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.

SPC school good as far as it goes

St. Petersburg College opens a third school this fall devoted to allowing high school students achieve an associate’s degree while they earn their high school diploma. The emphasis is on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). 150 students will be in the inaugural class. That’s a good thing, but of the three schools offering such a curriculum, two are located in St. Pete and the other in Tarpon Springs. It escapes us as to why such a program is not in mid county at either the Seminole or, even better, the Clearwater Campus of SPC. We can only hope the program will be fast tracked so as to allow such a needed program at both the Clearwater and Seminole campuses of the college.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

It’s become a “he said, she said” situation between the Juvenile Welfare Board and Grace House, the county’s largest homeless shelter for families over funding. JWB withdrew its support despite improvements in deficiencies at Grace House. When it comes to calls like this, the error needs to be on the side of the needy.

The pro-abortion clan never gives up in their efforts to snuff out the lives of the unborn. Now they are looking at a floating abortion clinic in the Gulf outside state territory – presumably anchored right next to a floating casino.

Double barrel inflation news from the Tampa Bay version of the Wall Street Journal, the 5:05 Newsletter: Economists warn today we are on the verge of “shrink-flation.” That’s when products shrink in size but the price stays the same. I noticed it at the store today when I bought a Two Musketeers bar.Inflation continues to rise at the fastest rate since 1981. A quart of milk, a dozen eggs, two pounds of ground beef and a gallon of chocolate ice cream costs more now than when they did when you started reading this sentence.

You’ve lived in Clearwater for a long time if you remember when you could drive into your favorite service station and get a free Florida map.

On this week (July 22 of 1933 and 1983): Two aviation firsts. In ’33, Wiley Post makes the first solo around the world flight and 50 years   later, Dick Smith makes the first helicopter solo around the world flight.

Sports, media and other stuff:

Blue Jays Manager and former Rays coach, Charlie Montoyo is the latest casualty of an underperforming and poorly constructed team. The Jays are a bunch of sluggers with an extremely thin pitching staff. And when the sluggers don’t slug…

The NBA is striking a blow with mediocrity with a proposed post season tourney with all 30 teams involved – the first rounds being one-game play-ins.

Factoids: Keith Hernandez whose #17 was retired by the Mets last weekend actually played more years in St. Louis than New York. He wore #37 in St. Louis, but there was that Stengel fellow who had worn it in Queens.

Chicago is making a pitch for three years of a road race in the Windy City. Perhaps NASCAR should channel some other choosy sports and decline until the city rids itself of its shooting gallery.

You may not know the name Monty Norman, but he wrote one of the most recognizable themes in the world. The composer of the James Bond theme died last week at age 94.

The sensational sixties featured mega acts like James Brown, Tom Jones and Creedence Clearwater Revival. None of those artists ever had a #1 hit, but uncool orchestra leaders Percy Faith (Theme from a Summer Place), Paul Mauriat (Love is Blue) and Lawrence Welk (Calcutta) did!

65 years ago this year, Dove soap was introduced. It remains the largest selling soap in the world.

Nobody understands the Hall of Fame

Next weekend, the baseball Hall of Fame inducts its next class of assorted players. Here are a half dozen names to remember, guys who weren’t “good enough” to make the Hall on the first ballot. They are Yogi Berra, Don Drysdale, Whitey Ford, Vladimir Guerrero, Eddie Mathews, and most incredibly, Cy Young. Here is one who apparently was – David Ortiz who played a grand total of 278 games in the field in his career – no Hall of Famer ever played fewer. A Hall of Famer based on his bat – yes. A first ballot Hall of Famer – not even close. The standards change yearly, if not more often. Guys like two-time MVPs Roger Maris and Dale Murphy don’t have enough buddies on the various old-timer committees, while guys with .260 batting averages (Bill Mazeroski) and 3.90 ERAs (Jack Morris) do, along with people who harmed the game more than helped it like Ford Frick and Marvin Miller. And God help you if your political thoughts clash with writers – see post season great Curt Shilling. The Hall, once a temple for baseball’s greats, has dissolved into a political swamp in central New York State.

NEXT UP: Toronto and the MLB; Tighten Up; Norman Lear

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