Happy Mother’s Day

This week’s blog dining suggestion (see back story in Jan. 1 RANTS) – excellent from their boat seafood with some unique atmosphere – Rusty Bellies at end of Dodecanese Blvd. in Tarpon Springs – right on the Anclote River.

Comey firing: the last step in cleaning up Department of Justice

You have to hark back to the days of the Nixon administration to find a Justice Department more riddled with incompetence and corruption as we have witnessed during the past eight years. We saw two attorney generals who did President Obama’s bidding rather than doing the things with which an attorney general is tasked. The whole mess culminated with Loretta Lynch’s infamous meeting with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac and James Comey’s on again, off again pursuit of Hillary Clinton’s misdeeds. Now the last of the team has been swept away – some would say a scapegoat for the actions of those above him. Now begins the task of restoring our country’s faith in its Justice Department.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. Poor St. Pete, like the rest of the country, they were faced with a choice between Clinton and Trump. To add insult to injury, they had Charlie Crist shoved down their throats by an activist judiciary. Now it appears another Hobson’s choice is on the horizon with having to choose between Baker and Kriseman in the next mayoral election.

2. Failing grade for Bethune-Cookman grads booing commencement speaker, Betsy DeVos, our nation’s Education Secretary. Way to keep it classy. But kudos to the school’s president Edison Jackson for intervening – telling the miscreants to act like adults or expect their diplomas in the mail sometime before the end of the year.

3. From the venerable 5:05 Newsletter: The U.S. Senate is being ripped by Democrats for appointing thirteen “old white men” to the committee to rewrite the healthcare bill. Imagine how irate they would be if they ever looked closely at the group picture of the signers of the Constitution.

4. If we were going to spend several hundred dollars to see Paul McCartney this summer (which we’re not), it would have to be in a venue with much better acoustics than Amalie Arena.

5. You’ve lived in Clearwater a long time if you remember the Grey Moss Inn on the corner of Ft. Harrison and Pierce Blvd. downtown. Bonus points if you remember the business right behind the Grey Moss.

The diamond, the media and other stuff:

6. The day we go to press the Yankees will retire Derek Jeter’s number 2 – the last of the Bronx Bomber’s single digits to be retired. Not surprisingly, the first ever number to retired was also that of a Yankee – Lou Gehrig’s number 4.

7. Item: The Nashville hockey team has reached the NHL conference finals for the first time in its history. Now be honest, did you know Nashville even had a hockey team?

8. After more than a decade of non-participation in NFL playoffs, maybe the answer to the Buffalo Bills’ woes isn’t their recently fired GM or head coach but the team ownership.

9. From the nearly world famous Gassman law firm sign on Court Street: “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be”.

10. Just an idle thought: Does being identified as the official surfboard of the Tampa Bay Rays or the official snowmobile of the Minnesota Twins gain you credibility with anybody?

Sitcoms, viewers get mostly good news

Networks have given the green light to some solid sitcoms for the 2017-18 season. Among the renewed shows are CBS’s quirky Life in Pieces, first year series Kevin Can Wait and Man with the Plan, along with venerable shows Big Bang Theory and The Middle. Apparently, Ted Danson is enough to carry The Good Place, a rather weak NBC entry. On the other hand, the classic frustrated male in a female world series, Last Man Standing, won’t see a seventh season – a shame. Finally and mercifully, The Real O’Neal’s has been cancelled after two seasons.

SNEAK PEAK AT WEEK: YANKS WILL SOON RUN OUT OF TWO DIGIT NUMBERS