Established in 2014, Tampa Bay Rants and Raves is a weekly airing of local and national politics, sports and Tampa Bay memories from a politically incorrect viewpoint.

First thing on our mind:

Not just this week, but every week, we need to bow our heads and thank those who gave so much for their country.

Leading off: Welcome to K-8

Both Pinellas and Hillsborough County are waking up to the fact that K through 8 schools are a much more efficient educational model. This fall, Pinellas will transition two schools and Hillsborough one (after making a similar move last year). K through 8 has been a successful model for private, particularly parochial, schools for decades while the public school system has lagged behind for reasons most folks don’t understand. The changes in the two largest bay area counties are hopefully a harbinger of more such schools in the future.

Tampa Bay, politics and notes:

Yet another reason to get Biden out of the White House is the growing trend towards allowing jobs to move back offshore as opposed to the reverse in 2016-20. The latest is a move by American Express to move over 1000 jobs to India.

Hats off to the advocacy group Americans for Prosperity for their week-long campaign lowering gas prices at select stations nationwide to $2.38 per gallon, the price the day Joe Biden entered the White House as opposed to $3.59 today.

Meanwhile as the gas prices march inexorably upward, the Biden administration is releasing a million barrels (42 gallons/barrel) of gas in yet another gambit to buy votes.

Give your workers good pay and benefits and they do not have to pay some third party. This was reflected last week by Alabama’s Mercedes-Benz worker’s rejection of union representation.

In a world of new words, one of the more recent is “hush-cation”. This is where remote employees continue to work away from the office, but in the Bahamas, even on cruise ships rather than home. Employers are not amused.

Good news for those of us who whined about the absence of peach pie and cobbler last summer. Both Georgia and California’s crops have bounced back this year and peaches will be plentiful.

Hollywood note from the 5:05 Newsletter: The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is out. It speaks to our times. Spoiler Alert: Within a month of taking over, the apes balance the budget and seal the border.

Ten years ago in TBR&R (5/ 26/14): A Pasco County High School for sale on Craig’s List? Falls into the category of “wish I had thought of that when I was a high school senior.” Also makes you wonder who’s minding the store at Craig’s List.

Sports, media and other notes:

Baseball fans should circle next week on their calendars as Craig Counsell makes his return to Milwaukee as the now manager of the rival Chicago Cubs.

Recently, the Detroit Tigers became the first team in history with three pitchers wearing single digit uniforms. In the past, single digit pitcher uniforms ended in Little League.

Idle thought: should any of us care what footballer Harrison Butker said in a commencement address to a small Catholic university? And we should probably care even less about what Patrick Mahomes thought about it. So far, Taylor Swift hasn’t weighed in.

A so-called prop bet, betting on an individual college player’s performance, is simply a scandal waiting to happen.

Factoid: In the last twenty years, more golf courses have closed than opened. About a dozen shuttered golf courses have been purchased by land trusts and turned into nature preserves and parks.

As we were laboring through a World War II book last month, we came across author Nancy Pearl’s advice - give it 50 pages – no more. Actually less, as Ms. Pearl notes that time after age fifty becomes more precious, so subtract your age from 100 and stop there. Now, we only need to read just beyond the preface.

“Borrowed” from one of our favorite nephews (we only have two): “Nobody told me that when you get a husband, the ears are sold separately”.

…One last thing: Summer playlist

It’s the unofficial start of summer and time for our annual set of great summer songs for your music device. We lead off with a Brian Wilson/Kacey Musgraves collaboration I Guess You Had to be There; from jazz artists Incognito, the smooth 2023 side Back on the Beach; follow that with the 1974 hit by the studio band First Class – Beach Baby; from the beach in Brazil, there’s Astrud Gilberto’s enduring standard Girl from Ipanema; add the Carolina beach classic, Dancin’ Mood by Jay and the Techniques and the Beach Boy’s first Top 40 hit Surfin’ Safari. Happy Summer!

NEXT WEEK: D-Day; MLB, month two; The Gipper.

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