About Me: Bill Cotterell is political editor for the Tallahassee Democrat.
Of trifles and tunes
There's an old Latin legal dictum that goes, "de minimis non curat lex" -- small things do not concern the law, or the law should not involve itself in trifles.
But if you stand in the Capitol's fourth-floor rotunda and look around full-circle, you'll see the overhead walls of the atrium are decorated with a huge list of all sorts of "official" state things. There's an official state sand, state bird, state animal, etc.
And every year, it seems that some legislators file bills to make something else "official," like a state pie.
In the 2008 legislative session, there will be a serious discussion about a new state song. The Florida Music Educators Association just announced that "Florida, Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky" is the winner of a three-way online competition, drawing more than half of the 8,020 votes cast by people who clicked on justsingflorida.org in the past month.
For many years, many legislators have wanted to get rid of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks At Home," with its references to a pre-Civil War Florida that probably only existed in the imaginations of some homely old folks. The state quietly cleaned up the minstrel show dialect several years ago but, even without the racial insensitivity, a lot of people thought its references to plantations and banjo-strummin' were a couple centuries out of date.
Still, many people resented the fact that in the voting for a new state song, there was no "none of the above" or any chance to vote for keeping the current "Swannee River" tune. So there will be some debate about it in the session, including an alternative for a "state anthem" that Rep. Dave Murzin, R-Pensacola, wants to coexist with the "Sawgrass" song, if it's adopted by state lawmakers.
There's a danger of giving the impression that our legislators are wasting time in their 60-day session on a lot of "di minimus" stuff like an official state this or that. But the fact is, most of those bills are either buried in committee without a hearing or waived through without debate. Legislators don't really spend much time talking about the official state tree.
But this one, the state song, might actually take up a little time next spring.
But if you stand in the Capitol's fourth-floor rotunda and look around full-circle, you'll see the overhead walls of the atrium are decorated with a huge list of all sorts of "official" state things. There's an official state sand, state bird, state animal, etc.
And every year, it seems that some legislators file bills to make something else "official," like a state pie.
In the 2008 legislative session, there will be a serious discussion about a new state song. The Florida Music Educators Association just announced that "Florida, Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky" is the winner of a three-way online competition, drawing more than half of the 8,020 votes cast by people who clicked on justsingflorida.org in the past month.
For many years, many legislators have wanted to get rid of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks At Home," with its references to a pre-Civil War Florida that probably only existed in the imaginations of some homely old folks. The state quietly cleaned up the minstrel show dialect several years ago but, even without the racial insensitivity, a lot of people thought its references to plantations and banjo-strummin' were a couple centuries out of date.
Still, many people resented the fact that in the voting for a new state song, there was no "none of the above" or any chance to vote for keeping the current "Swannee River" tune. So there will be some debate about it in the session, including an alternative for a "state anthem" that Rep. Dave Murzin, R-Pensacola, wants to coexist with the "Sawgrass" song, if it's adopted by state lawmakers.
There's a danger of giving the impression that our legislators are wasting time in their 60-day session on a lot of "di minimus" stuff like an official state this or that. But the fact is, most of those bills are either buried in committee without a hearing or waived through without debate. Legislators don't really spend much time talking about the official state tree.
But this one, the state song, might actually take up a little time next spring.
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2 Comments:
Between debating the "state song" and "boot days" and the hours of farwell speeches no wonder they have to waste our money and our time with all these special sessions.
They are better paid for their 60 days of "work" than the average state employee is paid for the entire year.
They have absolutely no sense of shame.
I hate to admit it, but that Sawgrass Meets the Sky will get in your head after a while, whihc is the mark of a great song. Swanee River is out of date, this one isn't. Of course, maybe we should designate the Model T in preference to the Shuttle as the State Transportation Symbol.
Just a thought
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