This might blow your flipping mind, but I'm not only gonna post something, but I'm gonna post something that's not related to 007! I know, shocker, right?
Yesterday, Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Sternberg told the Hillsborough County Commission that "Major League Baseball at this point no longer believes in the Tampa Bay area." Not just St. Petersburg, but Tampa, Clearwater, and everywhere else talk has been discussed about building a new facility. This appears to be why (as backed up by St. Pete mayor Bill Foster) the contract at Tropicana Field is being enforced so severely by the City of St. Pete. Basically put, without that contract, MLB would have left Tampa Bay high and dry a few years ago.
I've advocated a new downtown St. Petersburg ballpark numerous times, pointing out the merits of pre- and postgame entertainment options afforded in such a location. However, I've also pointed out that no matter where the new ballpark is built — be it downtown St. Pete, downtown Tampa, or anywhere in between — mass transit is the vital key to making this whole thing work. That said, Sternberg also reiterated the long-held position that he and the team will only look at any potential sites if all potential sites (including Tampa and Hillsborough County) are allowed to be explored. St. Pete's official position has been to restrict sites to within St. Pete city limits and bordering Pinellas communities. That stalemate looks nowhere near being cleared up. So, where does that leave us? Personally, I think we start planning on a Plan B here in St. Pete. While we may ultimately be the best location in the Bay Area to house the Rays, it will never be known if the Rays aren't allowed to explore. And before you know it, 2027 will get here way too quickly, and we'll all be left holding the bag they mentally abandoned oh so long ago. So, I'm willing to break my long-held belief that the Rays should be St. Pete's in perpetuity and look at the "what if?" of the Rays leaving St. Pete...but with a twist.
"What do we do to placate the Rays and keep St. Pete's leverage" you ask? Well, the first thing we have to do as a city is allow the Rays to look anywhere they want — with a condition. If they want the privilege of looking at Tampa, they have to sign an agreement requiring them to help St. Pete not only draft a rehabilitation plan for Al Lang Field to attract an MLB team from Arizona for spring training, but also help design (not pay for costs, etc.) a new Rowdies stadium in downtown St. Pete. If they want the privilege to look outside of Tampa Bay, but still in Florida (Orlando, perhaps?), they have to also agree — in addition to the aforementioned plans — to help recruit both a spring training team from Arizona and promise to move their (either the moved team's or the Rays') High-A minor league team to the newly-rehabbed Al Lang, should they move. Do they want to look outside of Florida entirely? Okay, but they're paying for at least 50% the rehab costs of Al Lang — as well as take care of all of the above.
(Point of clarification: those actions above would only go into effect if the Rays actually left St. Petersburg's boundaries. They would only need to sign agreements to look in those places, not actually make progress on the above at this time.) I made mention of the Rowdies in those terms. That is because, unlike Sternberg and MLB, Andy Nestor and the NASL have fully and wholeheartedly embraced the city of St. Pete and all they have done for the rebirth of Tampa Bay's favorite soccer team. They have dealt with playing soccer on an odd-sided pitch in a baseball facility with nary a complaint, and enjoy everything the City has done to market and cater to them. Sadly, though, if they ever hope for true success (i.e. making a jump to Major League Soccer), they will need to get a new home. The Rowdies have pledged themselves to Al Lang until at least 2016, but they should get a new home around the end of the current contract. That said, it will be a lot cheaper to build a soccer stadium...and as luck would have it, the land is available downtown.
It's true. It might be a tight fit, but to make the pitch (the field for all those who don't speak "soccer-ese") the FIFA recommended size of 105m x 68m (roughly 115 yds by 74 yds), a stadium could be built on a couple plots of land that are mostly vacant, save for a dentist, between 2nd St and 3rd St S with 4th Ave S to the south and the University Plaza Shopping Center to the north. Design work would need to be done (I'm definitely not an architect), but I'm sure tighter places have been pitched — and built successfully — before. So, if the Rays wish to ignore any and all proposals that are pitched to them by both the City of St. Pete and private businesses in and around the city, they should be allowed to look, but in a way that still prevents St. Pete from becoming irrelevant, something that this current government is doing by being the same spoiled kid the Rays are. Both sides need to give, or not only will the Trop become an empty dome, but we'll have to deal with Plan C: life without the Rays in Tampa Bay at all. Or worse, and something that will resonate through, and continuously haunt, St. Pete for generations: a jaded Rowdies organization whose patience will run out, leaving an even worse Plan D...no seasonal sports in St. Pete at all.
"Any search for a new ballpark site needs to explore all of the Tampa Bay region. This is what we repeated to Mayor Foster today. We thanked him for his gesture, and we conveyed to him again that we will consider sites in St. Petersburg and Gateway when we are considering all potential sites in Tampa Bay." - Matt Silverman, Tampa Bay Rays Team President
With that statement, Stuart Sternberg and his team of upper managers have not only said both Tropicana Field and downtown St. Petersburg are done, but they also want nothing to do with Pinellas County at this point, as well. He and his associates have managed to insult, degrade, and belittle the team's only allies for the last 13 years. Tampa has said repeatedly that they cannot and will not pay for a stadium on their side of the Bay, yet he continues to push the issue. Why, knowing all that, would be tempted to bite the hand that feeds him?
Almost three years ago, the then-Devil Rays gave us fans two things to cheer for: a new name and color scheme, as well as plans for a new, waterfront, open-air ballpark right in the heart of St. Petersburg. It was a technological marvel, promising the freedom of open-air baseball, with fresh breezes off the Bay and air-conditioned corridors to keep the temperature in check, and the protection of a weatherproof fabric retractable roof that would blend seamlessly into the skyline and prevent inevitable rainouts. It would be built on the longtime home of Spring Training in St. Pete, Al Lang Field, a place where baseball was played for three generations. Great teams from the Miracle Mets, Ozzie Smith's Cards, eight of the Yankees' championship teams, and the 1951 NY Giants' pennant winners, not counting all the teams that played on this hallowed ground as visitors over the decades. This ballpark even experienced an actual live-birth of a new team, the Gulf Coast League Devil Rays, the necessary precursor to today's American League Rays, that first took the field in 1996 on this site.
So, it has the pedigree and it has the views of downtown and the Bay, but does it have the space for something this size? The drawings presented to the public showed that, with minimal disruption to the original footprint, the dream stadium of the Rays would fit. Yes, it would require a 600+/- square foot section of the Bay to be filled in near the dogleg on Bayshore Dr SE, but it would guarantee St. Pete would be the home of Major League Baseball in Tampa Bay for a very long time. With ample parking downtown, connection to Interstate 275 via two connecting freeways, and access to the existing bus hub in downtown - with space available in the parking lots of the St. Petersburg Times for an intermodal transit hub when rail gets going in a decade or so - what could possibly be the downside to this?
Enter 1 Beach Drive, St. Petersburg, FL, 33701 aka the Bayfront Tower.
What seemed like a surefire way for the city to get the 80 acres the Trop sits on back onto the tax roles and a permanent home to the area's "boys of summer" quickly turned awry. Betting against old, rich, blue hairs with nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it is a mistake. After a year of debates, protests, campaigns for and against the proposal, and being a hot-button issue in the mayoral race, the Rays officially tabled the idea indefinitely. What seemed like the right thing for a city on the rise was now just a smoldering pile of ash. The dream stadium would stay just that: an eternal dream that would never come about.
Fast forward to June 2010, where the Rays - which had been dodging the question since their first proposal died, who insisted they're not demanding anything but "we will not be playing in Tropicana Field in 2027" - all of a sudden demanded something: a new home, and soon. But it came with a caveat: no more talk of downtown St. Pete, and probably no more talk of St. Pete as a whole. The place where the impossible dream started will no longer the be the home of the next dream. Just like a jilted lover left on his knee after his girlfriend said, "No," the Rays are doing what they can to cut ties with St. Pete, including possibly spiting them by leaving the county entirely. What once seemed like a sure thing less than 24 months prior turned into, for lack of a better word, a clusterfuck.
So, Stu has done everything right to this point: he made his case, brought forth a proposal, accepted the first defeat gracefully, plotted his next move, and pulled the trigger. Hell, it could even be argued that his refusal to accept the first (of many to come, I'm sure) compromise by the City since this all started was smart. As a good friend of mine pointed out, "It doesn't matter to me where they go as long as it's not out of state or too far out of the TB area." And despite my rage for the cavalier attitude in Stu's blatant shunning of St. Pete, he's right: we do need to do whatever it takes to keep them, as they are our team, and to let the Rays go to Portland or Charlotte because of our petty parochialism would be a PR disaster of epic proportions for the region as a whole. No one would ever want to move to such a "spiteful, ungrateful, and shameless" area; we've already gotten a black eye for - no matter if it's justified or not - our treatment of the homeless population, so we shouldn't give the national media any other reason to turn potential new residents away.
That all said, St. Pete shouldn't be sold out, either, to make the "spirit of cooperation" work. As I've said previously, we stand to lose the most should they leave our city, as we we've been the ones putting out the money to make the team viable in the area. As evidenced by their television ratings, they are definitely a team with a loyal and deep fan base, despite the accusations by know-nothings from other regions, so it's not a case of overall apathy. In fact, I think they could do just as well, or maybe even marginally better, over in downtown Tampa, though not as good as people are alluding. (Let's face it: until mass transit is up and running, people just don't like the hassle of driving and parking along with 17,000 others.)
Without some kind of guarantees in a new contract, however, St. Pete loses something more than status as a "major league city" by forfeiting the Rays to Tampa or anywhere else: they lose the revenue brought in, and in the end, that's all that should matter to the City. There's a guaranteed 81 days a year - in the middle of a summer season that's brutal for natives, let alone visitors - where people will be downtown. People are spending more time downtown since parking is harder and harder to get at the Trop, and they make more impulse purchases based on what they see when they walk by, which is what fuels areas around the county like Wrigleyville, the Inner Harbor, and the Gas Lamp Quarter.
Losing that guaranteed draw will cause irreparable harm to the overall economy of the city; the Suncoast Dome was built to get the city out of that same economic disaster in the first place. So, that's the main reason Foster needs to try and keep them in St. Pete first, but if they can't (and without a proposal by the City the team can't refuse) they need to focus on protecting our interests. Require any negotiations with other cities include a guaranteed percentage of the revenue coming to St. Pete. In return, we invest that same percentage rate into the final cost of the new stadium. We force the first cooperative effort by any of our cities since the bridges were built, which in turn could lead to more cross-Bay relationships, including mass transit, and finally bring us on-par with other metros across the country. Doing so guarantees St. Pete much-needed revenue for as long as the stadium stands, the Rays get their dream stadium in any city they want, and the new home of the Rays is still within 60 minutes of the loyal fan base it has painstakingly created over the past 13 years.
I'll be the first to admit it: I'm spoiled. I have baseball in my backyard and don't have to sacrifice much to be there; sadly, not everyone's that lucky. However, this is a very spread-out area, so getting a stadium near the vast majority of the population - like it is in cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles - is near impossible. To make it all work, we all need to sacrifice something we cherish. For me, it's the stubbornness of letting them leave my grasp and following them wherever they end up. For St. Pete, it's the civic pride and bragging rights they bring. For people more than 15 miles from the stadium, it's the idea that "if it's not 5 minutes away, it's too far," and tossing that out the window.
We cannot, however, sacrifice everything for something, and when being put in an unreasonable position of "bad guy" solely for the "greater good" without any chance to ask for anything in return is unacceptable. If you'd like to be a good negotiator, Stu, next time St. Pete comes to the table with a proposal, understand the City will inevitably lose massive amounts of cash based on your move and offer them a bone in return for their cooperation. You'd be surprised how far you can go with a little empathy.
In 1990, a decades-old dream was finally realized. It started with a visionary named Albert Lang, who, way back in 1914, decided he wanted something to help bolster the tourism and appeal of the bayside hamlet of which he was the visionary mayor. Then, sixty years later, the leaders of the now-burgeoning city realized St. Petersburg's best days were behind them: crime was rampant in the southern and downtown parts of the city, and the northern reaches were relegated to nothing more than over-glorified retirement communities. The tax base was way down for even the most basic of emergency services, thereby straining the coffers to the point of breaking. "White Flight" was just as prevalent here as it was in the Rust Belt. Something needed to be done, and they had an epiphany: they needed to use the one thing that still brought the people back every spring and make it a more permanent fixture, bringing people here to spend their money in the dead of summer so they can realize it's not a bad place to live and bring their money with them full-time.
Thus, the Florida Suncoast Dome was born. Of course, like Rome, it wasn't built in a day - or a decade for that matter. But eventually, after much fighting regionally between St. Petersburg and its bigger sister across the bay, Tampa, and in-fighting within St. Pete's city limits itself, a site - and a design - was finally chosen. Fast forward back to 1990, and the builders, city leaders, and design critics all call the lopsided dome with concentric, self-supporting rings holding its roof aloft "the stadium for the 21st Century." It's the jewel of St. Petersburg - even though the then-commissioner of Major League Baseball told the city that just because they build it, they won't necessarily come - and a state-of-the-art masterpiece in all of its air-conditioned glory.
Now, the stadium that was built only two short years prior - the year in which the dome (now renamed the Thunderdome) is inhabited by both the NHL's Lightning and AFL's Storm - is now "functionally obsolete" for the original purpose it was built, a sport that hadn't even been awarded to the area yet and won't be for another four years. Everyone "in the know" now wants their very own Camden Yards in their downtowns; apparently, what works in one city is a goldmine everywhere, or so the thinking goes.
So, with that in mind, the 9th-newest stadium in Major League Baseball when the Rays first took the field is today the 9th-oldest (soon to become the 8th-oldest in 2012 with the opening of the Marlins' new house in Little Havana). Tropicana Field, as it's now called, is a relic long before its time. By declaring his intentions on June 21, Stu Sternberg has said, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Trop is done and needs to be replaced. And, he's not mincing words, either:
“Baseball in the Tampa Bay area does not belong to Stu Sternberg, just as it doesn’t belong to St. Petersburg or Tampa, Pinellas or Hillsborough. It is a regional asset. It belongs to our fans throughout the region. For this asset to be preserved, a comprehensive process to explore a new ballpark must begin."
So, as you can see, he's trying to force "regional cooperation" in determining the next site of the Rays base of operations. Personally, I'd love to see that myself, because for far too long, Tampa and St. Pete have acted like fierce rivals in some sort of chess match for total domination of the region. However, as a St. Petersburger, I can understand why residents on this side of the water feel constantly at-war with their neighbor to the northeast.
We are not like other "twin cities" in the country, namely Minneapolis/St. Paul and Dallas/Fort Worth. In those regions, they work together more than just philosophically; they share tax revenue from the areas' attractions - including their sports teams - along with spending money equally for regional services. Even now, here in Tampa Bay regional transit is beginning to take shape...with each county paying its own way, but only if the citizens of those counties vote to approve it at all in their borders. We do not cooperate like the Twin Cities or the Metroplex because we prefer to act independent - and bitch about it later when we can't afford luxuries we became accustomed to anymore.
When St. Petersburg built the Suncoast Dome 20 years ago, it was with St. Pete and Pinellas County money. Tampa brought nothing to the table, nor did Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, or any other county government for that matter. Basically put: if St. Pete loses the Rays, we lose not only a team or a piece of our civic pride, we also lose the money brought to this city by them each and every year since we were the only ones to bear the financial burden. This city and county had to go it alone, and sadly, this is how pretty much any public works project goes around here, and until that mentality changes, I can completely appreciate why the city of St. Pete refuses to listen to a suit from New York tell them how to "cooperate".
However, that leaves only three options to solving this mess, and none involve the lame - and tired - argument of "enforcing the contract through 2027 via legal proceedings"; let's face it: if the Seattle SuperSonics, original Cleveland Browns, and Baltimore Colts can all get out of their contracts relatively unscathed, so too can the Rays:
St. Petersburg must come to the table with a kickass proposal to be located in the Trop's current parking lot - something that will satiate Stu's wanderlust - while understanding we're going to have to probably front about 67% of the costs; not doing this will cause the city to lose a massively substantial tax base and, by extension, lose even more city services,
Tampa and St. Petersburg - along with all the surrounding counties, as well as others in the demographic area (Polk, Hernando, Sarasota, Citrus, Sumter, Hardee, and Desoto) - need to finally put "regional differences" aside, realize we need each other to survive in the 21st Century against the Charlottes, Austins, and Portlands of the country, and start working on a regional sales tax to pay for public works projects that affect more than 60% of the metro's population base, such as public transit, tourism advertising, and (yes) stadiums, or
Pack Evan Longoria's bags for him to move with the team to Norfolk/Virginia Beach, San Antonio, or Vancouver (What? Canada's hungry for another team!).
That all said, we're really not left with many choices. As much as Stu Sternberg is being vilified by the region (myself included) for telling us how to run our lives, his concise assessment may actually be something that will help us all much sooner than anyone expected. He said something that needed to be said for a long time, but no one has the muscle - or balls - to say it until now: we're a broken region with our petty parochialism. It's our own fault, though, but now's our chance to shine and make up for the shortsightedness of our parents. What was seen as a good idea with "home-rule" in the '50s is holding us back from becoming the next great region today.
However, tomorrow's another day, and hopefully we'll have come a long way by then. Hell, at least our grandparents had enough foresight to fly the world's first commercial "airline", as well as build the then-world's longest bridge, all in attempt for cross-bay cooperation. Maybe we can take a lesson from them instead and put it to use in 2010....
(Editor's Note: Hi to my minions out there! As you can see, I've been on a bit of a hiatus as of late, but fret not! I'm going to get back out here and write some more soon, so keep your eyes peeled, because the newest blog will both entertain and enlighten. More to come soon, but in the meantime, please enjoy this reposting of one of my more interesting blogs from my MySpace days. See you soon!)
(Original posting date: September 12, 2006, edited only for spelling)
Well, as you probably know, I haven't written anything in a while, so I did some thinking, because I want to make everything I say to count; I've spoken the truth before, and I'm not going to stop just to appease a restless audience. I've gone through many different factors in my mind to come up with this, so I hope this means 25% as much as it does to me. So, without further ado...
First of all, as most of you are aware, I took a (almost) spur-of-the-moment road trip to the Northeast a couple weekends ago, and I have to say, with the exception of not visiting two people (and they know who they are, and one wasn't a social call), I think the trip was a success. Philly will just have to be the next blog (though it would fit chronologically). This one seems appropriate for the occasion.
As everyone knows, yesterday was the 5th Anniversary of our nation losing it's last shred of innocence, and while this seems 24 hours late, think about this; today marks the 5th Anniversary we became a military state, a nation, not of freedom, but of lock downs and shoe searches. From the day of the first commercial flight (which happened right here, from St. Pete to Tampa, in 1912, BTW) to 9/11/01 (before 9:30AM, of course), with the exceptions of firearms and swords, we could bring practically anything on a plane. We could, with permission, go and talk to the pilot mid-flight and have our children sit on their laps, and when they were done, the pilot or co-pilot would give them "wings"...I still have mine. And I read an interesting article in the tbt* today (the Tampa Bay Times, for people who don't know what it is, and for my Philly friends, it's like our version of the Daily News, but free) about how since we've lost our ability to see our loved ones off, the airport is no longer the romantic, magical place it once was. Instead of kissing your lover good-bye and watch them disappear down the tunnel, or watching your children try to see Daddy one more time before he disappears for his business trip, it's a quick "See ya," at the curb, basically the passion of a one-night stand. You know their leaving, but not for another 3-4 hours, so you wait anxiously to hear they're boarding, but where are you? Not within 100' of them, minimum. And what about returns? No more rushing to greet them from the plane, with all the love and sense of security that they've landed in one piece. It's all gone now, all because we've turned into the equivalent of a democratic Nazi regime.
Because I said that, I could probably now be profiled as a terrorist, and since "they" now suspect me, I'm being wire-tapped and having all my e-mails and my hard drive searched right now. They'll find the porn sites I've visited, the e-mails I've sent to friends about chain jokes I've gotten, and my MySpace page depicting buildings in Philly. Does that make me a prime target because I'm a pedophile conspirator planning to attack Liberty Place? No, because I'm a white guy named Dietrich. The government is "profiling" (a pretty word for being racist) against anyone named Muhammed, Abullah, and Natal, anyone who sounds like their from the Middle East (except Israel, because we love them for killing the "Muslim targets" for us), or preaches to Allah (which, fellow Christians, is the same god as our God; remember, Abraham beget Issac (Jewish) and Ishmael (Muslim)...crazy how that works, huh?); the people of this great nation gave the government the power to do that by allowing our Congress to pass the "Patriot Act". The people did similar things back in 1933 by electing the Nazi party candidate for Chancellor (soon after Fürher) Adolf Hitler and allowing Lenin and the Boshlevicks to take over Imperial Russia in 1917, which eventually lead to the Great Purge by Stalin in the late 40's. History repeats itself, and we see that here. Pretty soon, blacks in our country won't have a thing to worry about because we'll be trying to enslave people of Arab ancestry because, "they all look like Muslims."
Has this day lost it's meaning? I mean, sure, it only happened 5 years ago and people definitely remember what happened, but what, if anything, have we learned? There was a chain bulletin (most likely sent out by someone who isn't old enough to care about what happened) last week saying every one should "skipp [sic] school because we shouldn't be here when people died. It should be a national holiday." I disagree. Memorial Day was a holiday set up by the Federal government back in the 20's to remember all the people who died serving this country, esp. the Great War (there wasn't WWII yet to warrant a moniker), since it just happened less than a decade before. Now, do we remember our fallen heroes more than a speech by our sitting prez before we either go down the shore/go the beach (pick your vernacular) or shop till we drop with all the sales? Obviously, that's not what the senator who proposed that holiday had in mind, and I'm sure rolls over in his grave every year. And the same goes for the Pilgrims in Plymouth. Do you honestly think they prayed, "Let us thank God for this bountiful feast, and let's thank Him for the amazing deals happening tomorrow down at The Wigwam. Now, I can get that wonderful bonnet for Sarah Goodwife for Christmas. Amen."? Hell no, and this is exactly what would happen if we make 9/11 (aka "Patriot Day" on the calendar I have at work) a Federal, State, or even a local holiday. Then 2,982 people died in vain, and how would you explain that to your kids when they ask, "Why do we celebrate this holiday, Mom?"
Then, I watched "Mr Smith Goes To Washington" for about the 4th time (but the first in a very long time...one of the best movies ever, I highly recommend EVERYONE see it at least once) today and it made me remember that the little guy can stand up and be heard in government. Of course, it takes a lot of heart and courage to do so, but that's the only way meaningful things are accomplished. It also reminded me of something that has been lost lately: the freedom of speech. Jokingly saying the word "bomb" or causally saying "I'm going to kill you," or even saying something that may offend someone like "handyman" instead of "handyperson" (what about women?) or "white" instead of "Caucasian" (what about albinos?) could have "harassment" charges filed against you. We used to be able to bad mouth the powers-at-large, and they would laugh it off. Now, if you say something bad about our prez, like calling him a "low-life douchebag who should be recalled" or a "lying emperor who has overstepped his bounds" could possibly lead to "terrorist" charges. Our Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and press (I won't start on them, I promise), but all we're getting is watered-down reasons to have our rights trampled on. The 4th Amendment protects us from all the searches at airports and the 5th-8th Amendments protect people who look or sound Islamic from being prosecuted like terrorists when they more than likely aren't (a study in Newsday showed that 87% of all Muslims in the world believed the terrorists should be kicked out of the Mosques) without due process. While some may say, "they killed innocent Americans without due process," I counter and say that our laws make us who we are, and if we decide to impede on them just because they're "inconvenient" at the time, it makes us no better than a fascist state like Mussolini's Italy or Stalin's communist Russia. We take a huge step back in human rights while the world moves forward, just because a handful of extremists are identified with an entire culture. It's the 1920's all over again, and if we continue, it'll be like the 1820's, just with technology. People, come to your senses; sto being sheep and think for yourself what is happening before we blindly elect another Hitler to power.
Man, I have so much more to say, but it's getting late, and I think I've covered the key points. I'm just as angered and hurt about what happened 5 years ago yesterday, and I know those 19 hijackers didn't meet Allah/God like they planned, but we shouldn't be on a witch hunt. Let's spend these days remembering our lost family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, not with blood, but with peace. We can't make this world a better place unless we lead by example and why not start today?
He who saves one life, saves the world entire. - old Jewish proverb
President Barack Hussein Obama is a murderer! The man who ran on a campaign of "peace" and "change" took an innocent life - on film, no less! - and laughed as the carcass of his fallen enemy lain there on the carpet. No trial, no jury, no judge. He was the law at that moment, and because this harmless being simply "got on his nerves", he slew the helpless fool in cold blood. He could have at least imprisoned and then set him free, but no; Obama said, "Damn the Constitution!" and took its life. This man is deplorable and should be executed.
That's what our resident whack-jobs over at PETA what you to think, anyway. Why now, you ask? Oh? Did you not see the footage? Well, let me show you:
That's right, ladies and gentlemen; your president, the one (don't debate me on this statement, I don't wanna hear it on this post!) doing his best to clean up the mess both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton put us in is being accused, not of the typical, "left-wing liberal commie" crap, but killing an "innocent" fly by your friends at the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. My, oh my, talk about an organization that has lost its meaning.
PETA was started in 1980 as an organization dedicated to make sure four key things were monitored: 1.) Hollywood didn't mistreat animals, 2.) the fur trade was stopped, 3.) animal testing was either humanely done or stopped altogether, and 4.) farm animals were kept out of deplorable conditions. However, since the beginning, their methodology on safeguarding their core values has always been controversial. Throwing paint on fur coats, harassing lab workers in the streets, and suing movie lots are just some of the stunts this group has performed.
Once they realized this garnered them attention (like they say, bad publicity is better than none at all), they started to expand into the realm of the absurd, like suggesting fishing is the same as sticking a hook in your dog's eye, or eating beef is equivalent to dining on a monkey. They have even chastised sports athletes such as Shane Victorino for eating Spam, a much-maligned (yet pretty decent if cooked right) food considered a staple in his native Hawaii. But now, I can truly say I've seen it all.
They are sending President Obama a "humane fly trap" so he can catch the annoying pest that is known to carry diseases such as typhoid, cholera, and dysentery, and release it back into the wild. They said he should not "glorify" the killing of any creature and, as a role-model, should "know better."
(Before I continue, I want to point out I'm not at all against "animal rights" - thought I don't like that term. I love dogs and cats, and nothing should ever happen to them, such as beatings, over breeding, and even neglect; it breaks my heart to see that. However, there are some animals humans have used as food for 10,000 years, and until the last 150, did it humanely. I agree that furs from chinchillas shouldn't be harvested simply for a coat; the whole chinchilla should be used, either as dog food or helping to feed the homeless. Same thing goes for seal pelts and any other creatures that are useful to everyone. Over-harvesting is bad, too, and that should be monitored, or some animals will go the way of the dodo. But don't bitch at me for eating venison or call me a "murderer" because I have an ivory chess set. So long as it's done in an ecologically-sane and humane manner, we're the top of the food chain and we have every right to act that way.)
So, here's a solution I think most people can agree with: because there is a major over-population issue with this planet (6.4 billion and growing) and we're trying to rid ourselves of the idiots roaming around, why not round up every card-carrying member of PETA and anyone who believes their BS, put them all on some secluded island out in the Atlantic that no one lives at now, and drop a nuke on them. Solves three issues: 1.) reduces the population, 2.) gets rid of whack jobs, and 3.) shows countries like North Korea and Iran what actually happens with a nuke (since they apparently didn't study WWII history and forgot about Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and that we're not afraid to use it again.
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I'll leave you on a happier, less depressing shameless plug. This one is brought to you by my man Hopper, who is writing his first-ever-paid movie column today. Show him some love and go check it out! It's about Hollywood's latest comedy, Year One, and since it has Jack Black, you know it's going to be a tongue-in-cheek, witty, intelligent comedy. Now, if you're in St Pete, get out there and enjoy this beautiful morning before it turns oppressive later today. Word is, it's supposed to be 96° again today, with a heat index approaching 110°. Hope the A/C's working at your place! And if you're in Philly right now, don't forget your umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh, cause it looks like it's gonna be on-and-off rain today. Stay cool/dry out there today!
