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: Taking back the White House

The conservative president who takes over from Biden in 2025, be it Trump, DeSantis or anyone else, faces the monumental task of undoing a lot of bad things. To accomplish that, they and their team, must be ready, from Day 1, to disable several layers of bureaucracy that will resist them at every turn. And to do that, the team must be a group of skilled policymakers, not newbies for whom this is their first rodeo. To have your own team is great, but it needs to be heavily salted with strong players from previous administrations ready to disassemble the IRS; trim the Justice Department down to its rotten core and, work with us here, create an anti-bureaucracy department of government with but one purpose - to untangle the web that exists in the federal government (read fire a lot of people) after too many years of liberal occupation. That’s no easy task, but an essential one for our government and our country.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

Related number: 86 – think about it.

An idle thought: Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchison might make a fine President, if anybody outside Arkansas knew him. His first name sounds so presidential.

Auto industry note: Ford to phase out AM radios in most of its 2024 vehicles, citing lack of use. Turn signals, we presume, will be next.

We were reading a piece about a talented baker/artist in New Hampshire who creatively decorated the outside of his doughnut/muffin store. Next was the line, “then the town zoning board got involved.” We didn’t need to read any further.

It just seems that a company, be it a bank, insurance company or any service industry would be a lot more successful if they had an actual human being answering their phone.

Seen on a T-Shirt, “No, I Can’t Do Snapshot or Tic Tok, But I Can Write In Cursive, Do Math Without A Calculator And Tell Time On A Clock With Hands.”

This week in 1998 (May 14) –We marked two iconic events - the final episode of the uber comedy hit Seinfeld and the passing of The Chairman of the Board – Frank Sinatra at age 82.

Sports, media and other stuff:

It’s Derby Day and a Coronation on the same weekend – what a bonanza for purveyors of outlandish hats.

Just thinking…the same reason a tiny media market like Las Vegas can support two (and soon to be three) pro franchises is the same reason that the attendance challenged Marlins or Rays should relocate to Orlando. It’s called mega-tourism.

Medical news from the 5:05 Newsletter: The American Medical Association has officially added “The View” to its pain scale to help patients better understand what is meant by the term “worst pain possible.”

The Kingston Quartet would be a more appropriate title for the Kingston Trio. Besides Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane, there was Frank Werber. Werber never played a note, but his business acumen as an equal partner made the trio the musical giants they were. From a fascinating book Greenback Dollar: the incredible rise of the Kingston Trio by William Bush.

Number of the week: 40. The number of starting quarterbacks the Cleveland Browns have employed during the Favre/Rodgers era at Green Bay.

This Thursday (May 11) is National Eat Whatever You Want Day. Coincidently, it is also National Hostess Cupcake Day.

You’ve lived in Clearwater a really long time if you remember the phrase “Talk to this old boy.” That was the phrase associated with the famous auctioneer Howard the Trader.

Finally, thanks to Jamie Steffens of Ray’s Connecting Point for again repairing our aged PC so we could publish this drivel. No thanks to Duke Power, who blew three nearby transformers within twelve hours necessitating the repair.

…and another thing: More pettiness

How petty can an organization get? New Era, who makes hats, whined to Major League Baseball about the Atlanta Braves’ home run celebration where the home run hitter dons a ridiculously oversized cap in the dugout after circling the bases. New Era, who is the “official” MLB hat company, apparently thought this might damage their sales of size 79 ¾” hats. And, of course, MLB’s village idiot Rob Manfred acquiesced. Goody, another company for rational people to boycott.

NEXT UP: Concert of a lifetime; First Derby; Mike Love

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