Opinions to go Online

* “Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.”–George Kennan, the architect of America’s Cold War policy, in 1997.

* “I’m where George Kennan was. It was a mistake to enlarge NATO by admitting former Warsaw Pact states. It fueled resentment, encouraged paranoia and embarrassed democrats in Moscow who’d pushed against Communism at some cost.”–Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal.

* “If Putin gets away with this, the post-1945 peace in Europe will be over.”–Trudy Rubin, Washington Post.

* “Russkiy Mir.”– “Russian World”: The idea that Russian civilization extends everywhere that ethnic Russians live.

* “Putin seeks at the very least a two-tiered NATO, in which no allied forces are deployed on former Warsaw Pact territory.”–Robert Kagan, author and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

* “We are 50 percent-plus of global GDP.”–National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who contrasted this number to Russia’s 3 percent share of the world’s economic output.

* “Something China does not want to see.”–Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

* “Nie wieder Krieg” (“Never again war”). Still a familiar, pacifist strain in post-World War II Germany.

* “There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell.”–Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations.

* “Mr. Zelenskyy, the showman and (comic) performer, has been unmasked by reality. …It’s clear what the problem is: Mr. Zelenskyy’s tendency to treat everything like a show.”–Olga Rudenko, editor of the Kyiv Independent.

* “This is a clear emotional and psychological reaction to the years and even decades of the West and the U.S. being rather dismissive of Russian security concerns.”–Former Soviet diplomat Pavel Palazhchenko.

* “Our European skies are open skies. They’re open for those who connect people, not for those who seek to brutally aggress.”–Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, on the EU’s banning of Russian aircraft from flying into or over EU airspace.

* “(Great Britain is) moving from government restrictions to personal responsibility.”–UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in announcing the end of the last domestic coronavirus restrictions in England.

* “There’s a big difference between being vigilant and being a vigilante.”–Federal prosecutor Christopher Perras.

* “The question is whether all those increases are directly correlated to those causes or whether people are taking advantage.”–Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, on recent food price hikes that indicate some businesses taking advantage of the pandemic and supply chain interruptions.

* “We are facing a demographic crisis because of low birth rates. For the first time in the nation’s history, the population growth of the 20-to-64 age group—the workforce age group—has turned negative.”–Former USF finance professor Murad Antia.

* “(If confirmed, Ketanji Brown Jackson) would be the first justice to have served as a federal public defender… . Not since Thurgood Marshall has a justice had such extensive experience representing criminal defendants.”–Ruth Marcus, WaPo.

* “We’ve lost more than the man the Wall Street Journal called ‘the funniest writer in America.’ We’ve lost the last funny conservative.”–Christopher Buckley, the author of “Thank You For Smoking” and “Make Russia Great Again,” on the passing of P.J. O’Rourke.

* “The ability of separate juries to find guilt in a police misconduct case and a racially motivated murder in the same week is a sign that the process of accountability in the arena of civil rights enforcement is more assertive, more public, than at any point in decades.”–Former federal prosecutor Michael McAuliffe.

* “A menace to society.”–How Tampa City Council member Guido Maniscalco characterized rapidly rising rents in Tampa.

Word has it that Vladimir Putin still misses Donald Trump. But NATO, of course, doesn’t—except for the authoritarians in charge of Turkey and Hungary. NATO needs the U.S. if it is going to effectively combat Russian plans to reset Europe–and erase its USSR-devolution humiliation. But the Biden Administration is not about to actually put American troops into Ukraine. This isn’t Vietnam or Afghanistan. Besides, Ukraine’s not a member of NATO. And that’s the sanctions needle that President Joe Biden has to thread. Help to save face, NATO credibility, Russia-to-Europe energy trade, global-price surges and lives—without committing troops for the trenches.

And then there’s this geopolitical, Cold War-ish reality. Miscalculations matter. Would the U.S. consider the possibility of a treaty obligation that could risk a nuclear war over the Donbas?

* “Cancer Moonshot” update: Earlier this month President Joe Biden set a goal of cutting the death rate from cancer in half over the next 25 years.

* A key issue among would-be EV owners is the charging infrastructure. While most EV owners charge at home, a more robust network of fast-charging stations would help. To that goal, the Biden Administration has plans to make 500,000 chargers available to the public. Currently there are 100,000 chargers available.

* “The old prism of class has been supplanted by the prism of identity politics. As the Democratic Party is increasingly dominated by people with college and graduate degrees, the white working class core of the old FDR coalition has steadily migrated rightward.”–Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch.

* “One of Joe Biden’s strengths is that, at his best, he speaks the language of America, not Washington. But he has been speaking more in the voice of government officials than he has of Scranton Joe. He needs to get back there.”–Former Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod.

* “We all share the same goal: to get to a point where COVID-19 is no longer disrupting our daily lives, a time when it won’t be a constant crisis.”–CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.

* 69,000: total pandemic deaths in Florida.

* Positivity: 8.2 percent in Florida last week. It was 14.3 percent the week prior.

* About half of eligible Americans have received booster shots.

* “I think it’s safe to say that infections will return to pre-omicron levels by early March.”–UF research scientist Thomas Hladish.

* The eastern Gulf of Mexico should expect 14 to 16 inches of sea level rise by 2050, according to projections by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.

* Disneyland has dropped COVID mask requirements for vaccinated guests.

* “If Roe v. Wade is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court and Florida bans abortion, people will be forced out of state to seek essential health care services. This is not the ‘Free Florida’ the governor brags about. It is hypocrisy.”–Barbara Zdravecky, former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida.

* 2021 overseas travelers: 4.95 million. 2020 overseas travelers: 2.04 million. 2019 overseas travelers: 9.8 million.

* “If DeSantis and Republican legislators succeed this session and pass this misguided (education) legislation, what’s next? Should our teachers not teach evolution because some parents want their children to learn only through a creationist lens?”–Julee Garcia, program director for the advocacy group For Our Future Florida.

* The “Mole Patrol”: A vehicle that travels the state to provide free skin cancer screenings.

* “(Florida Republican legislators) wanted to cut into Dems’ advantage in sign-ups for vote-by-mail ballots. This, rather than violence, intimidation and lynching, is what voter suppression looks like as our democracy enters the 21^st century.”–Howard Simon, former executive director of the ACLU of Florida.

* “This grant will allow (the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority) to significantly reduce operational costs while expanding the Cross-Bay Ferry service, helping to grow inter city and commuter ferry service.”–U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, in announcing that the U.S. Department of Transportation is awarding a grant totaling $4.9 million To HART for the passenger ferry service.

* Hillsborough County has 35 schools on the state’s “persistently low-performing” list. No other district has more than 18.

* Five of the seven members of the Clearwater Downtown Development Board are Scientology parishioners. Good luck, DT Clearwater.

* “This has been a whispered conversation in this community for a long time. Frankly, folks have been afraid to bring it forward because there’s been a lot of pushback.”–St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch, on re-evaluating the city’s prime, 119-acre waterfront property where Albert Whitted Airport operates.

* After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the one President Trump never attended, is back: April 30. President Biden is expected to attend.

* “It’s the weaponization of context. It’s genuine content, but the context changes via minor edits. Anyone can be vulnerable with the right edit.”–Claire Wardel, executive director of First Draft, a non-profit that works to protect against disinformation and misinformation. Especially in the digital era. Especially with self-servingly edited, viral, partisan-political videos.

* Remington made news with its announced $73 million lawsuit settlement with families of those slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary. Too bad it didn’t also announce that it would, flat-out, no longer manufacture and advertise assault weapons, such as AR-15 style rifles, to any market other than the military and police departments.

Marketing is a critical factor when a manufacturer targets younger, at-risk males in ads and product placement in violent video games—a morally craven business model. Then it’s all about the macho gun culture—and clueless parents, gun-rights politicians and other societal enablers. What’s left of the Lanza family would likely agree. Until moral sanity and the law banning assault weapons is restored, the best counter weapons are big-money lawsuits.

* Don’t take life so seriously … it’s not permanent.

* When driving by the new Bank of Tampa facility on MLK Boulevard, I can’t help but reflect on the name. I think it matters to have a local identity. Not Fifth Third Bank. Not Bank of the Ozarks. Not, uh, Synovus.

* Bumper sticker: “Former baby on board.”

* Taxidermist’s window: “We really know our stuff.”

* A fence: “Salesmen welcome. Dog food is expensive.”

* Spring training games across Florida won’t start until—at least—March 5 because of the lockout.

* Much has been made of the citizenship—not just the incredible talent—of 18-year-old, San Francisco-born, freestyle skiier Eileen Gu, who won Olympic gold in Beijing. Her mother is Chinese and her father is American. She chose to compete for China—although China officially does not allow dual citizenship. “When I’m in the U.S., I’m American,” says Gu, “but when I’m in China, I’m Chinese.”

We get the duality of hyphenated Americans. But, let’s be honest. Nobody would be calling Gu a “traitor” or “ungrateful”–as some, alas, have–if she were, say, half Danish or Irish. But China is now the world’s avatar for authoritarianism and genocide. It has an increasingly adversarial relationship with the United States. That’s unfortunate. As is the possibility—or likelihood—that China will try to exploit her image for propaganda purposes.

“She was recruited to compete on behalf of China, but she was not recruited to become the spokesperson for China’s toxic patriotism,” notes CCNY political scientist Ming Xia.

* The next Summer Olympics: 2024 in Paris. The next newest sport: break-dancing. Seriously. Still not yet Olympic sports: The Bristol Stomp, Hop Scotch and The Limbo Bar.

* ESPN recently estimated that “under the table” (via a bookie or off-shore gambling site) bets on NFL and college football games exceed $95 billion per year.