Art museum's new wing tells about 'Queen of the West'
The Louisville Courier-Journal takes note of the Cincinnati Art Museum's new exhibit about Cincinnati area art.

Loner's rage burned after ruin of Web site
It appears the Case Western Shooter was a bona fide nut case. He is 62 year old Biswanath Halder's, originally from India, who lived for his website. The Volokh Conspiracy has a post of some extraneous information on the incident dug up by one of his readers. I am not sure what to make of the information. It reeks of tabloid fodder.

UPDATE: Volokh has more here and here. Both posts are warblogging at their best or worst, depending on your views.

Is this the face of Christianity today? Jim Boulet at NRO linked to this story at a Christian-Right website. The comments that made me take notice are:

This domestic war has been simmering for decades, but fighting has intensified since 9/11 and more recently the Iraqi war. It is the struggle for the soul of America, which is being carried out by two diametrically opposed armies. One is made up of traditional Americans with Judeo-Christian beliefs, who contend as President Bush does that America is a force for good in the world, which is ruled by God.

The other army is made up of the secular left, who don’t like words like “cowboy,” “evil” or “war.” They worship at the altar of the United Nations. Ironically, one of the strongest regiments in this godless army is America’s mainstream Protestant leaders. But they are mainstream Christians in name only for they gird themselves for battle with the breastplate of left-wing ideology.

This is a Hollywood guy to boot! How can any person who is not a theocratic fascist really believe this simplistic contention? Last I checked there were plenty of mainline Christian Churches. They generally do not get very political, at least when I went to one as a kid. Mr. Berg's comments are classic examples of "Themism," where he paints "them" as non-fundamentalist Protestant Christians. I think Mr. Berg also seems to not know much about religious demographics. He states: "Leading the charge for the Protestant fringe left are the leaders of the United Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Evangelical Lutherans, but especially the Methodists." Ok, those four Protestant sects have populations as follows

United Methodists	8,340,954
Presbyterians	3,485,332
Episcopalians	2,300,461
Evangelical Lutherans	5,125,919
Total	19,252,666

When the leaders of over 19 million people take a stand, is Mr. Berg somehow suggesting they are "bad Christians," and are "leftist" anti-Christs trying to destroy their respective sects? What is Jay Leno feeding this guy? Is Mr. Berg familiar with the quasi-pacifist interpretation of Christianity that is very common in mainstream sects? Turn the other cheek was something he missed in Sunday school? If this kind of thinking is common among most fundamentalist Christians, then I honestly think there will someday be a religious war in this country. If people seriously want a theocracy, then there will be problems. I hope Mr. Berg is on the Fringe of Right Wing Christians, but I am starting to have more and more doubts. On the surface today it appears that the only people who are involved in religious churches or groups are the most fervent and/or fundamentalist incarnations. This movement has a parallel in the Roman Catholic Church, were "Orthodox Catholic" is becoming a term that I think will be its own sect at some point, unless a Reformed Catholic Church breaks away.

Bottom line: Religion and politics don't mix well, but it if one sect or party is going to mix the two, then opposing parties have the right and often the duty to mix them as well. We live in a secular state, but with people like this, I fear that more conflict is ahead on this front. I feel like Chicken Little or the boy who cried wolf, but I fear the polarization of ideas, opinion, and ideologies that has plagued American Society today has now found its way to religion. Zeus help us all.

Hamilton soldier shot dead in Iraq
Tragic and sad. He is the fourth Ohio military person to die in the Iraq War.

Pathologist's conviction reversed
Some sense from the Courts. I hope the civil suit pending against the County Morgue is able to take on the senior management, and not pick on Tobias, who appears to have bee the scapegoat Mike Allen chose to make his political hay. I would not be surprised to see Allen sued as well. His office could have purposely chosen to prosecute Tobias instead of Mike's fellow Republican Carl L. Parrott Jr., the County Coroner and Tobias's former boss. It is not like Parrott has a clean record as Coroner either. The pending civil lawsuit against Parrott and company for allegedly allowing Condon to photograph cadavers will have to suffice, bringing justice and closure to this bizarre incident.

Fire captain accused in abduction
Is this guy nuts? Did he crack? Or is he just smart enough to hide his criminal side from the affluent neighborhoods he served? I hope police in every town this guy has ever been in take a look at any similar crimes and determine if this guy could have been the perpetrator.

Suspect Caught in Cleveland Univ. Killing
Only one person was killed, not two as was reported last night.

Why Two Newspapers are Better than One
If you were wondering how the first night of Jammin' on Main went last night you might get a different impression on how it went, depending on which newspaper you read. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that

"Pepsi's Jammin' on Main festival got off to a slow start when the gates opened at 7 p.m. Friday, and did not improve a great deal after night fell."

The Cincinnati Post reported a slightly different take:

"It was a late-arriving crowd, perhaps scared off by the threat of rain, but by 11 p.m. thousands packed the area around the courthouse. Still, attendance was likely down slightly from last year's first night crowd of 20,000."

Both papers agreed however that the one missing element was the boycotters. I guess the main boycotters don't care, and the militant boycotters don't seem to function unless their leader is available.

Here is the review of the first night in the Enquirer.

Univ. Shooting in Cleveland Wounds Two
Information is still sketchy, but the University is Case Western Reserve. Surprisingly this story is not on any of the national cable channels, but kudos goes to ONN for providing live coverage of a local Cleveland station's broadcast.

UPDATE: Two people are confirmed dead. More are wounded, but numbers are not known.

FOX News, among others, has begun the drumbeat for Bush's re-election [sic]. I expect to hear the words inevitable, certain, and anticipated out of pundits' mouths regularly for the next 18 months. The more they say it, I guess the more they think everyone will accept it. The opinion makers could not be more negative on the Democrat's chances. If is as if they want Bush to win. Impossible you say? The so-called "liberal" media could never support Bush? Well, a dirty little secret out in the media world is that conservatives have a large advantage in numbers with editorials pages, columnists, commentators, and pundits. These opinion makers are by definition biased, and they are already letting it show. The presumption has set in, the Democrats can't do anything to win. Bush can't be beat, so they say. I hope people remember what they hear, over and over again this political season. I hope the myth of a "liberal" media bias dies along with political discourse.

Black vote called key for issue win
According to Howard Wilkinson, it would appear the increase in voter turnout was due to a huge increase in blacks voting. In most predominately black neighborhoods, voter turnout exceeded the overall county rate. Targeted campaigning seems to have been effective. This headline is much better than yesterday's spin of: "CPS can thank a small turnout." So the CPS can instead thank black voters.

Iraqi Blogger Resurfaces, Says War 'Sucks'
With this headline, how much longer will it be before "Blog", "Blogger", and "blogging" makes the dictionary?

Activist files suit to halt concert
Well, the "activist" in question is of course everyone's favorite, Nate Livingston. This issue has been raised by many Conservative groups as unconstitutional, so I wonder if they will be happy that a black separatist group is on their side. Strange bedfellows indeed.

Committee system not getting the job done for City Council
It appears that one city council person is still a little green:

Tuesday, Councilwoman Laketa Cole showed up more than an hour late to a Neighborhood and Public Works Committee meeting to ask Police Chief Tom Streicher the same questions about the Sunday morning riots on Stratford Avenue he'd already been asked by other council members.

Hopefully Councilwoman Cole will be on time next week.

Condon's plan no surprise, tape says
Was this tape used at the Condon trial or was it made after the fact? It seems that if it was not used at the trial, and was known to exist by respective concil it might have been enough for reasonable doubt. On the other hand, the torch and pitch fork crowd was out for a hide to sink their teeth into.

UPDATE: Greg Flannery of City Beat wonders about Mike Allen's Letter to the county Coroner's office. Does it also indicate that Condon's actions were legal?

CPS can thank a small turnout
The title of this article must be considered idiotic when you read this part of it:

The turnout Tuesday was 21 percent countywide, which, strange as it seems, is a fairly high number for a spring primary election in an odd-numbered year, when there is little else on the ballot.

The turnout for last year's May primary election was 14%. I blame this on the editors, who often write or change article headlines.

Voters Approve $480 Million Cincinnati Schools Bond Issue
This was a fairly close election, with over 47,000 voters casting a ballot. For there only being one issue on the ballot, I think that number is not that bad compared to other elections. I am glad this passed. The naysayers are concerned about the state of schools now. I care about the state of the buildings for the next 25+ years. I hope this prevents the need for more building funds for that length of time. If not, then we can bitch about it. The trick of course is that we will not know the answer until it is too late.

Sensationalist of the Day: Jay Love of the Buzz

On the second annual Cinco de Mayo Min-riot: Jay is playing "gotcha." He has the "goods" to show something. What he is trying to show was unclear. He is trying to show that the police are evil demons who let whites riot, while acting against blacks. That analysis is horribly flawed if that is his intention. He is trying to compare last year's black family reunion to this riot and he thinks the police or the news media have double standards. Well they have double standards, but not the one Jay is trying to paint. If anything, the police reacted far to restrained with last years Black Family Reunion, but they did act with strong enough force for the Cinco de Mayo Riot.

The only problem with the police action was they were slow to respond to this most recent incident. The cause for their delay is unknown, but Jay is trying to infer it was based on race. Jay is trying to infer that because he is trying to stir up conflict to attract listeners. Conflict is the lifeblood of talk radio, so his actions are expected.

A second level to the invalid analysis of Jay Love is in lack of excuse making on the parents of the rioters. When high school and younger kids ran rampant downtown the media showed light on the lack of parent supervision at a family event the media called out the parents of the kids. Many in the black community defended the kids, as was done after the 2001 riots. No one defended the Cinco de Mayo rioters. They were not supported nor were their actions called a "rebellion." They were just called thugs and everyone moved on. Jay wants them raked over hot coals by the media, which he is doing a bit himself, but he is more outraged that the media has not jumped all over this. The difference between the two situations is simple: the college students are adults. Their parents are not supposed to be in control of them, as the kids at the Black Family Reunion should have controlled.

Jay is grasping at straws. He has to play the race card to get his audience into a frenzy. Jay is being a typical hate radio host, like Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage.

Matt Weiler: Coaster Safety
I share Matt's comments on politicians jumping the gun, and calling for something to be done about roller coasters. What that something might be, I have no clue. I myself don't really like to ride roller coasters. I am not the most agile person, and extra g-forces are not something that does anything for me, but make me feel like crap.

Open air waves
The UC News Record profiles WAIF 88.3 FM. The "all volunteer" radio station has been rolling on for 25 years. They have online streaming, so have a listen.