ORLANDO MASSACRE TRUMPS EVERY PREVIOUS MASS SHOOTING IN THESE UNITED STATES AND GIVES NEW FODDER TO TRUMP THE DUMPSTER

It was shocking, horrible, unimaginable.

The slaughter of 49 people - and 50 more wounded - by a 'lone  gunman ' late on a Saturday night in a night club in Orlando, Florida left us all stunned and shocked, and deeply saddened  early on a Sunday morning.

Why, what, who, where, the basic questions of journalism tumbled out over the following agonizing hours to follow as families and friends and an entire nation waited to see what the hell was really happening here.

Alas, we now have the what, who, where which have filtered out through he first hours of the investigation, but we have no why.

We have the portrait of a deeply disturbed shooter -aren't they all - who took his wrath out on a roomful of people partying hardy in the Pulse  nightclub in Orlando.

His wrath, apparently was being wreaked upon people he hated.  Gays, Blacks, Jews, Women.

All of this information from the news reports accumulated in the hours after the murders.

And we know now, that he was a woman-beating, angry, homophobic bigot who, after gunning down dozens of people, took more people hostage and then called the police to proclaim he was...ISIS.

Puleease.

And back to the why.

And the why goes to the question of how do we classify this latest infamy done supposedly in the name of ISIS.

Well, we can take a cue from President Barack Obama's statement, "This was an act of terror and hate."

We classify this as a hate crime elevated to the act of terrorism which it most certainly was.

Of course ISIS has happily declared they will take credit for any nut case who shoots up a room filled with Americans, but the fact is they had nothing to do with it.

This was the work of a 'lone wolf' guy who, by the way had frequented the very club he shot up, and according to other recent reports,  culled from people who knew him well and partied with him...was himself a self-hating closeted gay.

There you go, just what we need.

Now, anybody who has a love life gone awry, or a tough domestic situation or a giant inferiority complex  can shoot up a bunch of Americans and yell out, " ISIS made me do it."

Which will make ISIS very happy, thank you.

And will make the Dumpster (Donald Trump) equally happy and feel free to go on one of his xenophobic rants.

Before we fire up the nuclear subs and such, we need to evaluate which of these threats are real, and which are being used by people who obviously fell through the cracks of mental health checks.

And we need to do it before some xenophobic, race-baiting, New York bombastic huckster is elected to be the leader of the whole world by playing upon all of these fears.

And our heart is heavy today, along with thousands of  Tampa people who love and cherish our own LBGT community.

And we can only hope that this horrible incident will bring us closer together, and live in love.

TRUMP STUMPS IN TAMPA

Nothing better to do on a sultry Saturday morning in Tampa, we decided to bite it and do the required appearance - hey, every reporter in this town has to do it at least once - at a Trump For President Rally.

We cringed at the thought, having read the reports of violence between Trump and Anti-Trump supporters outside these events in other cities.

And having been in crowds at political rallies in the past which broke loose and caused mayhem  We had a reasonable expectation of spending  at least part of the rest of the day either in the ER or limping away clutching what was left of our clothing.

So, armed with a back pack filled with water and band-aids and clutching a notebook and pen in  hand, We approached the Tampa Convention Center with what we were sure was the attitude of a puppy about to be spanked for spilling her dinner on the floor.

Approached by a TPD finest just outside the Convention Center, We answered his question...."Can I help you, miss?"

"Yup, I'm one of them sleezy reporters this fella keeps yapping about, which way do I go?"

The officer chuckled and pointed the way to the press area, an instruction which we promptly disobeyed, and headed off in the other direction to an area where we had spotted some Anti-Trump people.

On the way to their spot We  took a look around at the crowd.  Well, we say crowd, there were dribbles and drabbles of people hawking T-shirts, buttons, hats and one very loud lady trying to sell shirts emblazoned with the emblem, "HIllary For Prisoner."   Hmmmmmm.

The  crowd filtering toward the Tampa Convention Entrance was varied in age from thumb-sucking toddler to Old White Men.  Not too many women, and nary an African-American in sight, nor Hispanic nor Asian, nor, Gulp....Muslim.

The Anti-Trump people, clad in bright blue T-shirts and khakis were amiable, polite, and eager to talk.

Their signs said it all...Never Trump, etc.   and they were very sincere and very well informed.

One woman voiced great displeasure that Pam Bondi, our State Attorney General would be introducing Donald Trump to the crowd inside the center.

"They're a perfect pair," she snorted, I call them Tweedledumb and Tweedletrump."

She was of course referring to the reports of Ms. Bondi, through some sleight of hand had accepted a 25K campaign contribution from Trump a little while back, and then refused to sign onto the lawsuit over the Trump University scandal.

Another fellow spoke up about the real estate scam The Donald pulled here in Tampa a couple of years back on the piece of property at Ashley and Brorein.  The one where a lot of people paid a lot of money as down payments on condos which never materialized.

Donald kept the dough, of course, and promptly disappeared into the folds of the veil of bankruptcy.

On and on we discussed all of the other Trump failures.  Among them, Trump Vodka, Trump steaks, Trump airlines, et al.

So, we asked, "what do you think is the attraction here?"

One of the Anti-Trumpsters, an erudite fellow who happens to be a professor Emeritus of Political Science at University of Tampa, Mr. Richard Piper, explained it all:

"He's pandering, and scapegoating.  Hitting every racist, mean-spirited, disenfranchised and white male discontent  button he can find, and he's a great salesman, so he's doing it well."

Of course he is.  And he's doing it well enough to throw fear into not only the Anti-Trumpsters, but most of the GOP and any reasonable voter in the nation.

However, Anti-Trumpsters can take heart, only four thousand people showed up.

Ah, for the days four years ago, when we were embedded with Occupy Tampa, remember them?

They were fun.  And they were spirited and sincere in their message and in their wish for a better life for all.

And now we have....HHuuuuugggeee.....and talk of walls and no respect for dissent and trying to bully federal judges and on and on.

Donald says he;'ll  be back and back and back in Tampa.

Well, we'll be waiting....oy vey.

TAMPA HOMELESS COMMUNITY NONPLUSSED BY RECENT FEDERAL GRANT LOSS BUT SCARED TO HECK BY THE SPICE EPIDEMIC

Tuesday morning I queried some of the twenty or so Tampa homeless people gathered at Gaslight Park in downtown Tampa for the usual Tuesday morning coffee and bagel breakfast provided by Food Not Bombs  -they also serve on Sunday Afternoons, they're Vegan but what the heck, it's good chow -And many of them shrugged off that morning paper's story about the loss of the 800K to three of Tampa's transitional housing outlets which provide, well transitional housing to homeless and about to be homeless folk.

Most of the people at the park are old-timers - and that does not mean necessarily in years - what it does mean is people who have been at this for awhile, and have learned the ways and ins and outs and twists and turns one must learn to navigate the whole business of living on the street.

And most of them have never been involved in 'transitional housing' and don't care to be, thank you very much.

And many of them have a particular dislike for the Salvation Army.  To a man -or woman - they say it is a hellhole and run by abusive people who could care less about the salvation of anybody.  (Their words not mine as they used words I cannot print here,, but you get the gist)

But one thing they do worry about is the recent rise in the Spice incidents involving overdoses and deaths and way too much heat being brought down on them by the great deal of attention which must be involved by the authorities both in trying to curb the use of the synthetic drug, and the strain all those EMS calls and transport to TGH  are putting on local police and fire department services.

And they also worry about running into these walking zombies who use the drug, especially when the walking zombie turns violent, or spends the nights trolling homeless people sleeping spots looking for money to buy their Spice.

The story in last Sunday Times about the Spice epidemic was excellent, and needed to be done by a high profile newspaper, and they did a great job.

However,  one thing which should have been said in the story  is that most of the homeless  'old-timers' won't touch the stuff, or want to be near anybody who does.

One of the people at gaslight told us, " I took one hit of that stuff one time and woke up three days later in the hospital."  'Nuff said?

For right now, most of the Spice activity is centered around the Marion Transit Center known as Spice Alley, and it is hell down there, don't bother unless you absolutely have to have something to eat from the two snack cafes there....especially Jimmy's biscuits and gravy.

We'll keep an eye on this situation, and hope the authorities can get this stuff off the street, and soon and that the stuck on stupid  knuckleheads who are using it just go away,

Maybe over to Clearwater or something, the Scientologist guys over there could  probably find a way to solve it all, AND make 'em pay for it.

'Zombies' and seizures: Tampa Bay discovers it has new problems with spice (w/video)

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TAMPA BAY CITY COUNCIL TO VOTE MARCH 3 ON DECRIMINALIZING MARIJUANA

WELCOME  TO  THE  21ST  CENTURY TAMPA CITY COUNCIL


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TIME FOR A HEART TO HEART WITH HART

HART would be Hillsborough Area Regional  Transportation, the entity which transports thousands of people around our county and city every day of the year come rain, sleet or people behaving badly.

Somehow, they manage to transport all of those customers along 49 routes, on 214 buses through 1000 square miles of county and city -roughly the size of Rhode Island - across 11 million miles which is roughly 46 times to the moon and back.

And they do all of this on a budget - for 2016 - of 84.7 million bucks.

We know HART drivers and supervisors put up with a lot of guff from - see above people behaving badly - some of their customers.

For instance, many of the customers openly flaunt the HART regulations for riders.

No, weapons, no alcohol, controlled substances, no smoking, no eating or drinking of any beverage, no running in aisles, or playing loud music, of speaking loudly on cell phones, no rude or abusive or vulgar language, no loitering around bus stops.

And we get that handling some of the ruffians who flaunt some or all of those rules can make drivers and supervisors edgy and grumpy and sometimes just plain mean.

For instance, we recently witnessed a driver bodily throwing a snarling drooling half pit-bull, half boxer mixture of dog and his snarling drooling owner off her bus and then having to endure his racial and gender epithets shouted at her as she sped away.

Yeah, that's enough to set anybody's teeth on edge and make the rest of their day miserable.

However, we  think HART should make up a list of offenses which their drivers regularly commit, and post those notices right along with the notices for riders.

Starting out with tardiness.  We have not been on one bus in the past three weeks which has been on time.

We are talking here about departing times, not arriving times due to traffic, weather and snarling drooling animals and people.

We are talking about bus drivers who linger far too long on their cell phones outside the bus, or enjoying just a few more minutes chuckling it up with a pal or flirting with a pretty girl, or, as we recently experienced, a gnawing five minute OCD display by a driver who had to touch his mirror, his seat, his bag and walk around the bus way too many times before departure.

And then there is the safety factor involved while on the bus.

The rider rule is do not engage the driver in conversation whilst driving a vehicle carrying people who are depending on your ability to transport them safely to your destination.

We have seen way too many drivers, trying to drive, while carrying on an animated conversation with a rider who is standing or sitting anywhere from two to five feet behind  him/her which takes many turns of the drivers head, and eyes off the road for what can be the length of a football field.

We have seen drivers texting while driving, we have seen drivers chomping on their dinner whilst driving, and even trimming their long fingernails while transporting their precious cargo...US.

We have also seen and experienced many nasty remarks made to riders who question these offenses.

Such as..."What are you gonna do about it?"  Or "Take a hike."  Or...&^%# off, buddy."

Enough.

Put these people through serious training and monitor them, or fire their butts and get some drivers in there who will respect the riders, and transport them on time and safely.

All the way to the moon and back if they have to.

WHAT WERE THE BUCS OWNERS THINKING?

Just when we think Tampa has attained a world class image, whoooomp.  Something comes along which leaves people shaking their heads and muttering 'what a bunch of roobs they must think we all are.'

'They being all of those people in world class cities who actually have some sense of how important it is for the perception of an ability to field world class sports teams, and leave them to the experienced managers to whom they pay millions of dollars for that yearly huff of a sense of pride which is inhaled when a local team is off to the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, the NBA finals, et al.

This writer is from Chicago, a city known not only for the legions of dead people who vote in every election, but for legendary sports teams and owners and managers of those teams.

Well, ok, being a long time Cubs fan I, too understand the humiliation suffered at the end of a woulda, shoulda, coulda year....we just had one thank you but I digress.

Here's a better example.

Papa Bear George Halas, the inventor of pro football ( you may disagree, but I dont care), and splendid coach who would never have let the McKaskey family (owner of Da Bears ) or players kick his butt or tell him what to do, and about whom one time legendary Bears player and then Bears coach Mike Ditka once opined,"George Halas throws nickels around like they're man hole covers."

A reference to Halas's long time resistance to large salaries ( a better description would be skinflint) for his players who were firmly under his thumb, and who mostly had to have part time jobs in the off season.

Those days of the "Black and Blue" league (a reference to the roughness of play back in the day in the NFC west conference) are long gone and now we are met with players who make enough dough to probably buy what back in the day most major league football teams were worth.

Ditto for the coaches of major league league football teams.

And when Luvie was hired just two years ago to coach the forlorn Bucs, this reporter was thrilled to learn that he would be coaching the football team from my now home town...and I actually started to take interest in the Bucs.

Imagine my surprise when yesterday I saw the headline FIRED on one of the local papers.

Surprise and shock that a team could make a decision to fire a guy who was in the early stages of shaping a world class team, and in the shabby way it was done.

Yeah, I can see why a lot of people around the country are shaking their heads and saying 'What a bunch of roobs.'

In face, down in Gaslight Park, I found myself in the position of being interviewed by another reporter while I was interviewing him, and both of us saying, in effect, what a bunch of roobs' or words to that effect and those words cannot be printed here.

Well, it's a new day, and a new coach is in the offing and a new year for the Bucs, and I have one thing to say about the next Bucs season.

Da Bears.