Hot Air, Meet Kettle

Ray Cooklis starts off his column Hot air: Raising McCain with a gem of a sentence:

"Some news operations appear so eager to create an anti-Bush political groundswell that they'll grasp at any straw."

Gee, Ray, what can we say about your news operation? Who do you and your management want on the Kerry ticket? Let me guess, Hillary Clinton? How many times has some conservative journalist tried to claim Hillary was either going to be VP for the Dems or some kind of fairy tale last minute candidate? The Enquirer even dragged Hillary into your editorial endorsing Bush back in 2000. When Ray starts harping on the major news outlets that like to gin up anti-Clinton fund raising drives by making fools fear Hillary running for President, at that point I might see this as anything but a political hack job on both McCain, Kerry, and the New York Times.

Moose on Main Shooting

The shooting of bar tender at Moose on Main appears to have followed a fight. This is better than random violence, but it is bad in whole different way. I will wonder if Race was involved? I wish I did not have to wonder that, but this story leaves that out and it there are signs that it could have been an issue. The fight allegedly stated after an "unpleasant conversation" with locals. What was the conversation about? Bad service? Loud Music? What?

Truth from Bronson

We got some truth from Bronson today that no one will dispute:

"My idea of 'high culture'' is the top row of seats at Oklahoma! I live on Square Street with Joe and Jane Burbs. "

Peter however insults Rodgers and Hammerstein with use of Oklahoma. Why not just use something like the musical version of "The Green Berets" as your ideal Cultural production. I can see Pete getting weepy over the finale of "The Ballad of the Green Beret" with the fake smoke doing most of the work to wet his eyes.

The biggest insult Bronson levels is his double talk:

That usually means stuff about AIDS, sex, race, women's issues, sex, gays and AIDS.

I wonder what the actors appearing now think about AIDS and how it affects people? I bet they would not perform for you Pete, after that shot at an issue many in the arts care about.

Bronson is writing himself as a cliché. He is saying don't break new ground, stick to the traditional. In other words, progress bad, the mythical past good.

Oklahoma! is a great musical, I just recent saw the movie, which I recommend. People should also hit the Fringe Festival and see art from the outside of its institutions. See art/theater from perspectives that Peter Bronson dismisses, ignores, and fears.

Bad Reporting

Headlines and leads are all too often the only part of a newspaper story that people read. In the case of the The Cincinnati Post's story from Saturday entitled "Equality remains an issue: Many local schools as segregated as ever" has a lead that along with the headline misleads the public:

Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court changed the course of history by ordering America to desegregate schools, many Greater Cincinnati schools are as racially segregated as ever.

If anyone were to read only the headline and opening paragraph they would have been subjected to a clear falsehood. What local school anywhere in this country is as segregated as ever? There are none. No public school in this country can legally segregate students based on race or ethnicity. That is the element of Brown v. Board of Education that everyone can celebrate 50 years later. Brown is a success on that front. The intention of the writer/editor may have been to say that schools are largely still divided by race, but the language used implies that the legal victory won by Brown was not achieved, and it was, so no school has the same segregation as before.

Those who see Brown as a catalyst of integration, as opposed to segregation, give it too much power and not enough reality. This country is nearly as unintegrated as it was 50 years ago, but to say it is segregated is wrong. Segregation in terms of our society has the implication of forced or required separation of the races. To use the term misleads the public, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to believe that things are largely no better than it was 50 years ago. I am sure that is what the boycotters want people to believe, that brings them power from angry people. That is not the truth. The reasons why schools today are not integrated are because most communities are not integrated. Asking why our communities are not integrated would have been a better focus of this story, if your concern is why many local schools are largely only one race.

'Told You So'

Why do I feel like the hawks are grasping at straws? Well, they jump on anything as a basis for the war and its ever-shifting rationale.

Rob makes a good argument why the UN and the USA should have stepped up the pressure on Saddam and taken a vary hard line with Iraq, including an increase in targeted missile attacks. What he forgets is the threat Iraq was allegedly posing to the USA, a fiction of the gravest proportion. He also again leaves off the rationale as to why War in March of 2003 had to happen. Not to mention he forgets that BushCo. mislead the country and the world into believing that Iraq had stockpiles of weapons. I guess those issue don't matter. I guess it matters not that we had no plan for Iraq after the battle plan. I guess it matters not that we have no plan for stabilizing the country.

I guess I have said these things before, but they bare repeating every time. Let us not forget why we fight....we fight out of choice...'we' fought because it fit Bush's political timeline. We fought because of blood lust. We are acting like barbarians. We don't seem to care enough to say much about it. We are getting 'ours' so we don't care what is left over for everyone else.

Damn, I guess I am really part of everyone else, because I got nothing but shame out of this war. I am no safer, I am no richer, I am no more honorable in the fight for freedom.

Luken's Press Secretary Joins Kerry's Ohio Staff

Carl Weiser reports on the Kerry campaign's ramp up of of paid staff in Ohio:

And, she said, Ohio has more staff on the ground than any other state. Brendon Cull, Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken's press secretary, will be the 13th paid employee this week as he takes a leave of absence to become Ohio press secretary for the Kerry campaign.

Kerry is leading in Ohio in the latest poll, so do they really want to add staff now? Well, hell yes. If Kerry can build on his current position in Ohio he can take it from Bush and win. Brendon Cull, who I assume will working mostly in Cincinnati, will be either wasting his time against a solid Bush area, or he might turn over enough moderates in the area to help make the state a landslide for Kerry.

Everything could turn any which way, but Ohio is going to be with the trend, no matter which way it turns.

Comments

I have brought back Haloscan and have kept the Blogger Comments. I like things about both, but I want everyone to participate, so for now I will kept both and see how it works, if at all. I might turn one off if no one uses it. Let me know what people prefer.

Horrible

One of the Moose on Main's Bartenders was shot in the face after closing traveling to his car after work. Luckily his wounds were not life threatening. No reason was reported, but the circumstances sound like a robbery. Here is where gun nuts clamor for carrying more guns and where I clamor for more police patrols and where the boycotters say nothing at all about what happened.

New Editor at Cincinnati Magazine

Kitty Morgan is leaving, so welcome Jay Stowe. Jay comes from Outside Magazine, an outdoors culture magazine. I sometimes pick up a copy of Cincinnati Magazine. It's view on culture have stuck generally to the fine-living type as the focus, sprinkling in something different each month. Will we see a change?

A Blog Movie?

The 'Baghdad blogger' has a movie deal. Life in a war zone is much more of a compelling story than writing on a website from your living room. I will be waiting for my agent's phone call any time now. (cough, cough)

Witty Bronson

More like this Peter, please, more like this. I am happy to say that I really enjoyed Bronson's column today. It was humorous, took a jab at the boycott, and had fun in a generally non-partisan way, except if you were from Louisville.

If Peter just leaves out the political shilling for Bush or his regular attacks on Bill Clinton for existing, then he would actually be an entertaining columnist.

Killer Cicadas!!!

Dr. Ray Baker of Cincinnati Children Hospital does not go that far, but he is doing his best to get parents into a frenzy. What he is concerned about and has noticed is that kids are doing stupid things or react hypersensitively towards cicadas. They are either scared by the bugs and injured themselves running away, or they are injured trying to crush the bugs.

Cicadas are not going to kill anyone directly. If you are unlucky enough to get one in your car and can't handle the buzzing I guess you crash and die. If you try to eat the bugs, make sure you chew them well, we don't want you to choke on them either.

Springer Chosen by Ohio Dems for National Convention

Jerry Springer has taken his first step at revitalization in the Ohio Democratic Party. He will never shed his sleazy TV show image completely, but over time I think he will become a viable candidate for office in 2006, but not win a statewide race.

New Site Format

You are not seeing things, I have updated the site. I am still working on things, so please bare with me. I am archiving the old comments, and will try and put them somewhere, but likely they will not be linked to their old post.

If you see any problems, errors, or ways to improve the site, please comment.

Berg Murder in Iraq, Untold Story

The Nick Berg execution in Iraq has many unanswered questions and XRay Magazine probes them. I am not one for conspiracy, but at a minimum there is more to the story with the news that Berg's father was being watched by a hardcore rightist website. Covington has more.

Build More Jails?

With Si Leis uniformly acting as if he was the sole deity in the universe, he has decreed that certain women facing trial for lesser offenses will not be held in the county jail. They will instead be sent home. Leis reportedly has asked for a new jail in the past, so what is he waiting for now? Leis is not immune from pulling political stunts to make his point, please refer to his billing of Bill Clinton for security coverage for an example.

What is the underlying problem to cause this capture and release? Are more women being arrested and we don't have enough space in the female areas of the jail? Are we solving more crimes? I don't think we have stopped many thefts in the county, Leis should know that. So, What gives? Why must this happen? Why have we not built a new jail? Are we holding convicted felons in the jail who can't fit into the state system?

Shocking Peter Bronson

I don't know if this counts as a true flip-flop or not, but Bronson is defending rich Indian Hill people for wanted to keep people out of their publicly funded parks. I always thought Peter wasn't a classist. I did not know he wanted to treat the rich differently than the rest of us. I guess if you have the money, you can buy government.

Oh, by the way, this is not really a shock, in case my sarcasm was lost in transference to the written word.

Quotas Suck

A Wisconsin Daily newspaper is asking for pro-Bush letters, mainly because they don't get enough and want to "balance the perspectives." They don't get enough of the GOP astro-turf. I would advise that Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wisconsin contact the Enquirer and asked for the piles of pro-Bush drivel they have lying around in the letters to the editor files.

Chiquita Spin

If I understand this article correctly, Chiquita is claiming that their payments to Colombian rebels was just a normal business expense commonly used by US companies in Central America.

Special payments by U.S. companies in Latin America - whether for faster telephone installation or security services - are known as 'facilitating payments' and are allowed under U.S. law. Chiquita says it and other American companies have done it for years.

Are they really comparing paying protection money to criminals to telephone installation? Do restaurant owners get to deduct the expense of paying of the mafia to assure their deliveries are made on time? What a large pair of bananas they have.

The New WOXY

We still will have a modern/alternative rock station to kick around. As I reported earlier from Sledge's blog, the new station will keep the same format. I would expect the station to be more "mainstream" and compare more to 97.3. I myself would love kind of a classic alternative/punk/new wave/grunge rock station that played the likes of the Clash, U2, Pearl Jam, Elvis Costello, and the like.