One of the most disingenuous op-ed pieces I have ever read was published in the January 22, 2013, edition of the "Tampa Bay Times". "It has been decades since Detroit was seen as a forward-looking urban community instead of an inner-city wasteland racked by crime, vacant buildings and government debt," it begins. "But the federal government last week put the finishing touches on what will soon be a 3-mile light rail system through the heart of downtown. [I]t should stand as an example for how Tampa Bay could get its act together on transportation."
Any comparison of the Tampa Bay metroplex with Detroit is ludicrous on its face. If you were to contain a graph comparing crime rates on a single page, you would need a magnifying glass to find Tampa's while Detroit's would spill over the edge. Detroit's downtown looks like Gotham's after Bane got through with it; Tampa's is vibrant and safe.
Detroit doesn't need light rail; it needs a fleet of bulldozers.
But Detroit isn't building a light rail system, anyway. It nixed a nine-mile line two years ago. Instead, it's building a three-mile streetcar run, the projected cost of which will be $140 million. You and I both know the final cost will be much more than that. It'll be months and possibly years behind schedule; the maintenance fees will be exorbitant, and hardly anyone will ride it.
How do we know this? Tampa already has a streetcar run. It originates in a part of town where the only foot traffic consists of folks walking from parking facilities to their offices. It passes by a second-rate aquarium, a failed complex of shops and restaurants, a couple of cruise ship ports, and dead-ends at Ybor City. Its only riders are the occasional handful of tourists who are attracted by its novelty.
Soon after it was built it was declared a white elephant. The sentiment was to halt its runs and rip up the track, but no one wanted to spend the money to do it. The city then tried to sell it, but private companies are in the business of making money, not flushing it down the toilet. It continues to operate largely on handouts from the kindness of those with too much money and no clue as to what to do with it.
Now Pinellas County wants to put a referendum on the ballot to see if there is public support for a 26-mile line from Clearwater to St Petersburg. Thanks to the Sunshine and open records laws, I was able to obtain a transcript of the county commissioners' discussion of the issue.
"Okay, who wants light rail?"
"I do! I do! I love choo-choos!"
"But who's gonna ride on it? Can't make anybody ride it."
"Don't have to make them ride it; you just have to make them want to."
"How do we do that?"
"Easy. Reduce the number of parking slots by at least half. Do away with one-way streets and timed traffic lights. Cause auto gridlock so bad that folks will beg to ride it."
"How we gonna pay for it?"
"We'll jack up the sales tax from seven to eight percent. The rest we can get from the feds."
"That's like double taxation. Ain't nobody gonna buy into that, not in this economy."
"I will! I will! I want my choo-choo!"
We've had this discussion before. We've taken votes on light rail before, and it has always been voted down. But like shingles, just when you think you have it beaten once and for all, it flares up again to fester and annoy.
Here's some good advice, commissioners. You want to play with trains? Go to a hobby shop and buy a Lionel set and an engineer's hat. Okay, Casey Jones?
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
The Only Good Terrorist...
Michael Kinsley, columnist and talking head, has written a piece so idiotic one must assume that his DRD4 gene has, like the DNA of the teleported fly did with Seth Brundle, completely corrupted and incapacitated his rationality. Mikey is appalled--appalled, do you hear--that the US is launching drones against terrorists. Perhaps you may find reason in his rant. I readily confess it is well beyond my mortal ken.
Mikey begins by instructing us on military history. "[M]ore civilians died in World War II, of various causes, than did soldiers," he quotes one historian. "That was not true of World War I or most earlier conflicts."
No doubt that WWII was especially hard on civilians, particularly those in Germany and Jpapn, and especially when you add in the six or so million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Some have argued that the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the nuking of Japan saved the millions of lives that would have been lost to starvation, had we simply blockaded the country. Understand--we did not nuke Japan to save Japanese lives; we nuked Japan to end the war before those pesky Ruskies could overrun all of Korea. But that's another story. In the end, the civilians in both countries were enablers of their governments' war-mongering aggression, either by fully buying into their madness or simply acquiescing to it. The resulting devastation was the price they paid; no tears of sympathy from me.
Earlier wars, like earlier football contests, were ground games which "used to be conducted on battlefields, between soldiers in uniforms lined up in rows, bayonets at the ready. People famously took picnic baskets to watch the first battle of Manassas...," an event, one supposes, that may have marked the country's first tailgate party. Air power, with its indiscriminate saturation or carpet bombing, brought war directly and massively to the general population. The introduction and proliferation of nuclear weapons gave the world deterence.
Today, Mikey laments, vastly improved capability has restored impetus. He points out that drones "can aim at and hit a target with enormous precision." While most would perceive this as a good thing, because "no American lives are put at risk, and the precision minimizes collateral damage...," Mikey argues that it is actually bad, because when you have the ability to strike at an enemy with zero risk to your own people, you are more likely to do so.
A valid point, no doubt. But let's project Mikey's logic to its unstated but inevitable conclusion. What really has his pinkish tutu riding up in his nether orifice is that it just isn't fair that we, who have drone technology, can whack some terriorst towel-head at will and not suffer consequences. Never mind that our enemy is not above hijacking our airliners and driving them into buildings. Never mind that they welcome their own deaths as martyrdom.
Moreover, he argues, drones "highlight a terrible anomaly of civil libertarian societies: the contrast between how we treat killing--state sponsored killing--in battle, and how we treat killing in civilian life. There are no Miranda warnings in the trenches," he philosophizes.
Concepts such as the Miranda right don't compute with terrorists. They can't even spell "Miranda," Mikey, let alone understand what it is.
Here's the thing. We cannot apply societal norms to those who live outside society. Terrorists do not differentiate between soldiers and civilians; we are all infidels and must therefore die. We will never defeat them at their game by adhering to self-imposed, unilateral rules. "Civilized war" is oxymoronic on its face. Civilized war against the uncivilized is simply moronic.
But you would have us play nice with these wild-eyed violators of hemorrhoidal goats, wouldn't you, Mikey? You want us to put ourselves in the line of fire so that the terrorists we target will have an equal chance of taking us out.
Now really. Isn't that taking your egalitarianism nonsense just a little too far?
Mikey begins by instructing us on military history. "[M]ore civilians died in World War II, of various causes, than did soldiers," he quotes one historian. "That was not true of World War I or most earlier conflicts."
No doubt that WWII was especially hard on civilians, particularly those in Germany and Jpapn, and especially when you add in the six or so million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Some have argued that the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the nuking of Japan saved the millions of lives that would have been lost to starvation, had we simply blockaded the country. Understand--we did not nuke Japan to save Japanese lives; we nuked Japan to end the war before those pesky Ruskies could overrun all of Korea. But that's another story. In the end, the civilians in both countries were enablers of their governments' war-mongering aggression, either by fully buying into their madness or simply acquiescing to it. The resulting devastation was the price they paid; no tears of sympathy from me.
Earlier wars, like earlier football contests, were ground games which "used to be conducted on battlefields, between soldiers in uniforms lined up in rows, bayonets at the ready. People famously took picnic baskets to watch the first battle of Manassas...," an event, one supposes, that may have marked the country's first tailgate party. Air power, with its indiscriminate saturation or carpet bombing, brought war directly and massively to the general population. The introduction and proliferation of nuclear weapons gave the world deterence.
Today, Mikey laments, vastly improved capability has restored impetus. He points out that drones "can aim at and hit a target with enormous precision." While most would perceive this as a good thing, because "no American lives are put at risk, and the precision minimizes collateral damage...," Mikey argues that it is actually bad, because when you have the ability to strike at an enemy with zero risk to your own people, you are more likely to do so.
A valid point, no doubt. But let's project Mikey's logic to its unstated but inevitable conclusion. What really has his pinkish tutu riding up in his nether orifice is that it just isn't fair that we, who have drone technology, can whack some terriorst towel-head at will and not suffer consequences. Never mind that our enemy is not above hijacking our airliners and driving them into buildings. Never mind that they welcome their own deaths as martyrdom.
Moreover, he argues, drones "highlight a terrible anomaly of civil libertarian societies: the contrast between how we treat killing--state sponsored killing--in battle, and how we treat killing in civilian life. There are no Miranda warnings in the trenches," he philosophizes.
Concepts such as the Miranda right don't compute with terrorists. They can't even spell "Miranda," Mikey, let alone understand what it is.
Here's the thing. We cannot apply societal norms to those who live outside society. Terrorists do not differentiate between soldiers and civilians; we are all infidels and must therefore die. We will never defeat them at their game by adhering to self-imposed, unilateral rules. "Civilized war" is oxymoronic on its face. Civilized war against the uncivilized is simply moronic.
But you would have us play nice with these wild-eyed violators of hemorrhoidal goats, wouldn't you, Mikey? You want us to put ourselves in the line of fire so that the terrorists we target will have an equal chance of taking us out.
Now really. Isn't that taking your egalitarianism nonsense just a little too far?
Saturday, January 12, 2013
A Rose By Any Other Name
Some bad things, concepts, and, yes, people, just won't die. Like shingles, as soon as you think you've gotten rid of them they flare up to fester and annoy.
Political correctness, scourge of the '90s, is just such a pestilence. Remember when garbage collectors became waste managers and janitors became sanitation engineers? When "negro" became "person of color," then "black," then "African-American?" When "deaf" became "hearing impaired," "blind" became "visually challenged," and "fat" became "full figured?"
PCness was particularly idiotic in public schools, where teachers became afraid to say or do anything that might offend someone's sense of self. They couldn't fail anyone lest they stigmatize a student as a failure. Hence the "F" grade became a "U." "A" grades implied elitism, so they set about leveling the grade curve. Instead of sending those who had mastered one block of instruction on to the next, they were held back to help others who had fallen behind. Better everyone get a "C" than some an "A" and others a "U." Developmentally disabled students were mainstreamed to foster an illusion of normalcy, doing grave disservice to teachers, regular students, and, ironically, themselves.
PCness also infected sports. Not wanting to exalt winners by labeling losers, a movement was begun to eliminate scores in kiddie games. Participation trophies were presented to all who, well, participated, because it just wasn't fair that some kids might get one while others didn't. For a long time in college football games, the names of players committing penalties were not announced, just their numbers. And if an award was made in the name of a player on a winning team, one also had to be made in the name of one on the losing team.
PCness insanity even resulted in mascot name changes, largely due to the mad scramble to suck up to the American Indian Movement. AIM was formed in Minnesota in 1968 by 200 Indians. In 1972, an AIM-organized "Trail of Tears March on Washington, DC" was held. 500 showed up. I don't have the exact 1972 American Indian population, but it was between six and ten million. You figure the percentage.
Nevertheless, AIM purported to speak for all American Indians. Liberal institutions of higher learning fell all over themselves in the stampede to satisfy AIM's demands that those with Indian-related nicknames change them forthwith. As one result, the Marquette Warriors became the Golden Eagles. My own high school, whose nickname was "Indians," replaced its proud Indianhead logo with a "C" (for Carlisle) and adorned it with a few scraggly chicken feathers. With a rare display of sanity, Florida State University, whose nickname is "Seminoles," retained the name after the Seminole tribe proclaimed its pride in it and told AIM to kiss off.
That was all decades ago. You'd think by now PCism is a dead issue. Well, you'd be wrong, horse blanket-breath.
The NFL's Washington Redskins, a team that has been around decades longer than either AIM or PCism, plays its games in Landover, Maryland. Its practice field and headquarters are in Ashburn, Virginia. Apparently there is talk of the team moving into DC proper.
"Not so fast," said DC mayor Vincent C. Gray. "They want to move here, they gonna have to change that name. Can't be upsetting no 500 or whatever Indians, no sir."
What should we call them, then, Mayor Munchkin? I know, something that reflects DC. How 'bout the Washington Felons, in recognition of your crime rate? Or perhaps the Washington Hucksters, in homage to all the politicians you harbor?
What's next? For sure we gotta rename the Packers. See, the Packers were named after a meat-packing plant, which has to be offensive to both vegans and animal rights whackos. Maybe the Green Bay Lemmings? They do play on frozen tundra, after all. And what about the 49ers? Can't have a team named after gold-digging capitalists hell-bent on destroying the environment, can we? The San Francisco Poufs certainly would be an appropriate option, don't you think?
Or, better yet, what say we all just get over ourselves?
Political correctness, scourge of the '90s, is just such a pestilence. Remember when garbage collectors became waste managers and janitors became sanitation engineers? When "negro" became "person of color," then "black," then "African-American?" When "deaf" became "hearing impaired," "blind" became "visually challenged," and "fat" became "full figured?"
PCness was particularly idiotic in public schools, where teachers became afraid to say or do anything that might offend someone's sense of self. They couldn't fail anyone lest they stigmatize a student as a failure. Hence the "F" grade became a "U." "A" grades implied elitism, so they set about leveling the grade curve. Instead of sending those who had mastered one block of instruction on to the next, they were held back to help others who had fallen behind. Better everyone get a "C" than some an "A" and others a "U." Developmentally disabled students were mainstreamed to foster an illusion of normalcy, doing grave disservice to teachers, regular students, and, ironically, themselves.
PCness also infected sports. Not wanting to exalt winners by labeling losers, a movement was begun to eliminate scores in kiddie games. Participation trophies were presented to all who, well, participated, because it just wasn't fair that some kids might get one while others didn't. For a long time in college football games, the names of players committing penalties were not announced, just their numbers. And if an award was made in the name of a player on a winning team, one also had to be made in the name of one on the losing team.
PCness insanity even resulted in mascot name changes, largely due to the mad scramble to suck up to the American Indian Movement. AIM was formed in Minnesota in 1968 by 200 Indians. In 1972, an AIM-organized "Trail of Tears March on Washington, DC" was held. 500 showed up. I don't have the exact 1972 American Indian population, but it was between six and ten million. You figure the percentage.
Nevertheless, AIM purported to speak for all American Indians. Liberal institutions of higher learning fell all over themselves in the stampede to satisfy AIM's demands that those with Indian-related nicknames change them forthwith. As one result, the Marquette Warriors became the Golden Eagles. My own high school, whose nickname was "Indians," replaced its proud Indianhead logo with a "C" (for Carlisle) and adorned it with a few scraggly chicken feathers. With a rare display of sanity, Florida State University, whose nickname is "Seminoles," retained the name after the Seminole tribe proclaimed its pride in it and told AIM to kiss off.
That was all decades ago. You'd think by now PCism is a dead issue. Well, you'd be wrong, horse blanket-breath.
The NFL's Washington Redskins, a team that has been around decades longer than either AIM or PCism, plays its games in Landover, Maryland. Its practice field and headquarters are in Ashburn, Virginia. Apparently there is talk of the team moving into DC proper.
"Not so fast," said DC mayor Vincent C. Gray. "They want to move here, they gonna have to change that name. Can't be upsetting no 500 or whatever Indians, no sir."
What should we call them, then, Mayor Munchkin? I know, something that reflects DC. How 'bout the Washington Felons, in recognition of your crime rate? Or perhaps the Washington Hucksters, in homage to all the politicians you harbor?
What's next? For sure we gotta rename the Packers. See, the Packers were named after a meat-packing plant, which has to be offensive to both vegans and animal rights whackos. Maybe the Green Bay Lemmings? They do play on frozen tundra, after all. And what about the 49ers? Can't have a team named after gold-digging capitalists hell-bent on destroying the environment, can we? The San Francisco Poufs certainly would be an appropriate option, don't you think?
Or, better yet, what say we all just get over ourselves?
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Prioritizing Florida Justice
Pretend you're in charge of ranking perps for arrest and prosecution--it could happen--and allocating resources to take them down. Here are a couple of actual cases currently being discussed in the somewhat less than hallowed halls of Florida's criminal justice system. Your task is to prioritize them.
Case 1: In 1987, a sorry piece of fecal debris named Terry Rugg was sentenced to probation in Sarasota County on a child sex abuse charge. Six years later, in January, 1993, a mother called the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office to report that her 14-year-old son had been sexually molested while living as a runaway with Rugg in Largo. According to the boy, Rugg also provided him and his friends with booze and pot. Subsequent interviews with the boy's friends confirmed his account and also revealed another victim of Rugg's perversion.
Detectives phoned Rugg. I can pretty much imagine the conversation:
"Yeah, this is Terry Rugg. Who's this?"
"This is the Sheriff's Office. We got a donut break coming up in a short; otherwise we'd come out to talk with you. How 'bout you comin in, instead?"
"Well, whut's this all about, anyhow?"
"Oh, just some boys were telling us how you were playin' around with their privates and such, maybe giving them a little toot and a toke once in a while."
"Why, them little...uh, okay, Sheriff, how 'bout if I come down in the a.m.? I'm rat in the middle of a Honey Boo Boo marathon, know whut I mean?"
"That'd be good, Terry. See you then."
Well, surprise, surprise, surprise! Good ol' boy Terry didn't show. Not only that, he disappeared.
After a warrant was issued for his arrest, New Jersey officials called to say Rugg had been arrested on a marijuana trafficking charge. They asked if Pinellas authorities wanted to extradite him. "Nah," said chief assistant prosecutor Bruce Bartlett. "Glad he's there and not here. Too much paperwork to bring him back, don'tcha know."
Eventually, Terry came back on his own and moved in with his mother. In spite of the arrest warrant being in the system for almost two decades, and in spite of arrests for traffic violations, writing a bad check, and being jailed twice on drug charges, he avoided arrest on the sex charges. Until three months ago, when he was pulled over for having an expired tag.
"Ain't my fault they didn't get me afore," said Terry. "They knew where I was. They knew how to find me."
Case 2: Eric Prokopi is a paleontologist. He goes around finding prehistoric bones and reassembles them. A skeleton of a giant sloth stands menacingly in front of his home.
Eric was busted for making false statements to customs officials and illegally transporting dinosaur bones from Mongolia to his home in Gainesville. He used the bones to virtually restore a Tyrannosaurus bataar, bones that may have ended up in a soup kettle over a yak dung fire in front of a yurt had he not rescued them.
So. Who's the greater threat to civilization, here--Terry, who gave free rein to his inner Jerry Sandusky, or Eric, a Dr Alan Grant wannabe?
A no-brainer, right? Ah, but this is Florida, where smarts and common sense are not exactly prerequisites to justice. Eric's indiscretion created an international incident and brought down the wrath of the Chinese government, State Department, Museum of Natural History, Homeland Security and, of course, Pasco County officials. Terry only upset the mother of a runaway pothead.
Eric is looking at a max of 17 years in the slam. Due to a statute of limitations, Terry is looking at nothing.
You understand...don't you?
Case 1: In 1987, a sorry piece of fecal debris named Terry Rugg was sentenced to probation in Sarasota County on a child sex abuse charge. Six years later, in January, 1993, a mother called the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office to report that her 14-year-old son had been sexually molested while living as a runaway with Rugg in Largo. According to the boy, Rugg also provided him and his friends with booze and pot. Subsequent interviews with the boy's friends confirmed his account and also revealed another victim of Rugg's perversion.
Detectives phoned Rugg. I can pretty much imagine the conversation:
"Yeah, this is Terry Rugg. Who's this?"
"This is the Sheriff's Office. We got a donut break coming up in a short; otherwise we'd come out to talk with you. How 'bout you comin in, instead?"
"Well, whut's this all about, anyhow?"
"Oh, just some boys were telling us how you were playin' around with their privates and such, maybe giving them a little toot and a toke once in a while."
"Why, them little...uh, okay, Sheriff, how 'bout if I come down in the a.m.? I'm rat in the middle of a Honey Boo Boo marathon, know whut I mean?"
"That'd be good, Terry. See you then."
Well, surprise, surprise, surprise! Good ol' boy Terry didn't show. Not only that, he disappeared.
After a warrant was issued for his arrest, New Jersey officials called to say Rugg had been arrested on a marijuana trafficking charge. They asked if Pinellas authorities wanted to extradite him. "Nah," said chief assistant prosecutor Bruce Bartlett. "Glad he's there and not here. Too much paperwork to bring him back, don'tcha know."
Eventually, Terry came back on his own and moved in with his mother. In spite of the arrest warrant being in the system for almost two decades, and in spite of arrests for traffic violations, writing a bad check, and being jailed twice on drug charges, he avoided arrest on the sex charges. Until three months ago, when he was pulled over for having an expired tag.
"Ain't my fault they didn't get me afore," said Terry. "They knew where I was. They knew how to find me."
Case 2: Eric Prokopi is a paleontologist. He goes around finding prehistoric bones and reassembles them. A skeleton of a giant sloth stands menacingly in front of his home.
Eric was busted for making false statements to customs officials and illegally transporting dinosaur bones from Mongolia to his home in Gainesville. He used the bones to virtually restore a Tyrannosaurus bataar, bones that may have ended up in a soup kettle over a yak dung fire in front of a yurt had he not rescued them.
So. Who's the greater threat to civilization, here--Terry, who gave free rein to his inner Jerry Sandusky, or Eric, a Dr Alan Grant wannabe?
A no-brainer, right? Ah, but this is Florida, where smarts and common sense are not exactly prerequisites to justice. Eric's indiscretion created an international incident and brought down the wrath of the Chinese government, State Department, Museum of Natural History, Homeland Security and, of course, Pasco County officials. Terry only upset the mother of a runaway pothead.
Eric is looking at a max of 17 years in the slam. Due to a statute of limitations, Terry is looking at nothing.
You understand...don't you?
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