Kick Ass (21 page)

As tour guides, it’s your duty not to let our visitors be distracted. Turning to page 17 of the manual, you’ll find a detailed list of embarrassing animal antics, next to the officially scripted Disney explanations.

Scratching, for instance. As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, our primates can be indiscreet in their personal scratching habits. Please try not to bring this to the attention of your safari guests.

If, however, a guest observes this behavior and inquires, always refer to it as “grooming.” Same goes for the lickingthose lions, I swear, they never give it a rest

Just remember: “Grooming” is the operative word.

Several of you asked about the poop issue. I passed along your concerns directly to Mr. Eisner’s office, and I’ve been told there’s not a darn thing to be done. We’ve got i ,000 animals roaming here and unless the folks in Imagineering come up with some amazing new gadget, there’s going to be lots of poop.

Hey, I’m on your side. Sixteen years I worked the Main Street Parade and we never had this problem, except for that one really obnoxious Pluto.

And, yes, I’m well aware how much a full-grown elephant eatsbut try to deal with it, OK? “Droppings.” That’s the approved Disney term, whether it’s from a hippo or a hummingbird.

The next item is, sadly, animal mortality. As you know, we’ve already lost two rhinos, some rare birds, four cheetah cubs. It’s made for a few unpleasant headlines, to be sure.

But this is straight from the lawyers: Never use the terms “die” or “dead” on your Disney safari. If the tour bus passes an animal that appears not to be breathing, you may describe it as “lethargic,” “inactive,” “dormant” or (for the youngsters) “napping.”

Finally, let’s review the rules on animal sex. I don’t know what genius decided to open this park in the springtime, but our animals are in quite the mood.

Some of you heard what happened on Media Daya little problem with the Barbara Walters crew and that horny pair of wildebeests in quadrant seven. Without going into gory details, let’s just say that ABC eventually was “persuaded” to give up the videotape.

As safari guides, it’s imperative to remember that this is a family attraction. Animals do not mate here. They “wrestle.” They “clench.” They “frolic.” They “romp.” They “nuzzle.” And of course they “groom” each other, sometimes intimately.

But they don’t mate. They don’t hump. They don’t “do the nasty.” Is that understood?

Good. Now go out there and give these wonderful folks an authentic true-life jungle adventure, droppings and all![“#chapter_07”]

A State of Chaos

Why not study the brains of top Florida officials?

October 9, 1985

A true news item: State medical examiners have acknowledged secretly removing parts of the brains of executed prisoners for use in laboratory studies of aberrant behavior.

gainesvilleResearchers today announced the expansion of the state’s Involuntary Brain Donor Program to include members of the Florida Cabinet, the state Legislature and other qualified public officials.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for a scientific breakthrough,” proclaimed Dr. Igor Hans of the University of Florida. “For years people have been wondering what makes politicians act the way they do. Studying their brain cells may unlock this terrible secret.”

But several top Florida political figures immediately objected to the plan, calling it “coldhearted, barbaric and just plain icky.”

“They’re not getting my brain unless they get the governor’s,” vowed Agriculture Commissioner Doyle Conner.

“Don’t worry, they’re not getting the governor’s,” said a spokesman for the governor. “We keep a darn close eye on it.”

Scientists argue that the benefits of brain experiments will far outweigh concerns for the privacy and dignity of the deceased. They say it makes more sense to study politicians than convicted murderers.

“Serial killers are a dime a dozen,” Dr. Hans said, “but how many Claude Kirks are there in this world?”

Pathologists said that politicians’ brains will be preserved in a mixture of formaldehyde and Johnnie Walker Red. Afterward the tissue will be microscopically photographed and dissected, then injected with powerful enzymes made from aspirin and Maxwell House coffee grounds.

To make the brains feel at home, the tests will be conducted in a $150-a-night suite on the top floor of the Tallahassee Hilton.

Dr. Hans said he expects to find striking differences between the brains of politicians and those of other humans.

“They’ll be slightly smaller, of course,” the famed neurologist said, “but this’ll save us a fortune on storage space.”

Behavioral scientists have speculated that many officeholders suffer from a cerebral condition known as Milhous Syndromea disorder causing the part of the brain that controls modesty, truthfulness and frugality to shrink to the size of a subway token.

Dr. Hans said he will test the theory on his first subject, preferably either a former Margate city commissioner or a Monroe County zoning board member.

Ironically, the donor team is having trouble recruiting experts to work on the landmark project.

“Doctors who wouldn’t think twice about examining a bank robber’s brain won’t set foot in the same lab with a state senator’s,” Dr. Hans said. “People fear most what they don’t understand.”

Nationwide, there has been only one documented case of experimentation on the neurons of a political officeholdera former U.S. congressman who had willed his cerebrum to science.

As part of the experiment, neurologists at Johns Hopkins University placed the congressman’s brain on a laboratory table next to a stack of $5o bills. Within seconds, the organ quivered and began inching closer to the money, a phenomenon for which scientists could offer no explanation.

Dr. Hans said he would not attempt to duplicate the controversial Johns Hopkins studies.

“We already know what motivates a brain like that,” he shrugged. “We’re much more curious about the twisted pathology behind it.”

Some ex-officeholders, including several former Florida Cabinet members, expressed “grave concern” that part of their brains already might have been removed without their permission.

However, scientists say that they’re doing their best to ascertain that brain donors are actually dead before the organs are taken.

“Sometimes it’s a close call,” Dr. Hans conceded.

Beer and pizza for everyone, Mr. Governor

June 5, 1987

The Mole People finally adjourned in Tallahassee, emerging squinty-eyed into the sunshine where they are now posing, partying and nearly wrenching their arms patting themselves on the back.

Having committed their largest deeds behind closed doors, the legislators of the great state of Florida would now like you to know what a valiant effort they’ve made on your behalf.

They passed the biggest tax increase in state history, set up a lottery, and agreed to spend millions more on prisons, indigent health care and water cleanup.

They also passed laws that will legally put handguns into the fists of more drunks, half-wits and fruitcakes than ever before. Despite so-called “safeguards,” the Legislature will have no more success keeping licensed pistols from lunatics than it does keeping bad drivers off the highways.

In other ways it was a progressive session becauselike them or notnew taxes are the only way to start paying for Florida’s explosive growth. The scary part is that the average voter has practically no say in how these revenues will be spent, or who’ll get their paws on the money.

Years ago Florida passed its famous Sunshine Laws, ostensibly to take the business of government out of the cloakrooms and corridors. At the time a reform-minded Legislature boldly voted that all meetings of public bodies be held in the openexcept, naturally, those of the Legislature itself.

The law that makes it illegal for members of a city council or a school board or a county commission to meet secretly doesn’t apply to your faithful representatives in Tallahassee, who this year had their way with $18.7 billion of your money.

How did they do it? We’re not exactly sure, since they wouldn’t let us in.

True, floor sessions and regular committee meeting are wide open to the press and public, but the real lawmaking doesn’t happen there. It happens in private.

Take the controversial new sales tax on services, for instance. It wasn’t negotiated on the floor in view of the gallery. It was drafted over beer and pizza at the Tallahassee townhouse of Bob Coker, a lobbyist for a Big Sugar firm. Among those joining the House and Senate leaders in the late-night festivities were key aides to Gov. Bob Martinez.

You remember Bob Martinez, that fellow who campaigned vigorously on a promise of no secret meetings? Remember his indignant TV ads, showing arrogant cracker legislators slamming the door in the public’s face? Apparently the governor is not so indignant now.

For a brief moment this session a few senators rebelled. They proposed an amendment that would have required legislators to meet in the open at all times, even when jawboning with the governor.

You can imagine the rapture with which this idea was greeted. Senate Rules Chairman Dempsey Barren and Senate President John Vogt (the King and Crown Prince of the Mole People) snuffed the Sunshine amendment as quickly as possible.

Later Sen. Larry Plummer of South Miami pointedly offered a new version that would have opened all governmental sessions, including “midnight meetings over pepperoni pizza or anything else.”

This, too, was flattened by Vogt’s gavel.

Think about what it means. These are people who work for you, and whose salaries you payyet they won’t let you watch what they’re doing. It’s like having the Maytag repairman lock you out of your own house until he’s finished fiddling with your appliances.

Admittedly, cutting deals is a part of the legislative process that’s easier done in a tunnel than on TV But if nothing sleazy is going on, then what’s the harm in letting the public see?

Martinez says gee whiz, he’d just love to open all the meetings, really he wouldbut those darn legislators just won’t go along.

It sounds like the governor’s eyes have already adjusted to the dark.

Foul odors get worse in legislature

December 12, 1990

The Legislature is like a dead skunk. No matter how bad you think it’s going to stink, it stinks even worse.

Few stomachs remain unturned after this week’s Herald series about pet projects that give away millions of taxpayer dollars. Although everybody was aware that this stuff goes on, many people had no idea that the pilfering is so flagrant.

It’s hard to decide which is more outrageousthe way the money was blown, or the lame excuses now being made by those who blew it. Some of my favorites:

” Lottery funds, designated for education, were used to send a bunch of state legislators to Israel as part of an “agricultural research project.” Among those who took the free trip were Sen. Gwen Margolis (representing those rolling farmlands of North Miami), and Rep. JackTobin of Margate, where almost all the supermarkets do sell fresh produce.

Margolis apparently was too busy tending her crops to respond to inquiries about the Israel trip, while Tobin insisted that the lottery couldn’t have paid for the whole thing. It did.

” Last year, the Legislature gave $1 million to fund an “amateur” athletic facility. Instead, the money was sent to the Ladies Professional Golf Association. This year, lawmakers spent another $2 million for a new road to the LPGA’s headquarters in Daytona Beach.

Now legislators say the word “amateur” was “inadvertently” added to the funding proposal. They say the grant was meant for the city of Daytona Beach, which needed the funds to help the LPGA move there. Now isn’t that better? Three million bucks of “economic development” money for needy professional golferswho said government doesn’t have a heart!

” Metro Commissioner Sherman Winn campaigned for a $400,000 state grant to something called the American International Exhibition for Travel, a firm that staged tourism-promotion shows. By eerie coincidence, Winn’s son Steve just happened to be the Tallahassee lobbyist for that companyand got $52,000 for his work. Months later, the owner of American International disappeared, and so did the state’s $400,000.

Sherman Winn now prefers not to discuss the matter. Explained an aide: “He doesn’t want to be implicated with something he had nothing to do with.”

Guess what, Sherm. You’re implicated.

” The Beacon Council, guiding light of Dade’s business community, hired two lobbyists to pry $150,000 in grant money from the state Legislature. After the funding arrived, the Beacon Council kicked back $15,000 to the lobbyists. The state comptroller’s office said that’s an improper use of taxpayers’ dollars.

The kicker: It was lottery money.

” Rep. Luis Rojas of Hialeah weaseled $100,000 for the Hialeah Latin Chamber of Commerce to fund a “productivity improvement center.” The chamber used the dough to hire Rojas’ former legislative aide, Carlos Manrique.

Rojas insists that the state money spawned new commerce in Hialeah, and he’s right: His buddy Manrique later went into business with a company owner he’d met through the grant program. Hey, if you can’t help your friends, who can you help?

” Wooed by lobbyists, the Legislature gave the Greater Miami Opera almost $1 million. Later, some of the lawmakers who voted for the money asked the opera for free tickets.

One of those, Rep. Susan Guber, saysand this is pricelessit’s important for her to attend the shows to make sure taxpayer dollars are being put to good use. Bravo!

To her credit, Guber is one of the few legislators who wants to change things so that “turkey” items aren’t so easily sneaked into the appropriations bill. There’s not a moment to waste, eitherFlorida is in worse fiscal shape than most had predicted.The crisis is forcing $270 million in emergency cuts next month. Education, social services and law enforcement will suffer.

If the new governor is searching for a popular agenda, he doesn’t need to go far. All he’s got to do is put his nose in the air and take a whiff of this year’s budget.

Junkets show politics isn’t a thankless job

May 1,1991

Whoever said politics is a thankless job ought to read the latest report from the Leon County grand jury.

It describes how some state legislators have accepted free vacations provided by lobbyists from major utilities, auto dealers, the hotel industry, Big Agriculture and insurance firms. In many cases, the trips were not reported as gifts, although the law requires it.

Not surprisingly, the globe-trotting tourists have been reticent to share the highlights of their travelsnot even a postcard for the voters back home. In fact, it’s almost as if lawmakers wanted to keep it a secret. It’s almost as if they were ashamed.

The juiciest details came from the lobbyists themselves, summoned before the grand jury. Much of the testimony focused on hunting trips, a popular escape from Tallahassee’s pressures.

Judging from what the lobbyists said, lawmakers find hunting much more enjoyable when they don’t have to pay for it themselves. Shooting a high-flying mallard requires total concentration, and who can concentrate when you’re worrying about some danged hotel bill?

Friendly special interests arranged for legislators to go on free hunting expeditions to El Campo and Corpus Christi, Texas; Monterrey and Ciudad Victoria, Mexico; Norwood, Colo.; Casper and Thermopolis, Wyo.; the Blue Ridge Hunting Lodge in LaPine, Ala.; the Riverview Plantation, Foxfire Hunting Preserve and Quail Ridge, all in Georgia.

For lawmakers who preferred fish over fowl, lobbyists lined up angling excursions to the wilds of Colorado, Alaska and Nice, France. Not to be outdone, a few nonsporting types in the Legislature took pleasure jaunts to Parisand Zurich, Monte Carlo, Vail, LakeTahoe, New Orleans, Breckenridge, Treasure Cay and St. Tropez.

When the scandal first broke, some lawmakers insisted they did nothing wrong because a free trip isn’t really a “gift.” The grand jury found this argument just as ludicrous as everyone else did. The law, it said, is “plain and unambiguous.” A free plane ticket must be reported as a contribution.

The tone of the grand jury’s findings was one of barely concealed disgust. And it wasn’t only the trips, but the other shameless mooching:

“Several legislators routinely solicited free plane charters/rentals from certain lobbyists solely for personal use.”

The report went on: “During a legislative session it is possible for legislators to be furnished breakfast, lunch and dinner by lobbyists while still drawing per diem.” No! Who would do such a thing? The grand jurors called for a tougher law that would make it a crime to take anything worth more than $50. Predictably, that’s way too radical for this Legislature. A bill imposing a $50 limit on gifts will probably pass this session, but violators won’t face criminal charges.