Thursday, August 31, 2006

Gambling Effort Falling Short

The ballot initiative that excluding Cincinnati from opening a casino has fallen short of the number of signatures needed to be placed on the November Ballot. They have 10 days to get more.

I didn't sign it, and advise you not to sign it. If it had included Cincinnati, I would have signed it.

'Some of Our Best Candidates Are Black'

Race in politics is a thorny, but not a complicated issue to figure out:
"'Our candidates would not engage and have not engaged in race-baiting, and it is disingenuous for Democrats to suggest otherwise,' said party spokesman John McClelland, who pointed out that the GOP's candidate for governor, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, is black."
I am sure that party spokesman John McCelland has lots of black friends too.

What John and the GOP are lacking is in telling the truth. Yes, the GOP is race-baiting black voters in trying to vote for Ken Blackwell because he is black. They are playing the same game they accuse Democrats of doing when the Dems run minority votes, which happens with much, much greater frequency.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Lawdog Loves Tasers

Local Lawyer Ken Lawson seems to have found a way to try and buy himself a new boat.

Strickland Still Up Big In the Polls

Another month of polls like this showing Ted Strickland up by 20 plus points and Ken Blackwell maybe in a hole beyond help.

The knives are going to have to come now. Blackwell has to attack and hit with big money. If he can't get his face on TV over the next month and turn the polls around, then he is going to lose the faith of his backers. No matter how many conservative preachers exploit their religious role by endorsing him for office, he still can't win without big money.

Sad and Sickening

Why do these types of missing child situations turn into twisted movie of the week?

It sounds like other people may be charged in the attempted cover-up.

Monday, August 28, 2006

It's Not News

No, it is not news that Peter Bronson wants you to know that it is likely that the Pakistanis used torture to gain information from alleged terrorists. It is not news that to Bronson and those like him the "ends justify the means." It is not news that honor and principle don't matter if a white person's life is in the balance.

If a 100,000 civilian Iraqis die, that is justified because it was in revenge for 3,000 9/11 murders (which were totally unrelated) and helped make the 336 billion dollars of profit for oil companies, not to mention big profits for war industries. Honor and principle matters when the Bronsons of the world are thumping their bible in church. They matter when it comes to protecting their own or their own purse. It's not news when the Bronsons of the world talk out of the both sides of their moralists mouths. Beating a man is fine with Bronson. It isn't news that torture is wrong.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Forbes: America's Drunkest Cities

I don't know how you actually rate cities on their level of drunkenness, but somehow Forbes Magazine has done it. Cincinnati ranks 16th. Columbus and Cleveland were 3rd and 7th respectively. Ohio can drink.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Anti-Truth Group

It shouldn't shock anyone that an Anti-Abortion and Anti-Women group is out to fly a banner with a misreprentation of reality when they just make stuff up:
Harrington said his group turned to the skies to air its views because some stationary billboard companies refuse to post the images. Mainstream TV, radio and newspapers also won't use the ads because of their graphic content, he said.

"They often censor the grim reality of abortion while permitting horrifying images of dead Americans in Iraq to be broadcast and printed," Harrington said.
Mark Harrington, I don't think you are watching or reading the U.S. media much. They DON NOT show bodies of dead Americans! The war has been censored from the broadcast and print media. The GOP Government is preventing the media from filming or photograhing the coffins of dead soilders returning to the country in an honorable manner. He will be lucky to find a single image of a dead American body from the Iraq war to be shown on TV. That has rarely happened and is not shown close up. If the guy can't tell a basic truth about something like this, he can't be trusted otherwise.

Flying this sign is wrong, but it is legal. It shows how fanatical these groups are. They can't communicate their point in a sane manner, instead they have to create this confrontational myth. Ultimately they may not actually go through with it, instead just be happy about getting the press about saying they are going to do it.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Beatty Gets Manslaughter

It is a surprise that Howard Beatty was only found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, which means no more than 13 years in prison for killing Kabaka Oba.

GetLocal!???

A new attempt to to try and localize news from the Enquirer. I have not looked at it much at all. Is it just a filter of the paper based on community or is there additional new content? Is this were they are putting their news/postings from the public, the lazy journalism effort (Real Life, Real News, Real Crap?)?

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Crap on a page!

How lazy is a journalist to write an article based solely on tying a B Movie to Sports?

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Smoke Filled Musical Chairs

The Hamilton County Republican Party has decided for the Republican Party Voters who will represent the GOP on the November ballot in two location statehouse district.

Bait and switch.

Neither candidate in the 31st or 32nd district stands a great chance of Beating the Democrat so the impact here is minimal, but if I were a Democrat I would be really pissed off if let's say the Ohio Dems choose to take off Ted Strickland at this point and put up someone else for Governor. They are not going to do it, but Ted won the primary and unless he breaks a law or is unfit for office, he should stay on the ballot. The principle of it should be that the voters voices, even in the primary systems, are heard and respected.

Yes, the 32nd the view is that Mike Poast doesn't currently live in the district. He could still have moved in time for the election.

"Law Dog" Taking on Water

Infamous Lawyer Ken Lawson has a $660,000 back tax bill hanging over him. Instead of walking the plank, he is forced to sell his boat, the "Law Dog," to help offset some of the back taxes.

According to the article Lawson is claiming an illness caused him to miss work and in part caused him financial issues. These unpaid taxes go back as long as 5 years ago. I don't know what his cut of the Timothy Thomas and Roger Owensby Jr. cases were, but it went somewhere other than paying off what he owed to the Government.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

More Bad Press!

More of this type of thing and you know what will happen? People will wake up and understand that Cincinnati has a lot to offer. The best part about this article are the hundreds of great things to do not mentioned in it. Sorry to say folks, we don't live in a ghost town. We just have a bunch of dead weight trying to bring down this great place.

Praise Zeus! Ponch is Coming to Town!

Buried in this article we learn Erik Estrada is signing autographs at Tri-County Mall. Ladies, better get in line now!

Friday, August 18, 2006

Molly Malone's Reviewed

I don't know if they have replaced the "ER" on the front, but the food gets a test from the Enquirer. It passes. Molly's is not going to get four or five starts, but when I went early after they reopened, it was ok. I hope to return for a second go around soon.

Is trivia night as fun as it was?

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Phil Heimlich's Tax Hike on the Poor

I knew it, you knew it, but now everyone can know that it was all about getting Phil Heimlich elected, not about doing the business of government.

A Victory

Great news for civil rights in Cincinnati. Lets hope the forces of darkness fold up shop and move on to something void of the hate.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Trashin' the Larry

I was hesitant to respond to Larry Gross's Column in last week's City Beat, but in the end I am going to put out the basic problems with Larry's points and what I believe he is missing:
  1. Criticize Cincinnati all you want! - The problem Larry misses is that when you are gloating with "I-told-you-so" blog posts and articles, you are not criticizing, you are bashing the city.
  2. Larry's basis for attack was flawed! - Larry missed the points I was making that soon after restaurants and bars close something reopened in its place, something he failed to note. Granted that doesn't always happen, but the vast majority of the locations Larry cited had something similar reopen within a year.
  3. Larry missed how he's stuck in stasis! - Larry, get over not have a movie theater downtown. We have many more theatres showing live people on stage downtown and in OTR than existed in the 1970's, no???
  4. Playing the NKY vs. Cincinnati game is more bashing! - When you pit Newport and Covington as the bizzaro Cincinnati, then you are attacking, not criticizing. What is the basis to say that Newport, Cincinnati, and Covington shouldn't be thought of as the unified central urban core of the Metro area? Why aren't they thought of as complementary, not competitors?
  5. What gives with the rest of the column? - Ok I don't know how mentioning me or Nick Spencer does much for the point of column, and I know even less how including references to my blog post titles and background on Rick Hines adds anything. I guess that is just adding some of the backstory to the non-blog readers out there, but I don't know that it helps much.
I hope that Larry wants the downtown and the city to thrive, as he stated in his column, but claims don't supersede acts. When you add to the negative perception of downtown using flawed comments and you fail to put into perspective the fears people have of downtown and OTR, you feed the beast. When you provide no suggestions for improvement, you look like you are enjoying the perceived decline.

I am embarrassed that people who have lived here longer than I have refuse to maintain a positive attitude and look at change not as a negative, but instead as what we need. You can't go home again Larry. Your old Cincinnati died 30 years ago. Join us in building a new Cincinnati.

Real or Fake, Certainly Irrelevant

I don't know if this email is real or fake, but it should be ignored by the powers that be, or what ever "movers and shakers" received it in the first place. One person is pissed off, big fucking deal. One person has a bad experience in any city and you don't go and change everything you are doing as a government or as a community.

If you assume for moment she is real, then she has a huge preconceived notion of Cincinnati or of the United States in general. She reads like she got a handout from a boycott activist.

Her ignorance is clear in her original email.
We decided to watch the local news each day. From doing so, one might never know that Cincinnati's population is 47% Black, as we learned on the internet before choosing to visit. We saw one Black reporter on each of two stations, but watched many reports on Black people being arrested for drugs in a place called OTR.
She obviously doesn't know the difference between the racial breakdown of the City proper and the Metro Area of Cincinnati. Sure, 47% is a possible number for the City, but not one I could find on the Internet, but the TV market reaches an area where blacks are less than 12% of the population. If she is going to play a quota game, then play it fairly. Also, how many folks from Canada are quick to pick up on the "OTR" abbreviation? I would be surprised if a anchor on local news is calling Over-the-Rhine "OTR," but you never know.

As a sidenote, if she is indeed an activist trying to stir up a little trouble, I wonder if she thought about following the boycott? Oh, wait, that's been over for a while now, and last week Al Sharpton appeared at the new Convention Center just to make it official.

The Cincinnati Metro Area still has a great many racial problems, but this lady's observations are trivial/anecdotal at best, and faked at worst.

What Happened to Democracy?

Do Republicans even care about holding primaries anymore? If they are going to enact the smoke filled room form of picking candidates, then they might make with a little more smoke and a lot less of the jockeying candidates around when circumstances change. It is great how they stick with their candidates until they have no more use for them. What made them stick with Bush? Is Hero worship that strong in the GOP?

Add a Crate and Barrel

More Retail is coming to Cincinnati and this time it's in Kenwood.

Can Kenwood get more congested? We'll be finding out soon.

Monday, August 14, 2006

IKEA Picks Cincinnati

Great news for Cincinnati, furniture retailer IKEA has picked an Ohio location in West Chester. A suburban location is a common thread for choice for IKEA, so it not being closer to the city center is not a surprise.

Overall this is a good sign for the Metro Area.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Schmidt Misleading Public

How stupid is Jean Schmidt or how stupid does she think the voters are? Promoting the use of ethanol is not striking a blow against Terrorism. It is especially not going to reduce the money going to terror groups.

If I am not mistaken the only way Schmidt's stupid ploy makes any sense is that if all of the Oil companies and oil producing county's governments in the world are funding terrorism.

The reason for reducing foreign oil use is not so we don't buy from "them," instead it is so we don't have to go to war to secure the oil supply, like both of our wars Iraq.

What a dunce.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Chabot In Panic Mode?

Bringing in the big gun Dick Cheney for a fundraiser is as big a sign as you can get that you are in need of help.

News that Chabot's opponent John Cranley is running even with him in the Democrat's internal polls must be a cause for fear in the GOP camp. The Cranley Camp reports the following poll results:
In just five months, John Cranley has gained 9 points on his opponent -- making it a dead heat.

July 2006 Poll
Cranley 45%
Chabot 45%
Undecided 10%

March 2006 Poll
Cranley 40%
Chabot 49%
Undecided 11%

Both the July and March polls were conducted by Anzalone-Liszt Research and paid for by Cranley for Congress. In March, Cranley for Congress released its results. Attached is a memo provided by Anzalone-Liszt comparing the two polls.

Note: Neither Chabot, nor the National Republican Congressional Committee has ever released the results of their extensive polling. (Roll Call, 7/31/06)
The reason you know it's bad for the GOP occurred when Chabot is pictured on a walking tour of Over-the-Rhine with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in both the Enquirer and the Post. I wonder when the last time Chabot has been in OTR? He was no where to be found when the riots were going on, so unless there's a photo op or someway to gain some vote, then Steve hasn't had much reason to do anything for or even visit OTR, until now.

I will be waiting for Chabot to make crime his big issue and attack Cranley for the City's crime issues. At the same time he'll try and make the people of Ross and Harrison fear a violent crime problem that doesn't affect them at all.

It's politics 101, but it's still disgusting.

"The Heimlich Remover"

David Pepper's poll has him leading Phil Heimlich in the race for County Commissioner. According to the Post's article Pepper is showing an increase is his numbers from a prior internal poll to now. Moving from a 33% to 33% dead heat to a 42% to 37% slight lead is a positive step for Pepper.

Heimlich is currently hanging his hopes on a plan that most likely makes him the only Republican up for reelection in Ohio who is advocating raising taxes. That is likely to piss off the Conservatives more than any of his other stances would turn of liberals.

Clark Street Blog Best of Cincinnati

Westender over at Clark Street Blog picks the Best of Cincinnati. Food and Drink are the topics of choice. The only topic missing is the bar with the best beer selection. The Beer Cellar and Mulligan’s have some of the biggest selections out there, and Nicholson's downtown has a very unique selection. Allyn's and the Comet need a mention for their selection of bottles.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Lack of Trust

The GOP is scrambling to find any loophole to prevent state Sen. Joy Padgett from being disqualified to run for the House seat Bob Ney vacated. Trust in the system drops to a rock bottom floor when you read this:
"But Bob Bennett, the state party chairman, said he didn't believe the law applied to her, and said he would seek a formal ruling from the secretary of state."
Ken Blackwell's record on voting laws and how he interprets them are not known as impartial by anyone not a Republican.

Is Larry Gross Really Rick Hines in Drag?

The negativism Larry Gross is putting out rivals that of Rick Hines, whose anti-Cincinnati diatribes are well known. Yes, Redfish closed. It was never a great place, but restaurants close.

When a new restaurant opens up there, which Arn Bortz of Towne Properties stated, later this fall, will Larry champion it?

Heartless Bastards New Album

The Enquirer - Bastards pen mellow follow-up

Monday, August 07, 2006

Sucking Up To Si Leis

In what pretends to be a column this week, Peter Bronson profiles the Queensgate county jail. It is almost on cue that Peter whips out a column that seeks to provide support for the efforts of Si Leis to get a new jail built. The fact that it will be built on the backs of the poor under Phil Heimlich's poor tax efforts don't play into anything that Bronson or Leis care about.

What is strange is that the Hell-hole Bronson describes is what I thought conservatives wanted jails to be, places that sucked and you never wanted to go back to.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Jazz Fest Problems?

I caught only a few minutes of Ken Lawson's radio show this morning on 1230 the Buzz, but if I heard him correctly he seemed to be fishing for callers to tell of any discrimination at hotels during the Macy's Music Festival last weekend. I believe Ken Lawson stated their may be lawsuits in the works claiming such.

Can anyone confirm what I heard or that there were indeed any problems of discrimination with hotels or restaurants during the festival?

I don't trust much of anything Ken Lawson says, so he may very well be fishing for a nice juicy cut of a settlement.

Country Music Festival Cancelled

In what will be leaving fans with the taste of burnt rubber in their mouths, the Kentucky Speedway announcedcancellation of the Summer Night Jam country music concert. The announced reason was because of "routing and production issues," which could mean the truck hauling the stage equipment broke down, but you would think that if it were that simple another truck could be found giving them enough time before the event (24 plus hours) to get their stuff here.

Speculation in the article, as well on radio reports, indicate that slow ticket sales could have been a factor in the cancellation.

In most instances I remember if a performer can't go on because of health or equipment problems, they come right out and say so directly. Here they are tight liped, which leads to the speculation on why.

Is country music losing appeal either in this region or nationally in general? Or do these acts just not have a big enough fan base?

MidPoint Venue Background

Rick Bird gives a of the background into the venue planning for the Midpoint music festival.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Jailhouse Blues

City Beat's Kevin Osborne sings us the blues about the myths being put forth by the those trying to spin Hamilton County Voters into thinking their plans for a new jail will benefit the masses. The main spinner is Commissioner Phil Heimlich and his plan for a "Poor Tax" where he raises the sales tax, and lowers some of the property taxes, hurts the poor more than any other group. Kevin wisely reports that the tax plan does help the middle class much either, with how the property tax cut is structured.

One of Kevin's myth busting efforts must be repeated:
Fact No. 1: Although some offenders are being released early, including 266 inmates last year alone, all are non-violent offenders, statistics show. No murderer, rapist or even anyone convicted of assault has been let go early due to a lack of space.
If you listened to the cries of some, you would think every criminal picked up is just turned away after they get fingerprinted. A new jail is needed, but why is not what some are trying to spin.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

In St. Louis

I am in St. Louis on business this week, so, couple that with my long recovery from Blues Fest, and my lite blogging becomes more explainable.

Downtown St. Louis is nice. There was a Baseball game last night and things were hopping pretty well. The Arch gets a good crowd, but when it is 100 degrees outside, you feel it on your way up to the top of the Arch in the tiny little elevator/Tram cars.

The Sheriff's in Town

Street cleaning is taking place in OTR, both with a broom and with the patrol car.