BlogWood: Norwood's Fair and Balanced Nattering

Catchalling

A lot of catching up to do around here, so I’m just gonna post this super-long link-filled extravaganza, glossing over details, ignoring important points, completely missing many newsworthy events, and adding absolutely nothing of value to the conversation. In other words, pretty much business as usual, but with just one big post. Enjoy.

We care.

Despite Secretary of State Colin Powell’s insistence that the U.S. is not a "stingy" nation-a charge leveled Monday by a frustrated U.N. relief coordinator, then taken back Tuesday-American contributions to the tsunami recovery effort seem modest by any standard. Relief workers need to get help to 10 nations, where more than a million people are believed to be homeless, where whole villages were swallowed by the earthquake-induced tidal wave last weekend, and where the death toll has crossed 50,000 and is still climbing.

So far, the U.S. is sending $4 million to the International Red Cross and perhaps $40 million in other aid funds, along with a handful of planes, some bearing supplies and some to be used for patrols. The Japanese are sending $30 million for starters, and the EU $40 million.

Miffed at the U.N. official’s comment, Trent Duffy, White House deputy press secretary, said, the U.S. is “the largest contributor to international relief and aid efforts, not only through the government but through charitable organizations.” He added, “The American people are very giving.”

The money being put up by the U.S. is nothing when compared to what’s going on in the corridors of Wall Street, where year-end bonuses for the securities industry are the big story in New York. Readers of The New York Times were greeted Tuesday morning with above-the-fold images of destruction in Asia and below-the-fold accountings of personal riches.

The money’s also a little less than W will spend on his upcoming coronation, but I digress. Also in the NY Times that day: Family farmers in Central America - just another group of brown people in need of exploitation by wall street types:

Supermarket Giants Crush Central American Farmers By CELIA W. DUGGER

Published: December 28, 2004

PALENCIA, Guatemala - Mario Chinchilla, his face shaded by a battered straw hat, worriedly surveyed his field of sickly tomatoes. His hands and jeans were caked with dirt, but no amount of labor would ever turn his puny crop into the plump, unblemished produce the country's main supermarket chain displays in its big stores.

But we really do care about brown people. Really.

We were surprised to see on ABC's Good Morning America a segment about the children who have been victims of the tsunami. Total casualties are (currently) estimated to be 60,000. One third are children, or 20,000. The ABC report began with the usual talking head.

It was followed by four stories about affected children. Excepting a quick pan shot of native kids amongst general destruction, they were all white Europeans.

Well, white European tourists can be victims too! And besides, we’re sending lots of money, right?

That brings to a whopping 10 cents per capita, our contribution to alleviating one of the great human tragedies of all time. How inspiring. I just wrote a check to Doctors Without Borders (How to donate) for 1000 times that amount, so I guess that makes me Albert Fucking Schweitzer. Yet I somehow still feel strangely unvirtuous.

Speaking of virtuous, Saint Theresa LaPore’s retirement is about to get a littel more cushy, thanks to a little job swapping in Palm Beach.

Outgoing Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore is mulling a $2,500-a-month clerical job in State Attorney Barry Krischer's office so she can qualify for a 30-year pension.

LePore said she's also considering two other government posts at similar pay but wouldn't name them. She said she'll decide on a job next week.

LePore leaves the $121,490 supervisor's position next week after losing an Aug. 31 reelection bid. She needs to work about three or four more months to qualify for optimum pension benefits.

LaPore has been sucking the government teat for almost as long as this innocent man has been on Florida’s death row.

Now DNA evidence offers Zeigler the hope of a very different future Christmas. DNA evidence has played a significant role in 14 of the 117 exonerations from U.S. Death Rows. Such evidence is vital, especially in Florida, which -- according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. -- has had 21 people found innocent on its Death Row, more than any other state.

Prosecutors are refusing to back down, even in the face of irrefutable evidence of Zeigler’s innocence. Who knows, maybe they just want his pension benefits to increase.

Another group looking for increased benefits are the striking Florida Crystal sugar workers, who are fighting newish owners who really really really have to cut costs if they’re gonna be able to afford those new Ferrari’s that are all the rage this year.

Standing among hundreds of picketers outside Florida Crystals Corp.'s Okeelanta plant Tuesday morning, Debra Jones didn't know when she'd go back to her job of 23 years at the sugar mill.

Jones and about 700 of her co-workers walked off their jobs Monday to protest the Palm Beach County sugar grower's plans to outsource jobs and cut benefits.

Striking Okeelanta mill workers argue with a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy Tuesday who had asked them to leave the median of U.S. 27. Protesters ran to the median after a truck driver was pulled over for honking his horn in support of the strikers.

"When we left, we knew we may not go back," said Jones, a 50-year-old single mother from Clewiston. "But we can't live with what they have to offer."

And that’s all I have to offer for now. Oh, except for this. (via Suburban Guerrilla)

Support your local Magnet Monger!

Privatization problems

Florida Politics has lots on privatization, a scheme that Jeb! continues to shove down our throats despite mounting evidence that it is rife with corruption and cronyism and that it results in none of the gains in efficiency which supporters consistently promise.

Homophobic racist judged by God

I’ve scanned a few of the articles regarding Reggie White’s death. Funny, but most of them seem to leave out a few key details of his life.

Here’s a highlight from one of his speeches that illustrates what I’m getting at.

When you look at the black race, black people are very gifted in what we call worship and celebration. A lot of us like to dance, and if you go to black churches, you see people jumping up and down, because they really get into it.

White people were blessed with the gift of structure and organization. You guys do a good job of building businesses and things of that nature and you know how to tap into money pretty much better than a lot of people do around the world.

Hispanics are gifted in family structure. You can see a Hispanic person and they can put 20 or 30 people in one home. They were gifted in the family structure.

When you look at the Asians, the Asian is very gifted in creation, creativity and inventions. If you go to Japan or any Asian country, they can turn a television into a watch. They're very creative. And you look at the Indians, they have been very gifted in the spirituality.
......

But the Bible strictly speaks against it, and because the Bible speaks against it, we allow rampant sin including homosexuality and lying, and to me lying is just as bad as homosexuality, we've allowed this sin to run rampant in our nation, and because it has run rampant in our nation, our nation is in the condition it is today.

Sometimes when people talk about this sin they've been accused of being racist. I'm offended that homosexuals will say that homosexuals deserve rights. Any man in America deserves rights, but homosexuals are trying to compare their plight with the plight of black men or black people.

In the process of history, homosexuals have never been castrated, millions of them never died. Homosexuality is a decision. It's not a race. And when you look at it, people from all different ethnic backgrounds are living this lifestyle, but people from all different ethnic backgrounds are also liars and cheaters and malicious and backstabbers.

We're in sin, and because this nation is in sin, God will judge it if we don't get it right.

Oh, wait... he was a professional athlete. Professional athletes are different from the rest of us and should therefore be held to a much lower standard, even if they are malicious backstabbers, or wife beaters, or rapists, or...

Happy Xmas

Steve Gilliard

These people thrive on victimization and isolation, as if Americans are being attacked for having faith. Oh, there goes the poor Christian. No, there goes the annoying asshole. These people want to oppress others, not talk about faith and service and compassion.

Pushy Baptists get their way, mostly

Florida’s Polk County, just north and east of the immediate Tampa Bay area, seems to be home to a group of Baptist scofflaws who surreptitiously erected a nativity scene on public property despite having had their request to do so specifically denied by the Polk County commission.

According to Interstate4Jamming, at least 2 commissioners were aware of the plans to erect the illegal Christian display in public land and looked the other way, but now, the commission has voted and is allowing the scene to stay.

There’s one catch, though: if the nativity scene stays, the public area must be opened up to other displays by anyone who asks permission. Thus, a sign reading “Festivus for the rest of us,” referring to a made up holiday from the Seinfeld TV show, might be allowed to stay (if someone claims it and askes proper permission to keep it up), and a sign that promotes the ancient prophet Zoroaster must also be allowed to remain.

That’s the way it is: if one religion is allowed to proselytize, then all messages must be allowed. Funny thing, but the same principal will apply to Florida’s new pre-K program, which many critics have likened to a huge religious welfare trough.

Legislators crafted the pre-K rules with religious schools and day care centers in mind, and most people assume that the field will be dominated by Christian players, but, technically, any religious organization can open a school and demand money from the state.

I look forward to the controversies that will surround the state sponsored pre-K Santaria sacrifices and the Rastafarian programs, as legislators scramble for ways to discriminate against non-mainstream groups.

The decision by the Polk County commission might have been challenged were it not for the timing: due to the holidays, it’s not possible to get a court date and trial this week, so the creche would have stayed up for a while regardless. The arrogance of pushy Baptists never fails to piss me off, but this result is actually better than I had expected from a county like Polk.

More here

As a church group erected a nativity scene in the dark of night on Polk County public property, officials warned it might open the door to other religious, and not-so-religious, displays.

The warning was on the mark.

After the nativity scene appeared, displays honoring Zorastrianism and the fake holiday Festivus, featured on an episode of the TV show Seinfeld, also popped up.

The Polk County Commission voted 4-1 Wednesday morning to permit the nativity scene to remain on the grounds of the Neil Combee County Administration Building, across the street from the courthouse, but also made that area a "public forum" open to any type of display, County Attorney Joseph G. Jarret said.

The commission agreed that unless someone claimed a particular display and submitted a written request asking that it remain part of the forum, it would be removed Wednesday evening, Jarret said.

The handmade nativity scene, figures of Joseph and Mary in a simple lean-to with a baby Jesus lying between them in a manger, was erected after dark on Dec. 15 by Marvin Pittman, 66, a retired law enforcement officer, and his Bible study group from First Baptist Church of Bartow.

County Commissioner Randy Wilkinson had pushed for months to erect such a display, but failed to sway fellow commissioners.

And here.

...Commissioner Randy Wilkinson, who pushed previously for a religious display, and on Wednesday said, ``What these folks are trying to do is turn us back to the values that made us great.''

Values that made us great.

A note to customer service reps

Especially those of you employed by TECO Peoples Gas, my local gas utility, and whose name is Brandi, and whose operator number is 3154.

I apologize. I was under the mistaken impression that your job was to field customer complaints, to be the human voice that I, a fellow human, could physically speak to while politely explaining the serious ass reamings that your faceless corporate employer had repeatedly performed upon my person.

Because of this mistaken impression, I thought that I could call you up and speak with you politely about the company’s shortfalls without you taking anything too personally. I even went so far as to assume that you would allow me to finish a complete sentence without interrupting me and becoming argumentative. Well, you know what happens when I assume!

It was silly of me to take offense when your suggested remedy for the incompetence of your own employees (oh, I’m sorry - there I go again, conflating you, an employee, and your employer. I keep thinking that just because you represent your company that I can use pronouns. You repeatedly corrected me earlier on the phone, so I should know much better by now.)

Uh, where were we... You The company suggested that I could solve my billing problem by reading my gas meter myself and reporting back to you the company every month. See, a meter reader employed by the company for which you work seems either unable or unwilling to do his or her job, despite the fact that there are absolutely no obstacles to my back yard and, funny thing, the exact same employee whose job it is to read my gas meter is successful every month in reading my electric meter, but claims that the gate is locked on the gas meter form.

So, I unfairly found it utterly ridiculous that you the company would suggest that I do your the company’s job without offering to pay me whatever rate is given to the incompetent and or lazy shit who can’t find my gas meter despite the fact that it is but a couple of feet away from my electric meter.

And I should not have verbalized this thought, since, obviously, although I seemed to be conversing directly with you, another human being, I was actually speaking with the company, and as soon as the company’s words escaped your the company’s mouth, you were the company was no longer responsible for them.

Thankfully, you were the company was quick to correct me, even going so far as to helpfully tell me that if I wanted my billing problem to be solved that this would be the best way, since that person who is also employed by the company which employs you and whose responsibilities include the monthly reading of my electric and gas meters probably wouldn’t be changing his or her habits any time soon. In fact, you the company mentioned that there was not much you the company could do beyond suggesting that I do readings myself.

So, I’m very sorry that my stupidity and assumptions caused you the company to start an argument with me and that I forced you the company to abruptly hang up on me despite your the company’s promises to transfer me to a representative with sufficient training to handle a person of my limited understanding.

And I apologize profusely for being a bad customer and calling in the first place when you the company repeatedly over billed me and then went so far as to charge me late fees for gas that I still have not used. And I’m extremely sorry that you the company had to leave me on hold for 25 minutes while you the company consulted with your the company supervisor. This must have seemed like a very long time to you the company.

But that’s all water under the company bridge now, so I hope that you the company will forgive my transgressions and continue to allow me to be a consumer of the overpriced energy products which the company generously provides.

Blogged again

A Freeway Blogger has struck BlogWood International Headquarters. This is the second time this year that some unknown persons have taken advantage of the highly visible BlogWood campus.

This time, the Executive Residence Building was struck, and a large sign in the memory of a fallen American soldier was placed high up on the balcony fronting Tampa St.

With today's grim news still trickling in, this soldier is just one of at least 1319 dead American troops. That's over 1300 American lives, and counting, thrown away in a stupid, baseless, unwinnable war.

Tampa citizens shut out of development meetings

The City of Tampa met with developers yesterday to plot ways to allow the builders to get around rules that require new and improved roads to accompany developments that increase traffic loads. The public was not invited, because as soon as citizens get involved in these kinds of decisions, developers are often forced to do the right thing, and that can really eat into profits.

Developers want to put the brakes on city rules proposed to ease traffic that new homes and businesses bring.

Concerns about the proposal prompted the city this month to delay closing a loophole that allows some developers to dodge expensive road work.

Limiting the potential cost and the public's involvement in picking road improvement projects were among issues raised at a meeting Monday between city officials and more than 15 of Tampa's top development lawyers.

One of the lawyers' requests was that developers' appeals of road work requirements be made to a city staff member or hired mediator, not at a public meeting before the Tampa City Council.

Yeah, we don’t want the public involved in decisions that directly impact our quality of life. That would just be silly.

TPD continues deadly pursuit policy

The Tampa Police Department was out in force yesterday, performing one of their feel-good crime sweeps in Tampa Heights, which just happens to be the location of BlogWood international headquarters, just North of downtown Tampa.

A feel-good crime sweep is one in which the police contact the press then enter a depressed neighborhood and arrest residents on outstanding drug and prostitution warrants. Residents feel good because they (mistakenly) think that something meaningful is being done.

Police feel good because they are praised by hoodwinked residents and the gullible press. The press feels good because they have a nice, easy feel-good anti-crime story to run with. The arrested don’t feel too bad, because they’re back on the streets a few hours after being processed.

I’ve got plenty to say about the wasted resources and efforts involved in these worthless shows for the cameras, and I’d love to get into the fact that the police never ever sweep through rich white areas and make arrests for powder cocaine and prescription drug usage and sales, which tend to happen indoors and behind the walls of gated communities, but there’s something else I need to touch on instead.

It seems that during the extended on-site press conference police operation, a couple of teenagers in a stolen car happened upon the scene, and, like a group of street level drug peddlers angling for a sale, TPD immediately lurched into action.

See, in Tampa, police have a policy which explicitly allows them to give chase when young, inexperienced drivers are found to be in possession of a stolen vehicle. This policy often results in massive property damage and or loss of life, especially for innocent bystanders, but that’s a small price to pay for the protection of our SUVs.

So, the Police quickly jumped into their vehicles and gave chase, careening around small animals and neighborhood kids on Christmas break as they sped through the projects of Robles Park and headed toward downtown.

Then, having reached the downtown area and fearing a bad ending to their aggressive pursuit of a couple of joy riding teens, the police called off their chase.

It seems that it’s okay for the cops to engage in a high speed pursuit through the residential streets of an area inhabited by the poor and powerless, an area that teems with children and other pedestrians, but once the action reaches a part of town where a wealthier class of folks might be congregating, suddenly TPD is all about caution and public safety.

This is not an isolated event. TPD policy is to chase children in stolen cars until they crash or until they reach an area of town in which the wrong kind of people might get hurt. There is absolutely no good reason to maintain this antiquated and overly aggressive policy. (There are plenty of arguments in favor of chasing non-violent property crime suspects through densely populated areas, just no good arguments.)

Contact Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and ask her to stop our cops from playing Grand Theft Auto on our residential streets. She has the power to single handedly put a stop to this overly aggressive deadly police policy.

Mayor Pam Iorio
City of Tampa, Mayor's Office
306 East Jackson Street
Tampa, FL 33602

Or send an online message here.

Supporting our troops

Catch-22

* "'Catch-22...says you've always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.

"'But Twenty-seventh Air Force says I can go home with forty missions.'

"'But they don't say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That's the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you'd still have to fly them, or you'd be guilty of disobeying an order of his. And then the Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters would really jump on you.'"

Herbert

The people who were so anxious to launch the war in Iraq are a lot less enthusiastic about properly supporting the troops who are actually fighting, suffering and dying in it. Corporal Rund was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Because of severe military personnel shortages, large numbers of troops are serving multiple tours in the war zone, and many are having their military enlistments involuntarily extended.

Troops approaching the end of their tours in Iraq are frequently dealt the emotional body blow of unexpected orders blocking their departure for home. "I've never seen so many grown men cry," said Paul Rieckhoff, a former infantry platoon leader who founded Operation Truth, an advocacy group for soldiers and veterans.

"Soldiers will do whatever you ask them to do," said Mr. Rieckhoff. "But when you tell them the finish line is here, and then you keep moving it back every time they get five meters away from it, it starts to really wear on them. It affects morale."
......

From the earliest planning stages until now, the war in Iraq has been a tragic exercise in official incompetence. The original rationale for the war was wrong. The intelligence was wrong. The estimates of required troop strength were wrong. The war hawks' guesses about the response of the Iraqi people were wrong. The cost estimates were wrong, and on and on.

Nevertheless the troops have fought valiantly, and the price paid by many has been horrific. They all deserve better than the bad faith and shoddy treatment they are receiving from the highest officials of their government.

Catch-22

"that's the way things go when you elevate mediocre people to positions of authority."

The rich get richer

SP Times:

The federal government has sent millions of dollars in aid to areas largely unaffected by disasters, even after local officials warned of possible fraud, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent $29.2-million to people in Miami-Dade County for Hurricane Frances, the Labor Day storm that struck 100 miles to the north.

That's not an anomaly, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

"It's just the same nationwide," said Paulette Williams, emergency management director in Mobile County, Alabama.

FEMA gave people in Mobile County $29.5-million for flooding last year, despite repeated calls and letters from Williams saying that the county sustained no damage.

In southeastern North Carolina, FEMA has approved thousands of Frances claims in counties where the storm caused only minor problems.

"We didn't have any damage," said Mitchell Byrd, emergency management director in Bladen County, where people have collected $2.5-million. "We've got the biggest case of fraud you've ever seen."

In Michigan, more than 30,000 people in Wayne County collected $33.9-million for storms in May and June.

"That's just staggering," said Mark Hammond, Wayne County's deputy director for homeland security and emergency management. "I could see 2,000 homes, but not 30,000."

A City Council member in Detroit barely remembered the storm. "I know it happened, but I don't remember that it particularly affected Detroit," said City Council President Maryann Mahaffey.

Herald.com:

In the gallery-rich downtown of affluent Stuart, the lunch crowds are back, the stores are stocked and any signs that Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne roared through last summer are almost impossible to spot.

But 24 miles southwest of Stuart, in the hard-pressed agricultural community of Indiantown, the storms continue to pummel the economy months later.

On a drive into town, the first sight is of a field full of FEMA trailers, where 70 families still live. They're among the thousands living in temporary housing across Florida because they have no options.

In the contrast between Stuart and Indiantown lies a simple and troubling truth about hurricanes: They do their worst to the people who have the least. Working-class and poor people, experts say, suffer losses from which they may never fully recover.

''These are the people most desperate for our help -- those in lower-income brackets, many already living check-to-check to begin with, and then an extraordinary experience like a disaster comes along,'' said Brad Gair, who oversees FEMA's temporary housing in Florida. ``It can be a huge setback for them and have devastating effects on their households.''

`JACUZZI EFFECT'

The more affluent and those who are outright wealthy may actually end up more prosperous once rebuilding is finished. That's because repair work often involves upgrading their property, what some economists have labeled the ``Jacuzzi effect.''

Furthermore, they typically have private insurance and don't have to wait for government programs.

''There's plenty of money here,'' said Bob Alexander, proprietor of Alexander's Now and Then gift shop in Stuart. ``People who have money will put the cash out and reimburse themselves when insurance comes in.''

In essence, economists say, the affluent lose their deductibles, but the poor lose everything. Aid is often aimed at homeowners, not renters.

SP Times:

Florida legislators on Thursday approved a $450-million package of hurricane relief, ranging from tax breaks for some homeowners and aid for people facing multiple insurance deductibles.

Gov. Jeb Bush declared the four-day special session "a job well done" and said he planned to sign every bill the Legislature passed.

"There are a lot of people in our state that are hurting, and they were counting on the help of of their elected officials, and they delivered," Bush said during the session's closing ceremony.

Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, said homeowners and mobile home owners will receive recovery checks along with public schools and agriculture.

The reason for the season?

One word: Solstice.

This kind of crap is getting very tiring.

With slogans like ''He's the Reason for the Season'' and ''Bring Jesus back to Christmas,'' Christian activists are taking up an old battle with renewed energy this holiday season. Emboldened by the heavy turnout of ''values'' voters on Election Day, Christian organizations are lobbying businesses, schools and towns to include Christian symbols and messages in holiday displays.

''We are concerned about the secularization of Christmas,'' said David Zachary, the director of operations for South Florida's Christian Coalition. ``They don't seem to have a problem with the commerce; they seem to have a problem with the fact that it's Christ we're celebrating.''

Church-state separationists say the conflict has reached an unprecedented pitch this year, citing record complaints about sectarian religious displays.

''Some of these religious right groups have decided the last presidential election had something to do with their entire agenda, including putting up nativity scenes,'' said the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. ``They're turning a time of peacefulness into a combat zone.''

LAWSUITS

But other Christian leaders say substituting ''Happy Holidays'' for ''Merry Christmas'' or displaying Christmas trees instead of a créche degrades the holiday's significance. Threatening lawsuits, store boycotts and protests, Christians across the country are fighting to inject religious values into the public sphere.

In California, a group called the ''Committee to Save Merry Christmas'' has called for Christians to boycott Macy's, Burdines and other Federated department stores, complaining the store banners should read ''Merry Christmas'' instead of ``Season's Greetings.''
......

Federated has offered generic holiday greetings for the past 20 years to recognize religious diversity, said company spokeswoman Carol Sanger.
......

But Christian groups say the ''anti-Christian agenda'' has gotten worse this year, citing Target's decision to keep the Salvation Army out of its stores, public schools banning Christmas cards and carols, and stores dropping references to Christ.
......

''There's a small, radical, committed group of people looking to strip the nation of its religious underpinning,'' said Gary Cass, director of the Center for Reclaiming America.

``There's an attempt . . . to create the impression that Christmas is harmful.''

These stories about how members of this nation’s dominant faith are somehow being unfairly treated by the minority are popping up everywhere.

A few days ago Bill O'Reilly was yammering on about how he was sticking up for Christmas but nobody else was. Why doesn't Peter Jennings stick for Christmas, he asked, why doesn't Dan Rather stick up for Christmas....and....and....well, that's about it. I didn't have any idea what he was talking about, so I shrugged my shoulders and went about my business.

But now a week has passed, and I think I get it. It's all about "Merry Christmas," isn't it? I've now read at least a dozen assorted articles and op-eds about the horror — the horror! — of "Happy Holidays" being used as a seasonal greeting instead of "Merry Christmas."
......

Don't believe me? A quick Nexis search shows that in just this weekend alone the MC vs. HH issue has been written up in the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Herald, the Akron Beacon Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, the London Telegraph, the Tallahassee Democrat, the Arizona Republic, Newsday, the Winnipeg Sun, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. And that's not counting letters to the editors, jokes, or stuff I missed because I only read the Nexis summary instead of the entire article.

James Wolcott also notes the trend.

Every year we hear the eloquent whines of the "put Christ back into Christmas" chorus. Every year without fail we're told that Christmas itself has become a charged phrase, un-PC, fudged with euphemism. I'm not sure how we could put any more Christ into Christmas this year. Jesus was on the cover of Time and Newsweek, US News ran a cover story on The Power of Prayer, CNN is broadcasting a documentary tonight on "The Two Marys" (Madonna and Magdalene), and Mel Gibson's The Passion is at the red hot center of so many year-end roundup essays. ......

This "fear of Christmas" is a phantom menace conjured every year so that certain crybaby Christians can adopt victim status and model a pained expression over the sad fact that not everyone around them isn't carrying on like the Cratchits. This thin-skinned grievance-collecting gives birth to all sorts of urban legends and rumors about big institutions being hostile to Christ's birthday, such as the one that swirled on WOR radio last week about how Macy's employees had been instructed not to say "Merry Christmas!" to shoppers. A fiction that was put to rest when the host hit Macy's website and saw its "Merry Christmas" greeting, and Macy's employees chimed in over the phones to say there was no such policy. To read conservative pundits, you'd think everybody was wishing each other Happy Kwanzaa! and averting their eyes from oh so gauche Nativity scenes.

Good points, though I’m not sure I’d call people like this crybabies. Let’s try something a little more descriptive, something like bigoted, tiresome, narrow minded,...

"I don't think I should have to tolerate on my government-funded and financed buildings symbols of people who hate, when I read their doctrine and it says to kill the infidel and they're talking about Christians," Gifford said. "I don't think I should have to put those up, nor do I think my children or families should have to do that. I accept Christianity, and I am tolerant of others, but I don't have to promote with government dollars and government buildings other religions. I've got to tell you after 9-11, I'm not tolerant of a lot of things."

I stole that last bit from Jesus' General, who eloquently illustrates the abuse that God fearing Christians must live with on a daily basis with a telling example.

GOP welcomes state sponsored religion

As lawmakers shape and debate Florida’s new pre-K plan, some disturbing trends have emerged. One of the most troublesome points in the legislation is the reliance on religious schools to take up the slack and provide classroom space to many of the 100,000 or more 4 year olds who are expected to be enrolled in the program.

In a fit of circular logic, lawmakers innocently say that without religious schools there will not be enough space for all those kids, conveniently ignoring the fact that Florida’s schools are notoriously underfunded and that the Legislature could have easily provided money to public school systems to help construct new classrooms. First the legislature makes it impossible for public schools to handle the influx, then they wring their hands and say that since there’s no room, we must turn to organized religion.

One problem with all this is the Florida constitution, which explicitly prohibits the state from funding religious institutions. In fact, some legislators have been very open in their knowledge that the pre-K bill is unconstitutional but have forged ahead anyway, even including language in the bill which explicitly allows for discrimination based on religious beliefs.

So, why would the GOP craft legislation that is sure to face a losing court challenge, setting the state up for an expensive legal battle that the vast majority of observers agree will result in a judge declaring that, yes, a law that sends money directly to churches does indeed violate Florida’s crystal clear constitutional language against such stipends?

Well, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the real agenda is nothing less than the wholesale destruction of Florida’s public school system, with state-subsidized religious instruction to fill the breach.

Yesterday, Sen. Daniel Webster, a former House speaker and now the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced his intention to put an amendment on the ballot in 2006 that would overturn the constitutional ban against state sponsored religion. This would open the door for more legislation like the discredited voucher program, which also funds religious schools, and the pre-K program now under consideration.

Critics immediately pounced on Webster for supporting unconstitutional voucher laws - the state now has three voucher programs on the books and is in the process of instituting a pre-kindergarten plan that will also send state money to religious schools - and then trying to undo the very constitution he took an oath to defend as a legislator.

"So if the constitution stands in the way of their radical agenda, don't change the radical agenda - change the constitution," said Howard Simon, head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

Webster should include in his ballot initiative language to abolish the public school system, Simon said, "because that's what its real effect would be. Maybe a little bit of honesty is what's needed."

Of course, for Republicans, an oath only counts when its convenient, so I’m sure that Webster has no problem with breaking the vow that he made to all citizens of Florida. The Miami Herald has more.

For nearly 120 years, one sentence in Florida's Constitution has forbidden the state to use public money to ''directly or indirectly'' help religious institutions -- a provision that is bedeviling the state's school voucher law and a $350 million prekindergarten program lawmakers are crafting this week.

Rather than leave the matter in the hands of judges, an influential state senator said Wednesday that he's ''seriously considering'' an effort to pluck the offending sentence from the Constitution itself and allow money to flow to religious schools.

Sen. Daniel Webster, one of the Legislature's most respected conservatives and head of the Senate's judiciary committee, said he may try as early as this spring to get the Legislature to put the amendment change on the ballot in 2006 -- when the governor's office will be up for grabs and Republicans typically head to the polls in larger numbers than Democrats.

If approved by voters, the repeal would free lawmakers from the constraints that prevent them from using taxpayer money on religious schools -- an issue that legal scholars say could derail the statewide prekindergarten program that lawmakers are expected to pass today. The program relies on private and religious schools to offer the pre-K program by next fall because the state doesn't have enough teachers and classrooms to meet the need.

In the House and the Senate, Republicans have the three-fifths of the vote needed to get the repeal measure before voters. Such numbers allow them to routinely steam roll Democrats, as happened Wednesday when House Republicans kept a provision in the pre-K bill allowing for religious discrimination.

The voucher law was recently declared unconstitutional, and appeals are pending, but most observers say that it is blatantly unconstitutional, so the ruling should stand. In response, GOP types are using scare tactics, claiming that a strict ban against religious subsidies will result in chaos. (Back to the Herald article)

Webster, a recent Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Winter Garden who was once House Speaker, isn't sure he's ready to wait for a court ruling. He said he started talking about an amendment campaign with religious organizations and even hospitals days after the appeal court ruling on vouchers.

''It's pretty strong language. It's not ambiguous, other than [defining] what's indirect,'' Webster said of the Constitution. He added that he believes the appeal court ruling on vouchers jeopardizes ``a vast number of programs . . . everything from Baptist hospitals that receive Medicaid and religiously founded colleges that receive [state-funded] Bright Futures scholarships.''

VOUCHER OPPOSITION

Ron Meyer, the lawyer leading the lawsuit against the voucher program on behalf of Democratic-leaning groups, said Webster and Bush are issuing a misleading ''parade of horribles'' that misrepresent the extent of the court's ruling.

''This doesn't mean that a fire department can't put out a fire at a church because that constitutes indirect aid to a religious organization. This is designed to prevent using public tax money for the inculcation of religious values in a school,'' Meyer said. ''There's a huge difference from a hospital performing life-saving surgery for the public good, and teaching the values of Christ and the Bible to young minds,'' Meyer said.

He added there's a ''great parallel'' between the proposed pre-K program and the 1999 voucher law, which gives children in failing public schools tax money for private education.

Meyer is also quoted in the Palm Beach Post article excerpted above, and we’ll give him the last word.

Ron Meyer, the lawyer who has so far successfully pushed the voucher lawsuit through trial and appellate courts, said he was not surprised by the effort and that he always assumed that religious conservatives would eventually try to change the constitution.

"It's disappointing," he said. "Florida has long abided by the separation of church and state. I really question whether the people of Florida will want to remove their constitutional protection from using their money, involuntarily, to support religious institutions."

Meyer cautioned potential supporters, though, that opening state money to religion meant opening it to all religions, including fringe groups.

"The religious right needs to be careful what they wish for," he said.

Bibles in every classroom!

Since gaining office, Jeb! has proudly cut billions of dollars of tax revenues from the state budget, benefitting mostly wealthy individuals and businesses.

Now, when it comes time to deal with pre-K education and kids health care, the state cries poverty and wrings its hands as children struggle to survive without medicine, but the state has an answer: pray!

In fact, the state plans to pay for children’s religious education. We’re not just talking about some symbolic display of religious tracts, either. The wise men of Florida’s GOP have decreed that the Bible makes for a fine textbook, and if you don’t like it, well, perhaps you ought to convert to Christianity or move to France, you godless heathen.

''I don't see anything in this bill, the way it's worded right now, that you could not use the Bible as everyday methodology,'' (Sen. Jim) King (Jacksonville Republican) said. ``Now having said that, I'm not so sure that that will stand the test of constitutionality.''

Despite naysayers like King, worried about trivial details like the constitution, Republicans are forging ahead with the 2005 Religious Institutions Proselytizing and Welfare Act.

Under Florida's proposed pre-kindergarten program, a Baptist school taking state money could give admissions preference to Baptist children. A Jewish school could refuse to let in non-Jews.

The voluntary pre-kindergarten proposal lacks any prohibition against religious discrimination - and lawmakers want it that way.

Senate President Tom Lee said it was important to some religious schools to give their own congregants priority.

"I think it's impossible to ask participation for sectarian providers and not respect that they're going to give some preference to their parishioners," Lee said.

The bill as it currently stands cites language from the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act banning discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. But it is silent on - and therefore permits - discrimination based on other factors, such as religion and intelligence.

"I personally would be horrified if people excluded people based on religion," said David Lawrence, a leading advocate of early childhood education and a member of Gov. Jeb Bush's task force that studied the issue.

Oh, wait: Jeb!’s spokesman says that he would be horrified if churches actually follow the law as the GOP is crafting it. I guess everything will be okay, then.

The bottom line is that Republican leaders have had years to prepare for pre-K and its associated costs. We would not need religious institutions to swoop down and save us if Jeb! had acted responsibly and seen to it that this program would be properly funded. If local school districts had been given a mandate and money to make room, public schools could handle the job of education, and they could do it without Bibles.

Florida 4 year olds to get religion

Florida’s Organized Religion Welfare Act of 2005 pre-K legislation is progressing as planned, with GOP leaders belittling or simply ignoring pleas for quality. Calls for safeguards against state-sponsored proselytizing and recruitment are likewise falling on deaf ears.

When voters passed the mandate for pre-K education in 2002, they wisely demanded a quality program. Unfortunately, it was left to the Legislature to define “quality,” and the working definition includes religious instruction paid for by the state.

In fact, the wording of the legislation as it currently stands is so troubling that Senate President Tom Lee was moved to speak out against the idea of religious schools using state funds to teach religion. Fortunately for Jeb!, though, Lee quickly realized that honest opinions and thoughtful solutions would help no one, and he is now back on board with his fellow theocrats.

Senate President Tom Lee said Monday that religious schools that participate in Florida's new pre-kindergarten program should not be teaching religious doctrine using state money - only to back away from the position hours later.

Lee's original position - the first time in years a top Republican has come down on state-backed religious instruction that way - angered representatives of the hundreds of religious schools and day-care centers the state is counting on to implement the program that voters mandated in 2002.

The bill, as drafted, does not spell out any restrictions on what would be taught during the hours paid for by the state. Lee said Monday afternoon that he thought language to that effect would be appropriate.

"I think that's an issue, if we start paying for this kind of thing in this program," he said.

Later Monday, he said discussions with Senate staffers and top advisers had persuaded him that such a restriction would be difficult to draft and would be tantamount to waving a red flag to the Supreme Court on the issue of whether funding religious institutions is constitutional.

Lee said he still believes schools should not teach religion with public money, but he added: "I don't see how we get to that policy position as a Senate. I guess we're left to a Supreme Court interpretation as to just what constitutes religious education in this voluntary program."

Advocates for religious schools said it is preposterous to think they would take God out of their curriculum just to cash in on state pre-K dollars. They said they would refuse to offer the voluntary pre-K program if that were a condition.

Two-thirds of all private schools are religious, but about three-quarters of schools taking state-backed vouchers are religious.

"My kind of religious organizations wouldn't even give this program a second thought and it would be a failure," said Howard Burke, director of the Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. "If you enroll in a faith-based program, you would be a fool to think that the curriculum would not be Christ-centered."

Well, if pre-K providers are gonna cop an attitude like that, perhaps it’s a good thing that the school day will be limited to 3 hours and that the state funded theologians wont be very well trained - perhaps it will give parents a fighting chance to undo the indoctrination that their kids will have forced down their throats.

The GOP spin is that “faith based” providers are needed because public schools couldn’t possibly handle the expected enrollment.

School district officials statewide say public classrooms couldn't handle at least 90,000 additional 4-year-olds expected to enroll for state- funded prekindergarten starting in August.

That's where private and particularly faith-based providers come in. Using them allows lawmakers to have the program up and running by August 2005 without spending millions constructing new buildings and finding providers.

The question is whether the state cooperating with churches and other religious groups to provide services will pose a legal quandary. Already, courts have ruled a state program allowing some students to attend religious schools on taxpayer dollars violates the state constitution.

Florida leaders are moving ahead.

``We have to rely on the full array of providers out there,'' said Education Commissioner John Winn.

Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, said trying to go around private providers would have meant a ``holy war.''

``People have already built an industry around this kind of program,'' he said.

Larry Keough, education associate at the Florida Catholic Conference, bottom-lined it: ``The state needs faith-based more than the faith-based needs the state.''

Well, Florida’s public schools are notoriously underfunded, and thus might find it difficult to meet demand, but the state could have allocated money for expansion in 2003 or 2004. In fact, the GOP has written language into the bill to ensure that public schools will not be providing stiff competition even if local school boards are so inclined.

To ensure public school districts in urban counties don't create their own large, pre-K programs that would make it hard for private institutions to compete, the legislation says any school district not meeting the class caps ''in each classroom'' is not eligible for state pre-K money. South Florida school districts have met class-size reductions but have complied by lowering the average class size over the entire county rather than in each class.

Sen. Lisa Carlton, an Osprey Republican and prime architect of the bill, said school districts unable to reduce class sizes now shouldn't be offering pre-K.

BILL'S PROVISIONS

The tilt in favor of private schools in the bill, however, goes beyond just the class cap. The bill would allow:

- The use of religion in pre-K education. There are few limits on what kind of curriculum should be offered, other than it should have some focus on early literacy.

- Providers to deny admission to any 4-year-old based on religion. Unlike Bush's initial voucher program passed in 1999, this legislation does not include a requirement that admission be ``religion-neutral.''

- An 18-1 student-to-teacher ratio. Opposed by Bush, this staffing ratio falls more closely into line with varying accrediting standards some private providers use.

- A three-hour average day of instruction in the year-round program, mirroring what many private schools now offer. Public schools offer six hours.

- Private schools to avoid a requirement that all the program's schools have teachers with higher-education degrees by 2010. The degree requirement is now considered an ``aspirational goal.''

- The state's Labor Department, not the Department of Education, to have day-to-day control over the pre-K program.

Churches get a windfall, pedophile priests get a whole new crop of potential victims, the state gets to spend half as much as a true quality program should cost, and parents get 3 hours of free babysitting each day. Everyone’s a winner!

Churches to prey on pre-K kids

Herald.com

The voter-mandated pre-K program, the centerpiece of this week's special lawmaking session, likely won't meet the number of instruction hours or qualified teachers called for by early-childhood development advocates. The proposal, expected to pass with few changes, doesn't bar religious discrimination, either. ......

But early-childhood development advocates, and Democratic lawmakers, complain the legislation is not what voters intended. ''It's less than quality. And it's certainly less than high quality,'' said Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, who has criticized the state's voucher programs because officials have had trouble tracking the flow of money.

Private schools say quality is in the eye of the ultimate beholder: The parents. If they don't like a school, they will place their child elsewhere.

Faith-based providers say such choice -- which includes religious preference -- is crucial. They howled last spring when the Senate wanted to bar religious instruction in pre-K. That provision is now history, said Larry Keough, legislative advocate for Florida Catholic schools, which favors more restrictions than other religious providers.

''That's one of the things we said was essential for us,'' Keough said.

Ellen McKinley, founder of the faith-based Child Development Education Alliance, said she thought the bill was a done deal. She said she liked it because it ''leveled the playing field'' for public and private providers and the three-hour instruction limit was preferable to four hours.

With a state subsidy for four hours, she said, it would be easier for public schools to tap local tax money and produce a six-hour program. That would make it almost impossible for private providers to compete with districts such as Miami-Dade and Broward that already offer pre-K to thousands of kids.

McKinley said she was opposed to requiring advanced degrees for full-time instructors in six years.

''We're going to ask experienced teachers to take time away from their families, and I don't know if that's a good idea,'' she said.

Stupid liberals, trying to obscure the issue with talk of quality and numbers of hours and teacher competence. Obviously, if we spend money on all that stuff, there will hardly be anything left for churches to proselytize and convert with, much less turn a profit. Thank God the GOP is in charge, else Florida’s 4 year olds might remain ignorant of the benefits of a religious education.

GOP planning Rape of the Gulf

Two years ago, we paid some big oil companies lots of money as part of a widely touted agreement to keep oil and gas drilling far far away from Florida’s coasts.

Well, now that both Jeb! and his brother have retaken their respective offices, it seems that ANWR may not be the only target for exploitation and rape.

Citing growing demand and rising prices, the chairman of the Senate energy committee has asked the Bush administration to consider opening protected coastal areas to natural gas drilling, including the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Florida.

In a letter dated Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, along with two fellow committee members, told Interior Secretary Gale Norton that natural gas supply is not keeping pace with demand, and said the nation must find more. They also blame the high cost of natural gas for the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas.

"While we recognize that many areas of the (outer continental shelf) are under administrative withdrawal and/or Congressional moratoria, we are writing to request that the Department of Interior solicit comments from all interested parties on the appropriateness of leasing in both moratoria and non-moratoria areas," said the letter by Domenici and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

A large swatch of the eastern gulf, known as Area 181, has been off-limits to exploration since 2002, when a federal-state deal paid Chevron and two other lease-holders $115-million not to drill.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., an opponent of offshore drilling off Florida, learned about the letter last week, and on Friday night he sent Norton a letter. In it, he reminds her of the bipartisan support for the moratorium and notes that a new national task force report on boosting U.S. gas production does not suggest drilling in banned areas.

"A quick, knee-jerk response to volatile energy markets may not serve our country's long-term objectives: decreasing foreign imports and increasing alternative energy sources," Nelson wrote.

Nelson was traveling Saturday and could not be reached for comment, but he will fight any attempt to lift the ban, aides said. Calls to Domenici's office and the Department of Interior were not returned Saturday.

"It certainly indicates that there is a serious attempt to undo the moratorium," said Dan McLaughlin, Nelson's deputy chief of staff. "Although this particular request is for gas leases only, once you allow drilling to take place near the coast of Florida, there will be no stopping the oil companies."

Bill Nelson

Contact Information for Mel Martinez? (Can't find anything current right now.)

Ronda’s, uh, right again

UPDATE - I’ve learned that Ronda’s problems with the recent Korn concert include lyrical content. I’m actually relieved to hear this since it gives me an excuse to state that Ronda is a prudish moralist who would have free expression censored in order to avoid even the most remote possibility of overhearing a word that might register on her own overly sensitive meter of self-righteousness. (End of update)

A bane upon me for saying this, but Ronda “Crawlin’ on Glass” Storms is right again.

This time, Clear Channel is our common enemy and, unlike the last incident in which Ronda and I saw eye to eye, her stated reasoning seems to be, well, adequate. (Or maybe not - see update above.)

My problems with CC are many, and include, in no particular order, the homogenization and dumbing down of radio, their recent decision to pump Fox News into their unsuspecting listeners’ ears, and their strong arm tactics used to monopolize local concert markets as part of their plans to attain complete media domination.

That’s a start, and I left out more than I included, but let’s just say that CC is not one of my favorite corporate titans.

Anyway, CC recently constructed one of their money making Amphihteaters at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Hillsborough County. They operate under an agreement to keep noise levels to a reasonable level in order no to disturb nearby residents. Well, it seems that CC has repeatedly and blatantly broken this agreement, and residents’ complaints have mounted to the point that Ronda and the rest of the Hillsborough County Commission are starting to take notice.

"A bane upon them," said County Commissioner Ronda Storms. "May the worms of your avarice consume your intestines, Clear Channel."

A bane?!? Is Ronda really calling for the death of Clear Channel? I do believe that this is by far the most intelligent utterance that has ever slithered out of Ronda’s skull. Let’s all contact the County Commission right now and call for them to support Ronda in her quest to kill Clear Channel! But I digress..

The venue is facing more criticism than ever - and the possibility of a total concert shutdown - after more than 50 residents near the Florida State Fairgrounds complained of noise from Tuesday's heavy metal concert.

The volume of Korn's music, which at times spiked nearly 30 decibels higher than the acceptable limit in neighborhoods hundreds of yards away, shocked even county Environmental Protection Commission officials, who this summer cited Clear Channel and the Florida State Fair Authority for noise violations.

So egregious were this week's violations that the County Commission, which sits as the EPC board, held an emergency meeting Thursday and discussed obtaining a court order to temporarily halt further concerts.

"Clear Channel owns the facility and they have people in the sound control booth," said EPC director Rick Garrity. "I don't see any reason why they can't be controlling the whole volume."

Commissioners did not pursue an injunction. The amphitheater's only remaining 2004 event, the Charlie Daniels Band's "Charlie-palooza" concert, is part of a major charity fundraiser for The Angelus, a home for the handicapped.

Had the concerts been reversed - had Charlie Daniels been the offender, and Korn still to come - the county likely would have gone forward with the injunction, said Rick Tschantz, general counsel for the EPC.

Uh, wait a minute. I’m not a Korn fan, but what the fuck is the reasoning here? Is it because it’s a charity event? I know nothing about The Angelus, but I do know a little something about Charlie Daniels. He’s a racist, warmongering bastard, the author and proud performer of “This Ain’t No Rag, It’s a Flag,” which denigrates Arabs and spreads hate and vile amongst the brainless twits who actually buy into his jingoistic drivel. Any charity who would get in bed with Charlie deserves to be left twisting in the wind.

As recently as last week, the EPC and Clear Channel were approaching a settlement. Resident complaints had gone down, and Clear Channel's preventive measures - including a noise-reducing blanket along the outer fence and having performers adhere to a strict decibel output limit - seemed to be working. ......

The County Commission, minus absent chairman Tom Scott, unanimously voted for the EPC to pursue a lawsuit following Saturday's concert, as well as possible fines against Clear Channel, the Fair Authority and Korn after Tuesday's show.

The concept of fining bands and performers, not just the venue, is a new one, Garrity said.

Korn is the venue's first repeat headliner, and its first repeat offender. Its two shows have generated more than 100 complaints, and an EPC noise reading Tuesday of 90.6 decibels - the equivalent of a running blender - was the highest recorded yet.

The EPC can levy fines of as much as $5,000 for a noise violation.

"For every note, every line, every bar of music that is over the threshold of the noise limits, that would be a specific, additional violation," Garrity said. "You're talking about hundreds, if not thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines."

Felonious Junk: Jeb! makes token changes

Jeb! and his buddies on the Florida Clemency Board made some cosmetic changes to the state’s backward, racist felon disenfranchisement rules yesterday, and the changes should help some select people who have served their time to rejoin the ranks of voters, but the rule changes are minor, and Florida remains one of only 7 states that punishes people twice by denying their civil rights after they have paid for their crimes.

Bottom line: 500,000 ex-felons in Florida still can’t vote. 500,000 people cannot get a state license or fully rejoin society, and that’s just the way that Jeb! likes it.

Florida is one of a handful of states that do not automatically restore most civil rights when felons have served their time. The system has come under increasing criticism, especially during the presidential election, when civil rights advocates raised concerns about voters being disenfranchised in a key battleground state.

Many felons must seek a hearing before the clemency board to regain their civil rights. More than 4,000 people are waiting for a hearing. They could be stuck in bureaucratic limbo for years because the clemency board, a four-person body led by Bush, meets only four times annually and hears about 200 cases.

Civil rights groups argue that the process makes it difficult for ex-convicts to reintegrate into society. Aside from voting, they can't serve on juries or hold office. There is an economic factor, too - many cannot get professional licenses. They also cannot own firearms.

The changes approved Thursday, effective immediately, narrow the list of crimes for which felons must seek a formal hearing before the clemency board to regain their civil rights. It also waives hearings for people who go several years without committing a new crime.

Actually, according to the new rules, they must stay arrest free, not crime free, which means that being falsely accused and arrested is enough to disqualify.

And despite Jeb!’s rosy rhetoric, his rule changes do not go anywhere near far enough, especially when one considers that Jeb! himself enacted many of the (still remaining) more restrictive policies that have led to over half a million people being unfairly denied their basic civil liberties.

There are two ways felons can get rights restored in Florida. When they're released from state custody, their names are automatically forwarded to the Clemency Board for consideration. If they aren't disqualified by any of the many restrictive clemency rules, felons generally get their rights back within a year. But a majority are disqualified by the rules, which means they must appeal for a formal hearing before the board, which can take years. The backlog of people waiting for that chance has quadrupled since Bush became governor, a Herald analysis found.

LOOSER RULES

On Thursday, the board loosened restrictions so that more people can regain rights without a hearing.

Among other things, the board decided to:

- Scrap several rules that block felons from regaining rights in the first place. One rule banned felons who had their rights restored once in the past decade and then commited a new crime. Another blocked felons who have been deemed ''habitual offenders'' by the state.

- Allow felons still disqualified by the rules to get their rights back quickly. The board decided that unqualified felons who have been crime-free for at least five years are eligible to regain rights without a hearing. That could potentially affect about 100,000 people.

Excluded are the most violent felons, like murderers and sexual offenders, who still must appeal directly to the board.

- Allow all felons -- regardless of their crimes -- to apply to get their rights back without a hearing if they have been arrest-free for 15 years. This single change could affect an estimated 200,000 people whose last conviction is 15 years old or more, assuming they haven't been arrested.

That will help reduce the number of people waiting to appeal directly to the board, which now stands at 4,000. At the current pace, clearing those cases could take decades.

''Given the fact that we only hear about 200 a year, that's a long time,'' Bush said.

''I believe we can do more to make civil rights restoration without a hearing available to more people,'' he said.
......

Civil rights advocates, who have pushed to scrap Florida's 136-year-old voting ban altogether, said the changes are encouraging, but they don't go far enough.

For one thing, the board left largely untouched the more than 200 crimes that block felons from regaining their rights without a hearing. Under Bush, the board quadrupled the number of crimes that require felons to appear before the board -- and most of those crimes are still intact.

The changes also require felons to remain arrest-free before they can regain rights, which means even people whose charges are later dropped would still be kicked out of the quicker process.

''We're glad that the governor and the Cabinet have begun to move toward meaningful reform,'' said Courtenay Strickland, voting rights project director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. ``But so much more needs to be done in order to bring Florida into line with the rest of the nation.''

More on Florida’s felon disenfranchisement program.

Troxler does some blogging

The SP TImes’ Howard Troxler takes on the arrogant attitude shared by many GOP leaders that the people of Florida really don’t know what the fuck we are doing. Today’s column is written like a blog, complete with quotes form his own newspaper, as he skewers the various proposals to repeal existing citizen initiatives and to weaken the citizen initiative process itself.

Last, but not least, there's the odious industry of hog farming.

I know, I know, the "pregnant pig" amendment is held up as the all-time poster child for frivolous petitions. But is it really all that crazy to use the Florida Constitution to keep a devastating industry out of our state? If you want to see the alternative, go visit eastern North Carolina.

You say these things should be laws, not amendments? Great, sure, fine - then give the citizens the power to petition for laws, to bypass a Legislature that listens only to the industries that give it money.

Smaller class sizes. Alternatives to paving more roads. Less pollution, clean indoor air, strong universities, healthy marine fisheries - why, the nerve of these ignorant Florida voters!

Leg. plan leaves pre-K kids behind

As expected, GOP legislative leaders unveiled a wholly inadequate pre-K plan yesterday.

Florida legislators on Wednesday proposed a new statewide learning program for 4-year-olds, but early childhood advocates expressed strong disappointment with its main features.

A three-hour school day and a ratio of one teacher for every 18 students will not produce the high-quality program voters approved, critics said, repeating arguments they made at a legislative workshop last week.

Legislators called the plan a starting point for a weeklong special legislative session that begins next Monday. Most pre-kindergarten programs would be run by private child-care centers or religious groups.

That last part is news to me, though I might have just missed it earlier. The bottom line is that the plan as proposed by the GOP is daycare, not education, and does not live up to the terms of the constitutional amendment which mandates a high quality pre-K educational program.

Of course, GOP leaders are falling all over themselves trying to put the best possible spin on their weak proposal. One of the best quotes comes from Senate President Tom Lee, who proudly declares his son “eligible” for the program without ever using that other “E” word” - enrolled.

``Let me just say, as a father of a child that will be eligible for this program next year - a 4-year-old - I am proud of this work product,''

So, it’s gonna be good enough for other people’s kids, or what? Bottom line: Florida can and should do better (back to SP Times), but, hey, at least the babysitters we hire to watch these kids might be able to read and write.

Former Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas, who led the campaign to pass the pre-K amendment, said the Legislature's plan falls short.

"We finally have an opportunity to be leading the nation on an education issue and we're blowing the opportunity," said Penelas, a Democrat.

At the outset, pre-K classes could be staffed by teachers with a child development associate credential who must pass a two-hour course in literacy.

Florida's pre-K experience is being watched closely by advocates across the country.

Libby Doggett, executive director of the Trust for Early Education, said the phase-in of teachers with college degrees is a good step but she criticized the student-teacher ratio.

"There are a number of programs that have much higher quality," Doggett said. "When Florida has this, they will not be a national model, and they will not have their children prepared for kindergarten, which was the whole point."

Ronda gets one right

Ronda Storms is right. Well, she’s still wrong about most things, and she seems to be right about this one for the wrong reasons, and she managed a stupid utterance before the night was over...

Anyway, Hillsborough’s Metropolitan Planning Organization met yesterday and axed a plan by Tampa leaders to pursue funding for an expensive extension of the tourist trolley that runs Marriott and cruise ship guests up to Mel Sembler’s Ybor City joint.

The trolley essentially goes nowhere, and backers want to extend the line a few blocks past the Marriott to somewhere near Whiting Street, but they fail to put forth a persuasive argument as to why this .8 mile extension would be worth $7 million.

Now, I would be the first to argue in favor of a light rail project that would attract lots of riders and relieve traffic congestion and pollution, but this is not that. The trolley doesn’t even begin daily runs until 11AM. It’s designed for and ridden by tourists. It’s a Disneyesque air conditioned fun little jaunt that allows visitors to easily take in a safe day trip to Ybor City without having to cab or rent a car.

As my new buddy Ronda said, “Don't pretend this is congestion mitigation and you're doing great environmental work here,” which pretty much sums things up, though backers of the extension continue to use those exact arguments, preposterously claiming that a trolley that locals don’t ride will take commuters off of the roads.

``It gets people out of their cars, and that is the purpose of the program,'' said Hillsborough County Commissioner Kathy Castor, who supported the move.

The proposed extension would jut a little into downtown, and might actually attract some downtown workers looking for a ride to Hooter’s at Channelside around lunchtime, but $7 million hardly seems a worthwhile expense for that.

Now, back to Ronda: she’s against this project because she’s against almost anything to do with the city. She’d rather see tax dollars go to county areas south of Tampa.

And her strange utterance? Ronda wants (presumably HARTLine) to buy a new bus to transport MacDill personnel who currently ride from Brandon with standing room only. Two observations: to be profitable, busses need to be full. Also, Ronda sits on the HARTLine Board, which just implemented route changes, so, uh, if there’s a pressing need for more busses for Route 25X, why didn’t they make the changes?

More on the streetcar

A group of city, county and transportation officials refused Tuesday to pursue a divisive proposal: securing $3 million in federal transportation dollars to extend Tampa's streetcar.

The Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization voted against the plan, leaving streetcar supporters wondering where else to turn for money.

``I don't see the streetcar as a top priority item to spend $3 million,'' Temple Terrace Mayor Joe Affronti said after voting against the plan. ``It just seems like an awful amount of money. I don't know what it's going to do to increase the quality of life.''

Streetcar officials want to extend the line to Whiting Street. The project, which would expand the route about three-eighths of a mile, would cost more than $7 million.

The Tampa City Council last week voted to pursue $3 million in federal funding for the expansion. The federal dollars are intended for projects that ease air pollution and alleviate traffic congestion.

The Metropolitan Planning Organization voted 6-5 against signing off on the plan.

Tampa supports the streetcar extension but won't agree to pay for it, Mayor Pam Iorio said. The city could pursue other federal money to complete the extension, she said.

``This seemed like a fairly straightforward, short extension that benefited everyone,'' Iorio said. ``I am sure there are alternative funding sources.''

Streetcar officials are considering expanding hours to lure downtown office workers. Service now starts at 11 a.m., after the morning rush.

Line expansion proponents said a longer route would help revitalize downtown Tampa and reduce traffic.

``It gets people out of their cars, and that is the purpose of the program,'' said Hillsborough County Commissioner Kathy Castor, who supported the move.

Supporters also argued that if they failed to immediately decide how to spend the money, it could be reallocated to other counties.

``This has the potential for being a real transportation project,'' said David Mechanik, chairman of the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority. ``The vote precludes it from offering more services, from bringing it into downtown.''

Opponents said they felt rushed into making a decision and suggested that other areas of the county are worthy of transportation money.

``Don't pretend this is congestion mitigation and you're doing great environmental work here,'' Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms said before voting against the proposal. ``There's no money for the city of Plant City. There's no money for the city of Temple Terrace. That smacks of political decisions, not environmental decisions.''

Storms suggested buying a bus to transport MacDill Air Force Base personnel from Valrico to the base because the bus running now is standing- room only.

The people have spoken, but Jeb! knows best

As schools around the state take funds from extra curricular activities in order to replace their perfectly good but non-conforming American flags, Jeb! is plotting to further erode the quality of a Florida education while issuing sound bite quotes to obscure his disdain for public schools.

First, the class size amendment. One of Jeb!’s favorite pastimes is ignoring the will of the people. He did it with high speed rail, and now he’s got his sights set on the class size amendment.

But Bush said he hasn't decided exactly how to renew his assault on the 2002 constitutional amendment that was pushed by Democrats and the state's teachers' union.

He would need to convince lawmakers to place the measure on the ballot or push a citizen's initiative, such as last month's Amendment 6, which reversed a 2000 voter decision to mandate a high-speed train. The repeal was backed by Bush and other state officials.
......

Bush's comments revive one of the most contentious issues of a governor who early on dubbed himself an "education governor."

The 2002 voter mandate requires the state by 2010 to cap class sizes to no more than 18 students for kindergarten through third grade; 22 for fourth- through eighth-grade classes; and 25 for high school. More than 52 percent of Florida voters approved the measure, which was particularly popular among South Florida constituencies where schools are the most crowded.
......

"It's deja vu," said Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, the one-time state legislator who orchestrated the class-size citizen's initiative after several unsuccessful attempts of getting it heard in the Legislature.

"We go back and forth. But at the end of the day, class size is the best thing that has happened to Florida's children," Meek said. "I'm 110 percent convinced and parents are, too."

It's the third assault Bush has launched on the class size measure. During 2002, while campaigning for re-election, Bush warned it would crash the state budget. In 2003, he urged the Legislature to ask voters to repeal the measure, saying it would "block out the sun" due to economists' estimate it could cost upward of $10-billion in construction funds alone by 2010. He warned tax increases might be required.

The real issue is control and allocation of resources: if Jeb! is required to spend a certain amount on public education in order to stay within the bounds of the amendment, he will have less money to spread around for pet projects and business tax breaks.

Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami, a proponent of the class size measure, predicts it will still be a hard sell for Republicans. He and other Democrats have argued that the state could afford the program if Republicans would stop passing tax breaks, which now top more than $10-billion in the past six years.

At the same time that Jeb! is exhorting his legislative cohorts to overturn the citizen’s initiative, the people are saying once again that education should be a top priority.

Among 16 issues, education warranted the most concern, with 18 percent of voters choosing it. The economy trailed with 11 percent, followed by health care with 8 percent of voters canvassed by Quinnipiac University.

Florida ranks a dismal 44 th nationally in per student spending, and teacher salaries remain far below average. Beyond increasing class size, the GOP’s solution for improving education includes forcing every public school to conform to the “Flags in the Classroom” law which mandates the display of an American flag of a specific minimum size.

I guess with all those kids in crowded classrooms, it’s important that the flag be large enough that everyone can see it.

Jeb! figures he can get away with these shenanigans by issuing feel-good sound bites to cover his, uh, actions. In the meantime, kids suffer, flag makers rejoice, and, once again, all Florida public school children will be left behind.

``Education has always been the top issue, and we're making good progress as it relates to rising student achievement.''

I’ve got your good progress right here...

The No Child Left Behind Act took effect in 2002 and aims to have all students performing at grade level by 2014. The federal government let the states set their own standards for meeting that goal.

To comply with the law, a certain percentage of students at each Florida school must perform at grade level in reading and math. Schools must meet the goals in eight different subgroups of disadvantaged students or face penalties such as paying for busing and tutoring.

Last school year, nearly 80 percent of Florida schools failed to meet the standards, which are based on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

In Manatee County, 82 percent of schools did not meet the goals. In Sarasota County, that number was 66 percent. In Charlotte County, it was 71 percent.

As a result, this year Rowlett lost 20 percent of its federal funding for programs to help poor students. Teachers say they are spending so much time drilling their students in rigorous math and reading exercises required by the law that there's little time left for subjects like science and social studies.

Krugman

On Social Security

Social Security is a government program that works, a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people's lives better and more secure. And that's why the right wants to destroy it.

Clark blames employees for election errors

Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark is under fire, and deservedly so, for tons of mistakes made by her office during recent elections.

Since 2000, she has lost ballots on at least two occasions, and given voters the wrong ballots to vote. She has also committed the most basic error that a person entrusted with counting votes can commit: she has miscounted and or misreported vote counts at least four times.

Patrick “Things Happen” Caddell, a member of the 3 person Pinellas canvassing board, which includes Clark, and is ultimately responsible for the vote totals which are sent to the state, seems rather awestruck by the whole voting and counting and certifying process, and he dismisses Clark’s errors as inevitable.

Clark faced criticism last week from County Chairwoman Susan Latvala, a member of the canvassing board who was not informed of the misreported results in the state and local amendments.

But Judge Patrick Caddell, the chairman of the canvassing board, said a member of Clark's staff mentioned the errors to him.

Caddell and Latvala both defended Clark on Monday, saying changes since the 2000 election have made the election process more complicated and prone to error.

"You can't have too many checks and balances," Caddell said. "But as much as I would love to slough this off on Deb and the staff, I did look at (the election results) and I did not catch it."

So the members of the canvassing board are closing ranks. Meanwhile, Clark is taking responsibility by blaming her staff, and because her elected position is, bafflingly, a partisan one, Republicans who think it would be best to have an independent audit of her office are changing their tune.

Plagued by more embarrassing mistakes, Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark is punishing staff members, amending internal control procedures and vowing to provide more employee training.

Clark said Monday she is adding new checks and balances that could have prevented three errors that occurred within days of the Nov. 2 election. She also said disciplinary measures are pending for six employees. None serves in supervisory roles, and Clark declined to name the employees.

"I am accountable for everything that happens in this office," Clark said during a news conference Monday at her office. "It's my responsibility to have people on staff who will do a good job, people I can trust to complete the job. That's exactly what I'm going to do."

Two employees will face pre-disciplinary hearings with the county's personnel board, which could result in suspensions, demotions or termination, said Lori Hudson, a spokeswoman for Clark. The others will receive oral or written warnings.

In November, Clark's staff lost track of 280 ballots that were not counted until it was too late. Last week the St. Petersburg Times reported that Clark's office reported the wrong results to state officials in two referendum questions.

The three mistakes are the latest in a series of gaffes made since Clark took over the office four years ago.

But Clark, a Republican, does not intend to follow the advice of the Pinellas County Republican Party chairman, who suggested Friday that an independent group review her internal control procedures.

"At this point in time, I feel we have a handle on the situation," Clark said. "We worked through the weekend. We addressed every issue that came up."

Paul Bedinghaus, chairman of the local Republican Party, said it was just a suggestion.

"If it were me, I would call on an independent agency because it would help give the report some credibility," Bedinghaus said. "However, I have full confidence in Debbie and her staff. If she asks us to have faith in her ability to take corrective action, I think we should do that."

ERRORS ONCLARK'S WATCH

2000 - 1,400 ballots not counted, 900 ballots counted twice

2001 - Six absentee ballots misplaced for Tarpons Springs election

2002 - Voters in Lealman receive wrong ballots

2004 - 280 ballots misplaced until it was too late to count them

2004 - Staff incorrectly reports results for two referendum questions

Jeb! could restore rights to 500,000 - but he wont

Herald.com

Nine states since 1996 have eased or repealed felon voting bans, leaving Florida the largest among just seven states that continue to strip all felons of their civil rights for life, including the right to vote, hold public office and serve on a jury. The only way to get those rights back is through approval by the Florida Clemency Board, composed of Bush and the three members of the state Cabinet.

At this week's board meeting in Tallahassee, Bush and the Cabinet have promised to make changes.

POSSIBLE CHANGES

Proposals include adding more staff members to trim the backlog of civil rights applications and easing strict clemency restrictions so more people can regain rights quickly, specifically felons who have been crime-free for years.

''The governor remains committed to streamlining the clemency process,'' said Bush spokeswoman Alia Faraj.

But civil rights advocates fear that the proposals are cosmetic, meant to hush criticism, not help felons.

They want to see changes like those in Nevada, which now immediately restores rights to first-time, nonviolent offenders, or Delaware, which opted to restore rights after a five-year waiting period to all but the most violent felons.

Best yet, says Howard Simon of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, is Texas, which doesn't bother with waiting periods or piecemeal restoration. The state simply restores rights to all felons who have served their time.

''Maybe I'll go talk to [Jeb Bush] and I'll take me a lobbyist like the president,'' said Dutton, a businessman and lawyer who has served in the Texas Legislature for almost 20 years. He authored the law ending the voting ban, arguing that continued punishment of felons who had served their time was unfair.

''Why were we adding a sentence that a jury or judge did not give?'' Dutton asked. ``It was one of those things in the law that didn't make sense to me, both from a civil rights standpoint and a moral standpoint.''

Jeb Bush defends Florida's clemency system and the voting ban that has been part of the state Constitution for 136 years. He says the process of regaining rights is reasonable and fair and has become far more responsive to felons under his leadership.

Yet, the Clemency Board has rejected more than 200,000 applications since Bush became governor in 1999, the highest rejection rate in at least 16 years. Included are thousands of nonviolent offenders whose crimes never even warranted prison time, and felons whose convictions are years old.

''Gov. Bush claims to be spearheading reform, but the numbers are so huge, I'm not entirely convinced,'' said Ryan King, with the nonprofit Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C., which studies criminal justice. ``Minor modifications aren't going to make any significant contributions.''
......

The governor and the Cabinet could simply change the clemency rules. Former Florida governors opted to restore rights automatically to all felons, making the voting ban meaningless.

Legislators and civil rights groups nationwide are waiting to see what Bush decides this week.

Said Courtenay Strickland, Florida ACLU voting rights project director: ``The governor could do it with the stroke of a pen.''

More on Florida's felon disenfranchisement program

LaBrake's legacy

Sp Times

Last week a federal jury convicted LaBrake, his wife, Lynne, and Chester Luney, former head of a local charity that built and repaired homes for poor people, of conspiracy, wire fraud and multiple bribery charges. The LaBrakes had been accused of taking bribes and gratuities from Luney and others, while steering federal contracts to his charity and Ryan Construction Co., which helped build LaBrake's luxury home at a cut rate.

LaBrake has been out of the city's housing department for three years, but his tenure continues to affect how it helps low-income residents. Because of LaBrake, the city reorganized the department, eliminated managers, held onto scores of lots where low-income homes could have been built, and repaid millions to the federal government that could have helped Tampa residents.

All of the changes paralyzed the department at times. For months, officials stopped work while they figured out how to overhaul the staff.

For five months, the office did no new repair work on decaying houses for the poor. And since April, the program to build new affordable houses has been stalled, causing 120 lots to sit vacant.

Pinellas vote totals change yet again

You know, when we first started hearing about mistakes in vote handling in Pinellas, it seemed like nitpicking. Not that it wasn’t a serious issue, because all votes need to be counted, but it just didn’t seem to rise to the level that requires decisive action, including change. I think we’ve reached that tipping point now, though.

Today, more revelations of mishandled votes, and indications that an attempt was made to hide at least some of the errors.

Pinellas elections office knew soon after Election Day of a discrepancy in vote totals on a statewide slot machine initiative, but they didn't fully investigate for two weeks.

By then, it was too late to correct the mistake.

On Friday, as details of the case became known, yet another mistake was revealed.

Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark gave the state the wrong results of a Pinellas County charter amendment, reporting that voters approved it rather than rejected it, the St. Petersburg Times learned.

Clark accepted responsibility and said she would do "whatever it takes" to restore confidence in her office.

"All I can do is apologize to the public," Clark said. "I feel I let them down. I feel they had a lot of faith in me. I feel badly because I have shaken that faith."

Until Friday, Clark had not disclosed the incorrect vote totals to the public, or even to County Commissioner Susan Latvala, a member of the three-person Pinellas canvassing board that counts and approves the votes.

Actually, Clark can do a whole lot more than apologize. She can and should resign. Immediately. She deceived public officials and the public itself. We have all been lied to about the most basic democratic process - the vote.

Citizens of Pinellas put their trust in Clark. She has broken that trust. She needs to step down.

Pinellas votes mis-tallied

Pinellas Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark is not having a very good season. She’s already come under fire for losing and miscounting ballots. Now, it turns out that her office sent even more bad numbers to the state than were previously disclosed.

On Election Night last month, the results were clear: Pinellas County voters defeated by more than 17,000 votes an initiative to legalize slot machines in South Florida.

But the official state record says the exact opposite, the result of a clerical error by the office of Pinellas Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark.

The mistake, largely unnoticed until highlighted Thursday by unsuccessful opponents of Amendment 4, would not have changed anything. The slot machine measure passed by more than 119,000 votes statewide.

But in a state whose image is tainted by election problems, the 34,000-vote mistake underscores the fragility of a system that ultimately relies on humans to get it right. It also is another embarrassment for Clark, who never revealed the gaffe publicly.

She already has come under fire three times for mishandling ballots, including misplacing 280 absentee ballots last month until it was too late to count them.

In the closely contested 2000 presidential election, Clark's office neglected to count 1,400 ballots and counted more than 900 ballots twice. In 2001, her office misplaced six absentee ballots in a Tarpon Springs city election.
......

The (latest) mistake occurred when Clark's office sent its final tally of the Nov. 2 election to state officials in Tallahassee.

Preliminary electronic transmissions sent by her office showed Amendment 4 losing by more than 17,000 votes in Pinellas County. But under state law, only the final tally counts. It must be on paper and signed by the three-member county canvassing board.

Steg said she didn't know Thursday which elections staff members created Pinellas' final tally. But the document shows staff transposed the "Yes" and "No" vote tallies.

It apparently went unnoticed by either Clark or the two other canvassing board members, Pinellas County Judge Patrick Caddell and County Commission Chairman Susan Latvala, who signed the flawed form Nov. 12.

You remember Patrick Caddell, right? He’s the one who blithely dismissed previous counting room gaffes:

"Things happen," Caddell said.

Jeb!’s Parsimonious Pre-K Plan: Paltry Pay, 3 Hour Day

More details are starting to emerge about Jeb!’s voter mandated pre-k plan. Bottom line: the plan calls for teachers to be paid $13,000 per year (or less!), and, in order to enlarge the pool of people willing to take this miserly salary, almost no training will be required.

When the pre-k amendment was passed by voters, Jeb! had the state slap a $650 million cost on the program, but now he plans to spend a meager $300 million or so. Jeb! was hoping to defeat this initiative by touting the higher price tag, but how did the state decide on the lower figure that is being bandied about now? It’s based on daycare costs around the state, which tends to lend credence to those who call this bill little more than subsidized day care.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m not against subsidized day care, especially for folks who, like our future pre-k teachers, are struggling to make ends meet, but the amendment passed by voters called for a quality educational program, not just babysitting.

When Gov. Jeb Bush and state Republican leaders put a $650 million annual price tag on a proposed constitutional amendment that would create a state pre-kindergarten program, the figure was based on per-child spending of $4,320.

Two years later, with the amendment on the books, Republican leaders are pushing a considerably cheaper version: $2,000 to $3,000 per child, for a total in the $300 million range.

Why the gap between what Floridians were told before the 2002 vote and after?

"That's a good question," said Rep. Ralph Arza, R-Miami, the House chairman of a special joint committee that took public testimony on the issue Thursday. Arza said he was not aware of the original estimate.

It's a question lawmakers and Bush may have to answer in coming days, as early childhood education advocates press for policymakers to adopt the high-quality — but more expensive — recommendations of Bush's own pre-kindergarten task force.

Those recommendations include a six-hour day of instruction from teachers holding bachelor's degrees, with no more than 10 children per teacher.
......

On the final day of the regular session this year, lawmakers passed a bill with a three-hour day, no defined student-teacher ratio and a much lower standard for teachers. It was vetoed by Bush, who said it was not the "high-quality" product voters wanted.

The 2002 cost estimate was created as a result of a law pushed by Bush in an attempt to defeat the amendment reducing class sizes. The law, which required the state to tell voters how much an amendment would cost taxpayers, was eventually thrown out by the courts, but not before a panel of economists working for Bush and the legislature drew up an estimate ranging from $425 million to $650 million a year for the pre-kindergarten amendment.

Another constitutional amendment, subsequently passed, also requires the state to estimate the financial impact of amendments. It remains on the books.

The lower number was based on using existing federal Head Start money to help pay for the new program. The higher number was if that was not allowable, which wound up being the case. In either case, the economists used a figure of $4,320 per student — which far exceeds the $2,500 lawmakers considered in the spring or the $2,000 to $3,000 they are now considering.

Rep. Dudley Goodlette, the lead House negotiator on the bill, defended the lower amount.

"If it's not $4,300, it doesn't mean it's not a quality program," said Goodlette, R-Naples. "We're going to have a quality program. That's what they voted on. They didn't vote on what it was going to cost per student."

The current dollar value under consideration, though, may not win over many existing preschools with academic programs.

Barbara Hodges, director of Holy Comforter Episcopal School in Tallahassee and a member of Bush's original task force, said the median tuition for three- to 3 1/2 -hour programs at schools with Florida Council of Independent Schools accreditation was $4,437.

Arza, when asked about that number, pointed to the $2,700-per-child figure given by Daniel Morris, president of the Florida Association of Child Care Management, an accrediting group for day-care centers.

The fact that day-care groups have won such a prominent role in the crafting of the bill irks education advocates, who point out that the $2,700 figure was based on a $12-an-hour salary for teachers who would have only a Child Development Associate certificate, which can be obtained in less than a year.

That works out to an annual salary of $6,480 for a teacher running a three-hour program in a typical school year of 180 days, or about $13,000 if the teacher taught two three-hour sessions per day.

We're #1!

Well, Tampa’s finally hit the big time. No longer an also ran to cities like New Orleans, San Diego, and Pheonix, Tampa can take heart that we lead the nation in pedestrian traffic fatalities.

Cities in the South and West are the most dangerous for pedestrians, with four in Florida earning the dubious distinction of being the deadliest of all.

A private study released Thursday concluded that sprawling, newer cities in the South and West tend to be built with wide, high-speed roads that are especially dangerous for walking.

“So much of our transportation system is designed for cars and only cars,” said Anne Canby, president of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, which issued the report. The group advocates balanced transportation.

The report found that the 9,746 walkers who died in 2002-2003 were more likely to be killed on busy streets without crosswalks. Nearly 40 percent died where crosswalks weren’t available.
......

Regional differences in walking safety are stark. Twice as many walkers die in traffic accidents in New Orleans, San Diego and Phoenix than in Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Boston.

People are three times more likely to be struck and killed on streets in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla., Orlando and Miami-Fort Lauderdale than they are in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio.

Tampa ranks worst
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, characterized by traffic speeding along eight-lane boulevards, was ranked first for its dangerous roads, with 3.69 deaths per 100,000 people in 2002-2003.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio was announcing plans Thursday for improving pedestrian safety on Bay Shore Boulevard, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. Iorio was responding to public concern over a young female jogger who was killed in February by a speeding motorcyclist while she tried to cross the busy boulevard.

Fortunately, the plans that Pam announced fell far short of a panel’s recommendations, ‘cause we sure don’t want to lose this title next year.

Bayshore Boulevard is not getting traffic lights or lower speed limits this year.

Instead, Mayor Pam Iorio on Wednesday announced four other safety improvements for the scenic road:

* Construction of a sidewalk along the southbound lanes between Howard Avenue and Bay to Bay Boulevard.

* Installation of two dynamic speed signs at strategic locations. The signs tell drivers how fast they are traveling.

* Placement of signs indicating entrances to Bayshore.

* Development of a public awareness campaign encouraging drivers and pedestrians to become more aware of their surroundings and asking drivers to slow down.
......

In the city's 2005 budget, $200,000 was earmarked for Bayshore safety improvements. Each year, more recommendations will be considered as money is available.

Steve Daignault, the city's administrator of public works and utility services, could not be reached for comment on why traffic lights were not included.

Task force member Vicki Pollyea, president of the Bayshore Gardens Neighborhood Association, said she was dismayed the mayor did not include the lights.

``I was really hoping that was going to be one of the initial moves that she took,'' Pollyea said. ``The other ideas are great, but they do not provide for people to safely cross.''

GOP's Webster struggles to find meaning of democracy

Republicans must really hate democracy. This year, after years of complaints from Jeb! that the people were actually telling him what to do, they managed to overturn a citizen initiative calling for a high speed train system in the state. That effort was led by Florida Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher on behalf of Emperor Jeb!.

They also started to chip away at the citizen initiative process through Amendment 2 on this year’s ballot.

Now, some GOP leaders want to “streamline” the constitution. What they mean by “streamline” is “take power away from the people.”

A state Senate leader said Wednesday he wants to streamline the Florida Constitution to a pure document that only deals with the structure of government and the rights of citizens.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Dan Webster said he presented his idea to Senate President Tom Lee, who responded enthusiastically. Webster told his committee at a meeting Wednesday he wasn't talking about writing a brand new Constitution.

"I don't believe pregnant pigs should be in the Constitution," said Webster, R-Winter Garden, referring to a 2002 citizen initiative that voters approved banning the use of small gestation crates for expectant swine.

Nearly 55 percent of the voters approved putting that in the Florida Constitution, a fact that has caused much angst in the state Capitol. Lawmakers also have been vocal in their disapproval of a class size reduction measure, which voters also approved in 2002.

Hey, you arrogant power drunk bitches: the people have spoken, and it seems to me that if 51 percent equals a mandate for your W, then 55 percent must represent a huge landslide, well beyond a simple mandate.

The citizen initiative is the only way for the people of Florida to directly affect legislation and to send a strong message to “leaders” like Webster. This is the only tool the people have, and it’s still often ignored by those in power, yet it is too much for people like Webster.

The fact that it is often the only way for a grassroots movement to get something done is exactly the reason why “pregnant pigs” are in the constitution. This is one of the GOP’s favorite mocking phrases, and it really does sound ridiculous, and it seems to most uninformed people that something called a “constitution” should be a serious document, so the phrasing works well, but, like many GOP slogans, it is incredibly oversimplified and very misleading.

Bottom line: if the legislature had responded to citizen’s concerns about inhumane farming practices, even in a token fashion, then this initiative never ever would have gotten off the ground.

Last month voters approved eight amendments to the state Constitution, including two the Legislature put on the ballot. Webster said he didn't know which ones might be considered appropriate and which ones unconstitutional in scope.

"Every time these amendments come up, we struggle with what they mean," he said.

Actually, clear ballot language is a strict requirement, and the Florida Supreme Court must approve the wording of ballot initiatives. Oh, and does anyone else see the irony in a guy named Webster struggling for the meaning of words?

To explain his idea, he pointed to guidelines that lawmakers discussed in the spring when they made changing the constitutional amendment process a priority.

Ultimately, the two key proposals failed to make it out of the Legislature. One would have limited the subject matter that could be handled by petition drive to the basic structure of government or fundamental rights of citizens. The other proposal would have required a higher passage threshold for proposed constitutional amendments, which now need only a simple majority of 50 percent plus one.

Sixty percent of the Legislature needs to approve a proposed constitutional amendment to put it on the ballot.

In the House, state Rep. Joe Pickens, a Palatka Republican who has been a leader on constitutional amendment issues, said asking voters to approve a streamlined state Constitution was "certainly an option."

But Pickens said lawmakers in the House are focusing now on prekindergarten and hurricane relief issues expected to come up in a special session later this month.

He said the House would revisit the issue of constitutional amendments in the regular two-month session, which begins in March.

The only things these guys are interested in is raw power and the graft that comes with it. Those pesky initiatives that force lawmakers to actually spend money on priorities that are important to the people really need to go so that lawmakers can get back to the important business of raping the state unchecked and unsupervised.

Homophonic transgressions

Update - The Tribune fixed it, but my screen shot lives on. (end of update)

I was peeking at The Tampa Tribune online, but my short attention span was waning, my curiosity having peaked some time ago, and then this headline caught my eye:

Homeland Post Doesn't Peek Franks' Interest

In a fit of pique, I penned this entry, just before retiring for the night. But first, I took a screen shot.

Who Would Jesus Bash?

CBS and other networks are refusing to air an ad by a church group that calls for tolerance. That’s all - just tolerance, and the ad is one of the meekest and least objectionable things I’ve ever seen. (Watch it yourself)

The CBS and NBC television networks are refusing to run a 30-second television ad from the United Church of Christ because its all-inclusive welcome has been deemed "too controversial."

The ad, part of the denomination's new, broad identity campaign set to begin airing nationwide on Dec. 1, states that -- like Jesus -- the United Church of Christ seeks to welcome all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation.

According to a written explanation from CBS, the United Church of Christ is being denied network access because its ad implies acceptance of gay and lesbian couples -- among other minority constituencies -- and is, therefore, too "controversial."

"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations," reads an explanation from CBS, "and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks."

Similarly, a rejection by NBC declared the spot "too controversial."

"It's ironic that after a political season awash in commercials based on fear and deception by both parties seen on all the major networks, an ad with a message of welcome and inclusion would be deemed too controversial," says the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president. "What's going on here?"

Oh, well - if Our Leader might not like something, then we really shouldn’t even consider it, right?

Jeb! flip flops; FLA children left behind

Now that his brother has ascended once more to the throne, Jeb! feels safe to get back to business as usual. This is Jeb! in March:

Is Jeb! trying to engineer an excuse not to do the voter mandated Pre-K thing this year? We know how he just hates voter initiatives that force him to spend money on people’s needs. Of course, he could just be engaging in a little disingenuous election-year grandstanding:

Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday that a House bill's proposed standards for a statewide prekindergarten program fall short of what he would like to see.

"I'm not going to sign a bill into law that from the very beginning sends the wrong signal about the importance of literacy," Bush said after visiting an elementary school in Orlando.

Asked if he thought the House bill was below the level of standards he wanted, he said, "Yep."

And this is Jeb! now:

Less than two weeks before Florida lawmakers try to craft a universal pre-kindergarten program, top Republican lawmakers and Gov. Jeb Bush have finally worked out key details that appear to water down the higher standards once espoused by Bush and his administration.

In fact, Jeb! went so far as to veto the legislation that was sent to him in the summer, claiming that it did not provide for a high enough quality pre-k experience.

Now, the bill he vetoed was pretty inadequate, but it was crafted by a GOP dominated Jeb! friendly legislature, so he could have gotten a good bill if he had cared. The veto allowed Jeb! to say that he really really cares about kids, and that high standards are the new minimum, and it allowed legislators to say that they had really really tried to pass a pre-k thing. Everybody wins.

Well, everybody except the thousands of Florida children that are being left behind. The new proposal looks about as weak as last year’s bill. I’m not sure if it’s better than nothing, though I suppose it would at least provide a few hours of overcrowded daily babysitting. (back to Herald article)

Under the tentative agreement, the state would agree to pay for only three hours of instruction each day, oversight of the program would be split between two separate state agencies, schools would have years to comply with teacher-training requirements and there would be ''flexibility'' on the student-to-teacher ratio.

The recommendations are a shadow of those promulgated earlier this year by a Bush-appointed pre-K advisory panel, chaired by Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings. The panel wanted a minimum of four hours of instruction a day. Also, Bush this summer vetoed legislation passed by the Legislature, saying it did not meet the ''high quality'' standards called for by the constitutional amendment that voters passed in 2002 creating the pre-K program.
......

Bush, meanwhile, recently reauthorized his state-of-emergency powers, which give him authority to spend money with little legislative oversight in the wake of the four storms.
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In his veto message earlier this year, however, Bush wanted oversight of the pre-kindergarten program by the state Department of Education. Instead, the new legislation will place some control in the Agency for Workforce Innovation. The Department of Education will be in charge of crafting a test to measure what childen learned in the pre-K program.

I thought that emergency powers bit was kinda interesting...

Supervisors call for election reform

This is a great idea, one which I’ve often thought would be a very hard sell, but suddenly Florida’s Elections Supervisors are behind a plan to do away with election day and precincts and open large voting centers for one or two weeks, so that anyone can vote in that time period with quick lines and little inconvenience.

The veteran Supervisors like Ion Sancho are strongly in favor of this proposal. As long as safeguards are put into place to make sure that all areas and citizens of a county are fairly served (Duval County springs to mind), this opens the ballot to many poor and working people who find it difficult to take time off work on election day or to travel long distances to vote early. And it makes voting much more convenient for everyone.

Another plus, at least for those who believe that every vote should be counted, is the elimination of the state rule mandating that a provisional ballot be cast in the proper precinct for it to be counted. As a volunteer on election day, I can attest to the fact that the provisional ballot option was often used to pacify agitated or confused voters who had ended up in the wrong precinct and were unable or unwilling to travel to the correct location, even though the poll workers knew the ballot would never be counted.

More people voting? More ballots counted? I wonder how the Jeb! and his legislative confederates will react to this rather progressive idea brought to the table by a group of elected officials that may end up increasing turnout in 2006?

Florida's election supervisors, impressed by the success of early voting, proposed dramatic reforms Tuesday that would eliminate Election Day, replace it with an 11-day election season and do away with precincts.

The association of the state's 67 chief elections officials voted in concept at its annual winter meeting in Orlando to informally present the idea to the Legislature and to start rallying support for what its members concede would be a sea change in how Floridians vote.

''I think the voters spoke loud and clear in the general election of 2004 that they want other options than to be limited to 12 hours on a Tuesday to vote,'' said Bill Cowles, Orange County supervisor of elections and president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. ``We should seize upon the opportunity in 2005 to make the changes so we can try it in 2006.''

This past election season marked the first time that Florida used early voting across the state and it was a proven success, as some voters waited in line for hours in order to cast their ballot ahead of Election Day.

Election supervisors say the experience showed them they could move away from the traditional Election Day and a precinct structure many believe is outdated. Instead of hundreds of precincts in a county, for example, voters could go to any of a few super-voting sites equipped with enough machines and personnel to keep lines at a minimum.

OUTDATED SYSTEM?

Florida wouldn't be the first state to move to eliminate Election Day. Voters in Oregon, for example, cast all ballots by mail.

''What we're basically telling the Legislature is the precinct system is an archaic system, which does not serve the intent of the voters very well,'' said Ion Sancho, Leon County elections supervisor. ``Requiring that you go to your precinct to vote is not unlike [Caesar] requiring everyone in the Roman Empire showing up in the town of birth so you could do a census.''

Cowles said supervisors weren't wed to a specific number of days, although 11 would cover at least two weekends. He also said the number of polling sites would be left up to individual counties.

Supervisors say the advantage of the proposal is that it could eliminate long-standing problems such as finding enough trained poll workers. It would eliminate the need to disqualify provisional ballots when someone votes in the wrong precinct.

''I'm all for it,'' said Kay Clem, who as Indian River supervisor of elections was forced to consolidate voting locations and open additional early voting sites after hurricanes damaged a quarter of all her polling places. ``It worked famously. I'm telling you, people loved it.''

Sancho, who said he proposed a similar idea two years ago, said the positive experience with early voters helped win over doubters this year.

''We know that we cannot continue in this direction,'' he said. The cost and complexity of technology has made it increasingly difficult to find and adequately train poll workers. Under this plan, poll workers could be better trained and hired for a longer period of time, he said.
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But supervisors may have to wage a convincing campaign to win support from legislators, who may be reluctant to enact major changes after the relatively problem-free elections this year.

''That's a pretty drastic change and something I know he would want the [House Ethics and Elections] committee to debate fully and get a lot of public input before rendering some kind of an opinion on it,'' said Towson Fraser, a spokesman for House Speaker Allan Bense.

Sen. Bill Posey, the Rockledge Republican who chairs the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, said the idea is ''out of the blue,'' but added he was ``open-minded about anything that makes the process better.''

One Fort Lauderdale Republican who sits on the House Ethics and Elections Committee said she was concerned that people would lose a polling place close to where they live and that lines would be long at super-polling sites.

''People like the convenience of going to their neighborhood church and schools and voting,'' said Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff. ``I'm from Broward County. We have over a million voters. What happens to the lines? With early voting, we had lines three hours long.''

Actually, I hate the “convenience” of going to a church to vote. A neighborhood school would be just fine, but a church? Happily, this proposal would probably move the polling places into larger buildings than most churches, so that little peeve of mine would be moot.

And all of the possible problems mentioned are very easily solved. With the exception of the Legislature.

Find Your Legislators and tell them what you think.