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Nattering nabobs give folks lots to beef about
© St. Petersburg Times Come and listen to my story 'bout a chief named Joe, just a poor local lawman orderin' food to go. The burgers were late and tempers flared and 'fore he knew it he was on the air. Television, that is. Radio, even newspapers -- Chase Squires and Jan Glidewell with apologies to Paul Henning, who wrote a similar song about Jed Clampett, Black Gold and Texas Tea. And apologies are due. Inverness business owner Reva Nelson, speaking at an Inverness City Council meeting where the city's burger wars were being discussed, said, and I quote: "Doesn't Inverness have anything good or better to talk about? We're like the Beverly Hillbillies around here." Just as I once felt I had to make amends to zoo keepers and residents across the nation for having compared Port Richey politics to a zoo, I now feel compelled to apologize for Ms. Nelson's remark to Nancy Kulp, Buddy Ebsen, Max Baer Jr., Donna Douglas, Irene Ryan and all of the other cast and crew members of the Beverly Hillbillies. I should apologize instead of Ms. Nelson because as Inverness resident Joe Bega explained at the same meeting, it was the "irresponsible media" that brought about the entire situation anyhow. I agree. If a city employee whom city officials have given the power of life and death (somebody has to say "green light" to a SWAT team) to a petty tyrant who abuses his authority by having an innocent merchant arrested for not cooking his burgers fast enough, it is absolutely nobody's business, and Inverness residents and merchants should be thrilled at the opportunity to be handcuffed and taken away any time they are late or sloppy with meals, dry cleaning or making change for a lunch of Slim Jims, Moon Pies and RC Cola. Or if Police Chief Joe Elizarde's version of what occurred at Happy Dayz Diner on New Year's Day is correct, then it is equally nobody's business that they are in danger of being assaulted if they calmly and politely raise a question about the quality of service. Either way, as Bega pointed out, the demon media should have kept their yaps shut until the entire matter was investigated. That is because it is good to live in a society in which people can be hauled away in handcuffs without anyone asking why or where, and in which the government investigates itself in private for alleged abuses of its citizens and then, when and if it feels like it, releases the one and only version of the facts. It is a system that has worked well over the years in Chile, Afghanistan, Iraq, China and Alabama. People in the news business have too much power and can make society and government do anything we want. That is why we now have national health insurance, George Bush kept his promise to do something about drug prices for seniors just like his dad did about raising taxes and Bill Clinton did about gays in the military. It is also why George McGovern was elected president in 1972, the Vietnam war ended in 1969 and all of the confusion has been removed from advertising cell phone service. As for sounding like the Beverly Hillbillies, I was thinking more along the lines of The Andy Griffith Show, with Barney begging Andy to give him his bullet because there is serious dawdling going on over at KFC. Hey, when important people in your town act like hyperactive middle schoolers and you live within spitting distance of a town like Inglis, where the mayor used her official authority to ban Satan from the city limits, you have to take what goes with the territory. By the way, I saw a letter after the Devil got the heave-ho from Inglis in which a writer calling himself Satan purported not to have any interest in a town that he referred to as boring. If he ever does drop in, I contend he will be coming from the North (Tallahassee) so we will be spared the results of him stopping off in Inverness for lunch and getting caught in a cross-fire.
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Times columns today Gary Shelton Jan Glidewell Ernest Hooper From the Times North Suncoast desks |
