June 14, 2007 Issue

There are many things I don’t understand.

Our local TDC spends 59 percent of its revenue on advertising. It also spends a fortune on supplementing the losses of the Emerald Coast Conference Center. Where does the TDC advertise? And why? We keep hearing that other towns are spending billions of dollars in advertising to lure tourists. Who cares? We should spend our bed tax dollars on other things.

I don’t understand advertising anymore. Why does Gulf Power advertise? Since we are a totally captive market, couldn’t they use their advertising dollars to install underground utilities at their expense? Or lower our power bills? Or pay their employees more money?

Wal-Mart spends millions of advertising dollars touting the wonderful, charitable activities they sponsor across the world. Please!

Pharmaceutical advertising is a joke. First they tell you what a pill will do for you; then they have to list the frightening side effects. Most of the products they advertise have to be prescribed by a doctor. I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the habit of telling my doctor what to prescribe for me. The big drug companies spend fortunes lobbying doctors on junkets to Hawaii; so why do they spend billions advertising products to the public we can’t get without a doctor’s prescription?

Many of the products advertised on television are beyond my comprehension. Even after the ad has run, even if I liked the ad, many times I don’t know what the product is that is being advertised. I wouldn’t know how to purchase it if I knew what it was.

We are without question the most obese country in history. But what are we supposed to do about it? We can’t criticize our children for being huge because it will launch them into a lifetime of bulimia and anorexia.

Twenty-eight years ago I received an early morning call. A friend of mine had an accident driving home from a bar. He sideswiped five cars parked on U. S. Hwy. 98 and hit a car at the intersection of Hwy. 98 and Gulfshore Drive. When the policeman arrived and opened the door, my friend vomited on the cop’s shoes. I drove to the jail in Crestview, paid $60 and picked up my friend. That was the end of that. Today we routinely imprison drunk drivers. Everyone knows the horrors and the penalties of driving under the influence. However, last year there were 1,200,000 arrests in this country for DUI’s. With the penalties and the stigma and the reckless loss of life associated with drunk driving; why is it more prevalent than ever?

All of the candidates, from both parties, wear cheap wristwatches. They are, for the most part, mansion-dwelling, wealthy Americans. Do they think that a cheap, rubber watch will throw us off? Make us think that they are just like us? Make them appear to be frugal? Come on!

Next time you are told by a repair company that they are “waiting on parts,” respond with these words: “Fed Ex.” We routinely ship fish from Harbor Docks to Livingston, Mont. It leaves Destin at 5 p.m. and arrives in Livingston at 10 a.m. the next morning. Don’t ask me how. There is no need for anyone to have to wait more than a day on parts for anything anymore.

Is there still an economic development office operating in our area? If there is, it can close now. The days of a Wal-Mart or Home Depot coming to town and touting the hundreds of new jobs to be available are over. We do not need anything that creates more jobs. The Krispy Kreme staff is a veritable United Nations. Convenience stores hire workers from damn near every continent. Hispanics were the first immigrant workers to get here and now workers from Kazakhstan are crowding them, because they speak English.

Whatever happened to pacifism? There are many more American who are against the Iraq War than are for it. But what about people who are against all wars? There are many sane, rational people who feel war is outdated.

On the home front, the city mandated harbor redevelopment moves on. Of course, redevelopment implies that something has already been developed. And the most valuable aspects of our harbor are those that have resisted change. The architect’s renditions are full of brightly colored, helium filled balloons and festive atmospheres. The talk at city hall is of “promenades and boulevards and boardwalks.” Harbor Docks has survived 28 years without a promenade and I imagine we can make it a while longer.

Forty years ago if you had asked Chubby Destin what a promenade was he would have punched you.

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