Springer Not Running for Senate
Jerry Springer has announced that he will not be running for U. S. Senator of Ohio. I am not surprised. He had horrible numbers, but he could have spent a boatload of money and pulled enough new voters in to help out the Democrats. I guess he was not willing to spend his own money and he did not want to give up his show to campaign. Greed won out. Springer lived up to his image. Instead of gaining attention for a senate race, Fingerhut will be the next under funded candidate to be sent up for slaughter against the Ohio GOP Machine. Voinovich looks like a lock, unless someone else comes out of the woodwork with a truck full of money.

More Coverage: Post, FOX, Bloomberg.

Good Dowd: Neocons Coup at State
More good Dowd. I am sure she will be attacked by the 800-pound gorilla and his minions for not used italics at a certain point, but she is still a great columnist.

More Springer Coverage
These stories will all be moot by midday. Enquirer here, and here. The BBC covers both Jerry and Arnold. AP's take.

This story on a guest on his show being arrested sure does not help either.

UPDATE 11:05 AM: On RunJerryrun.com Springer's next media appearance is listed as CNN's Crossfire Today (Wed Aug 6th). This is an indication that he still wants to get into the mix of political discussion no matter what he annouces today.

Is this what we can expect?
The Washington Post has introduced its new tabloid geared towards the 18 to 34 year olds and commuters. The Express as it is called is best described as a daily tabloid with condensed news, made up from wire reports and retreads. Jack Shafer at Slate called it "The Washington Post Lite." In Shafer's article he described how the local Alt weekly's satirical issue the created in response to the Express call "Expresso." The satirical issue had as its cover lead "For those who will not read, we salute you!" This was obviously a slam on the Express's format of condensed news, a McNews style.

Is this a sign of what the Enquirer's Weekly will be like? Will it be just recycled Gannett News Service articles cut down to 400 words or less? I hope this is not what they have in mind. I hope they make it worth reading, not just worth browsing. I fear that the Washington Post model is what the business side of the Enquirer has in mind to help build up revenues. If this is all that the Enquirer's Weekly is going to be, then editorially CityBeat will have nothing to fear in the battle of quality. However, in the marketing game the Enquirer may be able to tap into the mass audience's laziness and ignorance. McDonald's, after all, has a boatload of customers, just not the quality worthy of a good meal.

D-Day for Springer
Wednesday is the Day for Jerry to announce his intentions. I am torn. I do not know what he will do. He has cut himself off from contact with the media, to the point of not even updating his blog with new posts. I don't know if Springer is really another Ventura. The two do have similarities in the demographic they need as their base, but Springer can be a slick politician when he needs to be.

At this point I am predicting that Springer will not run, but I am not sure. Springer could just be using this as a contract renegotiation tactic, or he could be serious. I predict a low media turnout at his news conference, but a big dose of blogdom repudiation.

Buzz Agents
Dwight Patton of the CBUF called into Lincoln Ware's radio program today and made what appeared to be a claim that the Boycott B, Nate and Company, are some kind of "agents" or counter-intelligence group out to presumably disrupt the boycott and the Boycott A groups.

I don't know who has the nutty members, Group B or Group A. Flip a coin.

Racial Healer Coming to Town?
Mary Clare Rietz, founder of "Building Relationships Toward Racial Harmony", is moving to Cincinnati from Toledo. I have never heard of her before, but one can surmise that if her leaving town warranted this article in the Blade, then she must have done something worthwhile. I just hope it was not a slow news day. I do not know if she plans on continuing her work to help race relations, but she could not have picked a better place to try and do some good in that area. We sure can use the help. I just hope that if she does want to help, that she does not have a preconceived notion of Cincinnati, the problems here, or the overall problems with race relations.

Observation
Is the Steve Stifler character from the American Pie movies based on George Bush? I mean the drinking, the arrogance, the total inability to think that anyone who is not you matters, they could be twins.

New Blog to Cincinnati Area
Barney McClelland, a local freelance writer, has started a new blog called As I Please. Barney has some new interesting writing that I will have to dig into a bit more. He does need to learn how to add links to his blog though.

How to Write a Fluff Piece on Politics
Carl Weiser from Gannett gets a gold star for writing a most useless political article. If I wanted E! on Washington I might have asked for at least some sex and drugs to go along with the PR drivel.

There are tons of issues to write about regarding Jerry Springer’s potential Senate run, but this is type of People Magazine story we get from a Washington reporter? The Enquirer is going of the deep end of Pop Culture. This article belongs in the Temp section, not a news section.

Grasping at Straws?
Has Glenn Reynolds reached the bottom of his bag of tricks to try and defend Fearless Leader that he will listen to the Swedes? Glenn also needs to take a pill on the "dirty nuke" claim as somehow evidence of anything. Please note I used "dirty nuke" not "dirty bomb" as some idiots in the press started using. A "dirty bomb" sounds like TNT wrapped in dog shit.

UPDATE: Oliver Wills drew a similar conclusion, and beat me to it by about 2 minutes.

Religious Bigotry
The Conservatives are screaming about people being Anti-Catholic, many of those conservatives are Southern Baptists who spout openly anti-catholic dogma all the time. Why aren't these same conservatives defending Satanists when the Dayton Daily News attacks their religion with this bigoted headline: "Satan worshiper says death toll at 11." Since when do we label murderers by their religion? Was Tim McVeigh called a Christian Terrorist? Conservative Christians are the most bigoted of all sectors of religion in America, in general of course, by any means of measurement. Sure, I am judging them in mass, but their record of bigotry in their teachings is up front and out in the open. The recent statements on gay marriage should be enough for people to agree my assessment is valid.

Now, before I get jumped on, I am not trying to defend the person who the article claims confessed to multiple murders. I am just trying to show hypocrisy when it happens.

Mormons in the Crossfire
According to a couple of Mormon missionaries who are finishing up their "tour of duty" here in Ohio, they got caught up in a drive by shooting in downtown Cincinnati. I would guess they mean Over-the-Rhine, not downtown, but other than that, they story sounds credible.

Gay Marriage
The Enquirer ran a story on this issue today, and the Post had one yesterday. Both of these stories stem from Bush's comments on the issue yesterday and the Pope's ramblings. In the media this issue has been discussed in several areas, and both conservative/religious and liberal/homosexual views have been espoused. What is missing is any question of the conservative/religious viewpoints that are vehemently opposed to this. They, like the Pope, give no real reasons as to what is wrong with gay marriage. If you have no problems with gay or lesbians existing, why do you care what they do with their private lives? How does gay marriage hurt anyone? The bottom line issue can be nothing but anti-homosexual bigotry. Those who are strongly against gay marriage are opposed because their religion dictates that it is "wrong." This is not a real reason. Religion says many things are "wrong" yet no one seeks to outlaw them, well at least not serious numbers of people. Committing adultery is one of the top ten “sins” in Christianity, yet it is not against the law. How is homosexuality more of a threat to marriage, than heterosexual adultery? Where is the constitutional amendment outlawing premarital sex? I hope I don't give "Fearless Leader" any ideas. Bush superimposes his religion on the populace much to often as it is.

Maggie Downs Mystery Column
The Enquirer has released Maggie's Convergys column. I don't really see the problem as to why it was held for a couple of weeks. Does the Enquirer really fear the views of the future business leaders of the city? We do have conflict however. All but one of the Generation X council members (5 of 6) voted for the deal. Everyone in Maggie's column had better ideas with what to do with the money, including myself. What is the disconnect? Why does the youthful council not jive with the young professionals? Could it be that old money still matters more? Could the Boomers running the big corporations care more about short-term profits than they do about a long-term viable city? Hmmm, ya think maybe?

Springer Postpones Announcement
RunJerryRun reports the following:

Jerry Springer will hold a news conference to announce his political plans on Wednesday, August 6 at 2:00pm in the "Senate" Meeting room on the 1st floor of the Hyatt on Capital Square hotel, 75 East State Street in Columbus.

Springer's postponement is also covered in the Enquirer, the Post, and WLWT-NBC.

Cincinnati IMC?
Well, more media the better, but the track record for the IMC has been one of crack pots with unedited conspiracy theories better kept on the usenet than on a supposed news website. IMC has been at the forefront of communist and faux anarchist movements all over the world. The opinions are on the surface individual, where the line between activist and journalist are gone, but in reality they are just as homogenized as the Christian Right. The only difference with the IMC friends is that they all want to be the boss. Organization by appeasement brings chaos. If this group starts up I will read their site, and over at XRay we might even overlap on content, but I for one will not hold back in pointing out their problems and unfair biases.

Renting ZipCodes?
Kathy Y. Wilson still is playing both sides in her latest CityBeat Column. She blames "blacks" and blames "whites." Blacks in America are not African enough and whites, well, are just white. The "African Diaspora™" is actually a good description of the attitude of some in the black community. I found that very perceptive. Kathy's balancing act must be difficult. Dancing on pinheads could be an Olympic sport someday.

Nate Livingston on Hannity's Radio Show?
According to Nate himself he and Amanda Mayes will be on Hannity's radio show today at 4:00 PM EST. Nate is trying to get Hannity to not break the boycott with a scheduled appearance here on August 8th. Now, Hannity will most certainly break the boycott. What is funniest is that Nate and company are using him as their future anecdotal claim that they don't just target "black" entertainers/celebrities for boycott. This is just a stunt and I am helping along his Press push, but the boycotters have been quiet lately, so I will be a sucker and listen.

UPDATE: Nate did make it on the air. It was what I expected, more of the same. What I find odd is Hannity's ignorance about Cincinnati, and his claim or attempted fishing expedition that Nate had been arrested on drug charges, which is false. That was amazing that he claimed such, when Nate's lengthy criminal and civil court file indicates he was clearly never arrested on those charges. Hannity could be sued for slander if Nate really wanted to have some fun. Insinuation of drug use is a fine line, and I think Hannity would win hands down, but I would love seeing the two square off in court. I think Hannity and his "Hannitization of America Tour" and Nate Livingston are just the opposite side of the same coin. That coin's demonication is one of bigotry. "Hannitization" sounds like pure fascism, but it is a stunt. It sounds like purification to me, which is disturbing, but that is the effect Hannity and his producers want.

Nate was actually very passive, for Nate. Hannity came across as the aggressor, while Nate did not seem his usual deplorable self. Hannity proves he is an ignorant cuss, so all in all I give Nate the nod over Hannity in the "debate."

Hannity, for the record, Nate will not get 22 protestors. If there are 22 protestors there, 6 to 10 might be from Nate's group.

Hello Enquirer Editorial Board?
Folks, what are you guys smoking? You start out with this paragraph:

Every time you fill up your car with gas in Ohio, you donate 11 percent of the federal tax on that gas to other states. That may not sound like much, but it adds up to tens of millions of dollars lost each year - money the Buckeye State sorely needs to fix the deteriorating roads we rattle over - and build new ones.

That basically means: federal gas taxes are bad and Ohio pays a boatload of them. Then you say this:

Meanwhile, Ohio struggles to maintain its roads, which handle the nation's fifth-largest volume of traffic. It isn't fair. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, has been complaining about it for years. He was in Columbus on Monday to push his current bill, which would increase Ohio's take from 89 cents to at least 95 cents, bringing in about $56 million extra a year. He also would raise the federal gas tax, now 18.4 cents a gallon.

So Voinovich wants to increase taxes and you applaud it, or at least don't challenge it. I am a bit perplexed. You advocate tax cuts and like Vionovich's steering of Bush to a light plan, but you don't seem to care about a tax increase that would be regressive and cause transportation costs to rise along with consumer prices. I don't see how this can square. Your tax cut endorsement relies on economic growth, but a gas tax increase would deter economic growth. How can anyone balance those positions?