Blurbex

(Photo by Franki Weddington, CL Staff Intern)

Hani Shihada’s art might not be on display in the Tampa Museum of Art (which would be difficult, given that it is in the process of being torn down and rebuilt), but his work in the One City Center brick plaza a few blocks from the museum is garnering attention anyway.
Shihada is a chalk artist who creates murals on city sidewalks.

“I do mostly Michelangelo because people are familiar with it,” Shihada said Friday afternoon, on day two of his outdoor art exhibit-in-progress. “It gets a reaction, which brings attention to my own work.”

(Photo by Jason Kushner, CL Staff Intern)

Shihada, who usually works in New York City, is visiting as part of the Tampa public arts program. Shihada has been creating his sidewalk masterpieces for nearly 30 years and says that it usually takes about three days, or 40 hours, of work, to complete his pieces. He will be working on his current drawing in the afternoons and evenings in the Poe Plaza Amphitheatre along Franklin Street just south of Jackson Street until Monday.

After so much work and so many hours, it seems natural that an artist would be attached to his work—which can be a problem for someone whose art can be washed away even by a light rain. Shihada says it doesn’t bother him.

“I’m not sad to see it go,” he said. “I create art to interact with the public, and my work does that. It has accomplished its goal, so I’m never upset when it washes away.”

(Photo by Franki Weddington, CL Staff Intern)

Bookmark to:

The Bleepin Truth has the video of their waterboarding demonstration up on their site. Besides the video of my experience, and a brief interview, they have two videos of my fellow “detainee” Dennis Ruppert. If you haven’t read my blog item about it, check it out here.

Follow the jump for a few more photos of the mock interrogation taken by Dustin Mathews.

(more…)

Bookmark to:

I hate:

• that rumors of Stevie Wonder playing Tampa Bay are unfounded.

• when someone says “print is dead.”

• that Omar on The Wire is dead.

• that I only get to the beach three or four times a year.

• Ben Affleck less than I used to.

• fruit in my beer.

• Donald Trump.

• that my colleague Sal won’t accept my challenge to Indian wrestle.

• that almost everyone uses “forever” to mark the past: “Oh, I haven’t seen you in forever.”

• that when you get to a certain age, hairs starts to sprout on your ears.

Bookmark to:

Not that I want to speak ill of the recently deceased conservative icon William F. Buckley, and his positive contributions to political thought notwithstanding, but this ignorant quote attributed to him really rankles my inner Beatlemaniac.

Bookmark to:

One thing I’ve noticed since moving back to Florida is the large amount of liberal activist Christians that make their home in the Tampa Bay area.

Rev. Bruce Wright of the Refuge, the Unitarian Universalists and other liberal congregations make up large contingents of the peace movement. They also typically speak out on gay rights as well as issues affecting the area’s poor and homeless.

The national movement of open-minded religious folks seems to have noticed. Starting tomorrow, the “Everything Must Change Tour” gathers at the First Baptist Church (1900 Gandy Boulevard North) for two days of talks, workshops and generally uplifting socializing. The highlight of the event is a presentation by author/activist Brian McLaren, who wrote Everything Must Change (hence the name of the tour).

Says the press release:

The Tour will involve a wide range of people and communities - people who recognize that our world is in deep trouble but who have lost confidence in status-quo politics, science, business, or organized religion to come to the rescue; people of faith who are seeking ways to make a constructive, creative difference; people who identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious”; people who have confidence in Jesus but feel the American church too often misses the point of Jesus’ message for the world; current or former pastors and church leaders who are wondering why things don’t seem to “work” in church today as they used to, along with creative emerging leaders with a fresh vision and hope.

For more information, and to register, visit deepshift.org or call the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church 1-800-282-8011

Bookmark to:

Remember the double-shocker to the alt-weekly world back in October, when Orlando Weekly and Phoenix New Times staffers found themselves facing arrests and subpoenas after writing several critical articles on local police?

Well, the papers have finally reached some closure.

The Orlando Weekly’s blog reports the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation dropped its racketeering charges against the paper:

Breaking: The MBI has dropped its racketeering charges against the Orlando Weekly, as well as misdemeanor and felony charges it filed against three Weekly employees last October for  selling ads to prostitutes. As it turns out, the MBI brain-trust hit a small hitch - there’s not really anything illegal about that.

Per the settlement, the three employees will enter into what’s called pre-trial diversion - the same thing that happened to Buddy Dyer when the state dropped charges against him in 2005. The paper also agreed to stop running the Adult Services ads, and reimbursed the MBI $10,000 for its investigation.

Over in Phoenix, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office dropped charges on New Times founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin months ago. And now the New Times is filing a formal Notice of Claim, a precursor to a lawsuit:

The notice, required under Arizona law before government officials can be sued, paints a political landscape gone awry, with public servants turning taxpayer-supported institutions on end in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, due process, and the right of a free press to operate without intimidation.”This is not a decision undertaken lightly,” said Michael Lacey, executive editor of Village Voice Media, which owns New Times, and who, along with CEO Larkin, founded the paper. “We are not an organization, and Larkin and I are not individuals, that sue people. It’s just not what we do. But I feel like if we don’t do something, it’s an invitation for this kind of behavior to continue.”

The “behavior” to which Lacey referred was particularly chilling: a special prosecutor running amok, issuing overbroad and unconstitutional subpoenas aimed at the reading and browsing habits of citizens; a vendetta by Sheriff Joe Arpaio against New Times and its staff, the arrests of the paper’s executives on petty charges in the middle of the night by members of the sheriff’s clandestine Selective Enforcement Unit.

“What emerges is one of the most nakedly oppressive, conscience-shocking assaults on a free press by police and prosecutors in U.S. history,” observes New Times lawyer Michael Manning in the Notice of Claim.

For more info on the notice of claim, click here.

For the backstory, check out the story I wrote back in October.

Bookmark to:

Dennis Ruppert, a personal trainer and former anti-terrorism specialist, undergoes a mock interogation — including waterboarding — on Dale Mabry Highway.

_
Last night, two people were waterboarded in Tampa. One of them was 44-year-old Dennis Ruppert, a personal trainer and a former anti-terrorism specialist. The other was, well, me.

Organized by The Bleepin’ Truth, a local cable access and online debate program, Ruppert and I volunteered to undergo this form of interrogation (or torture, depending on your view) on camera. Chris Krimitsos, host of the show, said he wanted to give viewers an idea of what waterboarding really is.

“We did a debate on waterboarding a while back and most of our crew didn’t know what it was,” he said. “They know the word, but they don’t know exactly what it is.”

He’s right, which is why I agreed to endure it.

(more…)

Bookmark to:

… unless you have a fully-charged laptop.

The Tribune reports on the latest outages.

Bookmark to:

My senior editor Eric Snider just reminded me of a story printed in the St. Petersburg Times this weekend about Baldwin, a small town near Jacksonville which passed an ordinance this month banning the fashion fad of sagging pants. (The city of Opa-Locka, near Miami, passed a similar law last year.)

The new law in this little place in northeast Florida makes it illegal within town limits to wear baggy, below-the-butt pants, and comes with punishments ranging from 40 hours of community service to a $500 fine. The five-person Town Council passed it last month unanimously.

Baldwin has joined a debate that’s gone national, raising issues of freedom of expression, indecent exposure and the possibility of racial profiling because the majority of the wearers of the baggy pants are young, black and mimicking hip-hop stars.

The article reminded me of another sagging pants story I’ve kept on my desk for several weeks:

Last month, Gary Siplin, a Democratic state senator from Orlando, introduced (for the third time) a bill to require students in public school to “pull up those pants, boy!” Violators who expose their underwear would face phone calls to their parents and a second offense would be a three-day suspension. If that young whippersnapper hasn’t learned his lesson, he’ll get 10 days suspension for his third offense. The bill already passed the majority-Republican Pre-Kindergarten-12th Grade Education Committee and could go to the Senate floor next month.

How’s that for bipartisanship!

I’m not going to spend a lot of time mentioning several school districts, including Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, already have rules that restrict “sagging.” Or go into the fact that prohibiting a fashion fad by state law will only make it even more fashionable.

I’m just going to give you Gov. Crist’s comment on SB 302 as reported by the Associated Press: “Style is not my issue.”

Thoughts?

Bookmark to:

I hate …

• Guys who say “awwwwwww.”

• that the only wall calendar left in the office has pictures of kittens and puppies.

• lima beans.

• seeing that flashing “Congestion Ahead” sign on the Tampa side of the Howard Frankland Bridge when I’ve already crawled across the bridge at 2 mph.

• that pundits are calling Obama crowds creepy and cultish. Dude gets people pumped up; what’s wrong with that?

• that Michael Clayton is up for a Best Picture, while Into the Wild could only scrape together nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Hal Holbrook) and Film Editing.

• Kobe Bryant.

• that this is the last season of The Wire. (Omar had better off Marlo Stansfield or I’m gon’ be pissed.)

• that cinnamon buns are bad for you.

• that the notion of a “cold snap” will soon be a memory — until NOVEMBER.

Bookmark to:

An authentic drawing by the late Walt Disney — or not? That’s the question in  this week’s Urban Explorer.

Also: Don’t miss Frank Roder, vice president of the Southeast Seminole Heights Civic Association, in this week’s Influencers.

Bookmark to:

During last week’s extensive media coverage of a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputy dumping a quadriplegic out of his chair at Orient Road Jail, you might have missed the widely viewed video of a Baltimore cop berating a 14-year-old skateboarder. It’s quite possibly the best YouTube video I’ve seen since the Gainesville tasing incident.

Last week, the Baltimore Police Department suspended Officer Salvatore Rivieri for taking down a skateboarder in a headlock and scolding him for “disrespect.”

Here’s the video:

I’m officially inducting the cop’s quote, “I’m not ‘man.’ I’m not ‘dude.’ I am Officer Rivieri!” to the YouTube Phrase Hall of Fame, joining “Don’t Tase me, bro!” and Mitt Romney’s ”Who let the dogs out? Who, who.”

The whole episode reminded me of a Sticks of Fire post from last week that  pointed out the arrests of a few Tampa skateboarders. Really, why do cops hate skateboarders so much?

But if you thought Officer Rivieri’s 15-minutes of fame was over, check out this new video where the plump police patroller goes ballistic over an art student’s use of a remote control car:

Out of control cop? Abuse of power? Should the Baltimore Police Department institute diversity training?

Naw. After seeing the second video, I’m blaming Officer Rivieri’s anger on having to ride in that dorky little car all day.

Bookmark to: