Author: Trish

The results are in, and one thing is certain: Floridians wouldn’t want the next reality show to feature a comatose woman whose husband and parents are battling each other to take her off life support.

According to multiple reports, including the Miami Herald,

From the president to the governor to legislators to judges to reporters, nearly every outsider involved in the Terri Schiavo tragedy is viewed unfavorably by Floridians, who frown most heavily on those who intruded the most…

The research was conducted by Quinnipiac University. For some reason, the news media took the biggest hit, and rightly, the Supreme Court got the least criticism. Personally, I still blame Jeb for getting involved early and often.

”I think this is a case of shooting the messenger,” Clay F. Richards, pollster for the university, said Wednesday. “And there was fatigue. This was on television and in the newspapers constantly and people just wanted this to go away. The Supreme Court got a pass because it just stayed out.”

Following the news media in descending order, Floridians viewed these entities less favorably than ”favorably:” Congress, the Florida Legislature, Gov. Jeb Bush and President Bush, the federal courts and the state courts. The poll showed, however, that both Bushes’ job-approval ratings in general held constant.

Jeb’s reaction to the news? Pure Jeb:

”I don’t know where Quinnipiac University is, for starters,” Bush said Wednesday. “Secondly I didn’t do it for polls or politics. When you are in this position you can’t be driven by polls. It’s just not appropriate.”

Of course, party affiliation made a difference. Republicans, as their puppet-masters knew they would be, were more evenly split.

However, the actions of the Republican lawmakers in Washington and Tallahassee proved almost as popular as it was unpopular with GOP voters — underscoring the logic behind a well-publicized ”talking points” memo that noted the case was “a great political issue.”

While Florida’s new senator, Mel Martinez, disgraces himself and the state, veteran Sen. Bill Nelson continues to do the right thing. The St. Petersburg Times covered his press conference yesterday with California Sen. Barbara Boxer, where he announced he is blocking Bush’s pick to lead the EPA. Nelson is leading a group of Democratic senators who oppose an EPA study in Northeast Florida of the effect of pesticides on babies.

“The government should not be asking families to turn their babies into guinea pigs,” Nelson said.

Despite its snappy name – CHEERS (Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study) and partial funding of $2.1-million from the American Chemistry Council, the chief lobbying group for chemical companies, Nelson thinks it might not be such a good idea to test pesticides on newborns.

According to an EPA brochure distributed in parts of Jacksonville, the two-year study was designed to help the government learn more about the effects of pesticides on children; it is open to any family with an infant up to three months old, or between the ages of nine and 12 months.

Participants must agree to use household pesticides and to allow periodic visits from EPA researchers. They must collect food and urine samples from their children and record their infants’ behavior with a videocamera.

In return, the families get $970, a T-shirt and a calendar. They also get to keep the videocamera.

Well, who could pass up a t-shirt and a camcorder? Especially when it could be years and years before the effects of those chemicals show up. By then, if history is any indication (remember the movie, A Civil Action?), it will be impossible to directly prove it was the pesticides that produced Johnny’s horrible disease.

Florida is stuck with Mel Martinez, but that makes it even more important to support a really true public servant like Sen. Bill Nelson next year.

Florida Politics has done an early and masterful job of exposing freshman Florida Sen. Mel Martinez as the weasel he is. Almost all Florida’s major newspapers are running editorials about Mel’s tried and true pattern of slinging the slime and then hiding behind aides or other scapegoats, and FlaPol has the complete round-up. Considering that Mel did the impossible during the last election cycle – actually make me support Bill McCollum* – I am not at all surprised. But as the blog points out, Florida’s stuck with this jack-ass for six long years.

* Actually, I was only pulling for Bill in the Republican primary, in which I cannot vote.

The Florida House is looking into how best to stamp out freedom of speech and thought on college campuses. The bill was inspired by the works of David Horowitz, Fruitcake Nutcase. The Southwest Florida Herald Tribune reported today:

David Horowitz was the only invited speaker Tuesday for an unusual meeting of the House Education Council to discuss an “Academic Freedom” bill sponsored by the council’s chairman, Ocala Republican Rep. Dennis Baxley…

Horowitz is author of the recently published “Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left,” which asserts that “America’s liberals and radical Muslims stand on suspiciously similar ground in refusing to condemn Islam’s terrorism, in criticizing America and the West, and in opposing efforts to export capitalism and democracy,” according to a blurb at Amazon.com.

Baxley filed House Bill 837 after a meeting last year in St. Louis where Horowitz spoke. Horowitz’s group, Students for Academic Freedom, has pushed virtually identical bills in a number of states.

This thing stinks so bad even Jeb is keeping his distance, explaining his position with his usual charm.

But he added that he isn’t likely to sign the bill should it make a long-shot journey to his desk. “The eight ball says, ‘Outlook not so good,'” he said.

The bill would protect young people from the bother of having to consider points of view unlike those of their parents and high school gym teachers.

A portion of the bill says students should not have their academic freedom “infringed upon by instructors who persistently introduce controversial matter into the classroom that has no relation to the subject of study and serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose.”

Baxley cited “totalitarian niches” in campuses that are “bastions of leftist thought,” saying tenured professors ruin conservative students’ grades and conservative professors’ careers.

I almost hope the bill makes it. As Cokie Roberts said of presidential term limits awhile back, Republicans were aiming at Roosevelt but they shot Eisenhower and Reagan. Certainly Florida’s Republicans, who recently decided “eight is NOT enough,” and upped the years one could serve in the House to 12, discovered this after they became the majority party. Suddenly term limits didn’t seem quite so groovy. I could easily see arch-conservatives, not unlike Horowitz himself, facing the same fate this bill proposes for liberals.

But it sounds like the Florida Gops have thrown in with a winner.

Only Horowitz was invited to speak in the House Education Council “workshop” Tuesday. He frequently flouted protocol by speaking out of turn until Rep. Ralph Arza, R-Hialeah, brusquely ended an exchange between Horowitz and a Democrat lawmaker.

In a series of press releases, House Democrats hammered Horowitz, citing his “extremism” in stances against evolution and blaming Rodney King for causing the Los Angeles riots for failing to lie prone during his arrest.

Gotta weigh in on this one: the New York Times reported today that 93% of silicone breast implants rupture within 10 years. Whoa! But it’s O.K., a panel of experts is on the job.

The experts are to decide by April 13, the last day of the hearings, whether the implants are safe enough to be approved for wide use. The Food and Drug Administration then decides whether to follow the recommendation.

The panel voted, 9 to 6, in October 2003 to approve silicone implants. In an unusual move, its chairman later wrote a letter to the F.D.A. urging that it reject the recommendation.

They voted to approve?? Wha?

The crucial issues are how often the implants break, what happens to the silicone when they rupture and what health effects result.

Yes that would pretty well cover the critical issues. Let’s see, a couple of pints of liquid silicone are loose in my bloodstream. Nah, I can’t see a problem. In fact, the new president of the plastic surgeons, who is on the payroll of implant manufacturers, feels the same way: The news is “surprising,” – Yes, let me think about it for a minute…What the hey? Let’s keep using them anyway!

Dr. Mark Jewell, president elect of the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, said he was surprised that the agency had estimated that silicone implants failed so often.

“That’s certainly news and does need to be addressed,” said Dr. Jewell, who has consulted for Inamed and Mentor. “But I feel that the devices should be approved.”

Important issues are at stake here, like how a woman feels about not having men stare at a region approximately 12 inches below her chin when she speaks.

Underlying the scientific issues are deeply emotional questions about self-image. Physicians are allowed to use silicone implants for women who need reconstructive surgery after major illnesses like cancer. Broader approval would most likely accelerate the growing popularity of breast-enhancement operations.

Some advocates believe such operations should be discouraged. Others say larger breasts can provide women with important help for self-esteem.

Yeah, what’s a little silicone in the blood compared to such important help? Thank goodness science is so responsibly watching out for women.

Florida Democrats took a shot today at one of the things Jeb points to as a glowing success: the state’s failing public education system. A press release from the House Democratic Caucus said:

Since Gov. Jeb Bush took office, student performance has significantly dropped as more and more emphasis has been placed on a school’s overall grade on the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT). Barely half of Florida children are reading at grade-level, resulting in the nation’s worst high school graduation rate, with just over 50 percent of all high school students graduating. According to recent data, Florida students rank 44th and 48th in the nation respectively on the verbal and math portions of the college-entrance SAT.

Small wonder. Under Jeb’s plan public schools have changed from places where kids learn about the world and develop a direction in life to institutions fighting for their existence. All other studies are subordinated to the narrow range of skills tested on the FCAT – gone are subjects like social studies, civics, art, music, science. Incredibly, with the obesity epidemic facing so many children, physical education classes have also been nixed.

Jeb’s reward/punishment system means that schools which do well on the FCAT continue to be fully funded. In one case, a school in a prestigious area was reportedly given such lavish bonuses for its FCAT scores that students, most already well-to-do, were taken on a field trip to a theme park. Meanwhile schools that struggle – for example, because they serve largely non-English speaking students or have a lower property tax base – see their funding drained away.

A lot of that money ends up in private hands, via vouchers. Florida’s voucher system has been as scandal-plagued as every other privatization initiative in the state, including money going to “schools” whose campuses are P.O. boxes, as well as schools run by terrorist sympathizers. Democrats said today that Jeb’s system is ruining Florida’s economy.

The Republican education system is having a serious negative impact on our economy. In March, the Palm Beach Post reported that Citrix, a large South Florida software company is looking to grow outside of Florida, primarily because our schools are not preparing students for tomorrow’s high-tech jobs…In their landmark New Cornerstone Report, the Chamber wrote that “basic education skills are weak…skilled labor (is) in short supply in many industries…advanced science and engineering skills also remain limited…technology discovery, development and deployment remains unbalanced.”

The plan announced by the Democrats doesn’t sound as if it broke new ground, but at least it’s a start.

The Democrats’ plan is partially based on a 2004 report authored by the University of South Florida’s Dr. Sherman Dorn, written for the Tallahassee-based think tank Civic Concern…

The Democrats’ plan would also overhaul the school grading system, by moving away from a system of grading schools A-F to a system that designates schools as “Passing with Distinction,” “Passing,” or “Failing.” The plan would also reduce the weight of school FCAT scores in determining a school’s overall grade and add new factors, such as parental involvement, school discipline, average class size and drop-out rates.

Headline over at WTF Is It Now?

“President Bush offers condolences to Pope’s wife, family”

The first person to feel the political fall-out from the Terri Schiavo fight is the big guy, himself: Jeb. The Southwest Florida Herald-Tribune says the lame duck probably sacrificed this year’s legislative agenda to his ongoing efforts to assert his will in the right-to-die case.

Medicaid reform, limits on legal settlements paid by businesses, elimination of a tax break for wealthy investors and rules to control growth in Florida were four of Bush’s major agenda items when lawmakers began the two-month session in March.

But to varying degrees, lawmakers are poised to only tiptoe forward. And next year, lawmakers may not have the appetite for a major agenda as they hit the campaign trail in 2006, Bush’s last year in office.

Nah, there’s still plenty of time, Jeb sputtered as he dipped his beak just below the water.

Bush acknowledged the nearly monthlong debate over the Schiavo case slowed progress.

“This issue transcends politics,” he said, “so yes, it’s taken — deservedly so — it’s taken some attention away from other matters. Having said that, we have time to deal with the policy initiatives.”

I don’t know, Jeb. The hotly contested and very high stakes battle over slot machines in Broward and Dade counties, as well as the Senate President’s personal goal of passing lobbying reforms might crowd your “starve the poor, feed the rich” agenda. Speaking of which, please pass the orange marmalade.

Why is it all religions have their bonko looney branch? The next Pope will have his hands full, trying to keep one church in place. With idiots like Father Frank Pavone, I can see deep division ahead. The L.A. Times ran a story about a new movement this fruitcake – fresh from the Terri Schiavo fight – is founding with full church backing.

The Roman Catholic Church plans to establish its first religious society devoted exclusively to fighting euthanasia and abortion, church leaders said this week.

The male-only Missionaries of the Gospel of Life — founded by Father Frank A. Pavone, an outspoken opponent of abortion rights — will be housed in a vacant Catholic high school and dormitory on the grounds of the Diocese of Amarillo.

The order will have a decidedly political bent, and will be active rather than contemplative, Pavone said.

Is it me, or is it just wrong for men to be in charge of whether women have abortions? There, I said it.

Its priests will be trained to conduct voter-registration drives, use the media to get out their antiabortion message and lobby lawmakers to restrict abortion rights.

They also will learn to lead demonstrations outside offices where abortions and family-planning services are provided.

More harassment of family planning clinics is not what this world needs.

Healthcare professionals and women’s right advocates often criticize such tactics as acts of intimidation intended to shame women who already are facing difficult decisions

If there is increased activity of that sort, Planned Parenthood said, money likely will be diverted from healthcare to security. And if women are afraid to go to area clinics, the number of unintended pregnancies could rise, the group’s statement said.

That’s O.K. Just send the babies to the Catholic orphanage.

A religion is a ladder that is used to climb the heights of spirituality, but it must not be confused with those heights. People very seldom get into arguments over spirituality, but they often get into conflicts – even wars – over religion. There are an infinite number of paths to Truth, but only one journey. In spirit, we are one. – Greg Barrette