It’s Sunday, the humidity is down, heat is up and the Scratch My Back benefit concert is about the best place to be this afternoon, starting around 5 p.m. and going on until the last band is tossed out.
The venue is the legendary SkipperDome out behind Skippers Smokehouse where the Quivering Rhythm Hounds will open the concert, followed by Sharon (of WFLA AM fame) and the Boys and then the great Johnny G. Lyon band.
It’s all for the Humane Society of Tampa Bay and also as a reminder not to lock your pets in enclosed cars or anything else, especially this summer.
I’ll be giving away raffle prizes along with Party Marti Ryan all night. Get your shades, flip-flops and straw hat (even after dark you will be so cool) and come on out.
I think of any good number of reasons to hole up near the closest air conditioner this weekend. Memorial Day around here is more or les the official start of summer but the sticky mugginess we all know and love settled in about a week ago.
I’m bracing myself for Sunday’s"Scratch My Back’’ benefit for the Humane Society at Skipper’s Smokehouse. It starts later in the afternoon, or whenever it is Pinetop Peterson and his Quivering Rhythm Hounds get their act together and get cranked up on the stage of the mighty Skipperdome. Pinetop is the guy who has been organizing this event for more than a decade, as a remembrance of his beautiful black lab Molly who died after being left in a hot car by someone else .
This year the Hounds will again be on stage, along with Sharon and the Boys (Sharon being Sharon Taylor of WFLA radio fame)i and then the great Johnny G. Lyon band.
I get to be on stage during the breaks, giving away prizes and raffle tickets with co-emcee Marti (Party) Ryan with everything going to the Humane Society.
If you’ve never been to the Skipperdome, well, wear shorts, flip flops, some cool shades and maybe a hat. Even after dark you will look like you belong.
This was probably inevitable. Sad, but inevitable.
As her campaign slowly devolves into its death throes, Hillary Clinton has resorted to blaming sexism on her failure to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.
Here’s what Clinton told The Washington Post recently.
“The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable, ar at least more accepted, and ... there should be equal rejection of the sexism and racism when it raises its ugly head,” she said, adding, “It does seem as though the press is at least not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing more than misogynists.”
And then Clinton went on to bemoan lewd t-shirts and comments she has experienced on the campaign trail.
To which one can only respond with, and this is a highly technical political science term, balderdash.
A 60-year-old candidate with all the hustings charm of Ma Barker and voice that could crack the mirrors on the Hubble Space Telescope, still has managed to best a huge field of Democratic candidates to come within a eye-lash of capturing her party’s presidential nomination.
So please, if Hillary Clinton were truly the victim of sexism, her campaign wouldn’t have made past the Iowa caucuses.
Along the way, Clinton defeated heavyweights Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd, John Edwards and a host of other candidates, as well.
Regardless of your views toward Clinton, considering her Imelda Marcos-like political and personal baggage, she waged an extraodinarily fine campaign, proving herself to be a formidable political force. Good for her.
But all political campaigns produce winners and losers. And instead of accepting the fact she has come up all, too tantalizingly short, Hillary Clinton has now risked her dignity by leaving the the presidential race as an embittered, angry sore loser. It’s unbecoming. It’s embarrassing. It’s, alas, oh so Clintonian.
Hillary Clinton conveniently overlooks she has been elected twice to the United States Senate by overwhelming margins - hardly the victim of sexism there.
And during the course of the Democratic presidential primary season, as she herself has often noted, she is at least tied with or (depending on how you count) even ahead of Barack Obama in the popular vote. Sexism at work here? Really?
She received numerous endorsements from newspapers around the country as well as all manner of special interest groups, who apparantly didn’t care she was a woman.
Are there plenty of prejudices to be found on the stump? You betcha.
Would anyone disagree that Barack Obama has lost votes simply because he’s black? Has John McCain been subjected to ageism? Duh!
Mitt Romney most certainly experienced an anti-Mormon bias. And let’s face, there are still some people out there who are irrationally fearful of a Catholic president.
It is certainly true, as well that Hillary Clinton has indeed been subjected to sexism, but no more or less a bias that any other other high profile candidate has had to endure.
Clinton’s real problem is that she treated the presidential race more as an entitlement rather than an honor to be earned. She made huge miscalculations in campaign strategy and blew enormous amounts of money. And she came up short. Rightfully so.
Men often make the same mistakes. See Giuliani, Rudy.
Presidential political life is a tough, very tough arena. To the victor go the spoils. And eventually, the crybabies go home to Chappaqua - as they should.
This was one of those classic cases of a man born to wear a certain kind of hat. Never was there a greater moment of kismet betweenn lid and head.
Standing in front of the stage where Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was soon to arrive to deliver a rousing stump speech, stood Ronnie Fuld, a tall, thin, elegant black man in a neatly pressed blue-striped shirt and his hat - a dark, ever so very slightly rumpled brown fedora with the brim turned up ever so gently.
To put it simply it was one of the greatest hats I had ever seen. I hat that had that look about it, which said: “The stories I could tell you.” This was a hat of history, a hat of culture, a hat that had been places, done things, seen stuff.
“Oh lord, please,” Fuld laughed when asked about his hat, agreeing he and his hat had been around.
Fuld bought the hat in 1979 while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany. They have been inseparable ever since.
A retired Sergeant First Class, Fuld was playing a bit of hooky from his teaching position at Palm Harbor University High School, where he conducts a course on world history. Three of his sons serve in the military. Two have survived tours of duty in Iraq.
Fuld wanted to attend Obama’s rally for two reasons.
First he was hoping to hear if the candidate would say anything about recruiting former military personnel to become teachers. Alas the issue didn’t come up.
And secondly, Fuld, who while he voted for Obama in the Florida primary, still hasn’t made up his mind between the Illinois senator and John McCain, whose military service and time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam the retired sergeant admires greatly.
Then there was the lapel pin thing. Although he recently started wearing an American flag lapel pin, Obama had been roundly criticized by his opponents for not wearing the adornment. And it bothered Fuld, too.
There was no gentle way to put this to Fuld.
Was he aware if you log onto the official presidential websites of: Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower, that none of them -Republican and Democrat alike - are wearing an American flag lapel pin?
Indeed, the only official portrait of an American president wearing the flag pin is the current incumbent, George W. Bosh.
Fuld was mildly stunned. “Really?”
Yep, really.
We went out to a seafood restaurant last night. This one was in Westshore Plaza where they have almost a village of new restaurants. Like the others, I guess you would describe this one as “upscale chain.’’ And it was pretty good. The service was attentive, the fish was fresh and I even had something called a “key lime martini’’ that was like key lime pie with a kick.
Where they lost me was when I said I wanted a dozen oysters. This place has four different kinds of oysters to choose from, except that each order is for four oysters at $7.50 an order. I mean geez, it’s like that pound of coffee you buy in the grocery these days that is less than a pound.
“You mean,’’ I said a little too loudly for my wife to the waiter, “that if I ordered a dozen oysters that would be thirty bucks?’’
The waiter only nodded, certainly wondering what cheap local yahoo he had been stuck with.
I don’t care. This is Florida, and it’s not even resort Florida or one of those Disney jobs and thirty bucks for a dozen oysters is way over any body’s top.
I mean isn’t it enough you risk your health eating raw shell fish without getting a raw deal at the same time?
The most interesting story in Mother Trib today is the discovery of a sunken vessel in the Hillsborough River, somewhere near Lowry Park. A team of archeaologists from the Florida Aquarium made the find and say the ship appears to be etween 80 and a 100 feet long. Records indicate it could be a Confederate blockade runner from the Civil War.
Maybe. I do recall going across the river on Hillsborough Ave. to church with my grandfather. We would always see the wreckage of the originial Gasparilla ship stuck in the muck where it had been beached and later burned.
I suppose it’s not too likely, but if those archaeologists come up with some beads on that blockade runner they might have to re-evaluate their discovery. One can only dream.
So it is no secret things are bad. How bad was the news this week contained in a report of Tampa’s economic ranking with six Southern cities. The semi-annual report was released this week by the Tampa Bay Partnership and it ranked the Tampa Bay area dead last against five other metro areas: Atlanta, Dallas, Jacksonville, Charlotte and Raleigh\Durham.
The numbers are based on a number of indicators including employment, home affordability and housing permit growth.
Not included in the numbers are a lack of political leadership and continued low salaries and a floundering public school system.
Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean is going to be in town Monday. Political reporter Wendy March quotes local party leaders as saying the purpose of the visit is reconciliation. And while he’s here they will hold a $1,000 a plate dinner, which is a pretty steep price for crow.
But the party faithful have no shame. They cheated Florida voters this year, denied them the opportunity of picking a candidate and now here they are asking for money. They’ll get it too because power is more important to party leaders than being fair to voters.
They don’t care that they are more than a little responsible for a field so weak on both sides you almost wish nobody would win.
As subtle hints that he just might be potentially certifiably insane, do you think that maybe, just maybe when Edward Covington was found sobbing face down on the floor surrounded by mutilated cats, a reasonable person might have concluded this chap was operating on a totally foreign plane of reality?
And yet, even though he was indeed charged with animal cruelty in 2005 for the brutalized cats, Edward Covington was still permitted to serve as a corrections officer for the Florida Department of Corrections, until he finally resigned in 2006.
Covington was never prosecuted for the horrific abuse of animals, which does get the mind to pondering what might have happened if the man now accused in the murder and mutilation of his girlfriend Lisa Freiberg and her two children, Zachary, 7, and Samantha, 2, on Mother"s Day had been held legally accountable for the violent mistreatment of animals.
Might Freiberg and her children still be alive?
It is also noteworthy that, in addition to giving a statement to Hillsborough County Sheriff’s investigators in which, he admitted his role in the deaths of Freiberg and her children, Covington has also admitted to killing the family’s German Shepherd.
Who knows? Who knows if Covington had received the obvious psychological help he needed in 2005, perhaps last Sunday’s blood bath in Frieberg’s Lutz mobile home could have been avoided. Alas, we’ll never know.
What we do know though is the mutilation of animals is often the early sign of future, even more deadly mayhem. See, Dahmer, Jeffrey.
Because it appears Covington never received the help he so desperately needed in 2006, you could make a case that from the day she was born that same year, two-year-old victim Samantha Freiberg’s days were numbered.
For starters, you have to understand that cops never, ever under any circumstance like to admit publicly when they have royally screwed up.
And that explains why, even as 23-year-old Rachel Hoffman was being laid to rest - a murder victim in a drug sting gone horribly awry, the Tallahassee Police Department was still reacting to the case as if it had nothing to do with this young woman’s demise.
Hoffman, a graduate of Florida State University was abducted during a Tallahasseee Police Department drug investigation. Her body was found several days later and two suspects - the focus of the original drug investigation - have been arrested.
By any reasonable standard in the hierarchy of drug trafficking Rachel Hoffman would never be confused with Pablo Escobar.
To be sure, Hoffman was no angel, having been busted on drug charges involving the possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana and ecstasy. And, in looking to catch a break on a possible jail term, without the knowledge of her attorney, Hoffman agreed to become an informant in making a case against two alleged drug dealers under suspicion, Deneilo Bradshaw, 23 and Andrea Green 25.
As part of the drug sting, Hoffman allegedly arranged to buy 1,500 ecstasy pills, some cocaine and a gun from Bradshaw and Green.
But something went horribly wrong. At the public park where the drug deal was supposed to go down, Hoffman called investigators to say the location had been changed. And despite warnings from detectives not to leave the park, Hoffman hung up. Her body was found two days later.
Rightfully so, the Tallahasseee Police Department has been criticized for its handling of the case.
Why was Hoffman not kept in visual contact with detectives during the operation?
Why was a young woman, who was hardly a career criminal, thrust into such a potentially dangerous criminal investigation?
Why did she hang up? Or did someone do it for her? We’ll probably never know.
And why was her legal counsel not consulted and informed about his client’s dealings with a police agency, which would have influenced the status of the criminal charges she was facing?
Meanwhile, a Tally department spokesman attempted to shift the blame to Hoffman for her own murder, citing the terminated phone call and the fact she violated “protocol” by leaving the park.
But how do police officials know she left the park voluntarily?
This was a young woman, a civilian untrained in police investigative procedures thrust into the middle of a drug sting because she was driven by anxiety over her own legal problem.
The Palm Harbor area woman was laid to rest earlier this week.
And perhaps the police will cynically argue that aside from the homicide thing, Rachel Hoffman turned out to be one swell informant.
After all, Bradshaw and Green are in jail aren’t they?
There are probably many reasons why the Italian airline Alitalia seems to be almost always teetering on the verge of bankruptcy - here is one of them.
To be sure, our family vacation in Greece was a dream trip.
We visited many of the country’s historical icons sucn as the Parthenon. We ate well. Drank well and even the Bombshell of the Balkans was able to reconnect with long-lost family members.
And to be more than fair, our flights aboard Alitalia from New York to Rome to Athens and returning back to the United States from Athens to Milan to New York, were very comfortable with commendable on-board service.
No problem - until we landed at JFK in New York.
It was then we discovered Zeus the Younger’s luggage, alas, had been lost.
And indeed is was the loss of his personal belongings, which prompted this letter from a Jessica Morales, Customer Relations Representative for the airline, dated May 5, 2008.
In the letter Ms, Morales stated that in order to process Plato the Younger’s lost baggage claim, the airline would require:
1) The original “property irregularity report” from JFK.
2) The original clear copy of his Alitalia ticket.
3) A copy his bag tag.
And 4) “Receipts where applicable.”
He was also told: “It is important that we receive this information within the next 30 days or your claim may no longer be honored. Upon receipt of the above requested information and documentation, we will investigate your claim. You will then be notified in writing as to how we will conclude the matter.”
Oh, did I mentioned the letter from Alitalia was dated May 5, 2008? And oh did I mention we took this ill-fated trip aboard Alitalia in - May, 2007?
It has taken Alitalia literally one full year to finally get around to dealing with a lost baggage claim - literally 365 days. And they were snitty about it, too!
It may come as something of a surprise to Alitalia, but hardly to the rest of us, that after a year since the flight home, the odds of a 21-year-old college student still being in possession of the paperwork demanded by the airline is about the same as Barry Bonds keeping a paper trail of every time he met with his, ... uh, “trainer.”
And now after 12 months of being treated with more indifference by Alitalia than George W. Bush eyeing the U.S. Constitution, the carrier is demanding we better come up with all the relevant documentation in the next 30 days - or else, they will continue to ignore us with even more fervent disreagrd than they have the preceding 12 months.
Tell you what Ms. Morales, it’s merely a sneaking suspicion but it’s become fairly apparent the recovery of our son’s luggage does not appear to be a big priority.
In the spirit of cross-Atlantic relations, we give up.
If you should happen upon the lad’s baggage, if you want, go ahead and keep it.
But we would advise you, whatever you do Ms. Morales do not open the bag. It’s contains mostly the dirty laundry of a college student accumulated after a 10-day Greek vacation - a year ago! No good will come of this.
And you think the canal of Venice are, uh, gamy!
It was just another assignment when I went down to the old Trailer Park gym on Rome Ave. to do a story on the Florida Wheels. This was back in the dark ages of the ‘70s and even being sportswriter I couldn’t work up a whole lot of enthusiasm for wheelchair basketball.
It was Chuck Porter, a member of the Wheels squad, who had lured me onto the court, loaning me his chair so I could experience a little bit of the game.
It took about five minutes to realize that this was a different game requiring different skills. While the two teams raced up and down the court I made one trip and was out of gas. Not only that my hands were getting raw from trying to twist the chair around. And I was getting banged around by other players in chairs. In short I was getting mugged on the court.
But the experience also allowed me to feel a little of the bonding of the players, men who had decided to take on their special challenges to the fullest. I did my story and then found myself coming back to the gym and even borrowing a chair now and then to worked with the team, even if I was no match for their skill level.
After a couple of hours in the unairconditioned gym they would roll over to Leos bar for a couple of beers. It became a weekly ritual. The Wheels played in a national league and traveled around the South playing in their division.
The Wheels disbanded years ago but Porter, who has worked as chairman of the Mayor’s Alliance on Disabilities, called to tell me they will have a reunion next Wednesday, May 14th at 1 p.m. at the Embassy Suites out on Fowler Ave. by the USF campus. He’s looking for former players, coaches, refs, anybody who was a part of that special time. If you want some more information, you can call Chuck Porter at (813) 886-4163.
Sorry I’ve been a little slow with the blog this week. I want to blame it on the crash. My youngest was driving back from FSU at the end of the semester last weekend when he was slammed into by an 18-wheeler. He climbed out of the little Mazda with only a couple of bruises and a sore neck. The car looked like what happens when you’re through with a sheet of aluminum foil and crush it up into a ball. I haven’t been able to shake the image all week.
Your emails have been very kind although the dozens of you who have shared similar experiences is almost scary.
Here is a sampling of some of your notes:
My old friend and former Tampa Times’ colleague Mike Sherard wrote, “...Know the phone call all too well. Judy and I still dread the phone even ringing at night...Our son rolled his car getting on the interstate in October and I swear we went through everything you did. I was so grateful he was alive, I was giving money to the trash guys, paid a guy’s bill at the grocery store and on and on. So hang in there; there’s a bunch of us that know how you feel...damn kids.’’
From John Swann: “First let me say I am very glad your son is OK. I am a father with a daughter in college in Arkansas and have spent many a night worry about that same call. Your article could not have come at a better time for me. I was having a really bad day and very worried about things going on right now (lack of money) and your article shook me to the core. How dare I be concerned about things like that when I have so many things to be grateful for in my life. P.S. I think I’d be looking at a bigger used care this time.’’
Mark Tenney knew our feelings well: “Steve,...Your experience and the feelings evoked hit really close to home for Kathy and me. About three and a half years ago we had an eerily similar experience. Our oldest son John was driving home from school for Christmas break. He was involved in a serious car accident on I-75 at Payne’s Prairie (just north of the Citra exit) and his car was totaled very similar to your son’s car.
“Once we arrived in Gainesville and saw the extent of the damage to his car we wondered how he escaped unharmed. As we rummaged through all of his so-called valuables, we quickly realized how unimportant ‘stuff’ is and just how precious your children are. As we prepare to drive to Gainesville this weekend to watch John graduate from UF, your column reminded us that this blessing came very close to never being realized. Thanks again for the reminder of what is truly important in life and how quickly it can be lost.’’
Jay Botsch, who is General manager of WestShore Plaza, wrote, “Hi Steve, “This past Monday afternoon my cell phone rang with a very upset 18-year-old high school senior girl on the other end...sitting in her car moments after being struck by a vehicle that failed to stop at a traffic signal on East Lake Road. As you’ve guessed, the 18-year-old is my daughter Jennifer. I soon learned that parental helplessness is not a familiar, comfortable or welcome state for me.
“The good news is that my daughter seems to be okay. And we’re happy the other drive is okay as well...though that’s a tougher lesson to learn for an 18 year old that just lost her car/freedom. We’re also grateful to the numerous passersby that assisted my daughter from the car leading her to safety. I actually spoke with one person, a parent as well, assuring me that Jennifer was okay (never learned her name which I’m sorry about). Our thanks and praise are also extended to the Sheriff’s Dept., East Lake Fire and Rescue and Mease Countryside Emergency personnel. Simply terrific professional service at a time when you really need it.
“So I find that my wife and I are in the same reflective state about life and priorities...just as you are. I understand fully. So now that we’re bonded, let me in on any good used car leads you hear about through this story. Ha! Enjoy your son this summer.’’
Forget the wheel. Forget sliced bread. Forget scotch.
This may well go down as the greatest invention in the history of the world.
All hail - Kids Be Gone, a new device being installed at various locales around the nation designed to make teenagers, and other annoying children - go away.
I’ll take two.
According to its creators. Kids Be Gone is a wall-mounted box that emits loud, horrible, irritating sound at such a high-frequency decibel level only people roughly between the ages of 12 and early 20s can hear.
About a 1,000 units of Kids Be Gone have been sold in the United States and Canada, where they have been placed in areas where the youthful louts tend to congregate and loiter, generally just about anywhere I happen to be.
On second thought, I’ll take three.
Now if only the company that makes this wonderful, wonderful, wonderful item, could also produce a portable, hand-held version. Imagine the endless possibilities!
You are at a baseball game and there in front of you are two perfectly loathsome children engaged in beating each other up. ZAP! And off they go whining and holding their ears. And life is good.
You are in a movie theater trying to enjoy the film when a bunch of teenagers start babbling in total indifference to the rest of the patrons. Yep, this sure sounds like a call for Kids Be Gone! Ba-Bye.
Bratty children in the grocery stores, doltish kiddos with skateboards, even the misbehaving child in church - our prayers have been answered.
Really now can you think of a more important technological advance worthy of a Nobel Prize for something, than Kids Be Gone?
Come to think of it, I’ll take four.
It was Friday night and I was taking the Frau to one of those overpriced French (which is redundant) restaurants downtown. I mean tthe entire downtown was jumping. After dinner we cruised along the waterfront and there were crowds of people strolling and lining up to go into one of the dozens of restaurants and outdoor cafes. The blue lights hanging in the tress made the entire strip look as if it were decked out for the holidays.
We were, of course, in St. Petersburg where up and down Beach Drive there was that vibrancy you only get in a big town.
We drove by the elegant Museum of Fine Art, which just opened its new 33,000 square foot wing and past the site of the proposed “Placa Dali’’ that will house their great Salvador Dali collection.
The new Dali museum, by the way, is being designed by HOK Florida in Tampa, the same design group that recently completed the $43 million expansion of the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota.
Meanwhile back in Tampa, where there is no traffic problem in downtown Tampa at night, they have at least broken ground on the city’s museum, the boxy design of San Francisco architect Stanley Saitowitz.
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