Blurbex

As you’ve no doubt read by now, the Pinellas-Pasco State State Attorney’s Office has cleared St. Petersburg police officer Terrence Nemeth in the shooting of 17-year-old Gibbs High School student Javon Dawson after the young man allegedly pointed a gun at Officer Nemeth when police arrived to break up an out-of-control graduation party.

Officer Nemeth is still on leave. Dawson’s family is calling the decision a travesty of justice. The Uhurus are making veiled threats of “consequences.” Just yesterday, after protesters descended on his office, Gov. Charlie Crist asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to do its own review of the case. But, if everything reported so far is correct, there’s probably enough evidence here, including DNA and gun residue, to show Dawson did fire a gun at the party.

But there’s an interesting aspect of the case that could have larger consequences for St. Pete in the future.

Take a look at the St. Petersburg Times’ special report on the shooting, and you’ll find a copy of Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe’s memo to St. Pete Police Chief Chuck Harmon that outlines the results of the investigation. In that memo are the names of witnesses that came forward and talked to the state attorney’s office about the shooting.

If you recall the climate surrounding the shooting in June, police and investigators had an extremely difficult time finding witnesses for the case, despite the fact that some 250 kids were present at the graduation party where Dawson was shot. This spurred all types of commentary on the no-snitching code that’s prevalent in many black communities here in Tampa Bay and across the nation.

The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office finally convinced some witnesses to talk, and now, their names are splashed on the Times website for all to see. That includes any Internet-savvy gang members that investigators say Dawson was affiliated with.

I’m not sure how I feel about that.

As a rule, I always err on the side of “the more information, the better.” Sometimes revealing names and confidential information on a subject might be uncomfortable, but that’s our job as journalists.

But if I look at this from another point of view, as someone who regularly goes into communities that are hostile to fact-finding folks like police investigators and journalists, I worry this could have a negative effect on future investigations. If witnesses know their names will end up in print (or on the Web), will they still come forward when the next shooting happens? I’m not faulting the Times — I can’t say for sure if I would or wouldn’t do the same thing — but I am surprised the state attorney’s office didn’t redact any names from the report. Just two weeks ago, I was stonewalled by the SPPD for just trying to get a police report of a 2-year-old art theft. Now, a state agency has released the names of witnesses and perhaps put them in danger.

Again, I’m not passing judgement, only curious on the conversations that did (or did not) go on about the ethics of publishing these kids names.

What do you think?

(Photo Credit: Beard Papa)

In today’s St. Pete Times, political columnist Adam C. Smith says it’s time for Gov. Charlie Crist to forget about any vice presidential aspirations he might still be harboring, citing the “return $50,000 of suspicious campaign donations [to John McCain] funneled through Charlie Crist’s pal and top fundraiser, Harry Sargeant III of Boca Raton.”

Earlier today, Crist appeared on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer and probably did little to boost his chances in McCain’s veep-stakes. Right out of the gate, when Blitzer asked Crist if he’d been through the vetting process for vice president, the governor said he was unable to comment. Blitzer then said, “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

After a brief, awkward pause, Crist responded, “You can take that anyway you want to.”

The balance of the interview consisted of Crist giving his support to McCain, calling him a “maverick” (where have we heard that before?) who opposed President Bush’s 2005 energy policy while Barack Obama voted for it. As he spoke, Crist looked and sounded like he was on autopilot.

When the topic of nuclear energy and Crist’s support for it came up, the guv smarmily pointed out that Blitzer’s mother is a Florida resident. It was a meaningless, patronizing reference (and one that Blitzer quickly moved past) in an otherwise Stepford Wives-like performance. Crist didn’t embarrass himself, but he also didn’t do anything to steal the limelight from Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

So, it finally happens: Airport security has gotten so ridiculous, and we’ve become such fearful little hamsters, that by the end of the year, we’ll all be submitting to electronic strip searches.

I don’t want to linger on the civil liberties questions raised by the Tampa International Airport’s purchase of four body imaging machines. It wouldn’t do much good anyway, TSA already purchased them.

But if you still believe TSA’s good intentions, let me point out three things that seemed to slip by St. Petersburg Times reporters.

First, a quote by our local Transportation Security Administration spokesman John Van Dyke:

“Our goal is to be proficient with them before the Super Bowl,” in Tampa in February, he said.

Mr. Van Dyke seems to imply that these will help keep Tampa and her tourists safe during the Super Bowl. But those scanners would only scan travelers leaving Tampa, not those coming in for the event.

Second, another TSA spokesman, Christopher White, tells the Times that they will protect passenger’s privacy:

Images are deleted after viewing, and officers can’t “save, store, print or transmit” them, said TSA spokesman Christopher White.

Then tell me — how did the Times get a photo for the front of their Metro section? This is not even going into the fact that nearly everyone has cell phone cameras these days.

Third, White claims the images are detailed, but do not show nudity:

He describes the images as robotic, like someone in a tight-fitting leotard. “You can see detail, but it’s not a naked picture,” White said.

So, do you mind telling me what those nipple-like dots are on the breasts of the woman pictured on the Times website?

Someone should’ve told that to Erotic Lounge owner Bill Schramm (left), who was arrested this weekend by St. Petersburg Police after they found a naked man suspended (quite happily) from the gallery’s ceiling during a risque art show.

According to the Times article, Schramm’s bad day started with an enormous penis statue he had installed in front of his Grand Central District gallery. Responding to a complaint, police told Schramm to remove the penis. He refused, citing “art.”

Fast-forward a few hours: gallery patrons are drinking beer and viewing various erotic paintings and sculptures when police descend upon the storefront. Schramm tries to prevent an officer from entering and he’s slammed to the ground and arrested. The police walk inside, demand identification from patrons and then discover a nude model hanging from the ceiling in some sort of harness.

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I was a writer for the St. Petersburg Times from 1987-1993, and one of the first pieces of advice I got (I think I heard it initially from then managing editor Mike Foley) was “get the dog’s name.”

That turned out to be an old journalism saw encouraging writers to get as much detail as possible.

During my tenure at the Times, I don’t remember if I ever got the dog’s name. As the pop music critic, I didn’t have many opportunities (maybe if I interviewed someone at their house and they had a pooch).

Apparently, getting the dog’s name is still part of the modus operandi at the newspaper. In today’s front-page story about a young man, James Kenneth McElroy, who attacked his family in Tampa, Thomas Kaplan writes:

Another neighbor, Bob Torres, 56, never got to meet [the family]. On Tuesday night, Torres and his son had been walking their German shepherd, Jason, when they passed the McElroy family’s small, olive-colored ranch house, its lawn in need of a mowing.

That reads kind of silly to me. I really don’t care what the dog’s name is. As an adage, “get the dog’s name” works, but as far as including it in the copy, not so much.

I’ve attended some lame shit over the years. Poorly planned house parties, disastrous dates, a live sex show in the French Quarter that didn’t feature any actual fucking. But few events have struck me as silly as the Red Bull Flugtag spectacle that took place Saturday at the Tampa Convention Center.

By this point, I’m sure you heard about it. Thirty-six teams built would-be flying machines and ran them off a 30-foot high pier into the notoriously dirty ass Hillsborough River. One or more person piloted the aircraft  and took the plunge. Teammates typically jumped in the brown water after their apparatus for shits and giggles. I stood in the sun, cooking, cringing and losing faith in humanity, myself included.

I kept thinking of that old parental saying about if everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you? In Tampa, apparently that’s the case. Organizers expected a crowd of 50,000 to witness people place themselves in a flimsy contraption and then be willingly hurled into a body of water deemed not fit for swimming. More than 100,000 suckers, myself included, attended.

One of those participants was my coworker, London, the woman pictured working on building an aircraft out of newspaper. Good gawd. Creative Loafing entered the competition as the Bread Winners. Countless hours went into building what they billed as the Flying Cuban Sandwich. “We are closing in on the big day,” reads a message from “The Captain” posted on the Bread Winners’ website July 14. “We still have some work to do in order to make everything originally envisioned a reality, but in another evening we should be all but done.

“The pilot [London] and I spent another night getting some finishing details knocked out after work with a couple of cold beers. We had a mock assembly of our flying Cuban and it was quite a site to behold.”

The damn thing didn’t even have wings. Well, kinda, but they were about as wide as oars. From where I was perched Saturday afternoon it looked like a giant coffin and had me seriously worried that London would not emerge from it, or if she did it would be with some kinda severe spinal or brain injury. Or with a limb missing.

“You know it’s not too late to back out,” I told her about 20 minutes before she took the fall.

“I can’t,” she said, more than a hint of fear in her voice.

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This story falls into the “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” catagory:

Last week, Virgin Mobile and the National Network For Youth embarked on a web campaign to raise clothing donations for homeless youth. Yawn, right? So to ratchet up support for the benefit, they encouraged the young and altruistic to post strip tease videos on their website. The more views on their stripping posts, the more donations of new clothes they’d provide. The website name says it all: Strip2Clothe.com (go ahead, I’ll wait).

Their slogan is just as catchy: “Take off yours, we donate ours.”

Not surprisingly, a firestorm ensued, most notably by some of the charities under the NN4Y umbrella.

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

“Strip2Clothe” has sparked outrage among NN4Y’s own members. Some groups say they were never consulted about the concept and are appalled by the idea of young people stripping as a means to get clothes for other young people. The organizations’ names have since been taken off the site.

“It was a shock to everybody,” said Trudee Able-Peterson, coordinator of outreach services at StreetWorks, a Twin Cities collaborative of outreach programs. “This is the message we send kids? That my granddaughter, who’s 17, should strip to provide clothes for other kids?”

Rebecca Lentz, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities, called it “distasteful and inappropriate and exploitative. We never authorized this nor were we ever approached to be involved.”

At first glance, the concept seems a little edgy and innovative. But then you start thinking about all those homeless youth that are on the street because of sexual abuse. While full nudity is prohibited, there is no limit on ages. Hmmm … on second thought, maybe having young people strip on the web for all sorts of pedophiles is not such a good idea.

The Star-Tribune reports the folks at Virgin Mobile and NN4Y are re-evaluating the concept, too. But they haven’t ended the campaign.

So, what do you think? Were the folks at Virgin (oh!) thinking outside the box, or are they a bunch of pervs?

You know, sometimes this newspaperin’ gig is pretty depressing. Especially when you look at the kind of comments us journalists receive on our online news stories.

Fortunately, here at CL, I think we do pretty good. Our commenters tend to be fairly educated and enlightened folks, despite what their profile icons might tell you.

And, honestly, I don’t mind the online readers over at Tampabay.com either. Sure, you have a disproportionate amount of bitter white hairs, but overall, you can glean some interesting opinions from those comments.

But on TBO.com, the average commenter is a whole ‘nother animal. Consider the comments on yesterday’s story about my namesake, Alexander Pickett, who died after jumping off the Gulfport Pier:

Posted by ( Shadow59 ) on July 9, 2008 at 8:33 a.m.
If he jumped from the pier that doesn’t make him a swimmer, just makes him an idiot.

Posted by ( jdickerson ) on July 9, 2008 at 10:19 a.m.
swimmer or sinker?

Posted by ( Shadow59 ) on July 9, 2008 at 2:18 p.m.
rikasflash-
If you feel my comment was senseless, feel free to jump off the pier in the next storm and see what happens. Unless you think that would be too stupid.

Man, that’s cold.

And then today, in a story about some homeless dude to died on Tampa Street next to a van:

Posted by ( fugger ) on July 10, 2008 at 10:40 a.m.
why is this a story?

Posted by ( DarthRandall ) on July 10, 2008 at 11:21 a.m.
Another senseless Hobocide. How tragic.

Posted by ( Quagmire ) on July 10, 2008 at 11:11 a.m.
Was the homeless man found near an inoperable van down by the river?

Okay, I admit, that last one was pretty funny.

Is anyone with me on this? Examples?

The National Insurance Crime Bureau has released its annual report on the most stolen cars in America, and despite overall auto thefts being down (per the FBI’s early version of their Uniform Crime Report), the same old cars have made the list of most-sought-after by car thieves.

According to the NICB, the 1995 Honda Civic (right) was the most stolen car of 2007, maintaining that distinction for the past four years. I drive a ’98 Civic and I’m lucky my car hasn’t been stolen (yet), despite it getting older, uglier and more dented by the day.

All this time I thought driving an ugly old car was a good preventative against it being stolen.

However, many thieves steal certain cars for their parts rather than their bling factor. Cars that have long-term reliability (like Hondas), as well as cars with several-year streaks without a major redesign, can be valuable because their components last a long time and can be interchangeable between model-years.

Other old cars on the list (more…)

So, I woke up dead this morning. Well, not me, but my namesake, another Alexander Pickett. Another 27-year-old Alexander Pickett.

I got a call this morning from the Creative Loafing HQ after our HR director received some calls about the fellow Pickett, who died last night after jumping off the Gulfport Pier. According to news reports, this man was relaxing with friends and family when he decided to jump into the Gulf. He quickly lost control of the situation and had trouble keeping his head above water. Bystanders and friends jumped in to save him, but he went under and never came back up. Authorities recovered his body about five hours later, 50 feet from where he jumped.

Sad story. My condolences go out to his family. Us Alexander Picketts are good, decent people.

Of course, this is the only other Alexander Pickett I’ve ever heard about. Search my name on Google and you pretty much come up with me. Search my full name, “Alexander Pickett,” and you’ll come up with references to an actor. I can’t find a MySpace page for the dude. No other info on him except for these news reports.

The whole situation is a little surreal, seeing my/his name and age. And living in the same county as me. I keep reading the news reports, my name popping out every time. I wonder if he read Creative Loafing and saw my/his name. I wonder if he hated that, or if he used it to get the ladies. I wonder if I would’ve ever met him and whether we’d be great drinking buddies, just because we share the name.

I was just on that pier a month ago. I remember thinking, “I wonder how deep this water is?” I’ve definitely done some dangerous stunts like smoking salvia and agreeing to be waterboarded. And those are just the ones you read about.

Reminder: Call grandma and save her from a Times-induced heart attack.

Just got another e-mail from someone wondering if I’m alive. It’s touching. Thanks everyone. Sorry, folks, but you can’t get rid of me that easily.

I’m going to keep looking into who this guy was (maybe there will be a photo released?). But in the meantime, tonight, I think I’ll celebrate. Just because I’m alive.

Back in May, I looked at water taxis/ferries as a mode of public transit for Tampa Bay. It’s an innovative idea that has been resurrected many times locally, but always fell flat to finances or bureaucracy.

Well, we just might see one in the near future.

As Times correspondent Alan Snel reports, developer Darren Booth wants to create a water taxi service based out of his Heights project on the city’s riverfront. The water taxi, which would cost $5, would ferry passengers to venues in downtown Tampa.

All in all, it looks like a good plan. But only if people use it.

So, my question is this: If Booth initiates this water taxi to service places like the Tampa Convention Center, St. Pete Times Forum, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and Channelside, would you use it? Is $5 a good deal for not having to worry about parking at each venue?

Tyson Gay, Olympic sprinter, has a problematic last name — at least for the anti-gay American Family Association, whose practice of replacing “gay” with   “homosexual” in news reports has led to some big fun. The ramifications of AFA’s filter problems are detailed on the Poynter Institute’s E-Media Tidbits blog, the Sleuth blog at washingtonpost.com and Jock Talk at outsports.com. As Poynter points out, be sure to read the comments.

It was a good intentioned idea. Really.

On Saturday, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office let area residents turn in their rusty, broken and unwanted guns for a brand-new $25 giftcard to Publix or Wal-Mart.

True, it was a little badly-timed considering the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that unequivocally gives us, the common folk, the right to bear arms. (Bear arms, not bare arms, mind you.) But something else struck me: If the deputies were trying to rid the streets of guns, why did they hand out Wal-Mart giftcards? Doesn’t Wal-Mart sell guns and amunition?

MSNBC and MySpace team up to turn citizen journalism into yet another popularity contest.

Only in baseball: The Angels no-hit the Dodgers — and lose.

It’s Earth vs. the Atom Smasher in the ultimate doomsday showdown.

Gene genie: Woman ensures her baby will be born free of hereditary breast cancer.

The $2.1- million lunch: That’s how much a Chinese investment fund manager has paid to eat with billionaire Warren Buffet.

Send in the clones: George Lucas goes back to the well once again for more Star Wars.

Maybe it isn’t the conservatives Obama should be fearing, but the liberal pundits.

This morning the cardboard sign attached to the St. Petersburg Times  newspaper box I use at the corner of South Howard Ave. and Swan read: “50 cents every day …. Effective Monday, June 30.”

In Tampa, a Times used to cost 25 cents Monday through Saturday and 50 cents only on Sunday.

A 100 percent price jump? Really? Shouldn’t we have had a stopover at 35 cents?

Of course, you can still get tbt* for free, which is a great read, if you have an IQ of, say, 54.

When I heard the news this morning that comedian George Carlin had died yesterday at the age of 71 (not bad for a guy with long-term heart problems and a love of cocaine), I was immediately overcome by the urge to stage my own all-day Carlin Comedy Festival. Alas, Carlin’s death has not yet been made a national holiday, so I am instead at my desk attempting to complete this week’s edition of Creative Loafing for your consumption on Wednesday. That’s an odd conundrum for me, since though I wish I wasn’t at work right now, I wouldn’t be sitting here had I not encountered one of Carlin’s HBO specials in the early 80s (when I was far too young and impressionable to be watching late-night cable TV).

The standard boiling-down of Carlin’s career is as follows: Straight-laced nightclub comic transitions to counterculture icon after seeing Lenny Bruce perform, writes “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” and ends up the impetus for a Supreme Court case that resulted from its airing, performed varied acting duties (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Prince of Tides and Mr. Conductor on TV’s Shining Time Station among them), but remained a dedicated stand-up comic to the end. As of last weekend, Carlin was still performing.

Though true, this rundown largely misses the point for me. Before all else, George Carlin was a linguist and a truth-teller, combining these skills to surgically carve up sacred cows and everyday life alike. The love of language runs through Carlin’s work — from stories of riding the NY subways as a kid listening to the multi-culti accents to his deconstruction of the evolution of the term “shell shock” into “post traumatic stress disorder” — and it was this love that most attracted me to his work. To my ear, Carlin’s routines are more musical performance than stand-up comedy routine.

So, in lieu of my Carlin Comedyfest, here (in no particular order) are 5 of my favorite Carlin moments from YouTube:

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Check out this cool Google map, which tracks newspaper buyouts and layoffs.

Don’t want your unborn baby to grow up gay? The answer may be chemical.

1,500 bid goodbye to Tim Russert at memorial service.

Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama play the “Who’s a prouder American?” sweepstakes. Grand prize? A 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. address.

Wasn’t something like this to be expected? Former Bear Stearns managers get collared for shady dealings in the subprime mortgage market.

It’s not often I’m surprised by an article in one of our local papers. As a native Floridian, few things surprise me about this state anymore (News of the Weird — that’s all I have to say).

But a front page story in today’s Times did it:

Celebratory gunfire is a statewide problem

What?!

From the article:

Celebratory gunfire like the kind that precipitated the fatal shooting of Javon Dawson at a crowded graduation party Saturday night is on the rise around Tampa Bay and the state, causing injuries and even deaths, say law enforcement officials.

This is so much of a problem that St. Pete police even created a public service announcement in April warning party people about the dangers of celebrating with guns (as if the laws of physics are lost on these pistol-wielding revelers).

What is this? Pakistan?!

Anyway, the news about this surrounds the recent shooting of a 17-year-old black teen by a white St. Pete police officer. Last weekend, police responded to a graduation party after calls about celebratory gunfire. According to police, Javon Dawson had a gun and pointed it at police. They shot him twice.

Back to celebratory gunfire: the article above quotes a Gulfport police officer who says on New Year’s Eve, you can’t go 30 seconds without hearing gunfire. In fact, the department even has a special unit to deal with such crimes. I have to admit, I’ve been out of town for New Year’s the past two years. Anybody else hear celebratory gunfire in their neighborhood on New Year’s Eve?

Am I just close-minded and blind to the cultural differences in our state? Or is this quite possibly one of the stupidest trends in Tampa Bay, right after bead throwing?

The St. Petersburg Times has an interesting profile on Tampa’s favorite (confederate) son, Marion Lambert. The South Tampa beekeeper has been a media darlin’ the last week, ever since a massive confederate flag flew on his property at the intersection of I-4 and I-75.The Times article painted the man generally as a gentle Southern enthusiast, who snookered the county officials when he applied for the proper flag permits. But when I interviewed Lambert on Friday, I saw an angry, almost bitter man.

True, Lambert is a gentleman. Before he arrived at his house from a late bee removal job, his family showed me some true Southern hospitality. Then he gave me a nice tour of his five-acre farm.”I’m a very liberal person in my heart,” he told me during our first few minutes together. “I’m a very conservative person in my brain.”

He even used to be a hippie. Well, I’ll be …

But don’t let Lambert fool you: he knows full well that this stunt is divisive, even if he doesn’t believe in the flag’s links to slavery. In one of the most unusual analogies I’ve ever heard, he compares the flag going up to “childbirth,” in that the act will cause a lot of pain and agony, but in the end a more perfect truth will be born.

Did I mention the guy is a born-again Christian?

“We found ourselves marginalized, put on the back table of the community,” he said, railing against the decision to remove the confederate flag from the county seal and other slights. “The only way we could get their attention is to slap them in the face, and slap the community in the face.”

He knows the power he has over the commissioners, especially after they practically begged him to not fly the flag at last week’s commission meeting. This is how he describes county commissioner Rose Ferlita:

“I saw Rose Ferlita look at me like a puppy instead of an angry dog.”

An edited version of the interview will hit the streets and Web site on Wednesday, but for now, here’s the full version (after the jump): (more…)

Last night, I had to recycle something fierce.

I was on vacation in Iowa all last week, and when I came home there was a mound of soda cans, plastic jugs, beer and wine bottles against my back door. (Thanks roomie!) For the rest of Pinellas County, this wouldn’t present a problem: you just carry the items a few feet to the curb.

But, alas, I live in St. Petersburg, where the only thing lacking more than curbside recycling is police officers.

As the last bit of light left the sky, I loaded the recyclables in my car and trucked them to a nearby recycle center at Crescent Lake. I pulled in just as another guy in a red Jeep threw his last beer bottles in a huge green dumpster and left.

I parked and began throwing my own recyclables in. The cans clinked. The paper swooshed. And the beer and wine bottles crashed. Loudly.

As I strolled back to my car, I heard a disembodied voice yelling about “smashing glass.” It was dark and I couldn’t find the man with my eyes. I called out, “Where are you yelling from?”

“Right here,” he replied. I looked behind a dumpster toward the street and spotted him: A hefty, middle-aged man. Despite the lack of light, I knew his face was beet red.

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