Dirty Laundry, Online for All to See
This was a huge story I missed. I for one am glad we are able to gain easy access to all court documents and data. This data is all public record, open to everyone. If you want to keep yourself secret, then don't end up in court. I have used this site very often. I used it to get a copy of the Indictment of Ron Twitty. I also have used it to look up the legal history of Nate Livingston, which is very, very long. Those who fear this are over reacting. You can't get bulk data, so telemarketers or Junk Mailers really can't do much. A stalker can still be traced by his Internet account. I am sure each visitor to the site is tracked by IP address and by ISP provider. This is just another panicky attitude of people who fear an open society. If someone wants to know where you live they can. If you file a lawsuit, and the information is in the court records, the press can find out whether it is online or not.

Cincinnati repeals ban on masks
I guess this law had good intentions, but it seemed rather silly. Changing the law to settle a lawsuit is a painless way to handle a situation that should not have really been there in the first place.

Allen's decision lauded as wise
This is a short-run pragmatic choice. In the long-run it will be a problem. The next black person, who the black person indicted against the wishes of the black activists, will get the press and attention whores out in full force claiming that white person can't sit in judgment of that person. This idea has been put forward from the hate group backers, but this gives them more fuel for future cases. Mike had no other choice. The media was not going to let go, they smelled blood, and had a pound of flesh, while looking for more.

Frailey's devotion 'dazzled' board
Only 41 years old? Does he have the needed experience for such a monumental job? He was a school board member of a different school district from where he worked. He has political blood in him, so that will have good and bad values to it. How will the community react to him? Will he get support from specific parts of the community simply because of his race? My asking that question I am sure ruffles the feathers of some, but I believe it is a fair question, which does not get asked by much of the media when the person is black.

I have my human weakness. One of them is self congratulation. I have to promote RoadSassy's comments about this blog. I also must thank Zee, editor of Roadsassy, for just reading this little attempt at amateur commentary. I will keep on blogging. I hope a few people are reading. I do wish Zee would have better options when trying to listen to Talk Radio. I was forced to turn it off several times this week. That was not a bad thing for getting more done at work, but it is a bad thing for public discourse in this city.

Coverage of the 2nd Grand Jury Announcement
Cincinnati Enquirer Twitty case to go before 2nd grand jury
Cincinnati Post Allen to start over on Twitty case
Cincinnati Business Courier Twitty indictments thrown out
WCPO Second Grand Jury To Convene To Hear Twitty Case
FOX19 Second Grand Jury to Hear Twitty Case
WLWT Twitty: Second Grand Jury To Convene
WKRC Nothing on their website as of the creation of this post
WVXU-FM A second grand jury to hear Twitty case

AP Story Pick ups:
Dayton Daily News, Akron Beacon Journal, NJ.com: NewsFlash, Columbus, GA Ledger-Enquirer

Black leaders relieved Twitty gets new jury
This article is troubling. Why does the newspaper seek out reaction from the black community? The newspaper appears to be confirming that this issue is a race issue. I, and many others, would claim this is a self-made race issue. It was made such not by those who are prosecuting Twitty, it is being made by Twitty, his advisers, and the every opportunist in the black community. This is again a sign of unfair treatment from the Media. The media is treating the black community as some type homogenous group, something most activists knowingly perpetuate. That collectivism and the “us vs. them“ mentality is one of the major causes of problems today. That kind of mentality is a bigoted and sometimes a racist attitude. If you are bigoted towards people, in this case whites, you are not going to get positive feedback from most whites. Oh, but I am sure that I will be called a racist for even thinking blacks could be bigoted or racist. Note the sarcasm in case you not awake yet this morning.

Queen City Soapbox: The First Proto-blogger
I agree in general that Paul Harvey does fit the idea of a Prot-blogger, but I just really hate Paul Harvey's bias. Chris's post references Paul Harvey’s method where he does mix his "news" with commentary. That method is one of the larger blogish characteristics. When Paul Harvey does that it makes my skin crawl. He appears to be directly referring to GOP talking points in all of his commentary. It is nothing that sounds original. Most bloggers today, liberal, conservative, libertarian, or populist all give a little bit of their own ideological spin on issues. Harvey just walks in total step the latest GOP dogma. Harvey's little "rest of the story" segments can be interesting sometimes, but I really think it is time for him to hang up the microphone.

Police Officers Shot At in Walnut Hills
"The suspect is described as African-American man with a two-inch "Afro," between 20-26 years-old, about 5'10", 180-190 pounds, wearing a white T-shirt, black jeans and armed with a handgun. "
This is a very general description. This could be the general description of 50% of the drug dealers in the city.

Second Grand Jury To Convene To Hear Twitty Case
This makes Mike Allen look like he really screwed up by not at least attempting to have Fagel removed. It looks more like he caved in to pressure. Most of the pressure that was effective came from the Media. They gave birth to this story and with help from the Buzz, made it into greatest case of guilt by suspicion I have seen in a while. Jay Love on the Buzz really comes across as either an ignorant fool, a Willie Cunningham wanna be, or just as a instigator of baseless anger. He has declared the first grand jury as "fixed", which any blind squirrel knows to be bullshit.

The one fact Jay missed all week on this issue is fact that he knows who Mr. Fagel is. The fact that that Mr. Fagel's name is known is evidence to support that he was not illegally planted on the Grand Jury. If he were not the foreman, no one would have known he was on that jury. If the "fix was in", surely they would have kept his name from being known to the public. At this point, there could have been a black police officer or another city employee on the Grand Jury. We are not going to know, under the current circumstances, but Jay does not want to think things through. He has is target. He has his Mark Furman, so he can now let the OJ part deux commence.

Lemmie refuses to delay Twitty discipline hearings
It is nice to see a good summary article from City Council. I wish there was a summary article after every Council meeting.

Lemmie’s refusal will presumably end after this afternoon’s news.

Ohio to be short two congressmen this fall
Ohio will be greatly under represented this fall in the creation of the Homeland Security Department and with the likely Iraq War Resolution that will most likely happen after the November Election. Now, I am sure conservatives are looking to say that it everyone else’s fault, but it is clearly one person's fault. That person is Governor Bob Taft. Taft refused to hold special elections, and a foolish judge agreed.

BRONSON: Abstinence works
This is the Peter Bronson I grown to loath. I was starting to feel really troubled having to agree with many of his column on the boycott and related issues. I am feeling much more at home see him be the fundamentalist prude out to indoctrinate everyone's kids with his brand of religion. I wish Peter and his conservative brethren applied their love for abstinence from sex to that of guns. Why not fight to keep guns out the hands kids, as well as keeping their "pee-pee" and "woohoo?" I would instead use the conservative's dogma back against them. Sex doesn't kill, people do!

Evendale hears new protest
This little village has no reason to be going through this nonsense. It would appear that the "protestors" are lacking in something constructive to do, and need to show their inner-city friends that they are just as much with the "movement," despite their generally higher level of success. The TV highlights of the meeting are almost like watching the clown posse of City Access Cable fame.

Vice Mayor Calls For City Official's Resignation In Wake Of Twitty Indictment
Who is Alicia Reese trying to fool? Fagel may be a jerk, he may be snobbish bore, but why blame this man and undercut the process with baseless implications? Well, that answer is simple: she wants votes! She wants to gain votes in the black community. She has a bit of a PR problem in the black community. Calling for someone else to resign takes big balls in her case. There is more reason for her to resign for the allegations made against her, than there is for this man. The Vice Mayor looks like a cheap politician. That just might be all she is, and ever will be.

My Response to the Comments from Greg Flannery of CityBeat
I will start off by giving an apology to Doug Trapp. As Greg stated, Doug originally used the term "riot" in place of "uprising" and "rebellion", but Greg changed them. Greg then should at least be in my Media Dog House; the Hall of Shame was a bit harsh. I really do not think Greg's reasoning as to why he felt those words were better than "riot" holds up. If the intention was to illustrate the motivations of specific members of Stonewall, then I believe the way those words were used fails at that intention. The words were used in a manner that indicated a fact to the reader, not as the motivator of the people referenced. Here is the paragraph in question from the original article:

More so than the other new board members, Ford, McCleese and Bruins were energized by the social movement that followed the April 2001 uprising in Over-the-Rhine. From the rebellion emerged two new groups -- the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati and Citizens Concerned for Justice -- that joined the Black United Front in a boycott of downtown businesses.

What I found to be the problem is that the article declares that the "events" as Greg called them in his email, were not what motivated them, it was the aftermath of the events. Those events cannot honestly be called an uprising or rebellion. They were riots. I stated in my article that calling them a civil disturbance or unrest was not ideal, but they are politically positive terms for the black activist community that became generally acceptable by most of the media. They became reasonable. They were still not accurate, but they were within reason. By changing these words you spun the story to support the propaganda of boycotters.

As to Greg’s overall comments on the April 2001 riots I can only read it as revisionism. They only day with nonviolent protests was the Saturday after the Funeral of Timothy Thomas. Those were not technically illegal protests, but they were nonviolent. On the nights of rioting there was no nonviolent protests on the streets, at least none to speak of. Claiming that the riots were justified is not only wrong, it is sad. There is no justification to run around town breaking windows, throwing bricks and bottles at white motorists, looting stores, and shooting at police.

Luken's term “terrorist” was correctly used for hate groups like the "Black Fist" and the "New Black Panther Party." Those types of groups, whose members are wrapped up in with the boycott groups, are a few steps from becoming a "PLO" or "Islamic Jihad" type group. At this point the CBUF and the CJC have even been tainted by allegations of the use of threats and intimidation as stated by former Judge Nathaniel Jones. The boycott is extortion, so “terrorist” really is not a bad comparison. I can see where the timing of when Luken used it as a problem, since it was not to long after the 9/11 attacks.

What I find terrible about the entire situation, not so much of an issue with CityBeat, is that several of the boycott demands are things that I would agree with. What I cannot agree with is the means the boycotters seek to gain those demands. Instead of organizing a political campaign, they are trying to force a brand of progressive-populism on the populace with a neo-Leninist style to it. As a liberal I can find it difficult to draw a line with groups that under different circumstance I might find common causes. Instead I am pushed away and blamed for history based on the color of my skin. That is sad.

Boycott supporters vow to intensify efforts
This is yet another advertisement for the racist/bigoted boycott groups. I hope that the Black United Front boycotts all corporations in Cincinnati. I don’t know where they would then eat or buy food, clothes, medicine, or shelter. Will this boycott include not eating at Damon Lynch's restaurant? Why does the Post give these bigots a platform? Why does most of the media either cheer them on, or sit on their hands? Ask some questions Cincinnati media!. No one in any of the boycott groups would ever answer questions from someone like me. I don't care about ratings or votes. I am not afraid of being called a racist. I have already been called that, so I can look their bigotry and their racism in the eye and laugh and feel pity. I really don't know what they will do when their attention whoring no longer attracts the Johns (TV and Newspapers)? It will be a big shock. They will have to stage bigger and more outlandish incidents. This is where they will not be able to hold back the violence that bubbles in many of their supporters. That will not be pleasant to watch, but I will be watching from the comfort of my middle class chair, which they will not be able to knock me off. Their goal of revenge and separatism will not succeed. I wish they would instead get on board the mainstream, or cut out a niche that can fit into the melting pot.

Six charged in attack on bus
A handful of kids act out and it is a riot, but 150+ kids act out and it is a "wilding" or a "melee?" It would appear that race might have played a role in this incident, at least on the surface. Deerpark is a mostly white school district, while Mt. Healthy is close to mostly black. That information was missing from the story.

Prosecutors defend Twitty grand juror
" The jurors themselves picked Mr. Fagel as their foreman, the person who informs prosecutors of the jury's decision and signs the indictment." This not what the law states. (read my last post)

The real joke was Fagel's "laugh" to Luken. Fagel appears to be an arrogant ass. Luken is an ass for making that public knowledge. Why did the mayor mention anything about his conversation with the man? That sounds like something Todd Portune would do, not a form U.S. Congressman.

Rules offer insights on grand jury
Enquirer Watch:
"Q: How did Mr. Fagel become jury foreman, and what is the foreman's job?

A: The jurors select a foreman by voting. The foreman is technically the leader of the jury, but he has no more voting power than any other juror. "

Ok, this would be the case for a petit jury, but based one the Ohio Revised Code Section 2939.02 Selection of grand jury which states that "The judge of the court of common pleas may select any person who satisfies the qualifications of a juror and whose name is not included in the annual jury list or on a ballot deposited in the jury wheel or automation data processing storage drawer, or whose name is not contained in an automated data processing information storage device, to preside as foreman of the grand jury, in which event the grand jury shall consist of the foreman so selected and fourteen additional grand jurors selected from the jury wheel or by use of the automation data processing equipment and procedures in the manner provided in this section."
Today on WLW several callers who claimed to have been on grand juries support the fact that the foreperson was selected by the judge, not by the vote of the other jury members. Some of the callers were sure of this, other described a very informal process where "someone" asked who wanted to be foreperson, and only one guy raised his hand. That guy was made foreman, and that "someone" was most surely the judge.

One of many demagogues of the Buzz, Jay Love, praised this article for describing how Grand Jury selection works. I would agree, except for the section I mentioned above. Now, since the perception that this one part of the article is a little bit invalid, I am sure Jay would have to agree that this brings everything else in the article under complete suspicion. He must agree that the reporter, editor, and publisher put the fix in to mislead all of Cincinnati! Jay must now be calling for that reporter and editor to be fired!!!! The oppressors must be vanquished. We must raise ourselves, and our children. We must not let the racists force us to read newspapers!!! Reporter Brutality must be stopped! NO JUSTICE, NO PEA...........well you know.