As 2016 draws to a close, a few of our favorite things from this year

 

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

 

1. In this election year, a thought from one of our greatest Presidents: When offered corporate positions at large salaries after leaving the Oval Office, he declined, stating, "You don't want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale" - Harry S. Truman – how we miss you, Harry.

2. Within a week, the FBI announces it has concluded its investigations of Hillary Clinton - and D.B. Cooper - so many punchlines, so little space.

3. You’ve lived in Clearwater a long time if your economics teachers were Emmett Lowery at Clearwater High and/or Scott McCuskey at St. Pete Junior College’s Drew Street campus. What a lot of people didn’t know about these two great men was that Lowery was the successful head basketball coach at the University of Tennessee before semi-retiring to Clearwater. And McCuskey was a World War II Naval ace with more kills than any other pilot at the Battle of Midway.

4. Florida Highway Patrol reports that crashes at the 22 intersections in Tampa monitored by red light cameras have risen 15 per cent since the camera’s installations. Folks, do we need any more proof that these things are nothing more than a Waldo-like revenue source?

5. A tip of our Rants and Raves cap to Gulfport – the latest bay area city to realize the folly of red light cameras. The only question is – why did a city of 12,000 people and about 12 streets need them in the first place?

6. (Prior to David Jolly returning to the House race) Wouldn’t it have been a hoot to have Marco Rubio rent a condo in downtown St. Pete thereby establishing residency and run for David Jolly’s Congressional seat? Nah, no one would buy that. Oh wait…

7. Two things that dominated the Pinellas (and Tampa Bay) landscape for years that have become endangered species – bowling alleys and golf courses.

8. We understand it doesn’t affect world peace or anything, but we’re dumbfounded that our Florida Legislature couldn’t come up with a “fair to all” piece of legislation regarding Lyft and Uber. We will continue to have a couple dozen jurisdictions enforcing a couple dozen dissimilar laws regarding the ride providers.

9. Quote of the week: “Never underestimate what a little free food and drink can buy you” – Anon.

10. Ultra-liberal Supreme Justice Ruth Ginsberg recently alluded to moving to New Zealand if Donald Trump were elected. Let’s say you set up GoFundMe account for her move – what would it take to raise the necessary funds – about a minute and a half?

11. Remember when you needed something done at work (vacation, leave etc.) you went to the personnel department? Now Pasco County’s school system has a Human Capital Partner. Who comes up with this stuff?

12. The new Crabby Bill’s at the Clearwater Marina is scheduled to open in March. That will be just short of ten months start to finish or about the same amount of time it took for the Mexican restaurant in the Marina to pick out window treatments.

13. We remember hearing several elected officials on the Metropolitan Planning Organization circa 2000 correctly predicting that making Ft. Harrison Avenue single lane would turn it into a parking lot. Their objections fell on deaf ears. It might be time to revisit that decision.

14. (From September) Just an idle thought: if Hillary Clinton is elected president, will the Clintons return the furniture they took from the White House when they left in 2001?

15. Ayn Rand quote worth pondering: “When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt but protects the corrupt from you – you know your nation is doomed”.

16. (From October): Oh yes, there’s a presidential election, too. Don’t know about you, but for the past twenty years or so, we’ve just pulled the lever for whomever Barbra Streisand thinks we should vote for (see disclaimer at top of blog).

17. (From November) - A not so outrageous prediction: whoever prevails in the presidential race this week will be our nation’s first one-term president in two decades.

18. Was anybody surprised by the recent findings that I-4 is the most dangerous interstate highway in the country?

19. From November: Unofficial election results show Donald Trump losing the District of Columbia by an astounding 93 to 4 percent. That speaks volumes of what this presidential race was all about.

20. (From September) Quote of the week (maybe the year): “I admire Hillary Clinton for her honesty” - Charlie Crist in his televised debate with Rep. David Jolly.

 

The diamond, the media and other stuff:

 

1. In this, let’s say unusual, election year a thought from free thinker Robert Ingersoll circa 1892, “Each side would be glad to defeat the other if it could do it without electing its own candidate.”

2. Our Rants and Raves focus group (comprised of three old, cranky people) when asked to come up with the worst ideas of the last half century listed social media, subprime loans and New Coke (margin of error 50 per cent or so).

3. Have a suspicion that some of these folks pounding the desk about privacy rights in the Apple debacle are the same folks we hear going blah, blah, blah on their cellphones on the sidewalks and in the aisles of the supermarket for everyone to hear.

4. Here’s something to put in the “futures” file. If all else fails and the Rays leave the bay area, we’d put our money not on Montreal or Charlotte or Mexico City but on San Antonio, Texas, a sports hotbed with 1.3 million people and lots of disposable income.

5. Idle observation: if you’ve shopped for a new bike recently you, no doubt, have noticed they cost more than your first car. And, of course, if you’ve shopped for a new car lately, you find they cost more than your first house.

6. Our Rants and Raves focus group (comprised of three old, cranky people) feels the top three ideas of the past half-century are the cellphone , the IPod and, with many thanks to Al Gore, the internet.

7. Again, a piece of brilliance from the 20-year-old, but always fresh 5:05 Newsletter: “Cuba News: A lot of people are saying President Raul Castro disrespected President Obama by not greeting him at the airport. Seriously? Our countries have been enemies for 60 years. I can’t even get my best friend to pick me up at the airport”.

8. Should Hillary Clinton find herself in the White House, do you think there will be a spot in her administration for her de facto press secretary – NBC’s Andrea Mitchell?

9. Poor Andy Jackson – if they had written a blockbuster Broadway play about him, he wouldn’t lose his place on the twenty dollar bill. Really? A Treasury Secretary stays and a President and war hero is removed?

10. Playoff note - beyond cool: the only way to describe the Mets having Itzhak Perlman play the National Anthem prior to their play-in game with the Giants. Ain’t nobody taking a knee during that performance!

11. Our Rants and Raves focus group (made up of three old, cranky people) has two questions: (1) Have you ever asked a young person why they wear their baseball cap backwards? (2) Have you ever received an intelligent reply?

12. That tower of pop culture, the 5:05 Newsletter provides this gem: “Just when you thought 2016 could not get any worse, Yoko Ono announces a reissue project of her studio albums from 1968 to 1985”.

 

13. Sports factoid: Bartolo Colon made his major league debut the same day Atlanta’s Turner Field opened. The new Braves pitcher’s career has outlived a major league stadium!

14. Honest, we are not making this up. There is now an app that can lead you to a McDonald’s location that serves their McRib sandwich. Have you ever seen one of those – or worse, eaten one?

15. A thought from one of our Rants and Raves focus group (comprised of four old, cranky people): Smart phones seem to make people dumber.

16. The University of Louisville basketball program has had just four head coaches in the last 72 years!

17. In the light of all of this year’s coverage of the bay area’s newspaper shakeup, we jumped for joy when we saw the term RUTHLESS at the bottom of page one. Alas, it wasn’t what we thought it meant.

18. Guys, do you want to feel really old? Honor Blackman, the James Bond babe in Goldfinger, will turn 91 this year. Oh, the humanity!

19. (From March) With the regular season just days away, Baseball Prospectus, which bases its predictions very heavily on sabermetrics, says the Rays will win the Eastern Division. Would like to believe that but….

20. Columnist George Will on the 2016 presidential campaign: “It is easy to disregard or even disparage gentility — until confronted, as Americans now are, with its utter absence”.

And what we meant to say was…

 

1. Our crack sports prognosticator Achmed Walled (pronounced wall-ED) likes the Panthers by a whole lot over the Broncos. Seems like that Phillips guy out in Denver really knows how to prepare a defense.

2. Now with the departure of a mediocre bureaucrat who headed what passed for economic development for the past many years, the city has an opportunity to bring in another major player to do the same. The economic climate is right; will the city council have the initiative to get Clearwater on the economic development fast track? Put this one down as we should know better. While other governmental units upgrade their economic development efforts, Clearwater remains in neutral.

3. Neil McMullen, who traces his roots back to Largo’s first Mayor, has entered the race for Largo city commission against incumbent Curtis Holmes. Not to take anything away from McMullen, but given Commissioner Holmes’ missteps (RANTS – Sept. 28, 2014), you could probably run Curly or Moe against him and win. But then again, never give too much credit to the electorate. St. Pete voters recently elected a candidate with a rap sheet. Second part was right – McMullen lost by less than 300 votes.

4. Finally: “Donald Trump’s poll numbers don’t match Hillary Clinton’s electoral map realities”. Clinton’s lies upon lies upon lies caught up with her. But wait, this wasn’t published here. This was front page St. Pete Times Labor Day by Adam Smith. But then who believes the St. Pete Spin Doctors any more than we believed Clinton?

Our Last Song Together (again, apologies to Glenn Yarbrough)

 

And sadly this year, the man whose song inspired this portion of our year- end blog is part of this segment. Yarbrough, one of the greatest voices of the folk/pop era, passed away this year at 86. We say goodbye to him and others who have touched us over the years.

On the last day of 2015, we lost both songstress Natalie Cole who had her own catalog of great songs but moved us most with her duet with father Nat on Unforgettable and renaissance man Wayne Rogers, best known as Trapper John on M*A*S*H, but also a force behind the camera plus a renown investments expert.

Maurice White, the genius behind the unique sound of Earth, Wind and Fire.

Bob Elliott of radio and TV’s celebrated humor team Bob and Ray.

Antonin Scalia, a rational conservative voice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bud Collins who made pro tennis as interesting as it can be.

Hubert Mizell, long time chronicler of sports for the St. Pete Times.

 

J.B. Johnson, a stalwart servant of the city of Clearwater – the moral compass of its City Commission in the late 1990s.

Nancy Reagan, who with her husband Ronald, comprised one of the most admired “first couples” in American history.

A man who made the most of a middling major league career, baseball announcer, Today Show host and raconteur Joe Garagiola.

Doris Roberts - it was hard not to see a little bit of your own mother (particularly if you are Catholic) in the Emmy winner’s portrayal of Ray Romano’s mom in Everybody Loves Raymond.

 

A great journalist and the last of the pioneering hosts of 60 Minutes, Morley Safer.

Abel Fernandez, amateur boxer and later actor, who played agent William Youngfellow on the Untouchables, at age 85. His passing leaves only Nick Georgiade (agent Rico Rossi) as a surviving member of the TV classic’s cast.

The man who for the better part of a decade was indeed “the greatest” – Mohammed Ali.

 

Auto dealer, civic leader and philanthropist, Dan Carlisle.

Dave Somerville, the lead singer of perhaps the greatest doo-wop group of the 50s – the Diamonds.

Prominent socialite and outstanding aviator Betty Perkins who lived her 98 years to the fullest.

Elie Wiesel, humanitarian and visiting professor at St. Petersburg’s Eckerd College.

Noel Neill, the original Lois Lane of the Superman franchise.

Garry Marshall, like Wayne Rogers above, a force both in front of and behind the camera – think Happy Days and Pretty Woman.

 

In the space of a week, we lost WQYK morning personality Dave McKay and ESPN’s incomparable John Saunders – two broadcast pros.

Monsignor Laurence Higgins – perhaps the most influential Catholic priest in the history of Tampa Bay.

One of the three most dominant golfers of the past half century – 87 year-old Arnold Palmer.

Jack Riley, whose portrayal of the super neurotic Elliott Carlin on the Bob Newhart Show was one of the masterpieces of that era. He also appeared in Seinfeld, MASH and a host of other comedies.

At way too young an age, Jose Fernandez without a doubt the best 24-year-old pitcher in baseball – arguably the best of any age pitcher.

From October: Jerry Coleman, a former Pinellas County Sheriff, nice guy and a lawman’s lawman, passed away last week at 76.

Also in October: His real name was Robert Veline. As Bobby Vee, he rode the King-Goffin Take Good Care of My Baby to the top of the charts in 1961 – just one of his half dozen top ten hits. Bobby Vee passed away last week at age 73.

Ralph Branca who gave up “the shot heard around the world” in the 1951 Giants –Dodgers playoff died on November 23 at age 90.

The Brady Bunch’s Florence Henderson, one of “America’s Moms” of the 60s and 70s, at age 82.

To some he was a hero, to most a despot; Cuban dictator Fidel Castro died at age 90.

David Stone, banker and major player at Clearwater’s Chamber of Commerce and Ruth Eckerd Hall to name just two of his many contributions - a terrific guy.

John Glenn, U.S. Senator and the last of America’s original 7 astronauts.

Zsa Zsa Gabor who preceded the Hiltons and Kardashians in being famous for being famous at age 99.

Finally, our greatest personal loss of 2016 occurred on November 12 when we said goodbye to our loving tuxedo cat Wally, age 13 – named after Yankee icon Wally Pipp – how he got his name is a long story.

SNEAK PEEK AT NEXT WEEK: A TRIBUTE TO AND A RIP OFF FROM TOM McEWEN

 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night