Around HereBy Leo CoughlinNobody asked me, but - . . . One local political figure has kept a very low profile for the past three years, but now with an election looming and a desire to keep that paycheck coming, the individual is seen at every hog calling and hootenanny (and makes a rather shaky, uncomfortable presentation). . . . Largo is still getting publicity around the country as the place where a city manager turned himself into a woman and where Mac Craig, the oldest public employee in the United States (excepting some judges and elected folks) who gets paid more than the governor, replaced that individual. (Hey, you can't make this stuff up.) . . . Strange, isn't it, that the loudest of all messages is silence. . . . Putting aside the social convention of de mortuis nil nisi bonum, how do you figure a child molester and a guy who used the lyrics "Kick me, Jew me, kike me," goes out with full honors and copious tears? Is this a great country or what? All the paeans of praise and yowling over the singer's passing, the bottom line, stark and horrifying is that he was a child molester. Brrrrrr!! . . . Anyone around here remember John Cameron Swayze and the Camel News Caravan? . . . If the Preakness distance had been just a little longer and the Belmont just a little shorter, Mine That Bird would have been a Triple Crown winner. . . . By the way, Calvin Borel, jockey winner of two of the TC races, exemplifies rule number one for a sports participant - never make a prediction. (Joe Namath, of course, being the paramount exception to the rule.) . . . Whatever became of Tommy Franks? . . . The Rays might as well have their ball field in Tampa, as is being talked - references to the baseball team all over the country on sports shows and sport talk programs always refer to the team as being in Tampa. . . . Yes, Bob Jackson is running for Largo mayor. It is not a rumor as one local scribe thought. Jackson says he has everything in place to mount his election campaign to regain the office he lost to Pat Gerard in 2006 (some funny vote compiling in that election three years ago, by the way). . . . Anybody around here getting a raise? Of course not. The economic times won't allow it. Even Social Security recipients have been told no increases for a couple of years. But members of Congress - the aristocracy of this country, the nobility - all got a 7 percent increase, $100,000, to $1,500,000 for the allowance for their office upkeep. Keep working folks, our elected folks in Washington deserve the best. . . . Oh, by the way, the grand total for that just mentioned immediately above comes to about $54 million. Ho hum. . . . No wonder we're in debt. The myth is that foreign countries, like China, own us. Not true. Foreigners hold 28 percent of the debt. From 1981 to 2000 the national debt grew by 350 percent (!!) - $930 billion to $3.233 trillion; from 2000 to 2008 it doubled, $5.674 trillion to $10.699 trillion. . . . Bernie Madoff, a thief beyond peer, deserves every bit of punishment visited on him, but a 150-year sentence is absurd; it is political and a sop to those who were robbed. No sentence should ever be imposed that cannot logically be served. Madoff should have gotten life without parole in a prison very remote from New York. . . . Remember Dick Morris? You know, the political consultant that got caught sucking on the toes of a prostitute? (Is that bad? I dunno...I wouldn't do it.) He's still around and even honored and respected in some quarters. And he's not even elected to anything, so private is private, one can assume. But, as of right now, there are at least four publicly known adulterers in the U.S. Senate. And add a prominent governor, still making a fool of himself when last heard from.
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