Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Verizon is making a killing on this FiOS gimmick. The demand for FiOs is so overwhelming, that at the beginning of this year, the company moved a bunch of repair technicians away from fixing landline telephone service in order to install service for those new hungry FiOS customers. 

Because of that, some landline customers have had to wait up to a week for phone repair.  But that’s a problem. The State of Florida wants to make sure that your phone works if you have to call 911, so they require phone companies to repair service within 24 hours at least 95 percent of the time in any given area. 

Verizon knew they were not quite meeting that goal, so they went to the Public Service Commission in March to ask for an exemption.  Thankfully, the PSC said no, and in fact began a probe to see just how bad Verizon was performing.

Turns out that over the past 6 years, Verizon’s record declined steadily, and failed to meet the standards 262 times in 2007, compared with five times in 2001.  What was their excuse?

Verizon officials traveled to Tallahassee in April to tell regulators that the company was simply overwhelmed with demand for the FiOS service…

Attorney General Bill McCollum is not impressed, and asked the PSC to open a formal case, and begin piling on the fines.  At $25,000 per violation in 2007, the petition calls for over $6.5 million in fines.

Go Florida!

We told you about the south Florida governments clamoring to cut the state in two to form a 51st state, but we did not realize that this happens all the time, all over the country.

Oh, we know that in talks of adding states, Puerto Rico sometimes is mentioned, as is the District of Columbia.  But the talk of states splitting is apparently all the rage.

We were surprised to hear that just this year, an Athens columnist suggested splitting Georgia in two in order to solve the Atlanta-Alabama-Georgia-Florida water wars, which was seconded by a Valdosta newspaper.

We also hadn’t heard about an effort for northern California and southern Oregon to quit their respective states, creating the new State of Jefferson.  That effort has been going on since 1941.

Over the years, U.S. state secession proposals have come from more than 30 of the 50 states, including parts of tiny, tiny Rhode Island.

The only people who succeeded in seceding from a state to become their own state was Maine - they used be part of Massachusetts.

So I guess if you South Floridians wanna leave the rest of your state, you better get in line.

After listening to the Florida Legislature debate ridiculous laws (such as the necessity of Truck Nutz), North Lauderdale and the City of Margate are beginning a push to split Florida and establish a new, 51st State:

25. RESOLUTION – SUPPORTING SEVERING THE TIES OF MIAMI-DADE, BROWARD, AND PALM BEACH COUNTIES FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA AND ESTABLISHING THEIR OWN 51ST STATE OF THE FEDERAL UNION OF THE UNITED STATES; PROVIDING FOR CONFLICTS; PROVIDING FOR SEVERABILITY; AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE. (Requested by the Mayor)

Yep, they want to secede and become South Florida.

Check out radio WIOD and listen to interviews of South Florida officials who have had enough with Tallahassee.

The subhed in this morning’s headline in the St. Pete Times provides a perfect example of the stuff that bugs me about the boneheads in Tallahassee working hard to destroy what’s left of this wonderful state.

The hed:

“Budget gets final slicing“

Subhed:

“The deal cuts money to classrooms and nursing homes. Only state troopers get raises.”

Kinda says it all. You cut money for education, you’d better increase money for police.

I love and respect cops, glad we’ve got em, believe they deserve more money and bennies than they currently get to do a damn tough job. However, I honestly believe that if we took better care of our kids, we would need fewer troopers and prisons. As for cutting aid to nursing homes, remember that old saying about the measure of a civilization being the way it treats its most vulnerable members? What’s next, are we gonna launch the elderly into the Gulf on rickety rafts to we don’t have to bother with them anymore? Maybe we can put them to work selling lottery tickets to support our schools.

Senator Bob Graham was making the rounds recently, pushing his newly formed Center for Public Service, created partially to bring civics education back to public schools.  Which is sort of funny, because back in 1953, educational philosopher Robert Maynard Hutchins said that is the whole point: 

"The object of the educational system, taken as a whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible citizens."

To improve the performance of schools in the USA, No Child Left Behind went into effect in 2002. The Center for Education Policy says that since that mandated emphasis on reading and math, many schools have cut back on other classes.  That has led to some folks crying that your kids need more physical education, more art education, more music education and band practice, and that current science standards are not enough.  And that’s not all.

Eighty-eight percent of voters say they believe that schools can and should incorporate 21st century skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving skills, computer and technology skills, and communication and self-direction skills into their curriculum.  Some schools now offer career academies, and career training.  

Don’t forget about sex education.  And driver’s education.  And home economics.  Or foreign languages. 

Not everyone is happy with the basics, either. Some people say today’s students need more core math skills, while others want them to Just Read, Florida. 

So with all that learnin’ to do, your children will have to stay in school all day long or all year long or both.  Florida has added Pre-K classes, but it’s not good enough for some people.  Still others say we need more relevant and rigorous courses for all students.

But along with all of that pushing and pulling of students in different educational directions, school teachers and administrators still have so much more to do.  First the schools have to make sure there is a way to get the kids to school, and feed them healthy food.  Then they must make sure kids pull up their pants, keep an eye out for suicide prevention, perform random steroid testing on the athletes, may soon have to enforce an anti-bullying law winding through the legislature, and hundreds of other non-educational pursuits that have been (or are being) forced onto the school system.

Meanwhile, kids are really learning less and less.  They have no clue what’s going on with current events.  And Mom and Dad are so busy looking for ways to lower their taxes, they can’t help with the parenting, and they can’t even afford lottery tickets anymore to help with the costs.

I don’t know if forcing all that stuff into classrooms will help produce better citizens.  But without question, there sure is a need for some common sense in the educational system.

Hey Floridians!  You aren’t gambling enough.  Your kids will be more stupider if you don’t buy some scratch-offs right now.  You should probably smoke more cigarettes, too.  Think of the kids!

State Legislators are still trying to kill local environmental protections.  Now the Senate has passed a bill to do just that.  Of course, they are trying to make sure those pro sports franchises keep their tax breaks too.  Meanwhile, Disney World doesn’t want anyone to see politicians at their theme parks, so they created a politician FastPass in the hopes that they hurry up and leave.

It looks like Florida is losing another Spring Training team.  The Cincinnati Reds are likely leaving Sarasota and may move to Goodyear, Arizona.  Arizona is stoked, cuz the Cactus League will have nearly the number of teams as the Grapefruit League.  Sarasota wants to replace the Reds with another spring training team (perhaps the Baltimore Orioles), but there may be no need.  Arizona just shipped 22 alligators to Florida.  Unlike baseball players, alligators have no chance of getting all drunked up at Hyde Park Cafe and end up tasered by cops.  Plus, the ‘gators probably have a better pitching staff.  Besides, everyone knows that Sarasotans favorite team is the Tampa Bay Rays!