06.25.18- It’s Wabbit Season!
“It’s wabbit season,” said Elmer Fudd on the Bugs Bunny cartoons. And now, it’s wabbit season here.
OK, it’s not really wabbit season, but it is election season. Friday was the official filing deadline for candidates in most races that will be on your ballot in August or November.
It’s interesting to see we will have a Democratic Primary in the District 2 County Commission race. Democratic primaries have been rare in these parts.
It was also interesting to see that candidates from both sides of the political spectrum failed or nearly failed to meet the qualifying requirements for their races.
It was funnier to see that they went on to blame the Supervisor of Elections Office or the State for their inability to comply and be qualified on time.
Ultimately the responsibility falls to the candidate and not being ready for prime time makes this more like Wabbit Season than we would like to see!
06.26.18- Call me CATMAN!
I am considering embarking on a super hero career. I think I’ll be CatMan!
Florida Today reported that over the weekend a conservative person was eating at a Cocoa Village Vegan restaurant (why is beyond me). The server was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a cat silhouette logo that was adorned in rainbow colors. Underneath the logo were the words, “Stray Pride.”
The patron was offended, believing the shirt to endorse gay pride, and took to an online venue to call the establishment “heterophobic”.
Whoa! Slow down everyone! We are all just a bit too ready to be offended. It would help if we would take time to read the shirt and understand its cause (pet adoption).
Instead we fly off the handle, make outlandish accusations and fail to see the humor or the message.
Lighten up, enjoy the subtleties and don’t make me go all CatMan on you!
06.27.18- Candidate reactions tell us much!
Candidate education 101 says that if you have campaign signs, someone is going to mess with at least some of them.
When that happens, unless you have a candidate on tape messing with another candidate’s signs, write it off as a cost of campaigning and be a big boy about it.
Cocoa Mayor Henry Parrish apparently has not learned these basic lessons. He recently placed a sign near the property of an opponent’s supporter. The supporter, saying the sign was banging up against his building, removed it and threw it on the ground.
Parrish has this on video and tried to make a mountain out of this molehill in the press and social media. It doesn’t help him that the supporter is likely Brevard’s most powerful lobbyist!
His opponent pointed to how such things are handled as being an indicator of how one will serve the people.
At least one person in the race has gotten down the basics.
06.28.18- When your protest is REALLY too little, too late
What if you planned a protest, but there was no issue to highlight? It happened to several left leaning groups on Wednesday as the members took to protesting in front of Bill Posey’s office at the Viera government center.
Several Brevard activist groups, including United Third Reich (Bridge), Speak Out Brevard and the county’s Democratic Party, had scheduled the Wednesday protest, but by the time they got to the party their key issue was gone! The president had already issued an executive order and a federal court had issued a ruling that illegal immigrant families be reunited within 30 days.
So, what did our merry band of protesters do? They protested anyway. By the way, Bill Posey co-sponsored legislation to require families in those circumstances be reunited the week before the protest…so why were they protesting him?
You may want to ask Sanjay Patel, Posey’s Democratic opponent in November. He was there…and this was more campaign stunt than anything meaningful!
06.29.18- The Music of Our Lives- or Hey! You, Get Off My Lawn!
For many of us the 1970’s were a time of great music. From hard driving rock and roll to beautiful ballads and even disco, the music of that era was some of the best ever produced. It survives into today.
The fact that generations beyond us 70’s kids may not get or even like it is a bit perplexing, but it is the way of entertainment.
The mid-1970s were crowded with Barry Manilow hits. They should have been; Manilow is a musical genius who still sells out in his Las Vegas shows. The hits Barry Manilow produced took us to school dances, the pizza place on Friday nights and swimming pools in summer. They will live forever.
But not without an unexpected turn along the way. Manilow hits are now being played by California Rite Aid stores to keep vagrants and loiterers from hanging out around the stores.
When the music of our lives becomes the equivalent of bug spray for the masses, it’s a sad day indeed!