Friday Files: Fetish Con, Scott, more
I want to start today’s column by talking about bondage. Whips, chains, fuzzy handcuffs, you name it. This week, Tampa Bay has been abuzz over news that Fetish Con — an annual celebration of all things kinky — has moved its 5,000-attendee show from Tampa to St. Petersburg.
The timing was interesting, because St. Pete’s, er, titillation over landing Fetish Con was juxtaposed with Orange County’s sadness over losing a big Starbucks convention.
We lose the coffee pots. They get the hot-totrots. (Oh, they also get Fetish Con’s fuzzy pink mascot: Bernie BondageBunny.)
So why did Starbucks decide to keep its 10,000 attendees away from Orlando? Well, coffee execs decided they simply didn’t need to hold a convention this year — that they’d rather spend money on technology and new stores.
This is part of a trend, my friends — and why Orange County would be foolish to continue pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a convention center that is already 7 million square feet.
In-person meetings simply aren’t a growing market in our Skype and FaceTime world.
Keep the center up to date. Just don’t grow this deficit-running monster any bigger.
Not unless you want to start catering to niche groups like Fetish Con ... which, for obvious reasons, has to conduct its business in person.
School-testing update
In Sunday’s column, I told you to expect Florida lawmakers to finally start reining in some of the testing insanity that has plagued Florida’s classroom. And Monday, they started doing just that.
Good for them ... except some of their early efforts miss the mark. One bill, for instance, wants to limit testing time to 45 hours a year.
First of all, most parents and teachers aren’t complaining about the actual testing time. They’re irked by all the hoopla surrounding the tests: the drills, the practice tests and all the important curriculum that is cut to make room for the hoopla.
Secondly ... 45 hours ??!! Do you realize how long that is? I’ve seen medical-license tests administered in less time. Should it really be more cumbersome to graduate kindergarten?
A non-Magical moment
So the Magic fired Jacque Vaughn . You know, you can only fire so many coaches before you start to wonder whether the coaches are really the problem. I sure don’t think Stan Van Gundy was.
Political-scandal theater
Last week, I took my family to see “Newsies” at the new performing-arts center. The show featured some of the best dancing I’ve seen in a long time.
Yet that touring Broadway production still wasn’t as perfectly choreographed as Thursday’s meeting of Gov. Rick Scott and his Cabinet members.
They came vowing to get to the bottom of the scandal over an ousted FDLE chief — who said Gov. Rick Scott’s office asked him to fabricate a criminal investigation, campaign on public time and more. But Cabinet members did none of that. Instead, Attorney General Pam Bondi , CFO Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam conducted a master class on cover-ups and buck-passing.
Putnam briefly mentioned he still wanted someone to investigate the claims that Scott’s office had asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to trump up a bogus criminal investigation into a former Orange County clerk. But Scott dismissed Putnam with ease. And that was that. No action taken.
The story won’t end. But the truth will be revealed by the media, lawsuits or maybe an outside prosecutor — not from Florida’s top officials who talked tough about Scott ... until they sat down at a table beside him.
In fact, the whole thing reminded me of a scene from “Newsies” where two paperboys were talking about stories that might sell papers. Asks one: “How ’bout a crooked politician?” Responds the other: “Ya nitwit, that ain’t news no more.”