Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Which is worse, driving drunk or letting a cop get away with driving drunk?

The St. Pete Times article asks: Did deputy show favoritism to fellow lawmen? I say yes.

As Sgt. John Daniels pulled up, the passenger stood outside the Dodge’s door, urinating. The driver admitted he had been drinking and declined a breath test.

The two men were Pasco sheriff’s deputies. Daniels let them go without so much as a ticket.

LEO allowing other LEO to get away with possibly impaired driving is nothing new.  Hell they don’t even give each other traffic tickets (explain that to your insurance company).  It’s called “professional courtesy.”

And it’s a load of crap.

With apologies to the greatest novels of all time for the liberties I’ve taken below.

Treasure Island city commissioners have decided that they will no longer be funding the Treasure Island library:

Cutting the Treasure Island library funding means residents of that city no longer will have free access to the Gulf Beaches system, which is located in nearby Madeira Beach and also serves Redington Beach, North Redington Beach and Redington Shores.

However, Treasure Island residents would be allowed to spend $100 per household to get a library card that is good in all the libraries that are members of the Pinellas Public Library cooperative, which includes the Gulf Beaches library.

Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. 

The great Gatsby, in his infinite jest, has decided to do some housekeeping. 

The blind assassin, the watchmen and all the king’s men have decided to play it as it lays while things fall apart.  They will claim their eyes were watching God, but they should know better.  To kill a mockingbird in the prime of Miss Jean Brodie is akin to playing Ragtime while struggling under the net.

It seems the power and the glory got to city commissioners, and one flew over the cuckoo’s nest in determining that library funding should be sent to slaughterhouse-five for the big sleep.

Go tell it on the mountain:  Libraries will soon be gone with the wind, books will turn into a handful of dust, and you will be reduced to a lord of the flies, right here along the Tropic of Cancer.

Portnoy’s complaint includes the recognitions that it is all about money.  The man who loved children will no longer be able to check out the golden notebook without deliverance of a $100 check. 

You may as well go to the lighthouse, become the moviegoer, visit an animal farm or head out on the road along a passage to India.

Oh, and city commissioners will attempt to avoid atonement by taking a trip down Revolutionary Road under the sheltering sky to avoid the sound and the fury of the white noise generated by the crying of lot 49.

It’s really an American tragedy.

On the afternoon of Aug. 18, Pinellas officials ordered mandatory evacuation of the county’s most flood-prone areas for 6am the next day.  Tropical Storm Fay was heading our way.

Over at the TradeWinds Island Resorts in St. Pete Beach, visitors checked out and took off.  They say they missed out on over $150,000 in canceled rooms and missed food and beverage sales.

The storm shifted and ended up making landfall south of Naples.  Pinellas canceled the evacuation order at around 5:30am.

So now, hotel managers are saying that Pinellas “overreacted.” 

“It was outrageous for the authorities to make the call prior to even being put on hurricane watch,” wrote Philippe Eversdijk, general manger of the Marriott Suites Clearwater Beach. “The decision … shows lack of respect for our area’s bread & butter: tourism.”

It sure is easy to whine about everything a month later.  Pinellas County Commission Chairman Robert Stewart wants the hotels to man up and deal with it:

“This was an unavoidable development,” Stewart said. “We’re always going to err on the side of caution.”

Pinellas is Florida’s most dense county - they have more people per square mile than anywhere else in the state.  The land is surrounded by water on three sides.  Any storm is going to cause trouble, and a big storm will nearly flood the entire county.  With that big of a responsibility, officials must act early. 

If your business loses a couple of bucks to ensure that nobody gets hurt, then you gotta tough it out.  You have another 330 days of the year to be profitable.  Or, you can move your multi-million dollar resorts somewhere else, perhaps New Orleans.

I bet these guys piss & moan about the insurance bill, too.

The Pinellas Public Library Cooperative serves Pinellas County residents in member cities and the unincorporated county. The Cooperative office provides coordination of activities and funding as well as marketing services for the following 15 member libraries.

They are getting ready to kick off the “Read Around Pinellas” promotion, where each person in the community is supposed to read the same book.  This year’s book is Jack London’s “Call of the Wild.”

Which is appropriate, since Pinellas has all sorts of coyote troubles.

St. Pete cops call Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO):  Get this illegal immigrant guy, he’s a suspect in a rape in St. Pete.

HCSO Deputies get the guy on a misdemeanor.  Meanwhile, St. Pete cops called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asked for permission to hold the illegal immigrant further.  They get no response.

So the HCSO lets the guy go free.

Two weeks later, guy (allegedly) rapes girls in Apollo Beach.

HCSO catches the guy again, this time for rape.

Citizens want to know why Sheriffs let him go the first time.

Head Sheriff David Gee claims St. Pete cops never told HCSO he was a rape suspect.

US Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite wants to know how this happened, blasts Gee.

Gee defends Sheriffs office, loudly complains “St. Pete cops never told us the guy’s a rape suspect.”  Also points finger at Legislature, ICE, some guy standing nearby, and the blogosphere.

People are outraged and pointing their own fingers everywhere:

• SPTimes columnist Sue Carlton:  It’s a crime that politics has entered equation
• Tribune columnist Steve Otto:  Is anyone out there listening?
• SPT Editorial:  Immigration mess is Congress’ fault
• Tribune Editorial:  Search For Culprit In Immigrants’ Crime Spree Starts On Capitol Hill

To be sure, ICE and your US Legislators deserve some of the blame for basic stupidity.  But the HCSO makes ‘em look like geniuses.  Especially after what happened today.

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spokesman revealed the truth:  “Ohhhh THAT guy?  Yeah, St. Pete cops DID tell HCSO about him.”

Caleb lives and works in St. Petersburg. He has been slinging paint and pixels for a number of years over on the peninsula, without great result, but he manages to feed his dog and cat and pay rent. When not creating images or difficulties for his neighbors, he preaches the gospel of Wordpress and social media to the slightly interested.

Below is the pretentious artist’s bio he is contractually obligated by his agency, Seven North, to include with each painting or print. It has the virtue of being almost true in some respects.

Caleb came to painting as a result of his inability to get cameras to record his unique emotional response to his surroundings. “Apparently, I see light and lines somewhat differently than film or CCD’s do. Go figure.” He has used just about every media known to western man, and although pastel is his first love, and oils his longest romance, he now employs acrylic paints, to take advantage of their ability to mimic pastel chalks.

Although Caleb cites the early-twentieth century Regionalists as his major formal influence, he says he is more governed by aesthetic preferences that are rooted in his childhood experience and perception. “In childhood, perception and preference are unfiltered, raw and honest. I notice that I am drawn to the scenes, colors and shapes that surrounded me before my fifth year. I did not consciously make choices then; I do better work when I do not make conscious choices now. But there is always choosing.”

Caleb says that he can describe his work his work as being closest to Fauvist in appearance. He says that the Florida climate is very influential. “During the winter, my paintings are relatively cool and sober. By August, I’m laying down wild colors that hatch in my poor heat-addled head. I guess I’ll never really get acclimatized…”

Caleb spent his youth in the Midwest, New York and finally the Los Angeles basin. As a young adult he moved to Oregon, where he spent a good chunk of his adult life. He has been on the Pinellas peninsula on Tampa Bay for nearly a dozen years.

Caleb lives and paints in St Petersburg, which he is sure is the best place on the Gulf Coast of Florida. He cohabits with Toulouse the dog and Bonnie the cat.

The extremely bored, or those to whom he still owes money, may access Caleb’s lifestream by Googling “Calebism”.

CBS News anchor Katie Couric mistakenly said that the GOP convention was going to be in Minneapolis, when it will really be in St. Paul.  The Pioneer Press was appalled:

Minneapolis is a fine city, but it is 10 or so miles from the [Xcel Energy Center]. Couric and CBS join a long list of Giants of Journalism who have gotten their geography wrong.

Couric, like the other erring Giants, lives in that great city along the Hudson River in New York State — the city we like to call Newark.

Heh.  Of course, Couric apologized.

But she would get the same here if she referred to the local baseball team as the Tampa Rays.

Former St. Pete Police Officer Ken Kokotek retired, and unveiled his secret identity.  Picasso is the screen name Ken used on the Law Enforcement Officer Affairs (LEO Affairs) website while ripping the higher-ups on the force as well as the City of St. Pete administration and others.

Apparently, he’s pretty good with photoshop, too:

In one, Mayor Rick Baker is wearing a pink dress with a matching pink hat.

In another, police Chief Chuck Harmon’s head has been put on an obscenely overweight body, and the chief is looking intently at a two-layer cheeseburger.

Sounds attractive.  Look at the TBO article to see the altered images for yourself. 

Those higher-ups were irritated.  So much so,  there was an investigation into Picasso’s identity, and threats of firing - even after he retired!:

Had he not retired, a St. Petersburg police officer would have been fired for posting degrading computer-altered pictures of police administrators and others on a Web site…

Anyway - the artwork is average at best, but the satire is pretty good.  For more, check out Picasso’s home on the web, SPPD - An Insider’s View.