Short Stack: Pix, Shticks, Ferrets & Hiaasen

Over your breakfast plate of two eggs over easy, extra crispy bacon, one slice of lightly buttered, whole-wheat toast – all washed down with a mug of hot black coffee . . . these additives:

Picture-takers should take advantage of an online invitation from TBO.com to “share views of life in the Bay area through your digital camera or cell phone.” The TBO Team does ask that, “you keep 'em clean.” As a wise man once observed, it is their “dime.”
tbo.com/life/photos

Headline kudos to the nameless 1-A editor at the Trib who came up with this gem on today’s front page (below the fold) to alert readers that autumn is (finally) upon us:

"Fall’s Here – How Cool Is That?"

TBM reacts, appropriately: How cool is that?

The “Cledus T. Hometown Handshake Tour with Chad, Steve and Rita!” ends with a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on 6 a.m.-10 a.m. at two Dunkin' Donuts locations: Monday, Oct., 17, 13013 – 66th Street No., and Tuesday, Oct. 18, 4325 Hillsborough Plaza, Tampa. For sophisti-cats livin’ in South Tampa, Cledus is the “Weird Al Yankovic” of Country Music – and now a Big-Time Bay area radio personality. (TBM’s favorite CT tune: “I Love Nascar.”)
www.wqyk.com

And speaking of weird, Al . . . if you did not hear the ferret segment on “The Schnitt Show” this week (3-6 p.m., 970 AM, WFLA) you may have missed one of the milestone mad moments in Bay area talk radio. Schnitt reacted to an AP story, the lead graf of which notes: “A student has filed an Americans With Disabilities Act complaint against a university because it won't let her keep her pet ferret at her dormitory.” Schnitt (a local lad who can run with the Big Boys when it comes to discussing national issues) knows a Loony Tune topic when he sees one, took his rant to the splinter-edge of absurdity, and never looked back. (Somebody, please, buy this guy a wombat.)
www.schnittshow.com

Talk about a flap, Bay area airwaves and newsprint were a-buzz and a-flap this week over W.’s tele-call with troops that was variously dubbed “staged,” “choreographed” and “rehearsed.” AP put it this way: “It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war . . .”

That’s “choreographed” as in “Kabuki.”

Sgt. Ron Long was one of the soldiers who participated in the tele-call. He gives his take on the flap – and, it’s created quite a buzz of its own. Read it for yourself (see link to his blog below) and then decide. TBM’s take? Let’s see . . . should I believe the high-paid “spin doctors,” sittin’ in cozy, air-conditioned offices who have their own agendas, or the medic in Iraq who is puttin’ his life on the line? Hmmmmm . . . tough call – NOT.
278medic.blogspot.com

. . . and, finally . . . the 13th Annual St. Petersburg Times “Festival of Reading” takes place Saturday, October 29, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, 140 Seventh Avenue South - Bayboro Harbor, Downtown St. Petersburg. This is a quality event, attended by TBM just once, and still fondly remembered. Industrial-strength authors include (but certainly not limited to): Carl Hiaasen, Sue Ellen Cooper, R.L. Stine, Candace Bushnell and Doris Kearns Goodwin. (There is a pricey, but probably worth it, “Preview Party” the night before.)
www.festivalofreading.com