Tampa City Council is meeting this morning with a workshop on the city charter. As usual the council got bogged down with something else, this time an hour-long discussion on hiring a budget analyst as a way of saving money. Several council members not only want to hire an analyst but set up another committee.
Charlie Miranda, as only he can, limited his remarks to saying. “The only way you save money is by not spending it.’’
The council ignored his advice and will kill another hour or so next week figuring out how to spend money to save it.
While the Gasparilla Fim Festival is going on downtown, The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department is continuing its own video festival featuring fifty ways to beat up the disabled.
The problem with the latest video of an innmate in a wheelchair being dumped on the floor of a holding cell, is that it may not tell the whole story. Videos seldom do. On the other hand that might be good news for the Sheriff’s Department, which is beginning to look like the East coast distributor for YouTube.
It may very well be that the guy was out of control. There is little doubt the officers in charge were either out of control or had no idea how to deal with the situation.
The Tampa Sports Authority is currently negotiating with the University of South Florida over a 15-year extension at Raymond James Stadium for its football games. Included in the bargaining is preferential rights for games on Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights during the football season.
Wasn’t there a time when colleges passed over Friday nights, leaving them to the high schools? But then that was before USF decided it was just going to another football school and join the pack.
I wish I could remember the first time I heard William F. Buckley Jr., who died today. I think it was back in high school and Buckley was in town to preach about the conservative movement that would soon take over the Republican Party and help Barry Goldwater get the nomination.
I do recall I couldn’t decide if he was ultimately cool or just a snob but that he had a way with words, whether or not they made sense. I even went out and got a subscription to his magazine “National Review,’’ which I pretended to enjoy and even understand although if ever a magazine could have used playmates, it was this one.
There was a time not all that long ago when everyone was filled with good old fashioned pride that a bright, young, attractive, articulate black man could, in this great country of ours, run and be accepted as a candidate for the presidency of these United States.
Cue those amber waves of grain, those purple mountain’s majesty, those fruited plains.
But that was then and now is now.
Isn’t it amazing what happened to Sen. Barack Obama,once he evolved from a charming symbol of racial pride to a guy who actually might become the president of these United States?
The right-wing propaganda mills have been working at hyper-speed in recent months in an effort to portray Obama as some sort of tool of fundamentalist Islam, spreading lies as how the Illinois senator took his oath of office with his hand of the Koran (wrong), how he was educated in madrasses (wrong) and other assorted ponderous piffle.
Earlier this week, phony conservative radio talk show thug, Bill “Complete Dolt” Cunningham, at a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, found himself in full carpet-chewing mode, repeatedly referring to the Democratic Party presidential candidate as Barack Hussein Obama.
Cunningham, who must have graduated from the Joseph Goebbels’ School of Fear-Mongering Broadcasting, noted that he had had a dream where Barack Hussein Obama, meets with the world dictators before cozying “... up next to Hezbollah.”
So over the top were the remarks of Bill “Albert Speer Cunningham that he was repudiated by the very man the radio spittle merchant had come to praise - John McCain.
McCain, appearing to want to distance himself from Bill “Augusto Pinochet” Cunningham’s as if he was a walking Ebola virus (which, in fact he is), condemned the talk show stormtrooper’s remarks, noting “I absolutely repudiate such comments, and again, I will take responsibility. It will never happen again.”
For his part, Bill “Torquemada” Cunningham quickly hied away to the warm embrace of fellow traveller Sean Hannity of Faux News, which had to be a bit like Vlad the Impaler seeking out the gentle solace of Charles Manson.
Bill “Luca Brasi” Cunningham insisted he was merely, simply, innocently using the candidate’s full legal name, which just so happens to be Barack Hussein Obama, adding: “Sean, now why don’t you talk to his mother and father, recently departed? God bless rest their souls. His parents called him Barack Hussein Obama, not me.”
Could Bill “Joe McCarthy” Cunningham be any more disingenuous, any more ham-handed, any more of a phony prevaricator?
The dirty little fact of political life is that some people are simply dumber than a sack of ..., well Bill “Old Yeller” Cunninghams, come to think ot it.
The talk show spear carrier knew full well that by liberally using Obama’s middle name he would be conjuring up images of Islamic terrorism in a sloppy appeal to the baser instincts of a fearful electorate. And that is tragically sad at best and cheap, sleazy and declasse at worst.
Bill “Uday & Qusay” Cunningham, argued his beef with Obama was that the candidate wanted to close down the prison facilities at Guantanamo, reinstate habeas corpus and eliminate certain provisions of the Patriot Act.
Little wonder Bill “Moammar” Cunningham is so upset. Imagine the gall of a presidential candidate who opposes torture and believes in the Bill of Rights. Obviously this liberalism thing has gone way too far.
McCain is to be commended for disassociating his campaign from the prejudicial, not to mention dunderheaded foaming at the mouth of Bill “Spider Hole” Cunningham.
For his part, the talk show lummox said he was going to throw his political lot in with Ann Coulter, the Eva Braun of the drive-by bloviators.
“I’ve had it with John McCain,” Bill “Wolf’s Lair’ Cunningham pouted.
And you have to suspect the feeling is more than mutual.
Did you read that story in Mother Trib this week about the “Doomsday Vault’’ in the Arctic? Norway spent close to $10 million constructing a vault only 620 miles from the north pole where they plan on storing 4.5 million seed samples in case of a global emergency such as a nuclear war. I felt like I was watching Dr. Stranglove comes to life.
A bunch of seeds will be OK for generations that might follow but I would feel better if they had a giant refrigerator up there stocked with Cuban sandwiches, deviled crabs and black beans. Man does not live on seeds alone.
Sorry to hear about the death of Channel 10 weatherman Dick Fletcher this morning. He was one of us; not just in the media business but in our community.
I only knew Dick casually but he was among that handful of “celebrities’’ I could call on for one event or the other to support a charity. He cared about the community and its people and how we treated both. One of his passions was studying the Florida environment and what we are doing to it. I’ll miss him.
This is probably a textbook case of how to squander a reservoir of public good will.
It may not be fair, but it is undeniably true that some murder victims, even children, sometimes hold a special place in the public’s heart.
Maybe it was Jessica Lunsford’s little pink hat, or perhaps it was that oh so charmingly innocent smile that reached out and grabbed the public in such a achingly painful way.
There was that innocence, which leaped off the page everytime we looked at her photograph.
And then there was the unimaginable way this sweet child died - debased and buried alive at the hands of John Evander Couey, who now sits on death row, a piece of vermin awaiting the eventual arrival of the state’s exterminator.
In a sort of existential way, Jessica was our little girl too. Our tears were shed for her and for her family, especially Jessica’s father Mark, who despite all the outward trappings of being the good ol’ boy from central casting, emerged as a thoughtful, articulate spokesman for his daughter’s memory.
And now - this.
Mark Lunsford intends to sue the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office over its handling of the investigation into Jessica’s disappearance and murder. And that is sad, terribly sad.
Were there mistakes made by the Citrus Sheriff’s Office? Maybe. Possibly. Absolutely.
Every criminal investigation has its shortcomings, but no reasonable person could ever conclude Citrus Sheriff Jeff Dawsy and his deputies didn’t do everything possible to find young Jessica.
For Mark Lunsford to now attempt to haul Dawsy and his department into court only undermines this little girl’s memory and diminishes the considerable measure of goodwill a still grieving father enjoys with the public.
Lunsford should tread very carefully on this legal ground. For while his lawsuit might well reveal errors and omissions Dawsy’s team may have committed in tracking down Couey, Mark Lunsford himself runs the risk of having his own conduct as a parent brought into question as the lawsuit moves forward.
Does he really, really want to expose his own mistakes to be laundered in public?
Is it really worth it? To Mark Lunsford? To Jeff Dawsy? To - Jessica?
Anybody who lives around here and has had to get anywhere at anytime on any road was probably not surprised by this statement from a road construction spokesman yesterday. His remarks came after construction workers put up barricades on northbound I-275 around the Armenia\Howard entrance ramps, creating massive backups.
John McShaffrey, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, said “Sometimes you do things in the planning room and get in the real world and have it not work out. If we’d known, we wouldn’t have designed it that way.’‘
I’d say that’s a big maybe.
Just came home and turned on the television. At first it appeared there were more troubles down at the County jail. Fortunately it was just the Serbs trying to burn down the American embassy in Belgrade.
How bad has it gotten for Hillsborough Sheriff David Gee?
Well, let’s put it this way. Roger Clemens had a better week.
In the snippet of time it took for Orient Road Jail Detention Deputy Charlette Marshall-Jones to toss quadriplegic Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair, Gee’s department has become the poster child for every stereotype of the redneck, doltish Southern law enforcement officer. Good grief, this episode made Jackie Gleason’s Sheriff Buford T. Justice from “Smokey & The Bandit,” look like Inspector Morse.
Governor Charlie Crist is aghast and so is Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum. Not good. And it gets even worse.
Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober is investigating the incident and there are rumblings even the U.S. Attorney General’s office may start nosing around the treatment of Sterner. Oh dear. But it gets even worse.
Log onto Google, type in: “Hillsborough Sheriff wheelchair,” and you’ll discover nearly 500 versions of this story have been reported - around the world.
The tale of Sterner’s rough treatment in the booking area of the jail at the hands of Marsall-Jones, while other deputies do - nothing, has appeared on televison staions and in newspapers coast-to-coast. But wait. There’s more.
The story has appeared on the BBC World News broadcast. Sterner’s fate also has been reported as far away as India and Australia. And yes, it gets worse.
Since it was posted on YouTube, the Orient Road Jail video of Sterner’s abuse has been viewed more than 52,500 times.
As public relations disasters go, David Gee and his jail have become the Mad Cow Disease meets Michael Vick of corrections.
In time, this too will pass. Discipline will be levied. And Sterner will likely receive a rather large check.
Until then the High Sheriff will simply have to endure being portrayed around the world of overseeing a department of dimwitted bullies straight out of “In The Heat Of The Night.”
This is what happens when the PR Gods are angered. And they are very, very, very wadded these days.
Not good.
From the mailbag a few Readergraphs:
Mariella Smith usually writes about the environment or more to the point, what we are doing to it in the southern reaches of Hillsborough County. This one was a little different.
“You hit the nail on the head in your column today (2/15/08). My husband and I know Brian Sterner personally. As awful as it was to watch the one deputy dump him on the ground, the really sickening part was the way all the other deputies just walked around nonchalantly, this is is S.O.P. Not a single double-take. No one went over to ask’What’s going on?’ And that one creep smiles. If this is just one rotten apple, where was the shock among the rest of the staff?’
- On a completely different subject Bob Dwyer wrote in to comment on the column marking the 25th anniversary of the arrest of three county commissioners for bribery.
“I certainly remember the day (Jerry) Bowmer et al were taken down. I was a supervisor in the Tampa FBI office. My baliwick was directing violent crime investigations so I did not get involved in the comissioners’ case but I can tell you it was botched up in a very major way from the start. You can lay that at the feet of the egotistical US Attorney Bob Merkle.
“First of all, the case was a gift. A guy walked in, said he was being shook down by Jerry Bowmer and what should he do. He was wired up and in very short order we had Bowmer on tape in an extortionate conversation. Bowmer, of course, was a moron and rolled over immediately. Where to go from there?
What should have been done was to wire him up and let him roam around the county for the next six months or longer, recording hundreds of criminal conversations. Did that happen? No. Why? Because Merkle knew the legitimate venue for the case was the Organized Crime Strike Force and he wanted the glory for himself. So Bowmer was sent in the next day with the marked money, the busts went down and the cat was out of the bag. There isn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that if Bowmer had been wired there would have been a wholesale cleaning out of county government.
“Hi Steve…You may find this amusing , but my brother in law was very worried about it… My sister and family were in town from Brevard, North Carolina for the Outback Bowl last month and they stayed at the Hyatt downtown…They were on the 16th floor and had a great view of one of our bank buildings. My brother-in-law called me and said that he saw at least 200 buzzards swarming around on top of buildings. He thought there was something dead up there! He snapped some pictures and sure enough there were swarms up there. Is this true? I thought you would be a great source since you know Tampa so well. Thanks, Margaret Dixon.’‘
- I do know about the buzzards. I also know about Brevard, where they pay homage to the white squirrels that meander around the town. My guess is our buzzards and their white squirrels wouldn’t be all that compatible.
My friend Bob Bishop, who used to work in one of those downtown buildings, did a study of the critters and discovered these are the same turkey vultures who show up in Hinckley, Ohio every Spring, where they have a Buzzard Day festival. He tried to get one going here a few Octobers ago -which is about when they arrive back in Tampa - holding a dinner and equiring everone to wear buzzard masks. For some reason it still hasn’t caught on.
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This is what happens when the Democratic National Committee is allowed to fall into the hands of a gaggle of people who are dumber than a sack of anvils, led by the body politics’ answer to the stiff in “Weekend At Bernie’s”
With the exception of DNC chairman - cue the laugh track - Howard Dean and his inner circle of political yard gnomes, the decision to treat Florida Democrats like so many medieval serfs was always known by everyone to be destined to come back and bite these dolts in the keister. And it has.
Because the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature moved up the state’s primary election date to January 29, in violation of DNC rules, Dean, the Yosemite Sam of the hustings, punished the state by denying delegates to any Democrat running for the presidency, which is a bit like beating up your neighbor for something your dog did.
Michigan was similarly punished by the Joan Crawford of the Electoral College.
But you didn’t need to be Nostradamus meets Kreskin to figure out that eventually Dean’s snippy edict would have all the staying power of the Washington Generals holding their own against the Harlem Globetrotters. Florida’s rich delegate field was only to be personna non grata, the black spot of the stump - until somebody needed them.
And that somebody, Hillary Clinton, needs them real, real, real bad.
Now the finagling begins as Clinton, who won the the Florida Primary 50-33 percent over Barack Obama, tries to figure out a way to have the potential 105 delegates she earned be officially recognized and seated at the Democratic Party convention this summer in Denver.
Obama, too, would benefit, with some 67 delegates pledged to his campaign.
Alas there are all manner of problems associated with Howard Dean’s Jim Crowesque decision to disenfranchise millions of votes cast by Florida Democrats.
Should the DNC relent and seat the Florida delegation it would expose Dean and his little friends for the petulant, myopic, small “b” bullies that they are.
What does the DNC say to Florida Democrats who stayed home on election day believing their voice, their will - their vote - didn’t count?
Would the January 29th outcome been different had there actually been a legitimate election? Would the Amendment One initiative on capping property taxes seen a different result had not voter turnout been surpressed by Dean and the DNC?
If, as some politicos have suggested, a sort of “do-over” is conducted in the form of a caucus and Obama, who is currently enjoying a swing of momentum in his favor, were to win what are the odds do you suppose of Hillary Clinton conducting a scorched-earth legal battle to have her original victory recognized?
There is no shortage of hypocrisy at foot here.
Obama has argued it would be unfair to seat the Florida delegation since the Democratic field of presidential candidates didn’t have a chance to campaign in Florida prior to January 29th election.
But that is so much balderdash.
Democratic candidates didn’t campaign in Florida because they were afraid of offending the Luca Brasi of the Beltway and the rest of the DNC.
If Obama lacked the spine to confront what was a patently insane decision by the national party, it is no one else’s fault, but his own.
With so much at stake, who knows how all this will turn out, but we can be reasonably assured whatever happens, it won’t be pretty.
If there was any true justice to be found here, or simply perhaps some delicious irony, wouldn’t it somehow be oh so fitting, and oh so Florida if the state delegation was indeed recognized and seated at the convention and in a well-deserved twist of fate everybody voted for - Dennis Kucinch?
One can always hope, can’t one?
Just got back from the state fair where former GTE boss Bill Starkey was named Tampa’s Outstanding Citizen of the Year by the Tampa Metro Civitans.
Starkey is a good guy and has worked to imporve this town in areas from education to health care. I think his most impressive moment came in 2004 when he was asked to take over as interim director of the Port of Tampa. We were in a lurch and although Starkey admitted he knew little about running the port, he brought in new energy, helped make sweeping changes and did it all for free, figuring it was something he owed to the community.
The Civitans give out the award at what is called the Governor’s Luncheon, a huge deal with every muckey-much in town, inlcuding most of the elected officials and plenty of wannabes.
For the second year in the row Charlie Crist was late…I mean he was more than an hour late which isn’t all that acceptable even if you are the governor.
He finally rolled in, George Hamilton tan and all, took off his jacket, went to the podium and started right in telling us how swell everything is going in Florida, which could have fooled more than a few people in the hall. It was probably one corn dog short of a winner for the gov. who might have gotten a better reception if he showed up before everyone had to go back to work to pay their mortgage and fill up the gas tanks.
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