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: fix, don’t toss that cell phone

We seldom agree with anything California politicians do, but even a blind squirrel will sometimes stumble across an acorn. Their Senate bill which would grant greater access to consumers of parts for repairing their electronics makes way too much sense. It’s called Right to Repair legislation and would save tons of dollars, not to mention freeing our landfills of toxic waste. The so-called Right to Repair legislation would give the consumer and the repair person a break. Even some of the high tech companies are endorsing the plan. The Right to Repair movement goes beyond cell phones and other high tech gear to include autos, appliances and agricultural equipment. The latter proposed legislation was turned down by our own legislature last year. One has to wonder why. It’s way past the time to turn around our throwaway society.

Tampa Bay, politics and notes:

Related to our lead piece; look hard enough and you can find folks to repair your goods. To the amusement of all our friends, we still use an iPod. It took awhile, but we found a great company in New York (Repair Sharks) that made our iPod Classic as good as new for a reasonable price.

Travel news from the 5:05 Newsletter: Disneyland and six Disney Worlds worldwide drew record attendance this year. Only Eagle Pass, Texas attracted more visitors.

Freedom of speech is one thing, but why do our media outlets, even the so-called conservative ones, give the subversives known as the squad, a public platform for their anti-Semitic vitriol?

Turns out the newly appointed U.S. Senator from California actually lives in Maryland. But fear not, the pro-abortion whacko will re-register in California before she assumes office. Alex Sink rides again (see TBR&R 3/9/14).

Random thought: Our Saintly Wife claims we are losing our filters. We checked the a/c, car and water treatment systems. All seems well.

This week in 1972 (Oct. 26) the first instant camera, the Polaroid SX-70, is introduced by Edwin Land at an event in Miami.

Sports, media and other notes:

Our condolences go to longtime bay area businessman and former Clearwater city commissioner Fred Thomas on the passing earlier this month of Joy, his wife of over sixty years.

She was the attractive blonde in the T-Bird in American Graffiti and later the ditzy roommate in Three’s Company. Suzanne Somers died last week just short of her 77^th birthday.

Danger Alert! We are entering “Halloween Fifteen” timeframe. That, of course, is the 60 day period between Halloween and New Years where you can put on 15 pounds faster than that rabbit used to go at Derby Lane.

Every year the NFL ticks off millions of fans with their nonsensical rule that at a certain time, networks must cut away from a game that is going down to the final drive. It needs to be changed.

Answer: Seattle Mariners. The question: which is the only one of the 30 current teams to never appear in the World Series?

This season will make it only six out of 29 times in the wild card era that the team with the best record in baseball wins the World Series. Three of the four teams with a first round bye (Atlanta, Baltimore and LA) went out in the first series they played.

You’ve lived in Clearwater a really long time if you remember the biggest local news of 1939. It was the opening of the Clearwater Airpark - still going strong 84 years later and still the highest elevation airport in the Tampa Bay area.

…and another thing: Buy the A’s, buy the Rays

Currently, the three most financially troubled baseball franchises are the Miami Marlins, Oakland A’s and our Rays. The trio finishes in the bottom three in attendance each year. In Oakland, there has been a movement for a cooperative to buy the team – similar to the way individuals own the wildly successful Green Bay Packers. Sadly, the idea came too late to Oakland, which is all but packed for Las Vegas. Currently, baseball fans have only one opportunity to own part of their favorite team – the publicly traded Atlanta Braves – our daughter owns a very small slice. The Braves, though, are still controlled by Liberty Media who owns the lion’s share of the team’s stock. An attempt was made last year for a cooperative to buy the Denver Broncos, but the “owner’s club” made it difficult and the effort was fruitless. Optimists for fan-owned franchises (they are very common in Europe) see the first step as a cooperative being significant minority owners and moving up from there. It could only be a positive move for teams struggling for fan buy-in.

UP NEXT: Gambling problems; Gold cards; Football the right way

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