Back to square one
The idea of developing Fountain Square is a good one. I have to wonder about a few things. City Council has proposed to put money into a revised Main Street entertainment district and to build the "Banks project" in-between the new stadiums. Can we afford all of these? If most of the money comes from private sources I am confident they are financially viable. If all or most of the money comes form the city I am not sure if the value is there. I also have to wonder, will these three areas compete against each other, dooming all to failure? I also don’t want to loose the skywalk. They may take away foot traffic on the street, a big measuring stick for urban planners and marketers, but the convenience of the skywalk for pedestrians outweigh earnings potentials in this case. The skywalk in the entire down town is dependant on all sections being connected. If you take out a vital artery, you blow the whole system. It is bad enough the section was torn down in preparation for a new Nordstrom’s at Race and 5th, only resulting in a parking lot, but adding to that disaster will kill the shops around Fountain Place section of the skywalk.

Under cover of war, Mugabe unleashes a new reign of terror
It appears something was rotting in Zimbabwe while the bombs were dropping in Iraq. I wonder if freedom will be promised for the people of Zimbabwe. Will the bloodthirsty hawks drool over the change for another war? I wonder if International ANSWER would call it "racist" if the US tried to oust an African dictator/racist. Instead the American press, the blood lusting conservatives, and the communist backed activists will be silent or hypocritical on the issue, and yet another dictator will be coddled by France. I would think the Republicans would love to stick to France again, but when's the last time they followed through on anything for Africans that did not included religious indoctrination?

Creepy and Sad
Pat DeWine has an audio greeting on his new council member website, as do the rest of council. Is this the Pat or is it Karl Childers from the movie Sling Blade?

NEW CINCINNATI and a new City of Cincinnati website.

Medina Democrats to host Springer
If Springer gets the nomination I will eat a dead grasshopper. If he beats Voinovich I will eat a live one.

Donald Mooney on the boycott 2.0, from the Post.

The future of rock 'n' roll
Help Fight the Beast, Listen to 97X.

Youth served on City Council
People bitch and moan about City Council. No one can say anything good about them. Is it because they are young and they don't do things the "conventional" way? Or is it because they are young and have no clue what they are doing? I am 31 years old and 4 council members are my age or younger, and 2 more are only a few years older. 6 of the 9 are Generation Xer's. How does this compare to the rest of the nation? Are we ahead of the curve or is this yet another generation gap that will only get worse as the "Boomer's" get older and more of a pain in the ass than they already are?

My guess is that the city council has some great ideas, but the older, and more powerful, citizens do not take them seriously. Business leaders, who are generally older, like new ideas, but they don’t like to try them. Older activists don’t like new blood, unless they are in tow. I will not be surprised to see age indirectly used as a campaign tool this year in Council elections. I can see the Republicans trying to bash the twenty-somethings, while tip towing around their thirty-somethings. Age is but a number, but numbers can sway a fickle and moronic public. I expect more than one gray haired candidate to step forward this time around. Break out the Ben-Gay!

ESPN.com - Cincinnati Reds - Clubhouse
I guess the folks at ESPN have been spending to much time in Philadelphia. While referring the Cincinnati Enquirer the writer(s) gave us the "Cincinnati Inquirer" instead. What makes this worse is that in different parts of the web page, closer to the top, they got it right.

[Link via Matt Weiler]

Security Agency Selects Privacy Watchdog
A reader (Ray) pointed this article out to me. I thought Congress had voted to stop funding programs to collect personal data on citizens. I guess Homeland Security had some funding tucked away for this type of thing. It is odd that Tom Ridge would pick someone who basically ran a company that harassed people online. Is this what Homeland Security is come to? Saftey through harassment and intrustion?

Letters target gay ordinance
Bigot Mail? A fundie-gram? What will these theocrats do next? I am sickened by their need to control others, allowing their fears to be pacified. But alas, I can only say this so much. People will fear others as long as we are not all sharing the same brain. In the case of the CCV I just wished they used their brains, instead of relying on their selectively highlighted bible and volumes of propaganda. Chris Anderson has some good comments on this latest campaign of hate mail as well.

FOX: CNN Blames Premature Obituaries on Human Error
This is news? This is front-page news? FOX couldn't find any other stories on Iraq or Syria to run instead of running a clerical error story? Are they this petty? Well, do I have to bother answering that question? Of course they are petty, little children. They even had to add a NY Post style editorial headline on the front-page link "Night of the Living Dead." Why didn't they just use "Gotcha" and just become the cliché tabloid they
long to be? I have to wonder if Foxnews.com is run from the NY Post offices.

I will be checking on CNN for the follow-up rebuttal "FOX News Intern Mislabels Folder" "Over night a new Pepperdine University Intern mistakenly mislabeled Ollie North's Personnel File with Brit Hume's name. An HR Manager nearly had to fire Hume for lying about his years of experience at ABC as an anchor. The 20-year-old intern had been working only 2 days at FOX and was not familiar with the file system. She assumed it would have been the same as the RNC headquarters where she had been a volunteer
previously. The file labels were quickly correct, but the original labels can be seen through the new ones."

State cuts terror threat to yellow
Why does Ohio or any state need its own terror alert? I can see a city or even a state issuing a specific alert when there is a semi-specific threat, but I think it is safe for the residents of Ohio to just follow the Federal terror alert guides. If Taft is just going to mimic the Department of Homeland Security, then why bother with the damn thing in the first place? Well, Bob has to fight terror with the rest of hanger's on. Ohio is not a high on the terrorist target list. I think we all can just stay vigilant, without worrying about foreign terrorists. I would much prefer Bob to keep a warning on the threats from domestic terrorists. If some anti-abortion nut case is trying to send fake anthrax letters again, I would much prefer to know about that, then a useless state warning level. What kind of intelligence reports does Taft get? Is there an Ohio Intelligence Agency? Are we sending spies into Kentucky and West Virginia? Opps, I may have just blown their cover, Sheriff Leis is knocking on my door as I type.

Numbers 25, 26, & 27. At this rate we are on pace to a have a murder rate slightly higher than last year.

CHRIS ANDERSON comments on one of the undemocratic demands issued by the revised boycott übercoalition.

Ex-campaign treasurer stole $400,000 from Boehner fund
How valued can an endorsement like this be?

The Ohio Society of Public Accountants Endorse Rep. John Boehner

"The Screening Committee and the Society's Board believe you are a candidate who will continue to be a positive influence in Washington."

The Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants
June 26, 2002

I wonder which member of the Ohio Society of CPA's missed the $400,000+ from a congressional campaign. That is not a drop in the bucket for Boehner's war chest. You might think that someone would have caught this a little sooner. Do people really want this guy as their watchdog in Washington? Is this John’s typical level of oversight? I am glad I am not in his district.

CAIR: No Room to Judge
A letter to the editor of the Washington Post from a Rich Leonardi from here in Cincinnati. CAIR is a group that was upset with the play Paradise.

[Link via Atrios with comments]

SOMEBODY'S lobbyist is getting a big fat Raise.

Boycotters still seek broad demands
Luken thinks these demands will cost in total about 5 billion dollars, not just the 1.6 billion amount named. I wish I understood the law more, because this sounds like a case of extortion that could fall into the realm of the RCIO statues. I also question this bit of alleged history put forth by the reporter:

In fact, council members were elected using proportional representation until voters changed the city's charter in 1957 in a bid to block Theodore Berry from becoming the Queen City's first black mayor. The change prevented Berry's ascendancy for 15 years, officials said.

The fact may only be the change of the charter in 1957. The bid to block Theodore Berry is an opinion that I don’t think was established as a fact in the article, and I would guess is something only considered a fact in some people’s opinion. It might be true. I was not alive then and am still a relative new comer to this city, at 13 years in the greater Cincinnati area, so my knowledge of that kind of local history is very limited. I am skeptical that what the writer claimed as “fact” can be documented or supported. I think the reporter should have qualified that part to either support it as fact with some reference to evidence, or treat it is a generally accepted opinion in certain or some quarters, as opposed to a clear fact.

Welcome to 700WLW Listeners
I bid a warm hello to all of travelers from the WLW website. Linda Bergér's information can be found on the left panel. If you are wondering what a blog is, you can learn more here, here, and here. If you want to provide some feed back you can email me at the link to the left or just post a comment by hitting the "comments" link at the bottom of this or any post. If you have a blog of your own, please include a link. If you have any information that you think needs airing, please let me know. I try to update my blog everyday, and I usually keep up that pace. Please comeback again!