… Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with wond'ring eyes
He stared at the Pacific …
—John Keats (1816)
The Romantic poets lived in a scientific Age of Wonder, reacting to voyages of discovery on the oceans, in the skies, and in the laboratories. They reacted with wonder themselves, though not always accurately. (Keats confused Cortez with Balboa, unless he just thought "Cortez" sounded better. Poets are like that.) We, too, should be amazed in our own time as the genome project, space exploration, and anthropological findings unfold before our own "wond'ring eyes."
Two unrelated events recently occurred that cast a clearer light on our mayoral race. The most philosophically interesting is the discovery of Ardi's skeleton, and the most locally relevant is the discovery of the City Council's backbone. (OK, maybe it's a wishbone: we'll soon see.)
The story of Ardi – mercifully short for "Ardipithecus ramidus" – the 4.4-million-years-old fossil skeleton, unearthed along a floodplain in Ethiopia, has excited scholars all over the world. She's the earliest known skeleton from the human branch of the primate family tree, becoming the elder sister to the 3.2-million-years-old Lucy and the 1.6-million-year-old Turkana Boy, the stars in our evolutionary chart.
Of course, St. Petersburg's students should be studying this, just as they should be studying the charting of the heavens above us, and the genes inside us, in our continuous search to unravel the mysteries of humanity. One thing leads to another, and anthropologists are already talking about looking for even earlier fossils, maybe 6 million years old, to bring us even closer to "that common ancestor of hominids and chimps."
But Bill "Anti-Fossil" Foster, who wrote a letter to the School Board claiming that studying evolution "led to Hitler and Columbine," can hardly be expected to urge our teachers to include this discovery in their science curriculum. On the other hand (chimplike or not), Kathleen Ford's most remarked upon trait is her relentless questioning, her search for more facts and real answers. She and anthropologists are natural allies.
The other event that separates our two candidates is the vote by the City Council to keep the BayWalk sidewalk open to the public, instead of turning it over to BayWalk's owners. This is a tough call, no doubt, as we all want BayWalk to succeed, and be the bulwark of a downtown renaissance as originally planned. On this question, Foster said he favors closing the sidewalk to the public, and Ford said she wants to keep it open.
The St. Pete Times' Editor of Editorials, Tim Nickens, had it backwards in his over-the-top article. Given the "relentless pressure" from Mayor Rick Baker and his staff to get the deal passed (described by Times' staff writer Cristina Silva on Friday), it's clearly the four members – Leslie Curran, Jeff Danner, Wengay Newton, and Herb Polson – withstanding that pressure who showed the most courage, integrity and "gumption," not to mention faith in democracy.
Legal protesters may be an occasional pain, but the basic needs of BayWalk are 1. a better choice of stores and businesses to surround the movies, 2. better policing of the parking garage, and 3. efficient control of unruly teen-agers. (A little more variety in the movies themselves – one theatre saved for art and/or independent movies, for example, would help, too.) If BayWalk fails — which no one wants — it won't be because of this bit of sidewalk, but because of those other underlying weaknesses that have been long pointed out by many citizens. The sidewalk has become a scapegoat for years of mismanagement.
Foster did say he'd like the deal to be temporary, but that kind of ducking tends to lead to complications and unforeseen consequences; and in any case, it's a terrible precedent: every business will want to own the sidewalk in front of it. His stand is typically unclear, or inconsistent with previous statements, which is why he's been dubbed "Bill Posture" by some of his colleagues.
In these two specific instances (there'll be plenty more), we can generalize that Ford's on the side of knowledge (evolution vs. creationism), and on the side of the democracy (free speech vs. management). This isn't theoretical, and it's important. Already more creative solutions (a sidewalk café, a moratorium) have been proposed by Jeff Danner, St. Pete for Peace, and other groups and individuals. The pressure's still on, but this – and not unconstitutional takeovers and scare tactics – is the way to work together.
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'-that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
—John Keats (1795-1821), "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Peter Meinke may have been called a relic, but his hearing's not good so he isn't sure. He'll be reading from his new book, Lines from Neuchâtel — illustrated by Jeanne — on Saturday Oct. 17th at the St. Pete Beach Library at 11 a.m., and Haslam's Bookstore at 2 p.m.
poet's notebook, peter meinke, jeanne meinke, john keats, st petersburg, mayor, kathleen ford, bill foster, evolution, baywalk
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2009.