QCF Gets Panned

Greg Mann from Notes from Ground Level is less than impressed with the writing at Queen City Forum, especially the column on the Second Amendment.

It's Alive!

The "Real Life, Real News" initiative appears to be off the ground at the Enquirer. Will there be any hard news columns in the Metro Section anymore? The Enquirer appears to have let some columnists go, or at least reassigned them to other jobs. Denise Smith-Amos and Karen Gutiérrez are the two that come to mind most. Where are they? They are off the columnist roster and have not written for some time. With the retirement of Laura Pulfer there are really few columnists left at the Enquirer. Does this mean they have hired more reporters? Or have the former columnists become reporters? Even John Kiesewetter is no longer listed as an Enquirer Columnist.

The Opinion Page appears to have the most changes. I give you one conservative newspaper with a columnist line up like this:
Sunday – Richard Cohen and Walter Williams
Monday – Leonard Pitts Jr.
Tuesday – William Safire
Wednesday – Richard Cohen and Kathleen Parker
Thursday – William Safire
Friday – Charles Krauthammer
Saturday – James J. Kilpatrick and Kathleen Parker

A rundown
Richard Cohen: Moderate Liberal
Walter Williams: Rush Limbaugh Conservative
Leonard Pitts Jr: Moderate Liberal
William Safire: Old Northeastern Conservative
Kathleen Parker: Moderate Conservative
Charles Krauthammer: Hardline Conservative
James J. Kilpatrick: Conservative who usually has non-political columns appear in the Enquirer.

So we have 10 total syndicated columnist spots in the Enquirer. 3 of those 10 spots are filled by "liberals." That would be 30% of the time for those keeping stats. Ah, yes, that would be fair and balanced for someone looking to provide a conservative editorial page.

Suckers Born Again

Reading the letters to editor of the Enquirer today demonstrates how people are suckered by PR. The letters gush in pride and pats on the back for Bush. What did he really do? He did nothing. He sneaked into the country and visited some troops at the Baghdad Airport. The country is far to dangerous for him to stay more than a few hours, let alone overnight.

I have no problem with Bush going. It is good for morale. It is traditional for Presidents to visit the troops on Thanksgiving in time of war. His dad did it during the First Gulf War. What I despise is the obvious use of it as a means of Public Relations. The purpose of this event was to change public opinion if favor of George Bush. This really was not about the troops. If this was about the troops, then I think Bush would have made an effort to see a whole lot more than just one small group at the airport.

What adds insult to injury to this is Bush's weekly radio address. Bush tells us of the efforts of citizens to support the troops:

The courage of our soldiers and their families show the spirit of this country in great adversity. And many citizens are showing their appreciation by helping military families here at home.

Members of the VFW have started an Adopt-A-Unit program, so veterans and their families can support military units in Iraq and Afghanistan. Volunteers from a group called Rebuilding Together have repaired homes for military families while their spouses are deployed.

Citizens interested in finding volunteer opportunities to support our military should visit the USA Freedom Corps website at usafreedomcorps.gov.

Why do civilians need to help the troops in the field? Why isn't the military taking care of their own soldiers and the immediate families of those soldiers?

I also want to point out this statement from Bush:

I'm pleased to report back from the front lines that our troops are strong, morale is high and our military is confident we will prevail.

Yes, I think Bush can state the troops are strong. What I don't think he can say from first hand experience that morale is high. Bush spent time with troops at one location for a couple of hours. Secondly, no troops is going to say anything to Bush other than that their morale is high. The troops know better and the military brass knows to filter who meets Bush.

I am just disgusted by how this trip is being trumpeted by the media and by Conservatives as something important or substantial. Nothing has changed. The situation of our troops has not changed at all. Iraq is not any better off than it was before. It was a nice symbolic gesture of the President to take this significant risk to fly into Iraq for 2+ hours. It might be more valuable for Bush to spend his time making it safe for him to spend the night in Baghdad.

UPDATE: Roger Ailes (the good one) comments and they sting.

Feeding Frenzy Begins

CNN and FOX News have follow-up stories on the I-270 shootings. What will the gunman's nickname be? The panic may have begun already in Columbus. The UK's Sun gives the story the headline "Sniper on terror road." ITV asks: "Another American sniper case?"

Statewide Indoor Smoking Ban?

This will not happen here in Ohio. The GOP control the state government, and a statewide ballot issue will have to contend with a whole lot of smokers and bar owners.

Internal Probe

The Post reported yesterday that City Manager Valerie Lemmie instructed Cincinnati police to begin a criminal investigation of the City's Community Development and Planning Department. This probe stems from the LaShawn Pettus-Brown/Empire Theater scandal, and appears to be bye-stepping possible roles played by Mayor Luken and Councilwoman Reece. If Lemmie wants to get to the bottom of things, why doesn't she request an FBI investigation into both Luken and Reece? The CPD will not be a credible agency to investigate their own ultimate bosses.

Politics Lacking Linkage

Queen City Forum got a huge plug today from the Enquirer. I will admit, I have never heard of their site before. I will have to look it over and will likely add the link to my site. I do have to criticize one part of their site without hesitation. They list a link called "THE FINEST COLLECTION OF NEWS & POLITICAL LINKS" on the site. If you go to that page you will view a nice list of links on news, political party, opinion, and reference sites. What you don't see, beyond a couple of exceptions, are blogs. Adding insult to injury, they recommend the "Drudge Report." Drudge is a up to speed on politics as my Aunt is on the working definition of "metrosexual." There are at least 50 blogs that nationally push political and current events debate in the country more than nearly any other source. They do that because all of the people who write the opinion columns on those pages, read those blogs.

Not to mention national blogs, but ahem, there are many locally based blogs that cover Cincinnati and Ohio politics, mine of course being one of them. Not to mention XRay Magazine, Cincinnati Tomorrow, and MediaBridges to name of few of news or local resources.

The writing on the site looks interesting. I welcome all of the local coverage of politics as much as possible. I have to ask the question, why can't we read a column like those written on the Queen City Forum in CinWeekly? Just one? Once in a while? A little political opinion, please?

Crazy Nuts Up in Columbus?

No, I am not referring to Ohio A&M fans. There has been a rash of gun fire along I-270 in the same general area which killed a woman this week. Police don't call it a sniper case yet, but there are signs that it might be. This is starting to garner some national attention, even today on Thanksgiving. I will be keeping my eye on this story. Each additional attack will increase the media coverage by a factor of 10. I hope the criminals responsible are caught before we are forced to see FOX News and the usual suspects up in Columbus scaring the OSU parents to death.

Coverage: FOX News, CNN, NY Post, PD, & ONN.

Turkey Day

I am off to my Turkey Day Festivities. My blogging will be zero or at best near zero over the next day or two. I hope everyone has a fun and safe Thanksgiving!

Editorial Fact Checking

Sarah at The Hegemo points out a significant factual error in the Enquirer's editorial today on Nick Clooney. This sentence is just a bit wrong:

Jerry Springer was a TV anchor before becoming mayor of Cincinnati.

I hope David Wells is getting a bit of scolding from the bossman Tom Callinan. I think Sarah is correct when she posits that nearly everyone on the editorial page must be in vacation mode or already on vacation.

Am I Now Some How With It?

Ok, CinWeekly has a story on the Dubliner's Tuesday night Trivia. I just got back from participating in that event. Our team, "ToFurkey," had 411 points and placed 15th. This was a poor showing, but when you have a full round dedicated to drinks & beverages and a round matching philosophers to the name of one of their writings, our low score makes sense. The winning team had like 575 points. Last week our team had 432 points and I think we were in about 6th place.

The best advice in the story, Arrive Early! We had a back booth and were squeezed in.

Delta's Duplicity

Stephanie Dunlap reports on Delta Airline's conflicting benefits polices. Comair does not offer any domestic partnership benefits to homosexuals and does not have anti-homosexual discrimination protections. Comair's parent company, Delta, does have those benefits.

Comair is wholly owned by Delta, which goes above and beyond to demonstrate its commitment to diversity. Delta and its only other wholly owned subsidiary, Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA), both offer domestic partner benefits and an anti-discrimination policy, as do most other "mainline" airlines and their wholly owned connection carriers, Stark says.

It is a very bizarre policy to have a different benefit plan for a wholly owned subsidiary. It is ultimately more work to administer, but likely Comair's benefits are not as good and therefore Delta would have to pay more money to bring them into the main plan. That plan merger would allow for bigger bargaining power with the larger volume of participants, but would it outweigh the increase costs of better coverage? I don't think the company is purposely out to stick it to homosexuals in the benefits arena, but I really wonder why they don't have an anti-homosexual discrimination policy? Who at the Delta HQ wants to screw with more lawsuits?

My only concern is that there is still some reliance on the old Kentucky network of social conservatism. Kentucky is not what I would call Gay friendly, and most of Comair workers are based there. Delta should have made its division comply with corporate policy a long time ago, it should get on the ball and bring them into line with a common policy in all major corporations.

Ouch, That Must Hurt

Greg Flannery hits the CJC hard in his Porkopolis column this week:

Having lost most of its members as a result of anti-Semitic and homophobic rants, the CJC has lately specialized in picketing civil rights leaders, progressives and others who support the group's putative goal of police reform and racial justice in Cincinnati.

That might seem self-defeating, but it's entirely consistent with Livingston's modus operandi. For example, the protective order he was charged with violating had been initiated by fellow boycott leader Victoria Straughn, coordinator of Citizens Concerned for Justice.

"Someone" will surely not like Greg's comments. When a small number of people pretend to be a "large" group, any information to the contrary will surely be meet with childish vitriol. I will expect that this post will make it to the CJC's message board. "Someone" has taken to copying my posts to the CJC website and make it appear that I actually posted it there. I am sure the various posters to that board, most of which are the same "someone" under different screen identities, will call me names for bringing attention to Greg's column, but the truth needs to be said, and I am glad Greg is reporting it.

Something's Missing

OK, this WCPO story indicates:

Former Nativity School principal Bob Herring was fired by church parish director Marc Sherlock Monday over "philosophical differences," according to an archdiocese official.

The story then describes how 200 protestors, mostly parents and students, lobbied to get Mr. Herring reinstated. Since when are "philosophical differences" a good enough reason for protestors to not come up with the "real" reasons this man was fired. What "philosophies" are in question here? I think something is missing here. There has to be more to this story than a philosophical difference to account for firing a principal during the school year.

More from the Post and the Enquirer.

Cincinnati Hipsters Unite!

I can't comment to much on this story, I was not there, but I have to quote this part:

"These organizations are recognizing that they have to build young audiences," said James Czar, manager of information systems with Enjoy the Arts/Start, an organization that promotes art among young people. "Their older member base is eventually not going to be there, so they need to repopulate it now."

I doubt Mr. Czar would call himself a hipster, but I find it interesting this gathering was considered one of "hipsters." I have a negative feeling for the word and I am still unsure if it can apply to anyone in Cincinnati. For the record the dictionary defines a hipster as "One who is exceptionally aware of or interested in the latest trends and tastes, especially a devotee of modern jazz." Now, m-w.com has a more historical feeling of a definition:

Pronunciation: 'hip-st&r
Function: noun
Etymology: 4hip
Date: circa 1941
: a person who is unusually aware of and interested in new and unconventional patterns (as in jazz or the use of stimulants)

The modern usage from urbandictionary.com is the one that gives me the negative vibe:

someone, usually a teenager or 20something, who adheres to a counterculture ranging from indy-rockers to neo-hippies to skaters. they tend to define themselves by the music they listen to, and the outlandish clothes they wear. hipsters are opposed to other countercultures like goths, metal-heads, and gangstas, and they also avoid preps, eurotrash, white trash, and jocks

question: why does he only listen to bands that are never played on the radio?
answer: he's a hipster

So who is a hipster out there?

GOP Eating Their Own?

The Enquirer reports that the GOP has six possible candidates to run for County Commissioner against Todd Portune. The primary is coming up in March of next year, so the battle for money should be going on like a Thursday after Thanksgiving sale.

The real question is who will challenge Kabaka Oba to get the Democratic nomination to run for John Downlin's seat? John Cranley? Alicia Reece? Howard Bond?

The Democrats will be eating their own in the Race for Mayor of Cincinnati. Mark Mallory, David Pepper, and Alicia Reece are all talking about running for Mayor in 2005 as is the current Mayor, Charlie Luken. With an open primary, 2 or more Democrats could be on the ballot. That would be interesting.

Cincinnati Television News Spawns Another Political Candidate

Ken Lucas will not seek re-election, but Nick Clooney is running in his place. Nick's candidacy will surely garner a lot of attention because he is the father of George Clooney. George has slowly been dipping his toes in the water of political advocacy; I wonder how involved he will be in his dad's campaign.

UPDATE: more coverage from the Enquirer, FOX41, and ONN.

UPDATE#2: AP has the story on Yahoo and it hit the most viewed stories at #13

The Archbishop Knew?

This report from WCPO indicates that Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk was told about allegations of sexual abuse sometime between 1988 and 1994. If he knew about these allegations, why is Pilarczyk getting away with this?

Smells like 1970

The FBI is investigating anti-war protestors. Will the summer of 2004 election season make 1968 look like a picnic? I once again will predict there will be violence, to some degree or another, at the national political conventions next summer. Also from Reuters.

UPDATE: Wes Flinn comments.

MIAMI 49, OU 31

Love and honor to Miami,
Our college old and grand,
Proudly we shall ever hail thee,
Over all the land.

Alma mater now we praise thee,
Sing joyfully this lay,
Love and honor to Miami,
Forever and a day.

A sweet victory against the dreaded BobKittens. I take joy in this win over the Alma Mater of many local journalists. I don't think this will help coverage of Miami in any way.

News Coverage: Enquirer, Post, DDN, & PD.