"Just Say No."

The editorial page of today's Sunday edition of St. Petersburg TIMES featured a three-quarter page endorsement for Mr. Bill Foster, mayoral candidate for this fair city. While extolling Mr. Foster's civic qualifications, past city council leadership accomplishments, and detailed plans and proposals to move our city steadily forward in these uncertain economic times, the editorial board depreciated (one might say eviscerated) opposing candidate Kathleen Ford's lack of comparable attributes.

It serves no viable purpose to reiterate within this opinion piece the detailed examples of Foster's pro leadership style that were at length fairly articulated in the endorsement. For those fellow citizens who may yet be among the classification of "undecided voter," I would encourage each to read for themselves the TIMES carefully reasoned support for Mr. Foster's candidacy, and by doing so, reject, come election day, the audacious assertion that Ms. Ford past behavioral shenanigans in city government portends anything less if not more of the same. Like the emperor who paraded around his kingdom with no clothes on, attempting, if you will, to pull the wool over the eyes of his skeptical subjects, we, Ms. Ford, who otherwise possess clear vision and an ample reserve of discernible perception, see you for who you are and we are not fooled.

We clear thinking citizens who truly realize that this city must be governed by a rational leader who understands and evaluates the problems and difficulties facing our city today yet each must be carefully weighed against the scales of future consequence, who invites and embraces differing opinions in the search of common ground solutions, and who has the moral and ethical fiber to withstand without malice the slings and arrows of those who seek an opposing course, this is the type of leader the City of St. Petersburg must elect as our next mayor. That candidate can only be Mr. Bill Foster.

Come election day, cast your ballot for Bill Foster, and by doing so, tell Ms. Ford in no ambiguous language, "Thanks for playing along, Ms. Ford. Here's a copy of the home game. Your time is now up."

"Okay, Now It's My Turn..."

I've been "out of pocket" for the past couple of weeks, unable to find the time nor the motivation to sit down and compose another post to my blog. Not that there hasn't been an inexhaustible range of topics on which I could espouse my views...unfortunately mostly political in nature. But after a while even I get tired of ranting on continuously about what an empty suit Obama is and how thoroughly appalled I am with the myopic antics of Congress. More and more I just want to pull the covers up over my head and not get out of bed again until I can awake on the morning of election day in 2010 and add my vote to what I hope and anticipate will be thousands of other disgusted and disgruntled citizens who join together in mass to throw these elitist out on their ears.

What has been the biggest news in our family has been my wife Judi's decision to get a tattoo in celebration her 63nd birthday. I kid you not! And with every enterprise my wife undertakes, this decision was not entered into lightly. Having assured that I had no objections - (Remember the old proven axiom, "If Momma is happy, everybody is happy!") - she went on-line for hours pouring over sites that featured anything that had to do with tattoos, asking me what I thought of this one or that one. Playing it safe, I told her that what ultimately floated her pontoon would be okay by me. Next, she purchased a couple sets of stick-on tattoos that she pasted on various parts of her anatomy, again asking my opinion as to type, size, color and location. For my part, that was an interesting exercise in self-restraint. Step number three - take a couple of days and visit several local tattoo parlors to ask a ton of questions to further solidify her final determination. Finally came the day of "go or no go."

Having selected the parlor, the tattoo "artist," and the tattoo of her liking, she requested that I accompany her for the fait accompli. I arrived just as the proprietor of the establishment - he himself a walking billboard for Oriental rugs - had applied the stencil over which the inked-in tattoo would be applied. Twenty minutes later and there in front of God and everybody was a smallish, multi-colored song bird perched on her upper right shoulder blade with a little sixteenth musical note being expelled from its yellow beak. As far as unobtrusive tattoos go, this one was a winner. I've got no complaints. She likes it... I like it... Everybody is happy.

As for me, I have no desire to festoon myself with anything that requires a repeated application of needles. I get queasy whenever I get stuck with that prerequisite pen prick to determine if I can give blood every eight weeks. No, I'll pass on the opportunity to join my dear wife in adorning myself with body art. I did decide, however, to do something as a now empty-nester family that will prove beneficial to more than my desire for self-gratification. I decided we should become foster parents. Below is a photograph we took last week as we were bringing the little fellow home for the first time.

I'll be letting you know in future posts how this act of kindness is working out for all parties concerned.

Why Not Ford?

The St. Petersburg TIMES published an article this Saturday entitled "This Ford Projects A Softer Image." The subtext posed the rhetorical question of speculating whether or not Kathleen Ford, the oppositional candidate to Bill Foster's bid to become elected mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, will overcome her past "reputation of blunt divisiveness." Having read the article and agreeing, for the moment, that Ms. Ford appears to be making a concerted attempt to project a far less controversial persona in her current continuing attempts to persuade the citizens of this fair city that should she become mayor her well documented savage bite shall be less frequent than her infamous bark, I am still, nevertheless, not willing to concede that this dog is yet capable of being untied from her leash.

The determination of whether Ms. Ford has the intellectual acumen and credentials to assume the mantle of mayor need not be in question. At issue, however, and perhaps currently the central lightening rod in comparing the two candidates in the campaign, her temperament for the position is. As Attila The Hun's well earned reputation proceeded him as he relentlessly pillaged and plundered those unfortunates who would oppose his quest for conquest, Ms. Ford's biting tongue and unquenchable ego has laid waste many an unwary person who would dare by omission or commission contradict her will; from fellow council members to staff clerk typist, Ms. Ford's quick temper recognized no boundaries as she repeatedly issued forth her visceral onslaughts. Even in Saturday's article, Ms. Ford issued a thinly veiled threat to those who, in her well ordered, score-keeping mind, "mislead" her, and further fanned the flames of divisiveness in the corridors of City Hall by urging city employees who allegedly support her candidacy "to keep quiet because they could face retaliation from the Rick Baker administration." Does this type of inventiveness sound even remotely like an individual who wishes to mend fences, seek common grounds of agreement, and move this city forward, or an individual who is paranoid, has an axe to grind, and a gigantic chip on her shoulder?

Citing her reliance on technology to solve social issues, Ms. Ford is apparently quick to dismiss Mr. Foster's moral compass that believes in the inherent good of mankind based on his Christan faith. Preferring to wield a quarrelsome litigious club, Ms. Ford would shelve constructive dialogue to resolve issues of city import and demand an allegiance to the letter of the law as she would chose to interpret. If conquering by division is one's idea of a progressive leader, then Ms. Ford is your girl.

I, on the other hand, regard Ms. Ford's candidacy as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, who slithered forth to convince the inhabitants of that fair burg that he alone could place them on the true path of wisdom. "Trust me," he entreated and soon thereafter all hell broke loose. Could the good citizens of St. Petersburg endure and perhaps even prosper with Kathleen Ford at the city's helm? Probably. But why in the world would one want to invite that same self-serving serpent back through the garden gate?

Recognizing how unfashionably incorrect it is to utter anything even remotely tinged with religious connotation, I will nevertheless venture out onto that precarious limb and offer a caution to those stalwart individuals who are looking for Ms. Ford as mayor to be the savior of their pet peeves; "For they sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind." Elect Kathleen Ford as your next mayor, if you must. But be prepared to hang on, dear hearts. It's going to be a very bumpy ride.

"I Fail To See The Humor, Dave..."

I'm not a fan of kicking a person when they're down, but when a particular type of person, who happens to make a sizable living ridiculing other defenceless people for fun and sport, then it's time once again to drag out my trusty avenging skillet and whack the jerk with a resounding hollow "bonk" across the back of their empty cranium!

Last evening, David Letterman, the sophomoric comedic shill for the liberal left, jokingly confessed (if one can label his adolescence mea culpa a confession) that as a result of his admitted sexual infidelities with apparently several female employees on his Late Night Show staff that he had been the target of an extortionist scheme, to the tune of allegedly 2 million dollars, not to go public with the irrefutable evidence of his repeated indiscretions. As for the perpetrator of the extortion, that individual was arrested yesterday morning, as he deservedly should be and shall hopefully be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the judicial system. Mr. Letterman, on the other hand, chose to make a sad, pitiful and protracted joke of the incident in the hopes, I suppose, that the laughter he managed to solicit from his unassuming audience would somehow garner him sympathy and a free pass to whitewash the despicable affair into an obscure and soon to be forgotten news story. The sad thing...it just might; so gullible is the star-starved and idol worshipping public of anything or anyone associated with the mass media.

I'll be honest, would it not run the unnecessary risk of exposing to public scrutiny the women whom Mr. Letterman admittedly bedded, who may or may not have succumbed to Letterman's sexual advances willingly and without coercion, nothing would delight me more than to have the "evidence" that the extortionist allegedly possessed released in all their lurid details to every media outlets that traffics in that type of expositional bile. It would so justifiably serve him right to have his character - or obvious lack there of - besmirched and ridiculed in the public cauldron, just as he has made an unrelenting practice of belittling and degrading a host of other individuals whom he considers to be his ideological inferiors (read: conservatives).

I hope your your wife and son are proud of you, Dave. I'm sure your dear old Mom will bake you one of her special pies to make you feel better. Most likely there will be no serious repercussions for your dalliances and you will get to keep your little late night T.V. shop open for business. And no doubt your adoring public will turn their other cheeks and just caulk up your deplorable behavior to just another personality making a forgivable fool of themselves, they being so easily distracted and entertained.

As for me, Mr. Letterman, I wouldn't walk across the street to spit on you if you were on fire! I don't have much patience for an arrogant ass who has a penis for a brain!