WEEK OF JANUARY 1, 2023

Tampa Bay Rants and Raves is a weekly airing of national and local politics, sports, lifestyles and nostalgia items from a very politically incorrect viewpoint. As always, beware - some of what is printed here should not be taken literally.

Leading off: 10 not so credible 2023 predictions

1. Ron DeSantis will announce he will seek the 2024 Presidential nomination.

2. Democrats will gently talk Biden out of another run. This may be wishful thinking on our part.

3. There will be some sort of settlement in the Ukraine this year.

4. Your retirement account will rebound, but not by much.

5. Charlie Crist will announce his intention to run against U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna in 2024 before they have time to change the nameplate on the office in the nation’s capital.

6. Michael Kelly will not be USF’s AD by year’s end.

7. The Rays will fall just short of the 2023 playoffs.

8. Same for the Bucs, but by a larger margin.

9. The San Diego Padres will win this year’s World Series.

10. Your gym will be less crowded in about three weeks.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

We had to make a last minute change in one of the our predictions with the Clearwater city council usurping our prediction that city manager Jon Jennings wouldn’t make it through 2023.

While thousands of Americans are still searching for their bags, take comfort in that not a single bag of Joe Biden was lost on his Virgin Islands trip or of that of his Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg while he was relaxing in Portugal.

Presented without comment: VP Kamala Harris is griping that the media is not highlighting the "strength of my leadership."

Stock market ends the year at about the same range as 2008 – those wonderful Madoff years.

While we are freed from political, Medicare, and Christmas sale ads, along comes Weight Watchers, Planet Fitness and Peloton.

At the Jan. 6^th anniversary, this commentary from the 5:05 Newsletter: “The difference between a cow and the January 6th riot at the US Capitol is you can only milk a cow 3 times a day.”

This week in 1938 (Jan. 3) The March of Dimes is established to help fight polio.

Sports, media and other stuff:

Kathy Whitworth, the winningest golfer in the history of the LPGA died Christmas Eve at age 83. She won 88 tournaments in her storied career.

Even folks who did not follow soccer at all knew the name Pelé. The legend from Brazil passed way last week at age 82.

Two sets of numbers 26-71-3 and 74-25-1. Those numbers represent the Pittsburgh Steelers record in the 100 games before Franco Harris joined the team and the 100 games after he became a Steeler. The Hall of Famer tragically died last week just a couple days before the Steelers retired his number.

Number of the Week: Five – that’s the number of post season bowls older than the Gator Bowl, first played on January 1, 1946. The older bowls are the oldest, the Rose Bowl, plus the Sun, Sugar, Orange and Cotton Bowls.

In light of the recent discarding of decades old names like the Cleveland Indians, Washington Redskins and, locally, Chamberlain Chiefs ; we’ve decided we find the Boston Red Sox name offensive and offer up the Liptons, Tetleys or Bigelows as alternatives.

The Christmas tree is barely down and the oddsmakers have the Dodgers, Astros and the Braves as the three favorites to win the World Series – the teams who have won the last three, not nearly as bold a prediction as ours above.

... and another thing: ten must do’s

To save you the effort of reading this throughout the year, we thought, we’d address all of these in week one:

1. Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

2. There should absolutely be no forgiveness of legitimate student loans – failing that, every student who ever paid off their student loans should get a full refund.

3. Baseball needs to get rid of their amateurish “ghost runner” rule for extra innings. It smacks of T-Ball.

4. While we’re at it, like Jackie Robinson’s number, Latino pioneer Roberto Clemente’s #21 should be retired league wide.

5. USF needs to stop spending money, better spent elsewhere, on a stadium for a team that has won 11 games in the past four years.

6. The U.S. House needs to wake up to the will of the people and establish year-round DST.

7. Biden and Trump need to gracefully step out of the way and let someone under age 80 govern the nation.

8. When is the 5:05 Newsletter going to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize?

9. Legislation should be passed to make it much more painful to violate our nation’s no-call lists.

10. There should be a sunset law that requires all those questionable federal holidays to be justified every ten years.

WEEK OF JANUARY 1, 2023

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