction for America’s loyal, law-abiding Muslims, which is virtually all Muslims in America, is to loudly denounce Islamaniacs in drumbeat fashion and rat out any terrorists in their – OUR – midst. That sort of mass murder-and-mayhem-preventing intelligence is the best defense against London-like attacks that are likely being planned even as we search — randomly or not.

It’s also the best response to any affronts associated with profiling.

Iranian President Hostage To Rumors

As it turns out, the new president-elect of Iran was not part of the notorious element who took American Embassy hostages in 1979. U.S. government officials now say they have turned up no evidence to support the claim that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was among the Americans’ captors.

Apparently Ahmadinejad’s involvement was limited to merely being a leader of the student movement that organized the embassy attack and the taking of the hostages.

Oh.

Other than that, he had absolutely nothing to do with the outrage against American citizens.

In fact, he no longer references any of it on his resume.

Lance Armstrong: Ultimate Champion

Not least among the awesome accomplishments of cancer survivor-cyclist extraordinaire Lance Armstrong is this: He leaves his sport the way few champions of any sport have ever departed. He leaves at the absolute pinnacle.

Think of Hank Aaron not hitting his weight in his last year with the Milwaukee Brewers. Think of Willie Mays staggering under a fly ball as a New York Met. Think of Joe Louis fighting eroded skills to make a dent in his IRS debts. Think of a rope-burned Muhammad Ali looking lethargic against nonentities.

There’s something about a few more fat paychecks. There’s something about leaving center stage.

Armstrong belongs in that tiny pantheon of very special, gifted athletes who didn’t wait to be compromised by time, the ultimate opponent. Think Jim Brown at his peak. Think Sandy Koufax still dominating. Think Rocky Marciano without a loss. Think Ted Williams hitting a home run in his last at bat.

Granted, cycling isn’t football, baseball or boxing. In fact, not even close. But a champion is a champion. And he had to beat metastasized cancer before he could win seven Tours de France.

We’ll not see his kind again.

Cultural Coarsening Update

Channel-surfing yielded up “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart the other day. His guest was former network newsman and conservative author Bernard Goldberg, who was promoting his new book “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.” For the record, the list ranges from Paris Hilton’s parents and Jerry Springer to Eminem and Howard Stern. I like Goldberg.

Timing is everything, I thought.

Stewart, however, treated Goldberg with disdain and flippantly dismissed his “coarsening of the culture” thesis. Washington was the problem, sniffed Stewart, not Hollywood — as if the proposition were either/or.

But, on balance, I rationalized, still better than having landed on BET videos.

The following morning I picked up one of my daily newspapers – the St. Petersburg Times — and digested a quick cultural update. It included ponderings on gratuitously violent, sexually explicit video games, questions about the venue for the “Anger Management” hip-hop concert and commentary on Sen. John McCain’s cameo in the racy, R-rated “Wedding Crashers.”

And then I saw a movie review of “The Devil’s Rejects” by Times’ film critic Steve Persall. It could have been Exhibit A for what Goldberg had been trying to talk about while being interrupted and pre-empted by Stewart. The rating was R: for “pervasive, sadistic violence, harsh profanity, nudity, sexual situations.” Grade: “A-“.

One can only wonder what criterion shortfall kept “The Devil’s Rejects” from an unconditional “A”. Lackluster impalings? Bland hurlage? Discreet sex?

Here’s the review’s lead paragraph: “Hands down (or chopped off), the best horror movie in decades is Rob Zombie’s “The Devil’s Rejects,” a ruthlessly violent, viciously entertaining blood feast. Not since “Leatherface” first swung his chain saw has anyone spewed such a delirious obscenity against human nature onto the screen. If there’s such a thing as a vile classic, this is it.”

To re-iterate: “A-“.

Granted, I haven’t seen the film, nor do I plan to – even with the “vile classic” allure and the tease of “delirious obscenity.” I was burned a couple of years ago by the “Blair Witch” hoax and film critics’ confusion of amateur production with cinema verite. Neither am I swayed by Ebert & Roeper’s irrational “Two thumbs up” exuberance for “The Devil’s Rejects.” I just assume those two thumbs were up their celluloid keisters.

If not being personally privy to cultural flotsam undermines my credibility, I’ll live with it.

But I think this sort of fawning, establishment praise – not just acceptance – is a function of the cultural coarsening that Goldberg almost spoke out against on “The Daily Show.”Timing is everything.

And these are the times we’re living through.

Tampa Museum: An End Or Means To An End?

This much seems evident amid the maelstrom still swirling around the art museum scenarios:

*The process has been frustrating, controversial, costly and so, well, un-Iorionic .

Granted, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio inherited the polarizing “Mother of All Carports.” And paying to build – and operate — an endowment-challenged new museum was never going to be a slam-dunk. But isn’t Iorio too well-liked and politically instinctive to have allowed the perception that she had disingenuously undermined the original Rafael Vinoly plan?

*But also say this for the mayor. She’s a pragmatist .

She understood that the museum-site selection was looking more and more like a zero-sum, win-lose stand-off. If she ultimately had her way on a retrofitted courthouse, it would have been a Pyrrhic victory. Too many Tampa Museum of Art officials and board members adamantly opposed the courthouse option, and fund-raising would have been compromised without solid internal support. And some key donors are still smarting from the Vinoly implosion.

The mayor listened for a groundswell of support for her courthouse option and she’s now put away the ear trumpet. What she has heard, instead, is the case for keeping the museum on the waterfront. She has, thus, conceded that the courthouse isn’t viable, although still holding out for more green space by the river. Configuring a new museum site — somewhere in downtown — to accommodate that priority now awaits Solomonic compromise.

*A lot of people care . Folks are talking about a subject – art and where and how it’s housed – that too easily slips below the radar of general public interest unless an “Exploding Chicken” reference is included. The arts glass may be half full; people care enough to have really partisan, even heated, opinions.

*Many of the more opinionated turned out last week — in standing-room-only numbers — at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center’s Jaeb Theatre for the city’s public forum on museum site selection. It was to prove catalytic. The mayor was literally center stage as she made her case for a retrofitted federal courthouse on Florida Avenue in downtown. She was received politely, if not enthusiastically.

Working without notes, she pitched what was, in effect, a three-part vision . You have the courthouse option, per se, and its function within historic preservation. More to the point, you also have the courthouse/museum’s role in helping create a more pedestrian-oriented, vibrant downtown. And then you have what the riverfront – sans a museum – would yield: a village green and unobstructed views of the University of Tampa’s minarets, the city’s most precious and prestigious work of art.

*The mayor is her own best advocate, but she wasn’t preaching to the choir – which included the polite nay-saying of Sandy Freedman, Jan Platt, Frank Morsani and museum board members — on this one. From the tone and tenor of most (of the 40) speakers’ comments to robust audience responses, it was a one-sided, anti-courthouse crowd . When East Tampa activist Betty Wiggins exhorted Iorio to “make a bold move – put it in the courthouse,” you could hear the sound of one hand clapping. It was the evening’s only such exhortation.

*While issues ranging from historic preservation costs and expansion scenarios to direct street access and appropriate legacy were noted and re-noted, there was a sense that Iorio and her audience of ardent skeptics were talking past each other . This was not a forum – or foundation — for consensus. Somebody would have to blink.

The philosophical breach was manifest among the Jaeb jabs. Put it this way: Iorio wanted a GOOD museum location and the BEST possible game plan for downtown revitalization. The discordant choir wanted the BEST possible place for a museum. Would that they were one in the same.

*Iorio’s charge is to be more pragmatist than purist here. All options – as presented on a “Limitations Matrix” hand-out — were flawed. In fact, the courthouse choices had more criteria “no’s” than “yes’s”. But Iorio’s perspective is inherently different from the anti-courthouse crowd’s. Among all the low -and high-profile partisans, only Iorio is currently and directly responsible for a city that – for all the changes in the works — is still stuck with a dysfunctional downtown. Nobody else loses sleep over that one the way Iorio does. Jaebberwocky comes easy when you’re not responsible for the big picture.

That’s why she doesn’t want just a museum. She wants synergy; she wants catalysts; she wants both condo residents and visitors in the core of downtown. She wants a “city of the arts” – not just a city with a new art museum and a cultural arts district largely limited to parts of the waterfront. From her point of view, a facility on the Hillsborough River wouldn’t go far enough. And a courthouse that is home to a charter school, among other things, hardly furthers a serious revitalization vision.

As Iorio put it: “We want to bring the cultural district farther into downtown. From the University of Tampa to downtown.”

*An interesting subplot is the re-emergence of former mayor Sandy Freedman, who threatens to quit running around her backhand and come out of retirement if commercial developers desecrate the waterfront . For Freedman – and many others — the association of “private sector” and “waterfront” is an aesthetic red flag. With all due respect, Freedman and others who care passionately about the waterfront appear to misread what Iorio wants there.

The plan has been to add a net 4.8 acres of green “gathering place” space along the waterfront. “Our Central Park,” the mayor hyperbolized. Commercial development would be limited to the fringes. It would include restaurants, cafes and possibly Hyde Park Village-like condo units above shops that would complement the Riverwalk and, along with the Children’s Museum, help “hide” the south side of the Poe Garage, a prime study in riverfront desecration. (Moreover, developers’ fees could underwrite the conversion of Zack Street into an “Avenue of the Arts.”)

In her Jaeb presentation, Iorio underscored that she’s hardly looking to sell off and sell out the waterfront. Several times she hyped her stewardship bona fides by mentioning that it was only her signature that stood between the waterfront and a 24-story condominium tower planned under the Dick Greco administration.

*Bottom line: Throughout this painstaking, circuitous process, the mayor has looked at the museum choice as a cultural-arts means to a downtown-revitalization end. It’s a vision . Others seemingly saw a new museum as its own ideal end. It’s a viewpoint . Both are valid.

Knee-Jerk Journalism

Suppose someone of no — or negative — consequence threw a self-serving photo-op, media availability and no one showed? The (refreshing) result: The uncovered, non-news event would remain non news – not unlike the cat that did not get stuck in the tree, the train that did not derail, the Democrat who did not get nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court and the apology and refund check that did not get proffered by Rafael Vinoly.

That’s the sort of scenario that should have played out recently in St. Petersburg, where career irritant Dwight “Chimurenga” Waller is running for city council. Again.

Only this time the strident president of the Uhuru Movement chose Mayor Rick Baker’s house as a cheap-shot backdrop for his what-else-is-new? announcement. And in stimulus-response, ambulance-chasing fashion, the press – and precious few others — was there. More gratuitous light for a minor media moth.

It’s Waller’s contention that Baker hasn’t done much for Midtown, a historically impoverished section. It’s Waller’s strategy to hector everybody – but Midtowners – about Midtown. As if investors shouldn’t concern themselves with drugs, street crime and a victimization mindset. As if Baker, despite Midtown’s entrenched problems, hadn’t been working on cleaning up parks and expediting some impressive commercial development there.

Waller is a race-baiting, one-trick pony who hasn’t made himself or his movement part of any solution. They are a case for adding by subtracting.

Out of deference to Baker (and his family’s privacy), respect for a reasonable definition of what is “news” and defiance for political correctness, the media should have forsaken its lemming instinct and been a no-show to a non-event.

Media Punch Line

One final thought on the Kenny Rogers issue. Conflict between the media and pro athletes is not the only prominent example of discord in the sports-entertainment arena. There’s also that ongoing, intramural contretemps between print media and its electronic counterpart.

The former have notebooks, and their words are the next day’s newspaper stories and columns. The latter have lights, mikes, cameras, cables, a show-biz ethic and an often pressing need for in-your-face immediacy.

Priorities and deadlines are not the same. It’s hardly a seamless overlap.

The recent Rogers piece in this column – and its subsequent web site posting – prompted the following response, among others. It’s from a friend and former colleague, Ed Christine, sports editor of the Scranton (PA) Times and a one-time beat writer with the New York Mets, reporter for USA Today and U.S. Marine.

“I can’t count the number of times I wanted to punch out a camera man,” wrote Christine in an e-mail. “Don’t want to count the number of times I threatened TV and radio people – not that print guys are above being intrusive and obnoxious.

“The problem with the Rogers incident is a lack of spontaneity,” he added. “From what has been shown, it appears as though that was his game plan from the time he left the clubhouse.”

London Terrorist Attack Had Predictable Response

The immediate aftermath of the London terrorist bombings resulted in two rather predictable upshots.

The Brits made good on their reputation for indomitable spirit. That was a given. Muslims of real influence and impact weren’t heard from. That was a shame.

To be sure, there were Muslim expressions of outrage, both in Britain and around the globe, including here, but these tended to be from the glib, chamber-of-commerce types or via letters to the editor. From those who don’t speak for the impressionable, volatile Arab street.

What were needed were clerics with clout, megaphone – metaphorical or otherwise — in hand, demanding time on Al-Jazeera and CNN.

And then using it to denounce in the strongest possible language all Islamaniacs who can justify any atrocity against any “infidel” of their defining — and targeting. And condemn in the harshest tones those who obscenely regard innocent bystanders as so much strategic leverage. And zealously exhort Muslim communities to rat out their apostate, homicidal vermin in the name of Allah and Muhammad. And delegitimize the perverted, jihadi death-wish mindset that festers on.

And finally – and defiantly — issue a fatwa damning Osama bin Laden. If necessary, redirect the one previously aimed at Salman Rushdie.

And after saying all that to the world — i.e., the West – then saying it again where it really matters. In the mosque. From the Middle East to “Eurabia” to North America. Or is it asking too much for religious and moral leaders to deplore mass murder and unconscionable barbarity?

Olympic Ouster: European Hardball

News that baseball and softball were being dropped from the Summer Olympics – as of 2012 — was not well received in this country. It may be hardball politics as usual, since half of the International Olympic Committee delegation is from Europe, a continent notably indifferent to the two indigenous American sports.

Baseball was tossed ostensibly because big leaguers don’t compete and Major League Baseball’s drug-testing program lacks international credibility. For softball, it might be guilt by association. A softball must look like a baseball on steroids to IOC president Jacques Rogge.

And that’s too bad — for softball. The U.S. is really, really good at it. And it’s the odds-on favorite to retain its (2004) gold medal in Beijing in 2008. And recall that the (’04) softball stands were packed in Athens – as opposed to, say, the venues for badminton, which remains a sport in good standing. Moreover, there are now more than 100 national softball teams throughout the world. But not enough in Europe. C’est la vie.

But sports that are given the IOC heave-ho can apply for readmission. Softball certainly should and doubtless will.

The loss of Olympic baseball, however, shouldn’t be mourned, although it’s never been more internationalized – from Latin America to the Far East. Baseball – with or without MLB players – is not unlike basketball, soccer and tennis. It doesn’t belong.

For these sports, the Olympics does not represent the ultimate. An Olympiad deserves better than inferior status to a World Series, a World Cup, Wimbledon or the NBA playoffs. All the best players will never be available, and those who do, play under a cloud questioning their motivation and conditioning. Anyone ever expect to wax nostalgic over Team Tattoo — America’s ’04 bronze-medal-winning, hip-hop hoopsters?

Sure, badminton is a goofy sport that could be played with a beer in one hand, and who cares enough about team handball to even understand it?

But these sports – more than the likes of baseball, basketball, soccer and tennis – represent the Olympic ideal of athletes competing for the love of a sport and the thrill of competition. These athletes aren’t glamorous; they have real jobs and no agents. Win or lose – in front of a packed house or mainly family and friends – they will earn no endorsements, no lasting fame, no pharmaceutical notoriety. Only memories and respect.

They will have competed fairly and done their best. And they don’t think they’re doing their country a favor by showing up.

As with softball, baseball can apply for readmission. It shouldn’t.