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It's A Bad Time For Hobson To Choose When The Horse Race Is So Close

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By STEVE OTTO

sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: October 11, 2008

The seven men were sitting at the round table in the back at the Valencia Garden restaurant. The one you would know for sure is former Congressman Sam Gibbons, but the rest are all longtime Tampa residents. The subject was money, or more precisely, how it's disappearing from everyone's savings.

One of the seven, and I don't remember which one, mumbled something about a Hobson's Choice, which caught me by surprise because you don't hear that too often around here outside of a high school English class.

He was referring to the choice we have to make between the Republican and Democratic tickets and suggesting that both were losers and not much a choice at all. I know what he meant and have to confess I share the view that we are faced with losing hands no matter how it goes.

I hate to lay the 15th century on you when the real Hobson's choice you might be facing is whether to watch the Rays or the Bucs, but this goes back to Cambridge, England, and a Thomas Hobson, who owned a livery stable. In order to keep his horses fresh he offered customers the option of taking the horse nearest the door or none at all - in other words, no real choice at all, which is where the phrase came from.

If you go to Answers.com - and I don't know where they got this - the phrase has become more commonly used as a "choice between two undesirable options," or more correctly, a dilemma.

Maybe you know someone - or maybe you are one of them - who is actually pleased with one or maybe even both of the choices we have. I've spoken to Floridians who are still ticked that they were not part of the selection process during the primaries.

But for the most part I think too many of us are unhappy that after two years and millions of dollars spent on the campaign trail, this is what we are left with.

Old And Ignorant

One thing you do learn is that everyone has his or her supporters. Joe Biden was in town this week and the subject of a column. His supporters were not thrilled with my remarks.

Raysrock wrote in to comment on that as well as our new design, which we have run comments on elsewhere.

"Well the new Tribune came and I hated it... I thought I might cancel after 30 years but didn't want to because of Steve Otto. Then I read today's drivel of a column and realized there is no reason to continue getting the Tribune. Why is he so viciously negative about Biden? Hair transplants? Good grief... Palin is totally clueless (did you hear her tell Katie Couric she reads all the papers daily?) Haven't heard of any Republicans touring Sulphur Springs or Seminole Heights, so why target Biden? Usually Otto is insightful. Today he was just ignorant ... sad."

•Ignorant responds: You betcha I would love to interview Sarah Palin. I have about as much chance of doing that as seeing Russia from the roof of Mother Trib.

Pat Terpack echoed some of Raysrock's feelings, writing, "It really is amazing an old codger like you knows more about all the Joes you spoke of in your column but doesn't know Joe Biden. He is the Senator of Foreign Relations, a man who lost his wife and daughter in an auto accident when he was first sworn into the Senate at his little son's bedside.

"He is a senator who caught a train every day to go back and forth from his home to the Senate to raise his little sons. He isn't wealthy just moderately comfortable, unlike many government servants with this many years. He is respected as a caring, honest, intelligent man. He is certainly known to those of us who care more about their country than perverted old men who care more about a skirt. Have a little respect for those who have served their country well and have sons in the military. What a poor columnist you are."

•Old Codger responds: Sometimes I don't think the company pays me enough to do this job.

Curse Of The Tiki Gods

Several of you commented on a letter from Mark Sullivan, who is still trying to remember what it was he did back in the '60s. He wondered if anybody remembered two huge stone Tiki heads located at the entrance to the old Hawaiian Village on Dale Mabry.

Former Tampa Times and La Gaceta reporter Donna Murray remembers going to lunch there with the late La Gaceta publisher Roland Manteiga. "My then-6-year-old son David came along and he wanted to know about the Tiki gods. Roland explained to him that his grandfather brought them from Cuba in a canoe.

"The next time we ate there David told us he had told his teacher the story but she didn't seem to believe him."

Don W. writes that he not only remembers the Tiki gods, but one night he and two friends tried to put one in their car to place in their backyard.

"Those things weighed a ton," he says, "and must have had a curse attached. Not only did we fail to move either one, within a year I got married."

Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's column.

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