Logs of Political Wisdom

The Times-Union’s Ron Littlepage is here to extrude logs of his political wisdom, and fortunately for the T-U’s 42 remaining subscribers, he’s got something local to take his mind off The Voldemort of Tallahassee.
Here’s the dullness:

The gloves have come off in the mayor's race, and if he isn't careful, Rick Mullaney is going to earn the nickname "Waa Waa."
We’re not off to a good start here. Ron manages to decry what he considers the roughness of the race and proposes the most unimaginitive nickname ever. But at least he’s not hating on Rick Scott.
Now I can understand why when the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Mike Hogan, Mullaney sniffed that he refused to even interview with the FOP.
If I were running for mayor, in this climate, I wouldn't want the support of the police union either.
I’m confused: he’s a shrewd crybaby? Also, how bizarre would the political climate have to be for Ron to run for mayor? Cats and dogs living together is just a start.
But Mullaney did want the endorsement of JAXBIZ,
I know the organization refers to itself in all capitals letters, but that doesn’t mean you have to, Ron. It looks goofy. Plus, I think there’s an AP style guideline about this. You do know there’s an AP stylebook most newspapers follow, right?
the political arm of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce, and he and his supporters worked hard to get it.
JAXBIZ, however, went the other way and endorsed Audrey Moran.
I’m sure Mullaney wanted that endorsement, but Ron provides no evidence he went after it hard. Nor does he mention why the Chamber is backing Moran, which seems more important than cheap psychoanalysis of Rick Mullaney.
Mullaney's reaction sounded a lot like that of a petulant child.
Maye he’s Oedipal.
He sent out a news release saying the endorsement wasn't worth having because it didn't truly reflect what most of the chamber's members wanted.
I'm guessing if the endorsement had gone his way, the choice would have been brilliant.
No doubt. But here’s an idea: what if you tried to determine if there’s merit to his claim. Do the rank-and-file Chamber members really differ from Jaxbiz? Of course that would require some actual reporting, so, yeah, fuck that.
I'm sure that Mullaney's dissing of the endorsement before it had been publicly announced - despite an agreement from the candidates not to say anything until then - didn't sit well with chamber members who expect agreements to be honored.
The average voter -- me, despite my basement-dwelling status -- doesn’t care about the Chamber’s preferences on disclosure.
Not long after firing off his missive, Mullaney and Moran went at it during the Duval County Republicans monthly meeting Tuesday night.
I was about to fall asleep, but maybe the mayoral candidates were making out..
According to The Times-Union report on that meeting,
Goddammit Ron, this sounds like you weren’t at this meeting, and if you weren’t you shouldn’t opine on it.
Mullaney brought out the tiresome, standard campaign charge that Moran will raise taxes while he promised not to.
That's the same promise Hogan makes, and it's irresponsible of both of them.
True.
This is not a new position for me. I made the same argument when John Peyton first ran for mayor in 2003 and made the same unequivocal promise.
Until you, The Clueless Beard, actually run for office, nobody gives a damn what your position was eight years ago.
It's irresponsible because no one can predict the future. Peyton learned that hard lesson when the economy tanked and the state cut deeply into the revenues the city can collect to balance the budget.
Moran refuses to make the no-tax-increase pledge. Does that mean she will raise taxes, as Mullaney will say every chance he gets? No, she's just being honest.
By the way, Moran isn't going to take Mullaney's attacks without getting right back in his face.
OK, I’m ready for some of that gloveless shit Ron referenced earlier.
One of her comebacks is that a vote for Mullaney is a vote for the incumbent mayor.
Oh, snap! No wait: yawn.
It goes like this: Mullaney was Peyton's general counsel and an adviser.
He was there when the Shipyards project went wrong. He was there when the new county courthouse went wrong.
Don’t write ‘went wrong’ again. Please.
He was there when the city pensions went wrong.
Dammit.
And he was there when the city got taken on the Trail Ridge Landfill deal.
True, and fair points. But that’s not exactly “gloves off” stuff. I’ll concede the gloves are truly off if Mullaney tries to link Moran to her allegedly wife-beating Chief Judge brother-in-law (not true), or if Moran raises questions about Mullaney being Irish and the tendency of  “drunkenness and profligacy associated with that unhappy pack of barefoot savages.”
And with Peyton's father, Herb Peyton, being among Mullaney's biggest financial supporters, it's a charge Mullaney will have a hard time refuting.
The gloves are most definitely off,
No they aren’t
and in the meantime, oh joy, the television campaign ads have started with Mullaney's airing first.
In one, he takes the Rick Scott "fresh face" approach, an interesting ploy since Mullaney has worked in government almost his entire career.
Ding ding ding! I should have known Ron couldn’t get through a column without an utterly feeble Rick Scott takedown.

A sportswriter's rage approaches a Platonic ideal

The latest column from Folio Weekly’s A.G Gancarski is a potent, terrible mix. It combines rage and incoherence and raises the question: Does this sports columnist like anything about sports?
A.G. opens his latest pile of bitter, incoherent invective with the fact that pitcher Bert Blyleven finally got elected to the Hall of Fame. It’s not available on line and typing it all up would make me weep, but let’s hit the lowlights, shall we?
In preceding years, his numbers just weren’t good enough. Now, since he last pitched during the Poppy Bush administration,
Totally irrelevant political reference. The second time he was traded was during the Carter administration.
the question becomes, what exactly made him a more attractive candidate in 2011 than in 2001? The answer, lamentably, has less to do with the journeyman hurler than it does with what happened to the game itself since Blyleven retired.
This setup presents the opportunity to answer that question entertainingly. The short answer is most sportswriters recognize that a pitcher’s won-loss record is a terrible way to evaluate them. Blyleven’s election is an excellent chance to go into that. But that approach would restrict A.G.’s all-encompassing rage. Also, he wasn’t a journeyman, you fuckwit.
Specifically, the ’90s.
So this won’t really be about Blyleven. I hope it won’t be about steroids.
The time when every city with a baseball team felt compelled to build those hitter-friendly bandbox stadiums at taxpayers’ expense -- and why not, given how astronomically awesome the American economy was then?
Yep, he brings up steroids. Next is hacky criticism of Albert Belle and Barry Bonds that every other sportswriter has made.
And, of course, Brady Anderson -- the light-hitting, light-footed shortstop who somehow hit 50 home runs one year, never to come close to that number again.
Anderson was a centerfielder, but whatever. Then he makes fun of Sammy Sosa’s accent, linking him (incorrectly) with the ‘baseball’s been berry berry good to me’ line. Which was Saturday Night Live in the 70s, when Sammy was still a kid in San Pedro de Macoris. Then there’s this.
Yeah, baseball. And your prescribing doctor. And the myopic largesse of the flabby-hearted American taxpayer, deluded into equating the success of a professional sports concern with some vicarious accomplishment of his own.
Baseball+prescribing doctor+fat American taxpayers=what the fuck are you talking about? He then notes that the Hall of Fame inducted Blyleven and Roberto Alomar this year.
Strong choices, both.
Wait, didn’t you imply at the start that Blyleven’s selection was somehow wrong?
Never mind that when these guys were playing, they were built like Superstar Billy Graham at the height of his ’roid-driven performance.
I promise you that string of words appeared in his column. I wish there was a link (as opposed to Folio’s publisher, editor, writers, readers, advertisers, etc.). As far as I know Billy Graham was a non-juicing, non-baseball-playing evangelist.
But we pretended not to notice, because we wanted our heroes, our subjects of masturbatory fantasies.
Again, an actual string of words from A.G. I can’t really call it a sentence. Also, eww.
I remember it like it was yesterday, mostly because, when it was happening, I was an obese social isolate with little to do besides upsize combo meals and peruse prime time professional sports.
Now his simmering rage is starting to make sense. Which makes me wonder, why did Folio give a platform to write about sports to this bitter idiot? This is followed by a tedious rant aimed at Mark McGwire.
HA! Heard of GTMO buddy.
I’m going to assume he’s referring to Guantanamo Bay.
There is no presumption of innocence outside of a sixth-grade social studies text, not in this America,
as opposed to the alternative universe America in which A.G. is clever, articulate, slim and banging a different hottie each night.
where schools churn out semi-literate sociopaths who are ready-made customers of the prison-industrial complex, where they become made men, learning the lessons their gutless fathers couldn’t stick around to teach them.
My head is spinning (figuratively). Given the differences among the races in out-of-wedlock birth rates and incarceration, this sounds racist.
But fear not, all is not lost.
Don’t use the same word twice in a seven-word sentence, unless you’re poetic. And you’re not.
The owners got the ball parks. The juice boys got paid. Why keep them out of the HOF now?
Jesus. Are you now, at the end of your rambling, incoherent screed that suggested steroid users are cheaters who should be shunned from the Hall of Fame, saying go ahead and admit all of them? Stop writing.