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.

Belleair Road: whose road is it?

The answer to the headline is complicated. In a sentence or two, when it comes to tax dollars, Clearwater, Largo and Pinellas County all want a piece of the action. When it comes to badly needed traffic calming and strict enforcement, Belleair Road is an orphan. The tragic death of 15-year-old Ethan Weiser is the latest incident that demands action on this dangerous road. So far, the reaction from local officials has been particularly cavalier. One heartless individual, Whit Blanton the executive director of Pinellas’ transportation board (Forward Pinellas), said “So when they (fatal accidents) can happen here, they can happen anywhere." Not a good response at all. Everybody who lives near Belleair Road or is forced to transverse it, needs to become a very squeaky wheel in Clearwater, Largo and Pinellas County officials’ emails and telephones. The message is if you want the tax dollars from the neighborhoods around this road, start earning them!

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

Imagine illegal aliens in Martha’s Vineyard – oh, the humanity! Okay for the unwashed here in Florida and elsewhere to be stuck with them and their upkeep, but not Martha’s Vineyard! Terrific move Governor Ron.

We’re a little slow, so help us understand Charlie Crist’s latest commercial that tells us the high price of gas and food is Governor DeSantis’ fault.

Talk about a growth industry. Terry Gilliam of Sacramento has two Facebook sites – Leaving California and Life after California. To date, he has just short of a quarter million followers.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor recently signed an executive order making Juneteenth a day off with pay for its 2500 city employees.

If you had an unsolvable problem with your boat’s diesel engine, the man you called was John Brock, a magician with diesels. The longtime Clearwater resident passed away last week in his adoptive Andrews, NC. John was 80.

Five Years Ago in TBR&R (Sept. 18, 2017) Hurricane Irma hits Florida - all in all, an incredible display of people looking out for each other, showing extreme patience in gas lines and taking time to thank our first responders for their extra hours and extraordinary service - a shining hour for our area and our state.

Sports, media and other stuff:

Congressional insider news from the 5:05 Newsletter: Young Democrats in the House of Representatives say they will no longer support Nancy Pelosi for any leadership position in the House. A confidential source says that he has not seen Pelosi this mad since a house fell on her sister and she couldn’t recover the ruby slippers.

CFB Week Two = Upset City with four of the top 12, including the Gators falling. The Gators were one of three teams to lose to another Top 25 team (Kentucky).

It didn’t take former UCF coach Scott Frost long to realize the Big Ten isn’t the American Athletic Conference where your season ending game is 2-10 USF rather than 10-4 Iowa. It took Nebraska a little over three years to realize they made a mistake.

The year-old Spurrier’s Gridiron Grille in Gainesville is already the fifth busiest restaurant in the state of Florida – 320,000 dinners served and counting.

As the season starts, our NFL trifecta against the field – Bills, Bucs and Chiefs. And when was the last time the Patriots and Steelers were ranked 18 and 19 going into a season?

Factoid: The Baltimore Orioles, fourth in the AL East, would be leading the AL Central by two games, probably more given the level of competition they face in the East.

You’ve lived in the bay area (or anywhere else) a long time if you remember when you could only get the batting averages in the Sunday sports section.

The nominations are underway for this year’s selection to the Toys Hall of Fame. One of the nominees is the top. One would think with over six dozen toys already in the Hall of Fame, the top would be there. In December, we’ll do our annual feature on the Toys Hall of Fame.

Two television classics

Fifty years ago this week on back to back nights, CBS unveiled two shows that would become part of broadcast history – M*A*S*H and The Bob Newhart Show. We, of course, we had heard of M*A*S*H. It was a 1968 movie that gained critical acclaim and an Academy Award for best adapted screen play. Only one of the actors from the movie, Gary Burghoff’s Radar made it to the small screen, but the newly assembled cast of Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, McLean Stevenson and Loretta Swit did quite well, thank you. And the show, remarkably, would survive several major cast changes over its 11-year run. As for Newhart, we all knew him as a successful stand-up comic, but little did we realize his deadpan style would play so well on TV – both on the original Chicago-based show which ran six seasons and, later, as the Vermont innkeeper Newhart which would run an additional eight seasons and may have had the most outstanding finale in TV history. One weekend in 1972 - two sensational shows!

UP NEXT: Lifetime politicians; Kapok Tree; Retiring numbers

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