Cranley pushes hate-crimes law
An election year brings out the best dog and pony shows money can buy, and John Cranley is the stable master esquire. I am all for equal rights for homosexuals, but I don't like a Johnny come lately making hay from the body of a dead man.

This issue is bringing in the bigots from out of town to make it a media circus.

Meanwhile, the Rev. Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., said Sunday that he plans to bring a group to Covington and Cincinnati Feb. 11 to protest ordinances dealing with protection for homosexuals.

This is the scumbag fundamentalist theocratic fascist that preaches hate and bigotry. I wonder how many locals will cheer him on. I also wonder how many local talk radio shows will have him on the air.

Taft plan resembles defeated opponent's
A Clintonian move if there ever was one on the part of Taft. I wonder if Kevin Holtsberry would care to revise and extend his remarks.

CJC Meltdown
Chris Anderson comments on the Meltdown of the CJC and the boycott. John Schlagetter is moving to a level of Comity. I guess shooting fish in a barrel over at the CJC website has become too monotonous.

Banning Of Mice and Men
It appears that local yokel Lloyd Caldwell is on a puritan tirade. He is upset over a few swear words in the classic John Steinbeck novel Of Mice and Men. Hopefully the school board will ignore the ignoramus. When a man allows himself to be qutoed in the newspaper for saying

"Every page in this book except four, and that’s right at the beginning, has swear words of one nature or another —

and some of them are just dern right, down rotten filthy."

his judgment must be questioned and his lack of education must be evident. Erin O'Conner at Critical Mass had a few comments on the subject, and sugguests that Mr. Caldwell needs to study what the book is about, before objecting to the superfical level of the atmosphere, no matter how real it is.

CalPundit writes much the same ideas I had after reading Instapundit recently. The Blogosphere has been far to harsh and petty the last month or so. The pro-Iraq crowd has become as shrill and short; they make the transnationals look well thought and sincere. Glenn Reynolds is sounding more and more like a talk radio host, saying the most outlandish thing, just to get a rise out his audience. Now, if we combine talk radio with the printed word, don't we just get a tabloid?

Nate States the Obvious
In yet another email, Nate Livingston is off on a mindless and incomprehensible tangent. He writes:

Greg Flannery, John Schlagetter, Brian Griffin and other white liberals are no friend of the Cincinnati Boycott or the movement for justice and equality being waged in Cincinnati. We can never allow them to intimidate us. We can never allow them to bully us into backing away from our righteous position that African Americans are equal to white Americans.

Yes Nate, it is obvious I do not support your group's boycott or your "movement". I am not a white American. I am just an American. As along as you cannot understand that much, there will be end to your boycott, no end to your bigotry, and no end to your racism.

Columbia Lost: A Special Section of The Enquirer, WCPO-TV9, The Post and Cincinnati.Com
Excellent page and excellent local coverage from the Enquirer/Post/WCPO. I hope yesterday's call for local stories was worth it.

DeWine attacks police slowdown
Historians say only Nixon could go to China, so could only a Republican get police to get back into gear?

Columbia, The Gem of the Ocean
O, Columbia! the gem of the ocean,
The home of the brave and the free,
The shrine if each patriot's devotion,
A world offers homage to thee.
Thy mandates make heroes assemble
When Liberty's form stands in view;
Thy banners make tyranny tremble

When borne by the Red, White and Blue!
When borne by the Red, White and Blue!
When borne by the Red, White and Blue!
Thy banners make tyranny tremble
When borne by the Red, White and Blue!

The wine cup, the wine cup bring hither,
And fill you it true to the brim!
May the wreaths they have won never wither,
Nor the star of their glory grow dim!
May the service united ne'er sever,
But they to their colors prove true!
The Army and Navy forever,
Three cheers for the red, white and blue,
Three cheers for the red, white and blue,
Three cheers for the red, white and blue,
The Army and Navy forever,
Three cheers for the red, white and blue.

If you can sing along with it and not tear up, you are stone cold and emotion free.

Hail Columbia
Hail Columbia, happy land!
Hail, ye heroes, heav'n-born band,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone
Enjoy'd the peace your valor won.
Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies.

Firm, united let us be,
Rallying round our liberty,
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.

MP3 from USAF Band with an alternate version.

John Glenn reacts to the Columbia Disaster.

Columbia Disaster
I remember the day vividly back on January 28th, 1986. I was in my 8th grade social studies class at Washington Junior High in Jamestown, New York. All day long most teachers keep their classes in the auditorium watching television coverage of the Challenger tragedy. To this day I hate watching the video of the Challenger exploding. Feeling the fear then as I do now is horrible and the pain of the families of the astronauts is unimaginable. Those feelings must be respected and the reason for the loss of Columbia must be investigated fully. However, now that another shuttle has been lost, I have but one thought. Space flight must continue. NASA went 3 years without launching a shuttle. That cannot happen again. The United States must continue with manned space flights, and must work towards new and brilliant goals. We must take this horrible event and the grief it will and has brought to the world and use it to build a new effort to go back to the Moon and on to Mars. Fear cannot be let to rule space exploration. The reaction after the Challenger disaster held back space exploration in an untold number of ways. We must not recoil into the shell of hyper-caution, and instead honor the 7 astronauts and all past space explorers by living the dreams of pushing the envelope and breaking out of confines of our planet and our star system. As a society we must understand the risks of exploration and not let the knee-jerk culture of fear to hold back the progress of knowledge. Humans must strive to better themselves. We must go where no one has gone before.

Seeking informationIf you have any connection to the space shuttle or if you have friends or relatives who live in the area where debris from the shuttle Columbia is falling in north Texas, please call the Enquirer's Metro desk at 768-8600 or send an e-mail to dfrench@enquirer.com.Did the Editor(s) actually approve this as a front page link? This rubs me as a bit crass.

John Schlagetter has posted emails from Nate and Amanda illustrating the bigotry and racism of the CJC. Here the CJC is attacking Greg Flannery of City Beat, one of the biggest boycott friendly members of the local media. Shooting one's self in the foot could not have a better example than the CJC's rantings. The highlight is the threat of violence implied in this quote:

He ain't nobody. He ain't done shit for us and never will. All he wants to do us school us on how he would like to see it done. And, of course, the method that he prescribes involves "persuading" the white man to "change his mind and his behavior". To hell with that. These muthafuckas can either be reasoned with or they can feel the pain. Fuck persuading anybody. And it goes without saying that this persuasion is naturally going to come with all kinds of personal sacrifice (financial, emotional, and physical) from us colored folk.

That quote was from Amanda. Yes, it shocked me too, but when you walk around with an anti-Semitic sign like this, anything could come out of your mouth.

Activists call for talks to resolve boycott
How can Luken talk to anyone with any boycott leaders when there is no clear director or group leading the boycott? The CBUF claims they lead the boycott and have defined the boycott as one covering the area of downtown below Central Parkway. The CJC, or rather what is left of it, claims the boycott includes the same area, plus a ban on all outsiders from coming into Cincinnati, but they also have enacted an "Artists of Conscious Campaign" trying to keep all artists/musicians/performers out of the entire Cincinnati region.

On Today’s (Friday’s) Sister Speak radio program on 1230 the Buzz the battle of dueling boycott groups occurred with the likes of Dwight Patton and Juleana Frierson calling in from the CBUF while Amanda Mayes, Monica Williams, and William Kirkland called in from the new and unimproved CJC. The two separate boycotts were declared in the statements from both groups. The fracture of the boycott is official. Luken has no way to negotiate with anyone. He can’t deal with two groups; the egos of the two groups are far too large for even Jimmy Carter to cope. Expecting Luken to do anything with these unfocused groups with hidden agendas is foolhardy and ill-conceived. Moving forward disregarding the boycott is the only path Luken can take. Extortion cannot be reward. An boycott as the means of a political power grab is a never ending process. The boycott will continue forever. To defeat its irrational goals we must make it irrelevant.

Double Standards
If a white person were to have a web page like this with the same type of rhetoric about blacks and race, then on a scale of 1 to 10, how racist would that person be? Is 11 to low?

Director Spike Lee Criticizes BET
Would this have anything to do with Ed Gordon of BET replacing Spike Lee as a lecturer at UC?

Chris Anderson on Legacies in Cincinnati Politics. Legacies smell of Frats to me. I am not a fan of Frats. I have to live with the often asked question most Miami University alums get: "so, what Frat were you in." Gamma Delta Iota baby! GDI todayI GDI tomorrow! GDI forever new! GDI through and through!

John Schlagetter asks the question that I asked back in September:

So why did Tavis Smiley get off easy without being targeted or boycotted when he was downtown promoting his new NPR show?

I even had pictures.

State of the City
A man living in a van down by the river knows that the state of the city of Cincinnati is Not Good.