Blog de León

Rosa and Wilhelmina and Carrie

2005-10-27T14:51:00.000-05:00

A tense, inter-racial public demonstration becomes heated when white youth form a counter-demonstration on Dec. 27, 1956.
(Florida Photographic Collection)

This week, the pearly gates are held open for Rosa Parks, and St. Peter announces that the front row has been reserved since 1955. That's when she used her NAACP training to stage a public protest. It worked, and worldwide attention was focussed on Montgomery and the gothic Deep South, cradle of the Confederacy — swarming with racial antipathy.

But in Florida, FAMU students Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Paterson did not have formalized NAACP training. They had not steeled themselves in the art of public demonstration, and they were not — in the white parlance of the day — "put up to it." Jakes and Paterson were just students on their way across Tallahassee using public transportation.

Let us remember Parks, but let us not forget Jakes and Paterson.

These two college students transformed black life in Tallahassee, and their simple act of defiance radicalized a generation of leaders. The business community, the professors at FAMU and the religious community were led by the Rev. C.K. Steele. He and King were old Morehouse men, and their paths would cross again upon the creation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

In 1956, the thought of daughters suddenly on a bus next to a black man was too much. It created a hysteria in the Mind of the South, prompting a worried City Commission to create a plan of attack — outlawing the carpools used to transport boycotters. This was, of course, because of national security and promoting capitalism and keeping order. Law and order, folks.

And, sad to say, the plan that City Hall put together worked. They arrested Steele and the boycott ended. But after this simple act of defiance on the bus that day, the protest in Montgomery was grounded in the warm embrace of public sentiment. A movement was initiated. The Old World, in a sense, was left behind.

And so let us praise famous women, Rosa and Wilhelmina and Carrie.

Soft Bigotry

2005-10-21T14:20:00.000-05:00

T.K. Wetherell peers over the shoulder of Beverly Burnsed at a 1985 leadership meeting in the Florida House of Representatives.
(Florida Photographic Collection)

Florida State University President T.K. Wetherell is a victim of the soft bigotry of low expectations. When he was chosen as president of the university, folks were curious about his lack of academic abilities.

Hogwash, came the response from Wetherell supporters. Don't you want to raise money? Don't you want that new chiropractic school? What about the football team? How about a chemistry building?

Reservations about Wetherell's lack of gravity and seriousness were brushed aside by more modern sensibilities. In today's world, university presidents must raise money and make appearances. Those academic debates are best reserved for the Faculty Senate.

President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers has a similar flaw. The president assures us that she will never -- ever -- change her mind on anything, really, honest, she is qualified to shape American jurisprudence for the next generation.

That questionnaire? Come on, you don't expect her to actually write her opinions, do you? Get real. This is the modern world, and Supreme Court justices have well-qualified clerks.

Justice Miers, like President Wetherell, should not be taken to the woodshed for bad grammar or the crime of inelegance in the courts of elitists. They should be embraced as one of us, and our pledge of allegiance to one nation under God demands it.

Justice in the Men's Room

2005-10-10T16:04:00.000-05:00

G. Harrold Carswell votes in 1970.
(Florida Photographic Collection)

Is Harriet Miers qualified to be a member of the Supreme Court? The question of competence has not been raised in a Senate confirmation hearing for many years, but the strange case of G. Harrold Carswell is well worth remembering.

President Nixon appointed Carwell to the court on Jan. 19, 1970 to replace Justice Abe Fortas, a Lyndon Johnson crony who had to resign after a financial scandal involving a speaking fee. Interestingly, the nomination prompted a filibuster by Republicans and Dixiecrats -- a fact that was regularly ignored in the public debate earlier this year about history of judicial filibusters.

Nevertheless, Fortas resigned and Carswell was named. But Nixon had rough waters ahead.

It turned out that Carswell had a spotty record as a judge, and it wasn't difficult for Sen. Ted Kennedy to make the case that he was ill-suited for the Supreme Court. He had a 58 percent reversal rate and a history of supporting white supremacy. Carswell was a member of the Tallahassee Country Club in 1956 when the Tallahassee City Commission transferred it from public ownership to a private for-profit organization to prevent blacks from being able to use the facility. (The club is still private, but the NAACP has held meetings there.)

Author Glenda Rabby chronicled the issue in her book, "The Pain and the Promise," adding this: "The Supreme Court nomination of Carswell was derailed in 1970 in part because of the controversy over his membership in the private club."

During his tenure as Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Carswell was hostile to civil rights advocates and sympathetic to those who used violence and intimidation to prevent school desegregation. As a federal judge, Carswell ordered the city of Tallahassee to remove signs at the airport that were designed to enforce segregation in the restrooms. (Wouldn't it be funny if the FAMU waiting room at the Tallahassee Airport were renamed the Carswell Room?)

The Carswell nomination was rejected by the Senate on April 8, 1970 by 51 to 45, and it was all downhill from there. He lost a Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in 1972 and was arrested in 1976. It seems that Judge Carswell made an advance to an undercover police officer in a Tallahassee men's room.

Whoops!

Just to Surrender

2005-09-02T13:59:00.000-05:00

The 1959 Tampa flood.
(Florida Photographic Collection)

The sadness and loss in New Orleans is heartbreaking. Even worse, the situation there is rapidly deteriorating. Gunfire and violence have erupted in the fetid swampland, a tragic situation rapidly spiraling out of control. It's an old tale, really. But Noah was not a Cajun.

As a literary metaphor, the flood has been a powerful force in the history of human imagination. Nowhere is it more starkly presented than William Faulkner's "If I Forget Thee Jerusalem," a book that included a story called "The Old Man."

Old Man River, the Yazoo, is the story's protagonist. He is a cruel character, hurling pain and mayhem. Certainly, Faulkner's conception of the river was prescient. He based his story on the flood of 1927, but its lessons speak to our present situation, even now, as a fire burns amid a rising tide of despair strangles New Orleans.

"Juxtaposed to nowhere and neighbored by nothing it stood, a clear steady pyre-like flame rigidly fleeing its own reflection, burning in the dusk above the watery desolation with a quality paradoxical, outrageous and bizarre," Faulkner wrote.

The book presents two stories, seemingly unrelated, in contrapuntal rhythm. "The Wild Palms" follows a woman bleeding to death after a botched abortion while "The Old Man" chronicles a convict who is struggling to save a pregnant woman from the rising floodwaters. When the levee breaks, the old man and the unborn embrace upon the scarred face of the Gulf Coast.

"Then he was comparatively screened, out of range, though not for long. That is (he didn't tell how nor where) there was a moment in which he paused, breathed for a second before running again, the course back to the skiff open for the time being though he could still hear the shouts behind him and now and then a shot, and he panting, sobbing, a long savage tear in the flesh of one hand, got when and how he did not know, and he wasting precious breath, speaking to no one now anymore than the scream of a dying rabbit is addressed to any mortal ear but rather an indictment of all breath and its folly and suffering, its infinite capacity for folly and pain, which seems to be its only immortality: 'All in the world I want is just to surrender.' "

A Beheading for Homeland Security

2005-08-26T11:09:00.000-05:00

Osceola's grave at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina.
(Florida Photographic Collection)

The names and images tossed around in the recent debate about using the Seminoles as a mascot has been notably bereft of context. The Seminoles were -- and are -- real people. Osceola was all too real, but his memory has become a Disney character. He has been stripped of significance and mounted atop a public relations machine that bows to worship the twin gods of money and football.

It's a shame, really, because the story of Osceola has a shocking significance to our modern world.

The man whose image FSU football fans have wildly defended for years was -- in the eyes of the United States federal government -- a terrorist. After treaty negotiations between the government and the Seminoles broke down in 1835, Osceola ambushed the Army general in charge of the delegation and scalped him.

Now, when FSU fans chant "scalp 'em," does anybody remember poor old Wiley Thompson, the unfortunate general whom Osceola personally scalped?

After scalping the general, Osceola went on the warpath -- against the United States! Remember that this is a group that had been defeated in the First Seminole War, so what we are talking about here is a rebel insurgency much like the one now burning in Iraq. Zarqawi is now following in Osceola's footsteps.

Consider, for a moment, FSU using the "Fighting Isamists" as a mascot. A strapping young college boy could play dress up, pretending to behead the mascot of a rival team. Sure people would complain, but the FSU boosters could bribe their way out of meaningful opposition. In the end, nobody would remember Zarqawi anyway. So who would care?

This historic parallels between the Seminole's guerilla warfare against the United States Army and the Iraqi insurgency's guerilla warfare against the United States are endlessly revealing: the wheels of American empire never stop spinning. They will steamroll anything in their path, eventually obliterating everything -- even the memory of their existence.

Here we are in 2005, fighting a small band of insurgents under the hot sun of the Middle East and nobody remembers this Seminole chief using a small band of 4,000 men using hit-and-run tactics successfully against 200,000 United States Army troops in the swamps of central Florida. But Osceola's tale has a bizarre twist ending: the United States federal government beheaded him.

After being arrested during treaty negotiations -- the ultimate diplomatic sin -- Osceola was imprisoned at Fort Marion in St. Augustine. The deceit prompted an outcry, and so the Seminole chief was moved to Fort Moultrie in South Carolina.

In 1838, less than three months after violating diplomatic protocol to detain him, the federal government beheaded Osceola.

Now, he has become a cartoon. A plush toy to be manipulated and cheered. A man without geography or significance, buoyed by the endless chanting of football fans.

Radio Daze

2005-08-22T20:57:00.000-05:00

George Thurston, amateur radio operator.
(Florida Photographic Collection)

Gentle reader, the Conquistador has many faults to admit. If you have looked at the dates attached to these epistles, you will undoubtedly realize the unconscionable gap in recent posts. It's become a fault that has grown into a seismic shift.

In fact, it's been an eternity.

The Conquistador could explain his absence. He could tell you about the momentous events that necessitated the temporary delay, the mind-boggling journeys, the new worlds of preoccupation that have engulfed the old, grizzled Spaniard.

But why?

The truth is that it took a radio, that old squawkbox of fizzle, to lure the reticent Conquistador out of his stupor. Specifically, WFSU radio host Bobby Link. Truth in advertising: I knew Link when he was a little sprout at WVFS, the voice of Florida State University.

Back then, the concept of "experimental college radio" was more a challenge than anything else. The airwaves were full of prattle, punctuated by an important thought or two. And then, it was back to chit chat.

Link was, even then, a master. He had all the natural ability that the Conquistador did not. That is why he is on WFSU while I have this mere blog. Nevertheless, a recent call from radio man Link may have ironically revived this blog.

He called to ask a question, that recording device spinning away. And then, it was like magic, the Conquistador again set his sights upon conquest. And, well, here we are.

So, thank you, Mr. Link. In the fullness of time, you name will be included with the greats, such as the late George Thurston -- a man who fought alongside civil rights workers as an advocate journalist, risking his life for what he knew was right.

The Conquistador will never forget Thurston. And he can never thank Link enough.

A Day for Possum

2005-02-18T08:43:00.000-05:00

A very unhappy possum.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
Campaigning in Florida is a multi-faceted experience, and you get out of it what you put into it. If you're a corporate executive, like Gov. Bush, campaigning will include lots of appearances with Realtors and developers. If, on the other hand, you are interested in attracting the great unwashed masses, then Florida has a lot to offer.

There's the Strawberry Festival, Mule Days and the Watermelon Festival. But the shining jewel in the crown of oddball Sunshine State festivities is Possum Day, held every August in Wausau.

Here is where the brave marsupials are separated from the human chaff. Possum Day celebrates that unlikely creature who helped the residents of Wausau live through the dark days of the Depression, the critters who fed residents and nurtured worried children, the temporal and unimaginable link between the past and the future.

Now, of course, the idea of actually eating a possum in unthinkable. You can buy "possum" during the festival, but (secrets are revealed on this blog!) it's really just potted meat. At the Possum Palace, that redneck public sphere created for the festival, a Possum Queen is inaugurated and an auction is held. This the extent of the holiday.

The act of auctioning the possum is a clever trick by the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, which is the beneficiary of the artifice. These are the cigar-chomping, back-room folks (all Masons) who take in money from this event are shameless, and all statewide candidates are expected to spend money at the auction.

The Conquistador can just imagine what Lawton Chiles' reaction was to this craziness. He probably wanted to shoot off his potato gun! In any event, Possum Day is worth catching. It's much more fun during an election year, when the campaigns will be in full blossom.

Maybe next year. In Washington County, there's always next year. I supposed that's the attraction to Possum Day.

Imagine Charlie Crist buying the stuffed possum, holding the carcass before a throng of sicophgants. Or Tom Gallagher, with that manly grin, smiling broadly at the prospect of winning rural Florida with a cheap payoff to the Washington County Chamber of Commerce. Imagine!

The idea of Scott Maddox holding a possum for the cameras is too much. Please, Boy Mayor, travel to Wausau next year. Washington County needs you!

Like Maple Syrup

2005-02-07T17:58:00.000-05:00

Sen. Johns poses on the Senate floor with a visitor.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
The campaign against the PBS show "Postcards from Buster" is proof of that old adage involving tragedies repeating themselves as comedies.

Before being sworn in as the new Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings sent a letter to the CEO of PBS threatening decreased financing. What was the heinous crime committed by PBS? In one controversial episode, Buster (an animated rabbit) visits a lesbian couple in Vermont to find out how maple syrup is made.

"Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyle portrayed in this episode, " Spellings wrote.

For the grizzled old conquistador, this comic opera prompted a tearful remembrance of the bad old days in Florida, when Charley Johns tried to cleanse the state of its homosexual influence. During the culture wars of the 1960s, Johns waged battle from the floor of the Florida Senate. Wielding considerable influence as a former governor (Johns had become acting governor upon the death of Dan McCarty), the senator was able to use his influence to put together a powerful investigation committee.

Although Johns' investigation committee was organized with the intention of harassing the nascent civil rights movement in the 1950s, a court decision preventing the committee from obtaining membership information of the NAACP gave investigators existential anxiety. If Johns could not go after communist blacks who were hell bent on destroying the American family, what other miscreants might warrant the Hoover treatment?

In 1959, the answer came: gays. For the next few years, the Johns Committee called college professors, high school teachers and state workers before a band of hostile questioners. Many Floridians lost their jobs under a dark cloud of suspicion and hate. Finally, the committee released the infamous "Purple Pamphlet" in 1964.

The booklet, named for its purple cover, was a scintillating look at homosexuality in Florida. Several of its pictures were so explicit that the pamphlet became a rarity among state committee reports: a bestseller.

"To many Floridians, perhaps a majority, homosexuality is a term without real meaning -- the subject for a party joke, the whispered accusation aimed at an effeminate neighbor or acquaintance, and something to warn one's children about in vague and general phrases," the report stated. "This Committee claims no corner on understanding the history or prognosis of homosexuality. It is, however, convinced that many facets of homosexual practice as it exists in Florida today pose a threat to the health and moral well-being of a sizable portion of our population, particularly our youth."

The thought of a state document being sold on the black market as pornography was too embarrassing for the Legislature, which soon disbanded the investigation committee. Since that time, Johns' name has become synonymous with scandalmongering excess, and the civil rights movement has inched slowly forward.

Like maple syrup. But not on PBS.

Decant This!

2005-02-03T14:32:00.000-05:00

An undated Dade County liquor raid.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
The difference of opinion between Gov. Jeb Bush and Attorney General Charlie Crist on the issue of Internet wine sales illustrates a long-standing split within the Republican Party. Economic libertarians such as Gov. Bush want to see competition thrive (and the Florida Grape Growers Association's lobbying effort was persuasive). Cultural conservatives such as General Crist want to see the state legislate morality.

The Conquistador is, of course, reminded of the heady days of Prohibition. After all, the bill that state Sen. Paula Dockery (R-Lakeland) has proposed legislation to change is from this era. These were strange days in Florida, when a Baptist preacher from Alabama became the governor on the Prohibition Party's ticket. (Gov. Catts was the only governor from the party to ever be elected governor.) By the time the 19th Amendment passed, almost all of Florida's counties were dry by local option. At least they were dry in a technical sense. The underworld was given a reason to organize crime syndicates. Sadly, many of these syndicates still hold power in Florida, empirical evidence against the existing distribution system.

Sen. Dockery's bill would apply to only wine sales, so the 20-year-old FSU student who stood next to General Crist at a recent news conference was engaged in a trivial pursuit. At the behest of law enforcement, the underage student tried to purchase wine and tequila over the Internet. If the student were required to supply a photocopy of the purchaser's driver's license or other identification that shows a buyer's age (which are required in Sen. Dockery's bill), a fraud would be committed.

Committing fraud to -- gasp! -- get wine over the Internet is such a heinous crime that existing legislation is not enough for the sanctimonious attorney general, who is so concerned about the inviolable purity of sober youth that he is willing to support a closed distribution system that punishes wine enthusiasts. Gosh, it's enough to send the Conquistador into the wine cellar.

The governor is right, and Sen. Dockery's bill should receive due attention in the House. Let's hope that wine enthusiasts will be able to engage in the capitalist freedom of wine shopping next Christmas without Big Brother government looking over their shoulders.

Liberty or Life?

2005-01-28T10:54:00.000-05:00

Inaugural detritus. littering our public square.
(photo by the Conquistador)
The psychology of litter is is a realm of privilege. People who leave things behind for other to clean up often have deceptively noble goals. "It gives the workers something to do," they might say. "Somebody's getting a paycheck." Besides, sticking it to the trial lawyers is so much fun.

Nevertheless, the sight of a "Doctors for Bush" campaign placard that had been discarded on the National Mall after the president's inauguration struck the Conquistador as an auspicious window into the soul of the Republicans. The vision became clearer still after reading Garret Keizer's "Life Everlasting" in the February issue of Harper's Magazine. (Sadly, Harper's does not publish online, so you will have to leave your computer and buy a magazine. You remember the 20th century, don't you?)

Keizer's essay is a meditation on the Death with Dignity movement. His thesis is that Oregon's Death with Dignity law is a revolutionary moment in a debate that is too often characterized by a curious selectivity. The fear of playing God is overwhelmingly sanctimonious in pursuit of keeping terminal patients alive, but strangely absent when playing God extends toward lengthening lives or, as Keizer points out, "extending it in ways and under conditions that no God lacking horns and a cloven hoof could ever have intended is the mandate of "our Judeo-Christian heritage."

In Florida, these issues came to a riotous critical mass when Terri Schiavo became a pawn in the tug of war between those who supported the "culture of life" and those who questioned what Keizer calls the "castles of rectitude on the frontiers of mortality." He recalls that time in the not-too-distant past when a court decided to allow Shiavo do die, which he parenthetically notes was "a decision that for a time seemed possible only if Governor Bush died too."

In the essay, Ron Raynolds, outgoing president of the Hemlock Society (now known as the End-of-Life Choices), associates the moral absolutes of making such an important decision with the choices made on the Day of Fire: "When you think of people leaping out of the Trade Center towers, they were doing what most of us would be doing if the end of life was a God-awful mess. They could stay and be fried and fall with the buildings, or they could jump out of the window and die when they hit the ground. It's not a choice between life and death, and that's what the right wants you to believe. It's a choice between two kinds of death or five kinds of death."

The critical distinction that seems to be missing in the Shiavo controversy is the difference between what you might decide to do for yourself and what you might decide is appropriate for others. One of the moral absolutes, so fondly invoked by the folks holding "Doctors for Bush" signs (and who, by the way, are perfectly willing to leave them behind for someone else to clean up), that seems to be missing in our public discussion of Shiavo matter is the command not to treat a person as a thing.

For many on the right, Shiavo was not a person with needs. She was a precedent, a fulcrum on which to wage a culture war. When the litter of self-righteousness is washed away by the publicly funded custodians of our mutual aid, who will guard the mysterious vault of life, our most important private property?

Mr. Conquistador Goes to Washington

2005-01-23T11:25:00.000-05:00

President Bush delivers his speech at the Capitol.
(photo by the Conquistador)
The Conquistador has been on the road of late, traveling to Washington to witness the 55th presidential inauguration. Although the weather was cold, the spirit of American republic was strong. And even though the conquistador is no fan of the president, his speech was expertly written and inspiringly philosophical.

Regardless of the lies and mistakes that have placed us at this moment in history (those are Bush's lies and mistakes, by the way), we are here and we have to deal with our present situation. It was pleasing to hear the president speaking of spreading freedom in the world, and it's good to see that the Republican Party has abandoned the isolationism that plagued its ranks in the early 20th century. He is quite right that "the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." One can only hope that he is willing to do the work that needs to be done in Sudan and China as well as Afghanistan and Iraq. Now that he has given the speech, he must live up to its language. As the president said, "the difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it."

Many citizens protested the war in Iraq.
(photo by the Conquistador)
In many ways, the speech was what the Conquistador wanted to hear in those heady days leading into the war. Saddam was a danger, and he needed to be removed from power. But lying about aluminum tubes and alienating allies was the wrong path. We now know that the reason WMD was given as the reason for war was that it was the only motivation that administration officials could agree on. If the president had given the "freedom speech" in early 2003, the war would have had a noble purpose from its inception instead of a deceptive gamble.

One of the most notable aspects of the speech was absence of references to 9-11, terrorism or Iraq. Instead, the president spoke about a "day of fire" and "emerging threats." The philosophical detachment allowed a long-term view that was a welcomed departure from the day-to-day politics of Washington bloodsport.

There were some major flaws, however. For example, one snarky line that should have been removed was this zinger: "Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty." It sounds like he's talking about Democrats. But what Democrat questioned the global appeal of liberty? Is he taking about the "global test" that John Kerry cited as one of the criteria to consider before rushing to war? In the context of this grand appeal to liberty, this partisan sniping was unwanted and tacky.

Future generations watch the president through thick security.
(photo by the Conquistador)
In the end, the most inspiring part of the speech was when the president asked his countrymen to ask what they could do for the country: "You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself - and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character."

The Conquistador was heartened by the presence of future generations who were in attendance (although no strollers were allowed on the mall). Although his thoughts tend to veer toward the past, Thursday was a day to consider the future, and course of history. The past tells us that the ship of state must chart a course toward peace, which requires the United States to confront tyranny with its allies.

Some Republicans want to "repeal the New Deal."
(photo by the Conquistador)
The "ownership society" was out of place in the "freedom speech," and its greedy Wall Street mentality tarnished what was otherwise a wonderful and inspiring speech. Twisting the logic of President Roosevelt's idealism, President Bush said, "By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal."

The freedom from want and fear (two of Roosevelt's "four freedoms") is not a mandate to dismantle Social Security. Freedom from want and fear is not a license to privatize the public good for the purpose of fattening the bottom line of wealthy campaign contributors. President Bush should be ashamed to invoke President Roosevelt's words in the name of destroying their vision.

The big picture in Washington: freedom.
(photo by the Conquistador)
The big ideas of the speech were refreshingly noble. Let us rejoin the community of nations and spread freedom to the darkest corner of the world. As President Bush said: "We felt the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack, and our response came like a single hand over a single heart. And we can feel that same unity and pride whenever America acts for good, and the victims of disaster are given hope, and the unjust encounter justice, and the captives are set free."

Carswell's Ghost

2005-01-18T13:32:00.000-05:00

Harrold Carswell is sworn in as U.S. Attorney, 1953.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
Charlie Crist's "I'm not gay" tour is getting a bit tiresome. Methinks he doth protest too much.

The truth is that folks have been whispering about his sexuality for years. He's always seen in the company of handsome young men, purportedly colleagues. This was J. Edgar Hoover's modus operandi, and he carried on a lifelong love affair with Clyde Tolson, his assistant director. (A more pressing image problem for Crist is that strange orange color of his skin, a condition that has prompted editors in at least one Florida newsroom to sing "Ban de Soliel" when his name appears in news copy.)

The truth is that Florida needs a gay governor. If only Crist were gay (or at least openly so), the civil rights movement would benefit tremendously. But advancing civil rights isn't in the Republican playbook right now, and the compulsion to stay in the closet would be tremendous.

The conquistador is reminded of Harrold Carswell, the Florida judge who was Borked before Borking entered the lexicon. After President Nixon appointed Carswell to the Supreme Court in 1970, Sen. Ted Kennedy investigated his actions as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida in the mid-1950s. Because of Sen. Kennedy's investigation, we now know that the Eisenhower Administration was a participant in the conspiracy to thwart the Tallahassee bus boycott. Nevertheless, Nixon aide Patrick Buchanan wrote the outraged jeremiad against the Senate's "discrimination" against the South.

Why does the conquistador bring up this long-forgotten confirmation battle now? No, it's not because the Senate Judiciary Committee stands to erupt into a full-scale bloodbath when Bush tries to pack the Supreme Court with conservative ideologues (although that will be fun to watch). No, there's something more pressing to our current subject.

In retirement, Carswell was arrested for a homosexual advance that was made in a Tallahassee bathroom.

Why must gays be forced into the dark corners of our society? We know that they are there, yet the shame inflicted upon their love life renders them silent witnesses to hidden motivations and outrageously unfortunate double lives. Hoover and Carswell reacted to their own internal dilemmas by relentlessly persecuting others.

Crist is, of course, a different sort of man. He would be Florida's first openly metrosexual governor, and that would be an accomplishment in itself. (Although Gallagher strikes the conquistador as a lady-killer metrosexual.) Interestingly enough, in the most recent episode of Crist's denial, the radio personality who hosted the heterosexual pep rally (which had Crist announcing, "I love women. I mean, they're wonderful") took the rhetoric a little too far.

"I've seen you with some great-looking women,'' said radio jock Dave McKay. "I've heard some women even complain that you're a womanizer.''

Crist was quick with a response: "I wouldn't say I'm a womanizer. That's probably going too far.''

We the Floridians ...

2005-01-14T11:55:00.000-05:00

Florida's infamous 1885 Constitution.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
The word "constitution" is an elusive one. Its history is shrouded in contradictory myths, and its reality is cluttered with the inconvenient existence of details and demands. Of late, its become somewhat of a misplaced crusade.

The campaign against the spate of amendments that have been added to Florida's Constitution in recent years is anti-democratic and anti-choice. Its priorities are elitist, and its distrust in the voters is ugly. So perhaps it may come as no surprise to learn about a GOP plot to dump our present Constitution and write a new one.

The conquistador has been mightily bothered by the drumbeat against amendments to the Constitution, which always seem to invoke pregnant pigs. The conquistador voted to protect pregnant pigs, and he's happy that the large scale pig farms (which are excessively cruel to pigs) have now been dissuaded from coming to Florida. Furthermore, no issue cuts to the core of the purpose of government (a constitutional imperative, one might argue) more than compassion toward defenselessness. And pigs have no recourse against the state.

For all the overheated bluster about how Florida's Constitution is being "cluttered" with passages that aren't constitutional, the truth of the American system is that state constitutions are supposed to be cluttered. The old British version of a constitution, which is not a written document but set of ideas, was displaced by the American model, which was famously written during the long hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia. But even that meeting also served as a critique of existing state constitutions, which offered examples of radical democracy (Pennsylvania) and enlightened libertarianism (Virginia). Thank goodness that they were cluttered. If they hadn't been, perhaps the federal Constitution wouldn't have been so well informed.

Since the ratification of that document in 1788, state constitutions have served as laboratories of federalism. Policies are suggested, tested, evaluated and, sometimes, abandoned. The state of Florida has been through a number of them: 1838, 1861, 1865, 1868, 1885, and 1968. We are currently using an amended version of the 1968 Constitution. But there's no reason to abandon all the constitutional principles that voters have demanded.

The truth is that Florida's Constitution has a sordid history of being an intellectual battlefield. The 1868 Constitution was written by carpetbaggers who were trying to exact revenge on the Old South by giving the governor the power to appoint all county officeholders, an executive encroachment on local control. The 1885 Constitution sought to seek revenge on the carpetbaggers and abolished the office of lieutenant governor, a reactionary snub to executive power.

In our modern context, conservatives are trying to undo the separation of church and state that prohibits the state from funneling taxpayer dollars to religious institutions. They want to undo the privacy provision that the courts have used to throw out challenges to Florida's abortion laws. In many ways, this is the kind of reactionary government that was used to justify post-Reconstruction violence toward civil liberties.

But we live in reactionary times.

There's nothing inherently wrong with throwing out Florida's existing constitution and starting over if it's the will of the people. Although the best of intentions guided Reconstruction in Florida, the bitterness that evolved from that time was a result of the tin ear given to the wishes of the people. The modern junta considering this revolutionary move is, in fact, engaged in subverting the will of voters. It's a crusade that will bring shame to our republican form of government.

Recount antiques

2005-01-10T11:57:00.000-05:00

The media circus at Florida's Supreme Court, circa 2000.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
Voting in Florida is often a full-contact sport. With memories of the 2000 debacle fresh in everybody's minds, the fear of disenfranchisement lingers even in the bright sunshine of full disclose.

Unless there's nothing to disclose.

Such is life in the digital world. This blog is here today, but tomorrow it may vanish into the online ether of the Internet netherworld. That's one of the reasons why Florida's voting machines need a paper count. Even now, especially now, Rep. Robert Wexler's paper-trail fight must continue. He is a brave soul, and support for his crusade has gained momentum from diverse groups who want to see the sanctity of Florida's ballot preserved from the rapacious negligence of Secretary of State Glenda Hood.

Secretary Hood has taken the dubious position that state laws requiring a recount in certain circumstances have been nullified by the perfection of the electronic voting machines used in select counties. She makes this argument in spite of the United States Supreme Court's directive in Gore v. Bush that the state needs a unified system of voting (and, by implication, recounting), a goal that she did nothing to achieve. The elections supervisors in the touch-screen counties, who specifically chose the machines to avoid the possibility of ever participating in another recount, have taken the path of least resistance. But, even though it was paved with good intentions, it led to the hell that Floridians now face: jeopardized enfranchisement.

The conquistador remembers being in a room with Hood when she made the astounding argument that Florida recount law didn't apply anymore because the machines couldn't do a recount. The conquistador asked the secretary how she could possibly certify the vote, which is her legal obligation, if it did not conform to state laws requiring a recount. Her dangerously naive argument that the perfection of the machines superseded the law was so dumbfounding that the conquistador worked mightily from laughing in her face.

Here's the logic she's trying to foist upon voters: Your right to a recount isn't necessary because the machines are infallible. Anyone whose computer has ever crashed knows the obvious fallacies inherent in such a claim. And yet here is our secretary, boldly pronouncing this malarkey in your name.

In a world where public officials are held responsible for their actions, Secretary Hood would be impeached for gross negligence. Her unwillingness to see the laws of Florida upheld is a high crime, and the misdemeanor of assuming that recounts are a relic of the past is a crime for which the conquistador wishes for some old-fashioned justice.

An Offer You Couldn't Refuse

2005-01-07T15:05:00.000-05:00

Bolita syndicate leader Harlan Blackburn, far left, was a
gambling kingpin in Polk and Orange counties in the
1950s. He is pictured here with associates in a night club.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
These days, gambling isn't the dark and seedy underworld it once was. So the battle in Broward over slots, racetracks and jai-alai isn't one of the great moral issues of our time. Nevertheless, it's an important issue, and the history of gambling in Florida is a mysterious story in which the players are unknown and plot hasn't been disclosed.

The underworld of gambling gained a stranglehold over Florida politics in the early 20th century, and many areas of the state have yet to recover. Tampa, for instance, has a mafia presence that still operates City Hall. Bob Graham's father, who had crusaded against the Miami mafia in the Legislature, carried around a gun everywhere he went. Young Bob remembers asking his father why he carried the gun, and he remembers learning about the nefarious shadows that wanted to kill his father. In the post-9/11 days of paranoid security, the senator was reminded of his youth, which was spent studiously avoiding the mob.

At some point, Florida's gambling underworld settled upon a game of choice: bolita. Today, bolita is all but unknown. But the game, which resembles a lottery played with 100 ivory balls, once gripped Florida in a vice. Less than reputable salons in Ybor City would drill lead into some balls, remove certain numbers, add duplicates of other numbers and freeze the balls so they would be an obvious selection for the person who would have been seriously threatened if he chose the wrong ball.

All of this makes it obvious why a Florida State University professor was chosen to write a new novel based on the Godfather brand.

The conquistador enjoys the slots, but he isn't so keen on being ambushed by 10 mafioso with machine guns. Today's gambling world is fundamentally different from the bolita days, so perhaps the only modern problem with slots, racehorses and jai-alai is a matter of personal responsibility. As some cynical observers might say, it's a tax on the willing.

Oviedo Civility

2005-01-05T13:58:00.000-05:00

Congress Hall in Philadelphia, where Thomas
Jefferson presided as president of the Senate.
(About.com)
Sometimes tradition is something that should be respected and admired, even when it might seem outdated. Our federal government, being more than 200 years old, has many seemingly antiquated rules and procedures. And anyone who has ever watched the parliamentary machinations of the House or Senate on C-SPAN knows that Congress is a rather formal institution (much more formal than Florida's freewheeling Legislature).

So Rep. Tom Feeney's plan to strip one of Thomas Jefferson's maxims of civility from the House rules, which was passed in the first hours of the 109th Congress, is misguided for many reasons.

Human nature has not changed since Jefferson conceived of the rule, which was intended to prevent House members from referring to senators (or the Senate) by name. It was part of a larger body of rules known as "A Manuel of Parliamentary Practice" that he wrote during the tumultuous days of the first Adams administration, when Jefferson served as president of the Senate. For the most part, Jefferson's rules remain intact and in use.

Instead of House members referring to senators by name on the floor of the House, where senators could not defend themselves, Jefferson suggested that members use a more formal title, such as "the honorable gentleman from Florida" who is a member of "the other body." Here, the sage of Monticello had a keen understanding of human nature, which hasn't changed all that much since the early 19th century.

Folks who don't live in Florida's capital city often refer to "Tallahassee" with such hatred that young children are apt to think it a curse. If they were to instead refer to it as "Florida's capital city," perhaps an air of civility might prevail. Likewise, during the penis-chasing days of 1998, Republicans would often spout the name "Clinton" on hate radio with such vile that it almost seemed worthy of inserting a bleep to mask its naked hatred. If they had instead referred to the "president," we might have been able to avoid the hunting of the president.

Perhaps it's naive to think that Jefferson's manuel has prevented incivility in the Congress, but the implementation of these rules is more symbolic than coercive. Parliamentary bodies will engage in heated debate, no matter what the rules are. But, with Jefferson's rules, they are forced to do so in a dignified manner.

Until now.

"I felt that in the modern age the rule was antiquated," Feeney told the Times. "We don't want ad hominem attacks, but we certainly want to cite the record."

Those of us who remember the rabblement of Feeney's reign as speaker of the Florida House may be surprised to learn that manners have become antiquated or that the Oviedo Republican doesn't enjoy ad homineum attacks. Consider his first day at the speaker's podium back in March 2001, when took aim at the "liberal orthodoxy," called union bosses "edu-crats" and claimed that editorial writers were "apologists for the status quo." After finishing this laundry list of ad homineum attacks, Speaker Fenney turned to nearby reporters and said, "I had fun."

Has Feeney become more civil? If you think so, the conquistador has some swampland he's like to sell you. As Sen. Patrick Leahy recently said, "It's better to be sworn in than sworn at."

Spreading the Sunshine

2005-01-03T11:48:00.000-05:00

LeRoy Collins mediates at Selma, 1965.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
The idea that Gov. Bush has a symbolic edge and special expertise that will help spread American beneficence is exciting for Florida. But it isn't the first time a Florida governor has been tapped to apply a special touch. The conquistador cannot be the only observer to notice the similarity between President Bush's decision to use Florida's governor and President Lyndon Johnson's desire to use Gov. LeRoy Collins' special knowledge of southern politics during the long and difficult days of America's civil rights struggles in the 1960s.

Four years after he left the Governor's Mansion, Collins was named director of Community Relations Services. He was present at the creation, mediating at Selma. He helped implement the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In short, he used his institutional knowledge and political skills to spread American beneficence at a time when the white hot fires of hate were raging across the former Confederacy.

Collins wasn't a perfect man, and he had endorsed segregation throughout his career as a statewide officeholder. It was in the waning days of his term as governor when he made an impromptu speech in Jacksonville describing segregation as "morally wrong." This ignited strong feelings, which were used against him by Ed Gurney the brutal 1968 campaign for the Untied States Senate. Collins lost and retired into the mist of history, where his reputation has been growing stronger with every passing year. (Gurney's name is all but forgotten, and one can only wonder about what Collins might have accomplished in the Senate.)

Today, as Gov. Bush explores a different kind of damage, the conquistador will be remembering Collins' brave stand at Selma. And the price he paid for doing the right thing.

Aunt Jetty's New Year

2004-12-31T11:42:00.000-05:00

New Year's Day at Killearn Gardens, 1929.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
The New Year celebration is a time to be with friends. And so, this time a year, the conquistador's thoughts wander back to old friends.

Alfred Maclay was a friend. His interest in plants, especially the winter garden he built in Tallahassee, was truly inspiring. He first planted the famous Aunt Jetty camilla in 1924. For decades after that, a flowery winter wonderland emerged at Killearn Gardens (which is now known as the Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park). Like many wealthy industrialists of the era, he was not a Floridian. Nor, for that matter, was he southern. But the winters he spent in Florida helped the local economy, and, more importantly, left an indelible mark in Tallahassee.

The New York businessman selected a wonderful spot on Lake Hall, which he acquired from his brother-in-law. He named it Killearn to honor his great-grandfather's birthplace in Scotland. While all the other Yankee industrialists were transforming the old cotton plantations into quail hunting reserves (a transformation that was chronicled in Clifton Paisley's wonderful "From Cotton to Quail"), Maclay was busy in the garden.

And thank goodness he was. Stroll the enchanting grounds and you will witness the rare beauty of winter in Florida.

The Maclay family donated 307 acres, which included his winter garden, to the state in 1953. Since that time, Maclay Gardens has been one of Tallahassee's most beloved attractions. If you haven't seen it, please do yourself a favor the next time you visit the capital and spend some time there -- especially if you are visiting in the winter, when all the camellias are in bloom.

Being a wealthy industrialist with a lot of friends, Maclay threw some wild parties. The picture above was taken on New Years Day 1929, and the conquistador remembers that era as a wonderful period of carefree abandon. No, the world was not perfect, and massive problems were brewing. But, nevertheless, looking at this photo makes the conquistador fondly remember an idealized past, and pine for old acquaintances who have not been forgotten.

Happy new year! May 2005 bring you peace, prosperity and the promise of a better tomorrow.

Vacationing in Camelot

2004-12-30T22:10:00.000-05:00

President Kennedy's home in Palm Beach.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
Word that the Bush family is spending the waning days of 2004 vacationing in Florida reminds the conquistador of Camelot. No, not that one. The other.

Yes, the conquistador is fondly remembering President Kennedy, who so loved the weather in Florida that he spent many weeks vacationing in Palm Beach, where he owned a lovely home. (Does anybody out there know who owns this house now?)

Ever since the days when the railroad made Florida a destination for folks escaping the blistering cold of winter, the state has been a magnet for people seeking fun and sun. The therapeutic value of weather has brought ailing people for many years, and recent revelations about President Kennedy's health make his frequent trips to Palm Beach more understandable.

In fact, this home is where Kennedy wrote "Profile in Courage," one of the conquistador's favorite books about political history. Ah, Camelot, when presidents were literary and the world respected America. Those were the days, eh?

Hammer Time

2004-12-29T14:49:00.000-05:00

Girls and guns on St. George Island in 1924.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
The love affair that Floridians have with their guns is legendary. Ever since the territory was part of the America's frontier, a sense of wild-west justice has reigned supreme. Now Gov. Bush has decided to honor an advocate of gun rights with a place of honor at the state Women's Hall of Fame.

Marion Hammer, the Iron Lady of the NRA, has been named as a 2005 inductee to the Hall of Fame. The governor's choice, like all symbolic appointments, was intended to make a values statement. Check out the other nominees and you'll learn that Gov. Bush chose guns rights over other moral values such as improving the life of migrant workers, advocating for children's rights, community-based treatment programs and volunteerism. Surely, there are women who have done more for the state than lobby the Legislature to protect gun range owners who pollute the soil and water with lead.

Hammer's testy demeanor has been noted on Florida Politics, so the conquistador won't bother to describe this woman's personality (although the conquistador has had several nasty exchanges with her, and sharing them would be fun) other than to say that her induction into such a prestigious group is sure to give her a group of colleges that she will surely admire and hopefully emulate.

While we are on the subject of notable Florida women, there are a few that the conquistador would like to see recognized: Author Gloria Jahoda (who wrote the sublime "The Other Florida," among other wonderful books), Mary Call Collins, whose work on historic preservation has rescued countless buildings and the wonderful Joan Morris, whose work with the Florida Photographic Collection is invaluable.

Let's hear it for the ladies!

Boycott Taco Bell

2004-12-28T13:42:00.000-05:00

Laborers unloading tomatoes in 1960.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
Somewhere between producer and consumer, the delicate balance of commerce is a dance that requires two partners. If one is blunt and a little rough, the other might not want to continue. Such is life on the dance floor, but it's much more difficult to get folks to shop with their conscience. It still takes two to tango.

For several years now, people in Florida who care about the plight of Immokalee farmworkers have been trying to get consumers of Taco Bell to boycott the corporate giant. Their crusade, a true manifestation of moral values, hasn't had much of an impact in Florida. That's unfortunate, but recent news that Cal State San Bernardino has decided to remove Taco Bell from its student union is a welcome development. It's the 21st school to remove the corporate chain in the hope that depriving it of revenue might persuade it to raise farmworker salaries and improve working conditions. These are important goals to achieve, and the inattention to this cause is one of the great injustices of Florida's media environment.

The Coalition of Immokalee Farmworkers and the Student Farmworker Alliance have teamed up to create a boycott that should make the corporate executives sit up and take notice. These boardroom warriors are responsible, after all, for the sorry condition of their operation: Immokalee farmworkers do not have the right to organize; they have no benefits; they do not get overtime pay; worst of all, they are paid sub-poverty wages. A company that spends $200 million on advertising every year (and one that has dubbed the 18 to 24 demographic the "Hedonism Generation") can afford to give Immokalee farmworkers more for their labor. If Taco Bell would voluntarily pay one penny more for every pound of tomatoes it buys, it could double the picking price rate paid to farmworkers. And yet, since this campaign was initiated three years ago, farmworkers have seen no improvement in their conditions.

The folks at Taco Bell are cruel and heartless. Their reckless indifference to human suffering is stunning for its naked greed and disheartening immorality. If we truly live in an era when moral values are taking the spotlight, surely Taco Bell can be shamed into changing its ignominious labor practices.

Take action: Write a letter to Taco Bell and have it published on Planet Feedback.

Grapes of Wrath

2004-12-27T13:47:00.000-05:00

A 1948 Sea-Bo wine display in Jacksonville.
(Florida State Photographic Archive)

The spirit of the holiday is still glowing within the breast of the conquistador, which is why I want to write about a subject near and dear to my heart: wine.

With the new year celebration approaching and wine cellars everywhere in the process of being restocked, the painful tedium of commerce is once again laden with bureaucratic hangovers. Don't try to order a bottle of wine from Bodegas Alicia Rojas, the conquistador's favorite producer. Shipping it would be illegal. Even the wonderful of vineyards of California are unable to ship to 24 states, including Florida, New York and Michigan. The conquistador understands the politics of international commerce, but the restrictions placed on interstate commerce seem baffling.

As Americanus recently pointed out, the restrictions placed on Florida consumers seem un-American, and thoroughly disrespectful of the American Revolution. Surely as the Internet erases the geographic boundaries and fuels the fires of commerce, we will see the dissolution of such old-fashioned protectionism. The 21st century, which will be revolutionized by wireless communication, is sure to be the most libertarian that the world has ever seen.

That's why Florida's protectionism seem so ridiculously antiquated. Wholesale distributors, which are licensed by the state, buy products from producers. The distributors then sell the products to state-licensed retailers, who sell wine to consumers.

The United States Supreme Court heard arguments on three related protectionism cases this month involving state laws in Michigan and New York. Florida's protectionist laws would be nullified by a court decision that struck down the mandatory middleman laws. Who knows what the Supreme Court will do, but the conquistador thinks that it should rule in favor of freedom.

Regulations unfairly limit competition, especially for small vineyards. The folks who run such operations would like to ship direct, but are prohibited from doing so. This is why a decision in favor of free trade is so important.

The court is expected to rule by June, but until then the conquistador will be enjoying the 1998 Finca Alicia Rojas Reserva.It's a full-bodied Riopa that's mostly Tempranillo with a bit of Garnacha and Mazuelo. Its dark cherry coloring hints at its subtle but scintillating blackberry overtones. What a wonderful wine. But don't try to order it over the Internet!

The First Nóel

2004-12-23T19:43:00.000-05:00

A 1967 reenactment of the first Christmas in what is now the USA.
(Florida State Photographic Archive)

This is the time of the year when the conquistador likes to remember the good old days: When Florida was a part of New Spain! There is, of course, a reason for bringing this up now: Florida is home to the first Christmas celebration in what is now the United States.

Those sanctimonious Puritans are always trying to hog the spotlight. That silly Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620. The conquistador had already been dead for 100 years! That's right, readers, Florida is home to the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas and, more importantly, the first Easter, which was celebrated near Cape Canaveral in 1513. (In fact the word "Florida" is a reference to the Easter-time Festival of Flowers, which was celebrated upon the discovery of the peninsula. What a glorious spring that was!)

There is reason why Yankees winter in Florida, and this is the time of year to appreciate the wonderful weather in the Sunshine State. And while you are yours are celebrating the holiday season, whatever holiday you celebrate, you might want to bring up Florida's Christmas past.

A Ghost of Christmas Past

2004-12-22T22:59:00.000-05:00

Christmas Day in Mims, 1951
(Florida State Photographic Archive)

The Christmas season always brings a flood of spirits. Some sing joyous carols as others mournfully hum dirges. Its the later that the conquistador is considering at this hour.

Attorney General Charlie Crist's decision to reopen the investigation of the assassination of civil rights leader Harry T. Moore reminds us of that tragic Christmas Eve in 1951 when a bomb snuffed out one of Florida's most visionary - and, yes, radical- citizens. Everyone who was frightened by this racial terrorism hangs this dirty ornament upon their internal tree every December. But some of its branches are left untouched, even in this winter of their lives, and General Crist might have some tinsel to add.

The facts of the case are sorrowfully familiar: Man bravely advocates for civil rights; man is killed in a gruesome fashion; no charges are filed; the assassins are never identified; folks move on with their lives; people forget.

It's sad, but that's how things worked in the dark days of the 1950s. The simple act of urging blacks to register to vote was a death-defying feat. In our modern world, the decade has taken a kitschy go-go feel. But it saw some serious unrest in Florida: race riots, legal challenges, KKK rallies, a bus boycott. Nowhere was the unrest more explosive than Mims, where a 1950s-era IED was placed under Moore's bed, ripping apart his house and fraying the gentle fabric of Florida race relations.

It's possible that Crist has some new evidence; it's even possible that the ghosts of Brevard County might yield some of their secrets. If the AG is able to name names- even dead names- it could have a profound effect upon the folks in Mims who feel that nobody cares who perpetrated this heinous crime. Crist would do well to read Ben Green's wonderful book, Before His Time, which is full of old white guys unburdening their guilty souls about what happened in the 1950s. (By the way, the conquistador has heard that Green is working on a new book about the Harlem Globe Trotters.)

Whatever the reopened investigation unearths, justice delayed is better than no justice at all.

Privatized Security

2004-12-22T15:40:00.000-05:00

President-elect Roosevelt speaks in Jacksonville in 1933.
(Florida State Photographic Archive)

These days, it seems that security is at the top of everyone's agenda. In our most recent election cycle, Security Moms were the sought after demographic. During Florida's hurricane-ravaged summer, Wal-Mart's database altered stores to stock up on strawberry pop tarts, a security food if ever one existed. We live in an age of insecurity, and so the pursuit of security is now a full-time preoccupation.

All of which makes the partial privatization of Social Security seem so, well, insecure. And yet North Florida Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Monticello, has decided to jump on the president's rickety bandwagon.

He and Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., have co-sponsored legislation that would require workers under age 55 to invest a portion of their payroll taxes into a private account, raising the age at which workers would eligible for full retirement benefits to 67. As a result, their monthly government Social Security check would be smaller than the program currently provides. (Wall Street is already licking its lips in anticipation of administering such accounts.)

This duality is the kind of chicanery that will surely kill the system. To paraphrase President Lincoln, a Social Security program divided against itself cannot stand. The transition from transfer payments to investment accounts would be a difficult one even under the best of circumstances. And it's not like the Bush administration has a great track record for conducting itself with honor and integrity. But now that Rep. Boyd has signed on, the measure to privatize Social Security is bipartisan. And that's too bad. Here's an issue where we don't need bipartisanship.

Rep. Boyd is the prototypical Blue Dog Democrat, which is to say that he ain't all that blue. His aw-shucks demeanor and Deep South drawl make him attractive to voters in the conservative Panhandle. Even after Laura Bush campaigned in Tallahassee for his opposition (a Republican hairdresser!), Boyd was still able to pull a victory — thanks, no doubt, to the true blue Tallahassee residents who are solidly Democratic. And now he's letting his New Deal constituents down. Maybe Tallahassee Democrats will put up a primary fight in 2006. But with the Florida Democratic Party in such shambles, it's doubtful.

The fact that Boyd does not hold a seat on any committee that has jurisdiction over Social Security is an indication that the Bush mafia was willing to strike a deal with the first Democrat who made himself available. And Boyd, for some reason, was available. One only hopes that the Congressman struck a deal for some federal funding of a local project such as FAMU's new flu shot industry.

The conquistador, being a relic of long-ago days, feels saddened by the Republican attempts to dismantle Social Security. He recalls the debate in the 1930s about its creation. It was, then, quite a radical plan. And its longevity is a testament to President Roosevelt's great wisdom. But the 1930s were radical times. Today things are different. And yet nobody seems willing to admit that they want to get rid of the program, even if that's their real (and unstated) goal. In fact, nobody yet wants to even admit that painful choices must be made to privatize this public program, such as cutting benefits or raising taxes (although the president has intimated that payroll taxes won't be raised).

The numbers don't seem to add up. But maybe I'm using fuzzy math.

While I'm waiting for things to get less fuzzy, I'll ruminate on the glory days of the New Deal — not that it was all candy and roses. It's important to remember the tumultuous debate that raged in this country when Social Security was created. Those with a few moments to spare would benefit from listening to conservative columnist George Sokolsky's December 1935 speech against the creation of Social Security, which was broadcast on NBC radio. Sokolsky's anti-government rhetoric is still alive today, but now it's masked in the language of the New Deal — even if it does not share President Roosevelt's goals.

Even a Blue Dog can learn new tricks, but Rep. Boyd seems to be clinging to Sokolsky's specious arguments. In light of his bipartisanship, perhaps he should re-think he color scheme. It's possible that the congressman would feel more comfortable as a Red Dog Democrat.

A Budding Dynasty?

2004-12-21T16:00:00.000-05:00

The Chiles family; Bud is standing behind the governor
(Florida State Photographic Archive)

Despite flag-waving rhetoric to the contrary, nepotism is about as American as conspicuous consumption. And political nepotism has a long and revered history, even after the anti-monarchical American Revolution. Consider the lingering importance of names such as Adams, Bush, Harrison and Taft.

In Florida, the melody of dynastic royalty was heard at the wedding of LeRoy Collins and Mary Call. This was a union of the past and the future, and the stately pillars at The Grove still promise a certain blue-blooded noblesse oblige. Its neighbor, the Governor's Mansion, is home to the brother of the president, who is also the son of a president, whose father was a prominent Connecticut senator. So much for bootstraps; what aspiring leaders need now is lineage.

So perhaps it's not shocking to read that the name Chiles is again being whispered in Democratic circles. It's certainly a stately name, and it reminds the state's blue voters about the halcyon days of he-coons and potato guns.

News that Lawton "Bud" Chiles III, an Orlando developer, has thrown his hat into the ring for the 2006 gubernatorial beauty pageant has a certain cyclical symmetry to it. A Chiles was proceeded by a Bush who could be proceeded by a Chiles. This in a country where a Clinton could succeed a Bush who succeeded a Clinton!

Lawton III offers the kind of name recognition that money can't buy. It builds on a solid foundation of uninterrupted statewide victories and red state blueness. It brings forth fond memories of three-legged stools and walking shoes and folksy backslapping. Just what's in this name, anyhow?

Certainly, none of the other names being mentioned as Democratic contenders in 2006 carry the resonance of the Chiles legacy. They include: U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, state Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox and state Rep. Rod Smith, D-Gainesville. Maddox, whose father founded the Florida Police Benevolent Association, is the only potential candidate whose name carries a statewide cache. And the party's recent losses have dimmed his star a bit.

The days of royalty are past us, of course, But in this tight media environment, where name recognition seems to be of greater importance than ever, coming from good stock could be the best ticket to success.

It's true that Lawton III has never held public office, but neither had George W. when he assumed office in Texas. Armed with a respected family tree and a statewide list of phone numbers, Lawton III could walk right into the Democratic nomination. The competition doesn't seem to be that impressive, and the ghost of his father would be a welcome presence at the Governor's Mansion.