Category: Sardonic Side

Ever notice there are some TV shows that you never, ever see unless you’re in a waiting room? Last year I was spending down time waiting for my Jeep at Ferman, when I was privy to “Family Feud.” Amazingly, it’s still on. But who’s watching it who’s not part of a captive audience? That’s what’s truly amazing.

Then last week — while pressed out in a hospital gown and waiting in a procedure queue at Memorial Hospital – I sat through “The Price Is Right” in its entirety. Right through to the climactic “Showcase Showdown.”

I’ll readily concede that in the case of a hospital, it wouldn’t be a good idea to be depressing patients with, say, CNN updates on all that’s wrong in the world. But the Bob Barker time capsule took me aback.

I half expected the nurse to exhort us to “Come on down for your colonoscopy.”

It’s no secret that Americans, especially when compared to Europeans, are woefully ignorant when it comes to geography and history. Maybe it’s because for too long the world had to come to us. And there were those two continent-dividing oceans. As a result, we didn’t deign to speak other languages or bother to familiarize ourselves with other cultures.

In the global village and marketplace, it works to our decided disadvantage.

Now we find out that Hillsborough County, which is probably not a national anomaly, has lots of schools where social studies has to be taught without benefit of reasonably current maps and globes. Teachers have to improvise and sometimes use outside sources, such as local chambers of commerce, for supplies. And when push comes to shove financially, sometimes an FCAT subject trumps geography.

At Wharton High, for example, school maps haven’t caught up with the implosion of the Soviet Union or the unification of Germany. Don’t even ask about Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia or Zaire. Reportedly Siam, Persia and Prussia have, however, been updated.

One other point.

Up-to-date maps are no guarantee of up-to-date knowledge and frame of reference. World geography has to be made a classroom priority or else students will simply have better maps to ignore.

That controversial case of Andrea Armstrong, the female basketball player who preferred the uniform of Islam to the one provided by USF, has ended on an appropriate, however circuitous, note. The Oregon native not only left the team and the university, she also left Islam. She went back to her home state and returned to Christianity.

Apparently she had been driven to convert in the first place — out of homesickeness.

So much controversy, so much anxiety, so much geo-political backlash, who was to know? It was just a phase.

Or in the words of Emily Littel: “Never Mind.”

What could be more appropriate than naming the new Ybor City Post Office, set to open later this year, after Ybor icon Roland Manteiga? The late publisher of the influential weekly, La Gaceta, was a tireless advocate for Tampa’s historic Latin Quarter.

Hardly matters, however, to the usual suspects: U.S. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ilena Ros-Lehtinen, the three hard-line Cuban-Americans from South Florida. They are derailing the effort because they can’t countenance the thought that anyone who wasn’t against Fidel Castro from the revolutionary get-go could be worthy of having a local post office named after him.

Presumably, the Fulgencio Batista Post Office would be more appropriate.

I took another look at the rendering of the 150,000 square-foot, glass-dominated Tampa Museum of Art that will break ground in January. It would appear we will now have another option for all that plywood stockpiled in so many South Tampa garages.

You’ve seen the TV footage and the newspaper photos. Maybe you were an eyewitness. Perhaps a participant; hopefully not. Call it the “Follies Frances.” Bayshore turned into a photo-op flood plain of gamboling and frolicking from an early morning storm surge and high tide.

Call it something else too. Dumb. And dangerous.

Now a note of context. This is a first-hand account. Specifically, the perspective is that of someone who had three uprooted trees, a backlog of storm refuse, a sandbagged front door, skittish power — and nothing that resembled a party temperament. But still, dumb is dumb. Dangerous is dangerous.

Let’s start with the most obvious. The numbskull exhibitionist on the Jet Ski and the simp in the Bayshore-traversing Land Rover represented a new level of idiocy. We’re reminded that money can’t buy brains. Maybe it’s the parvenu gene.

Now for the most serious — and most confounding.

Concede the surreal scene that is a flooded Bayshore; it is quite the sirenic attraction. Any kid would be tempted to play in it. Indeed, there were splashing tykes in bathing suits and older kids on skim boards.

What makes no sense, however, are the parents who permit it. What is it about brackish sewer water — in all its contaminant variety and menace — that they don’t understand? Doesn’t coliform count?

“Sure, it looks like fun, but I can’t stress enough how inadvisable it is for parents to allow their children to play in it,” says Cindy Morris, the director of environment services for the Hillsborough County Health Department. “With normal flooding, you should avoid standing water — let alone a major storm with major pumping stations out. Sewage overflows. The natural runoff includes animal and bird feces, for example. It was in that water.

“We can’t stress enough to the public that it’s risky to be submerged in that water,” Morris adds. “You get intestinal illnesses from contaminated water if you ingest it. If it gets into your eyes or nose. Or if you have sores or lesions. Then there are the hazards of not knowing what’s there. It could be electrical; it could be glass.”

It could be avoided. But obviously common sense was in as short a supply as generators were.

Runner-up: Those who made the Frances Follies a well-photographed, early Labor Day family event. Very early — as when the storm still surged, the rain remained heavy, the wind stayed stiff and the occasional tree branch whistled by. Some brought their very youngest — still in strollers — pulled from behind to avoid facing into the wind. The photo album will surely bear witness: “Baby’s First Hurricane.” Cute. Derelict and stupid, but cute.

Honorable mention: The early morning mom who accompanied her two young boys, both of whom were outfitted in skates and umbrellas. Bonding in a breezy obstacle course.

Honorable mention: The lad who brought his three-wheel, all-terrain vehicle beyond the water’s edge before turning around and performing a wheelie on the soggy lawn of St. John’s Episcopal Church. Maybe an agnostic — as well as a garden variety, inconsiderate punk.

Honorable mention: The man-on-a-mission guy in the pick-up who drove so close to Bayshore that his wheel wells were covered — as he parked it in a half U-turn. He jumped out, took a photo of his monster truck in a tropical flood and climbed back into his now stalled vehicle. Touché.

*The lamest excuse proffered for parents’ indulging their kids’ hurricane fantasies amid the obvious flood risks: “cabin fever.” Come on, it was less than a day. No one was emerging from a nuclear winter. Break out the board games. Remember those?

*This, I know, is first-rate rationalizing, but there is actually an up side to losing power. It means a dependence on radio news . The nature of the medium, “War of the Worlds” aside, is to traffick much less in melodrama and hype. Plus you don’t have to stare at the cone of anxiety, the approaching apocalypse or a suspendered, histrionic meteorologist.

*To the Univision/Channel 62 reporter who tripped and momentarily disappeared amid the wave action at the high-water intersection of Bayshore and Orleans and Watrous avenues. Nice recovery. Her hand-held microphone never hit the water.

*I’ll take Topical Storms Ronda any day.

These remaining afterthoughts in the wake of Hurricane Charley’s devastating swath through central Florida:

* Dante needs a new circle for his Inferno: Permanent provisions for looters , price gougers and those hawking “I Survived (insert natural disaster)” T-shirts.

*TV stations doing self promotions over Hurricane Charley come with the media’s competitive culture. Most impressive are those that can legitimately tout catching Charley’s hard turn to the east before the competition. Least impressive are those promoting their own people reporting from places such as Port Charlotte and saying: “It’s really bad here. Let’s talk to this elderly couple who have lost everything.”

*Among the inevitable, irksome feature stories: surfers enjoying the uncommonly rough Gulf waters, while all those around them batten down hatches, round up pets and family photos and prepare for worst-case-scenario, refugee status. Maybe it’s generational.

*If coxswains, who don’t do any heavy lifting, can earn medals in rowing — and deservedly so — why can’t horses , who do all the work, earn them in equestrian?

*Most forgettable, global-marketing, Olympic quote: “As a child, I always dreamed of becoming a McDonald’s athlete.” — Venus Williams .

*It has been well chronicled in the media that Jeremy Wariner’s gold medal in the 400 meters was more than just another in an impressive line of American performances in that event over the last two decades. The 20-year-old Wariner, it has been noted, is the first white American to win a sprint medal of any kind in 40 years. Press accounts even includes this quote — politically incorrect, it can be argued, if it were the reverse — by the black Grenadian sprinter Alleyne Francique, who finished fourth to Wariner. Said Francique: “I’ve never seen a white man run that fast.”The question still begging is would the compliment — that’s all it is — have been similarly received — sans racial controversy — if it had been, say, “I’ve never seen a black man swim that fast”? Or “I’ve never seen a black man (pole) vault that high”? Or “I’ve never seen a black man perform that well on the parallel bars”?

*Find yourself periodically saying, “I didn’t know that was an Olympic event “? Get ready for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, when the Games will introduce croquet, horseshoes, darts, poker, Chinese checkers and the dissident toss

So many topics, so little space. Today’s column also honors the request of readers (actually Bill Shorrock, a friend with negligible attention span) who prefer the short-topic format.

*The Athens Olympics is now underway. Nostalgia, anyone? Not too long ago, the definitive letters were USA and CCCP — now they’re BALCO and NATO.

Granted, the Games have rarely been pristine; otherwise, they would not have had to start all over again in 1896. And since then, the Games have hardly gone incident free, including the marathoner who was caught catching a cab in the St. Louis Games and the American medal winners who gave fisted black power salutes during the National Anthem in Mexico City. And recall the East German female swimmers who had to shave their mustaches before the Montreal Games and the Middle Eastern terrorists who put their inimitably murderous stamp on the Munich Games. And the American boycott of the Moscow Games and the Soviet counter boycott of the Los Angeles Games.

The Olympics survived it all.

But the threat of terrorism in these Games of the XXVIII Olympics has grown a hundred fold beyond the mere murders of Munich in 1972. Steroid testing is now an Olympic event; masking agents are worth a cache of medals. The quaint concept of a gender line has been institutionally blurred with the approved participation of transsexuals.

Anyone orchestrating their viewing habits to accommodate the debut of women’s wrestling? And how about all those events — such as baseball, basketball, soccer and tennis — that don’t even represent the pinnacle of their sports? Anyone going out of their way to watch the NBA’s tattooed third string? And don’t even think of baseball; the U.S. didn’t qualify. But Canada did.

When you come right down to it, the events that are above suspicion, reproach and questionable motivation are mostly the events that we don’t care about. Such as team handball or field hockey or pentathlon. Those are the athletes without agents and the wherewithal to cash in on Olympic exploits. Those are the athletes who hold down real jobs while finding a way to train. Those are the athletes who embody the real spirit of the Olympics. Those are the athletes you won’t see because those athletes play sports that are boring and unappealing to Americans. This one included.

*Minimum wage: Can’t your heart be in the right place and still acknowledge that it’s fundamental economic sense to let the marketplace determine the value of labor — not whether a given laborer can send his kids to college on $5 an hour?

*If there were no 22nd Amendment, what are the odds that John Kerry would be the Democratic nominee in 2004? What are the odds that Bill Clinton wouldn’t be the nominee?

*Another school year is off and stumbling. Most of the confusion is a predictable function of Hillsborough County’s new choice program. Schools scrambling to enroll students at the last minute are as expected as bus-stop screw-ups. But for all the variables, there is one immutable constant. You can send your kids across the street or across the county for school. What matters most is who is at home.

*On the one hand, you can understand any precaution taken with a high-profile event that is on al-Qaeda’s radar — such as the upcoming GOP convention in New York. But what’s with the secrecy surrounding Florida delegate names? According to party chairwoman Carole Jean Jordan, it’s more a matter of privacy than security. That sounds like protection against protestors — not terrorists.

Two points. Protestors come with the territory. And delegates, however invaluable as foot soldiers of a campaign, are otherwise not that, well, important.

*Say this for Mayor Pam Iorio. She is increasingly surrounded by her own people, and like any CEO, she wants them taken care of. In business, such care is in the form of marketplace salaries, perks, stock options and regular performance bonuses. In government, where salaries are slotted and not competitive with the private sector, the framework for bonuses is also limited. But as of this April, Iorio has seen to it that an incentive program for management-level employees was in place — via her executive order.

No one, of course, much cares until someone is actually awarded something. So cue the arched eyebrows on city council when Finance Director Bonnie Wise, who makes $133,000 a year, was awarded a one-time bonus of $6,131.

Sure, that $6,131 could have been spent on something else, as was noted by several council members. But that’s not the point. It’s about what a mayor — and Iorio isn’t the only one –does to attract good people. And then keep them. It should be noted that Wise took a pay cut to come to City Hall last year. It should also be noted that her job involves crafting City Hall’s budget and finding ways to cut city costs — presumably more than $6,131 worth.

**Recently ESPN commemorated its 25th anniversary. Part of the celebration was a weeklong, retro “old school” segment. The network brought back a number of former “SportsCenter” anchors. Many media types applauded even as they noted with disappointment that one of the more high-profile and witty former co-hosts, Keith Olbermann, wasn’t invited back. Too many burned bridges was the eminently credible reason.

Well, call me a dissenting media type. I don’t get the nostalgia — let alone cult status — of “SportsCenter,” whether it featured the acerbic Olbermann, the jive-talking Stuart Scott, the deadpanning Kenny Mayne or Chris (“Shelly”) Berman. If you want nostalgia, consider the BC (“Before Cosell”) era. That’s when the players and the games they played were “The Big Show” –not the non-playing yapsters who want co-billing with the players and plays they smugly comment on.

*Congratulations to Tampa-based Starfight Productions. Not only was its last card at the A La Carte Event Pavilion a sell-out, but the main event was televised nationally on ESPN 2’s “Tuesday Night Fights.” As it turned out, the July 27th card, which featured local lightweight contender Edner Cherry, became one of the toughest tickets around. So tough, in fact, that walk-up fans were turned away. So tough that among the disappointed — and chagrined — was local bon vivant, legendary fight fan and Bank of Tampa honcho Steve Helmstadter.

*It’s obviously wrong to pre-judge anyone’s behavior in the case of that teenaged boys’ soccer team that recently visited Amsterdam. But it’s not wrong to question the judgment of the adults in charge. Amsterdam?

*U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris is now a safe distance from Florida’s next attempt at a presidential election. What she is not, however, is far enough removed from national security rumor-mongering. But at least she regrets, she says, reporting that the U.S. had stopped a plot to blow up a power grid in Carmel, Ind. Among those not amused: the mayor of Carmel, who says it’s not true. What Harris obviously doesn’t regret, however, was plugging the Administration’s efforts on homeland security. You, otherwise, can’t prove a negative.

*Anyone notice how frequently the recently deceased singer Rick James has been referenced as “iconic?” That’s because without James there never would have been “Super Freak,” an ’80s R&B dance hit about a nymphomaniac backstage groupie. James later did hard time for abduction and assault. So much for standards. Call it a posthumous i-con job.