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

Biden pegs the malarkey* meter

This is news – Joe Biden gives a speech to Congress and even the PolitiSpin arm of “Florida’s Best Newspaper” can’t buy much of what Joltin’ Joe said. Our leftist newspaper said there were too many “yes, buts” to Joltin’ Joe’s assertions. To witness – the jobs coming back in the economy, but no mention of the nearly seven million jobs still lost; his assertion that leading economists endorse his spendthrift programs – in fact, most do not. And he seemed to take credit for America’s vaccination program, when it was the Trump administration that put the accelerator to the floor to make vaccines available before Joe even took office. Man, when arguably the most liberal newspaper in the nation consistently disagrees with the assertions in your speech, you are truly pegging the malarkey (*used in place of another word in our family blog) meter.

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

New York Governor Cuomo is all in a dither because his state is losing a seat in Congress because they came up just 80 people short in the U.S. Census to keep that seat. Put another way, that 80 person shortfall equals nine weeks of shooting deaths in New York City last year.

An older person’s mantra – if you want our business, don’t unnecessarily complicate our life – with extra steps to sign in, constantly having to change passwords or, like our soon to be former auto insurance company, doing stupid stuff that makes us have to do things to untangle the mess. In most competitive industries, it’s just too easy to walk away.

Two-thirds – the percentage of American voters in this month’s Rasmussen Poll who feel American companies should not take positions on political issues. A lot of those folks have lists of companies they will not buy from because of these positions – but certainly not your humble blogger, who never wears a Nike anything, nor uses Heinz ketchup nor visits Starbucks (in addition to the fact their coffee is overpriced and not very good). But we have no list!

Related note: corporate America cannot win. Whack jobs in Georgia are asking for a boycott of Home Depot because they took no position on the state’s voting laws.

Second related note: there was an excellent article in the Orlando Sentinel last week concerning the alarming changes at Walt Disney World. It was penned by Jonathon Vanboskerck. Too lengthy to print here, but you can probably capture it on line. The last paragraph encases the essence of the piece: “Disney, please return to the values and vision of Walt. The customer experience should be the core of your business model. Immersion should not be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and appeasing the Twitter mob.”

Number of the week: 48% - Joe Biden’s approval rating, thus far. Where he takes the biggest hit, according to a Quinnipiac survey is his handling of the border issue. Over 55% of Americans disapprove of his border strategy – or lack of.

Sports, media and other stuff:

If you remember the wonderful Sandy Book Store in downtown Clearwater, the matriarch of the store, Mrs. Beanie Korosy, is celebrating her 102^nd birthday this week. Mrs. Korosy now lives in Oviedo, Florida. Thanks to one of our focus group members for making us aware of her birthday.

This week marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Walker Smith, Jr. – professionally known as Sugar Ray Robinson. He is generally viewed as the greatest boxer of all time. He took the name Ray Robinson after borrowing a birth certificate of a friend by that name so he would appear old enough to a get a card allowing him to begin amateur boxing.

A Happy ##th Birthday to one of our nicest focus group members. For the next ten months, she cannot claim that she and your humble blogger are the same age.

A couple weeks back, we mentioned 1996 having only eight #1 songs the whole year. At the opposite end of the spectrum are 1974 and 1975 with each having 35 songs hit #1. The most time at #1 in ’74 was Barbra Streisand’s poignant The Way We Were (3 weeks) and in ’75, the Captain and Tennille held on to # 1 for four weeks with Love Will Keep Us Together.

Girl Scout News: Even though deadlines were extended to the end of last month, most areas of the country saw their Girl Scout Cookie sales fall significantly this year because of COVID restrictions. One local Girl Scout leader said Upper Pinellas girls didn’t do so badly. Nonetheless, we vow to help out and double up on our Thin Mint order next year.

You’ve lived in Pinellas County a long time if you owned one of the virtually indestructible Blue Boy power mowers proudly made by P & E Machinery on Clearwater-Largo Road.

The death of the Tampa Tribune.

(Editor’s note: This is a lengthier version of our monthly looking back five years feature – as it ran on May 4, 2016 regarding the Times’ takeover and shuttering of the Tribune.)

It wasn’t the fact that Florida’s most down the middle major daily newspaper is gone. It’s the way it was handled – security people handing out boxes to people who had put in decades at the Trib; a Tribune beat writer for the Lightning being told to come home from New York – at his expense (Times management wisely rethought that one); and yeah, part of it is bay area readers are left with no option but a left wing mouthpiece. You Tribune readers are going to love Daniel Ruth, Elijah Pitts and Sue Carlton. Steve Otto and Tom Jackson, they are not. In one of our very first items in Tampa Bay Rants and Raves over two years ago, we predicted that the bay area would be down to one or no daily newspapers within five years. Frankly, we hoped the survivor would be the Tribune and we thought it would be handled with a lot more class than the Times management exhibited.

NEXT WEEK: Miss Universe; Candy Bars; Charlie's back

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