5. Tampans and St Petersburgers

  Tampa sucks. It doesn't intrinsically suck, like Cleveland or Buffalo. It only really sucks compared to the jewel that is St. Petersburg. To say there are strained feelings between the two cities is an understatement. But, this is, of course, human nature. You have a much greater likelihood of hating your next door neighbor more than anyone else on the planet, especially if your next-door neighbor acts like a putz.

  It is particularly painful, therefore, to learn that the best sandwich on the planet, the sandwich by which all others are judged, The Cuban Sandwich, originated in Ybor (pronounced EE-Bor) City, a part of Tampa.
It wasn't so bad when everybody thought a Cuban sandwich actually came from Cuba. But recently, Tampa decided that the Cuban sandwich was the "official" sandwich of Tampa, and arrogantly renamed it the "Tampa Cuban Sandwich."

The Tampan Cuban

 There have been some incidents recently that have exacerbated the tension with Tampans. These are not necessarily in chronological order:

1. The St. Petersburg Times 1884-2011. Fans will tell you that it's a premier newspaper, winner of six Pulitzer prizes and renowned for fantastic color reproduction. Critics will tell you that it should be named "Pravda by the Bay", as its editorial policy is somewhere in between the political leanings of  Bill Maher and Karl Marx. For 127 years, it's banner flew proudly, until the current crop of Benedict Arnold weasel-faced quislings running the rag decided to change the name to "Tampa Bay Times", in an ill-conceived and pathetic attempt to appear more "regional". It would be comical if it weren't so tragically stupid.

2. The United States Post Office.  I actually LIKE the post office. No Kidding. To put a stamp on a letter and have it delivered days later is a miracle. Don't believe that?
Try mailing something from Lower Slobovia to Upper Slobovia.

Lower and Upper Slobovian Postmaster Generals

But the United States post office, in a cost-cutting measure, recently decided to do away with the St. Petersburg postmark, having all mail originating from St. Petersburg postmarked "Tampa". This is kind of like finding out that your husband is cheating on you, but in doing so, he's letting his trollop use your lipstick and toothbrush.

Can I borrow that blouse?

3. St Petersburg's major league baseball team is named The Tampa Bay Rays. Tampa Bay is a body of water, not a city. The name by itself is insulting enough, especially since dimwit sports announcers will routinely refer to St. Petersburg as Tampa. If this isn't enough, as St. Petersburg does everything they can to chase the Rays out of town by pretending that baseball teams don't want new stadiums, Tampa City leaders are waving from the other side of the bay, lifting up their skirts and bending over.

Peanuts? Cracker Jacks? New Stadium?

It's entirely possible that you may be reading this and may be a Tampan. Or you may be related to, or be terribly fond of someone who is a Tampan, and take great offense at this blog. If so, I understand.

Bite my Tampan Cuban.

4. OMG! My Friend is a Moron.

  It's a jarring thing to find out that your friend is a moron. By friend, what I really mean here is a "peer". A peer is someone, who by any external observance, is "just like you". Maybe you grew up in the same town, went to the same schools, worship at the same place, go to the same restaurants, have mutual friends, shop at the same stores. Someone from a foreign country may not be able to tell any difference between you. What they don't know, however, is that you've seen your friend's postings on Facebook and you have found out, by virtue of his or her political affiliation, that they are sadly, a moron. So while you are the "same", you are very very different.

You

                                           

Moron

NOT a peer

  Part of the reason for this is that folks who would never think of talking politics at a dinner party with people they don't know, will not hesitate to post politically incendiary things on Facebook.  When you're confronted with someone having a radically different perspective than you, and you believe you're clearly NOT a peer, then you are not terribly surprised.

Peer

 The real problem occurs, however, when someone who really IS a peer 

sees the world very differently than you do.

A. Liberal (Left)   -   B. Conservative (Right)

 Baby "A", for instance, grows up to Occupy Wall Street. Baby "B" joins the Tea Party

What value you ascribe to either of these positions
will be determined by your political orientation.

Who's to say?

What set my mind to thinking about this was a column I read in the stupidly renamed Tampa Bay Times, formerly the St. Petersburg Times (renamed in a pathetic attempt to appear to be more "regional"). This column appeared in their free handout you'll see around town. It's called TBT and reprises articles that have already appeared in the paper. It's titled "You Can't Debate a Liberal". Before reading the article, you have instantly formed an opinion over whether or not you're going to like it and/or find any validity in it. I am not advocating its content, or arguing against it. What it did for me was open my eyes to the possibility that there are plenty of people who are NOT stupid, NOT evil, and NOT crazy (maybe even some of them are peers) who view the world very differently. I urge you to read this article with an open mind, think of some of your peers who look at the world very differently, try to empathize with their position, consider that it IS possible for reasonable people to have very different perspectives, and then (and only then) say "Oh my God, my friend is a moron".

Click here to read "You Can't Debate a Liberal"

Just in case that leaves your tutu too twisted, here's equal time for the other side :


Click here to read "Don’t Ever Debate a Conservative on His Terms.You’ll Lose!" 

3. Are We the Worst?

Howard Troxler

Are we? This is a question I posed to Howard Troxler a few years ago. For those of you who don't remember Howard, or weren't fortunate enough to be living here when he was writing for the St. Petersburg Times, he was a beacon in the night.
He was often the only one, with pen mightier than sword, willing to point out that "the emperor had no clothes". One of his favorite targets was the Florida State Legislature. If you've lived in Florida for any length of time, and you have the least sense of fairness, then you are already aware that the Florida State Legislature is stupifyingly wretched.

            Flori-Duh

I would be remiss not to include some of the Great Mans words. Here is link to one of his 2011 columns that starts with: "It's only the first week of the Legislature, and already it has set a record for The Worst Idea in the History of the World ".
Golf Courses in State Parks - The Worst Idea in History

Now just in case you think this kind of thing is ancient history, here are some of the stories from this week in the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) newspaper.
Elected leaders make stupid laws and cost the taxpayers a fortune
Legislators reckless porkbarrel budget
Lawmakers protect their own sweet deal on health insurance

I was lucky enough to once get interviewed by Howard when my neighborhood was fighting a particularly egregious and unwanted boneheaded commercial development plan. Over the course of the next few years, I would periodically reach out to him. One time I asked him how it was that perfectly good and decent people could enter political office and transform into such Napoleonic weasels.

Shadenfreude: Pleasure derived from
 the misfortune of others

His theory was that perfectly normal people sit up on the dais, with other people looking up at them, hanging on their every word, beseeching them for favors, and treating them as if their opinions mattered. After a while, they start believing it. Keep someone in office long enough, and they start to believe that the laws no longer apply to them. I think that's a pretty good theory.


Of course in Florida we've gone one better, and elected The Worst Scumbag in the History of Florida Governors, and that's saying a lot. The voters of Florida, deciding that they couldn't bear the thought of a Governor becoming a criminal WHILE in office, decided on a preemptive strike and elected a criminal TO office.

Rick Scott (The Ricktator) was Chairman/CEO of Columbia/HCA, the company fined $1.7 billion by the federal government for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. It set a record for the largest fine of its kind in history. The company plead guilty to 14 felony violations of fraud. Here's an interesting piece about Snotty Scotty that was written BEFORE he was elected, so it's not like anyone didn't know.
Steve Forbes: Why Rick Scott can't be trusted.

It is so shallow to judge anyone by their personal appearance. It's just not right, and something this author abhors, making it all that more problematic that Scott bares an uncanny resemblance to Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.

I do NOT                                              Resistance is futile

This comparison is, of course, massively unfair to Lord Voldemort, as he has never received so much as a parking ticket, much less overseen a criminal enterprise. I'm sure his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Mort, are lovely people.

Another time I asked Howard if he thought the Florida State Legislature was the worst in the United States. He said that it may not be the VERY worst, that you could never really count out Louisiana, but Florida was certainly in the running.
So...... we have one of the worst State Legislatures in the nation, and an ethically bankrupt Governor. What is the common thread between these two things?

I sure of it, I DID poopies!

It's the Florida voter. It's OUR fault. We seem to forget that these people we elect for reasons unrelated to their qualifications for intelligent governance, make decisions that directly affect our lives. Many people these days, particularly those on the right, believe they are channeling the Founding Fathers. They can pretty much get away with this since everyone napped through history class anyway and has no idea what the Founding Fathers really said. They said stuff like "..if the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded." Noah Webster.

Not sure if Howard Troxler ever came out and said, "Hey Floridians, if you keep voting stupidly, you get what you deserve".  He probably did. We have no one but ourselves to blame.

Years ago, there was a comic strip called Pogo. I leave you with this thought:       ARE we the worst?

2. Why Everyone Should Be Hated

  Many think that Americans have never been so partisan or bitterly divided, or politics been nastier. Not the case.

  Jefferson vs Adams 1800. Jefferson wrote "Adams was a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and the firmness of a man nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman". In return, Adams asked voters "Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames, hoary heads bathed in blood, female chastity violated, children writhing on the pike and halberd? Great God of compassion and justice, shield my country from destruction."

J:  Oh Yeah?                A: Sez You

  28 years later, John Adams son, John Quincy Adams, said of his opponent Andrew Jackson, that he had the personality of a dictator, was too uneducated to be President and said his wife was a "dirty black wench... prone to open and notorious lewdness". Jackson's camp returned the favor by claiming that Adams had sold his wife's maid as a concubine to the Czar of Russia.

J: I'm taller             A: Bite me

In those days, they knew how to turn a phrase. Against this background, current politicians calling each other flip-floppers is really namby pamby stuff. If the counselor sneaks off for a cigarette break, they are liable to short sheet each other's beds, or wait until someone passes out, humiliate them and then tweet the photo.

The people who are really PO'ed are the voters, and deservedly so.
Everyone hates everyone.

  Republicans are mad at each other because if you take all the American male multi-millionaire Republicans over the age of 35, that's a pretty big pool from which to draw. And the BEST they can come up with is Santorum and Romney? If you're a moderate Republican, you know Santorum is a hateful Pentecostal theocrat dingbat in a Catholic suit. If you're a conservative Republican (otherwise known as a Conserva-Nazi by the elite lame-stream media), Romney ain't fooling anybody. Not only is he a liberal, but a freakin Mormon too. What else could you add to that to make it worse? Oh yeah, he killed his dog.

  Meanwhile, Democrats don't even GET a choice. Lots of Democrats don't want Obama, but no matter how much you are disappointed in Obama, if you're a Democrat... you get Obama. If that's not bad enough,  you get Biden along with him, adding insult to injury. If you are a gen-u-wine progressive liberal (otherwise know as a "lib-tard" by Foxaholics), you know that Obama is just another corporate lackey in a suit. And no matter what part of the Democratic Party spectrum you occupy, no one has a clue what his real goals are. If you're not scared, you're just not paying attention.

Republicans hate Democrats because Obama is ruining this country.

Democrats hate Republicans because Bush ruined this country.

My Fellow Americans

Clearly, we're screwed. The only possible solution seems to be if both the Democrats and Republicans political conventions are "brokered". That happens when there are not enough delegates for any one candidate to win on the first vote.  (Wikipedia on Brokered Conventions) Delegates don't HAVE to vote for who they were sent to vote for. They can do anything they want. Maybe the way the political revolution can happen is through the convention delegates. Let's say they all agree not to cast the votes for whom they were delegated, but instead broker the convention.

 Democratic candidates, unfettered by obligation, can do what they really want to do and nominate Clinton. Times were good then.
 Republican candidates, unfettered by obligation, can do what they really want to do and nominate Reagan. Times were good then.

Or...what about REAL bipartisanship. Reagan as President (dead or alive, he's still a favorite) and Clinton as Vice President. Now THERE's a ticket.

Great God of compassion and justice, 
shield my country from destruction.

1. A Virgin Blogger Introduction

  He awakes just after the sun, stumbles to the kitchen, slams two double espressos, opens the morning paper and fights the temptation to jump the Skyway.

  Editors note: For the Gentle Readers out there not familiar with St. Petersburg Florida and the Tampa Bay region, the Skyway Bridge is the iconic symbol of the area. It stretches 4.1 miles across Tampa Bay, connecting Pinellas and Manatee counties. It is not only a thing of beauty, it is also the premier location to "shuffle off this mortal coil" if your preferred method is leaping from tall things. There are a lot of advantages with choosing the Skyway from which to jump. Easy access for one. You can drive right up and park your car on top. Easy to get to the side, and when you jump, there is nothing to obstruct your 9.8 meter per second squared descent (the rate at which falling objects fall). No nets, no obstructions, just 431 feet of absolutely breathtaking panoramic scenery on your way down. Plus, if you are civic minded and don't like to make a mess, unlike jumping in an urban environment (off of the Empire State building for instance), there is absolutely no danger of injuring anyone or anything beneath you, except in the nearly impossible circumstance of a pod of dolphins passing directly underneath.

  The degree to which he is compelled to jump can be affected by the amount of idiocy encountered, and in what order read. Section "A" is national and world news, Section "B", local and State, Section "C" sports, and then there are assorted other sections dealing with lifestyles, the arts, and pregnant celebrities. It's hard to know on any given day which section will be more aggravating.

  For years he has gone through this ritual and vented to almost anyone who would listen. Then came Facebook, giving him the opportunity to argue ad nauseam with pinheads (apologies to any pinhead readers...you know who you are). Then, one day, he got an idea. Driven by a massive ego, deranged enough to think that people want to read this kind of drivel, and buoyed by the invention of what we used to quaintly call "The World Wide Web", he said "Hey, I'll write a blog!" (dramatic pause inserted here to allow you time to wave a little pennant and cry "weeeee" like the pig in the Geico commercials).



And now you, Gentle Reader, are blessed with the opportunity to share these rants and raves. "How could I be so lucky" you say. Or you may be saying "If I have a heart attack right now I won't have to read the end of it", and still others are saying "I picked the wrong day to give up lobotomies".

So a blog it shall be. A little ranting, a little raving, anarchy and flag-waving.
Boils will be Lanced.
Stay tuned.