Bumble in the Jungle

Well, the Bengals have fallen to 0-4, defying even my own meager expectations for the team. Daugherty's column sums things up pretty well. He argues for sitting the injured Palmer again next week, to make sure he's healthy and stays that way (since the team doesn't have much of a chance of stopping the Cowboys defense from getting to the quarterback). I'd go a step further: why risk Fitzpatrick, who may need to play for several more weeks? Let's see what Jordan Palmer can do.

The bad news? Things don't get any easier. The Bengals travel to Dallas next week, New Jersey (for the Favre-infused Jets, who put over 50 points on the scoreboard today) the following week, and then return to PBS to play the Steelers. Oh-and-seven has to be viewed as a real possibility.

The Cincinnati Bengals are now on the clock.

In Memoriam: Paul Newman

I've been trying to find a Cincinnati link to justify noting the passing of Paul Newman here. I can't.

Nonetheless, here's an excellent piece describing what is, perhaps, Newman's real legacy.


I keep wondering why AMC or some similar cable station isn't running a Paul Newman movie marathon in tribute today. Truth be told, I've never watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and now I'm thinking I should.

Cincy Couture

The Cincy Couture Fashion Show went off superbly yesterday. The music list for the entire program can be on the The Conveyor.

Last Night's Debate

Personally, I thought the debate was pretty much a draw and wouldn't change anyone's mind.  Of course, I'm perplexed by people who declare themselves to be "undecided" voters.  How can you not know which of the two candidates most reflects your values and policy judgments by now?

The professional punditry seems to agree about this being a draw.  Of course, the mainstream media probably wouldn't declare anyone a "winner" unless his opponent literally vomited down the front of his own suit during the debate, for fear of being accused of bias.

Then I found this clip from Fox:  their focus group of "undecided voters" had Obama as the clear winner.

Since most believe this first debate would be the toughest of the three for Obama, the reaction of the focus group is clearly a good omen for the Democrat.  And with so many states permitting early voting, the early debates may be the only ones that matter.

You can vote in Ohio beginning on Tuesday.

Speculation on the Secret Show

WOXY's boards have a bunch of speculation on the secret show set for the Know Theatre on Saturday night.

UPDATE:The speculation was correct, the band was Radio 4.

MidPoint Starts Now!

I am packing up my notebook, camera, comfortable shoes, and schedule for Day One of Midpoint.

I will have my detailed coverage of the event over at www.theconveyor.com, so check there for a recap of day one.

CityBeat has a big central page with all things Midpoint. They will have the official word on any schedule changes.

I hope to see a bunch of faces down at the opening show which is happing right now! (I had to run home first) If you have any recommendations on what bands to see, please send them on or comment below.

CAC Opening Tomorrow Night

The CAC has a vibrant opening tomorrow night: MARIA LASSNIG and Carlos Amorales: Discarded Spider.

The event starts at 8 pm. Admission is free, there's a cash bar, a DJ, a ballet performance at 10PM, and of course, wonderful contemporary art by two very significant artists.

If you need a midpoint break from Midpoint, get there, then afterwards hit more showcases!

20/20 Vision Kicks Off

CinWeekly has a nice artcle on the start of 20/20. For the full story on the 20/20 arts festival, check out www.20days20nights.com for more.

What Are They Thinking?

[UPDATE: 9/25/2008]: The post to which the following refers has been deleted from the Hamilton County GOP Blog without comment. Since Triantafilou is relatively new to the blogosphere, perhaps people will overlook this serious breach of blogger etiquette (generally, it is understood that one does not delete posts--updating or editing for typos is fine--in this manner). I've no idea whether our post here has anything to do with the deletion.

Via Alex Triantafilou's blog, we learn that the HamCo Republican Party is recommending a "no" vote on Issue 8, which would amend the City Charter to force voting by proportional representation in City Council elections. The official statement from the local GOP:

The Hamilton County Republican Party has historically stood against proportional representation as a method of electing members of city council. The most important factors identified by the Republican Party in opposing this measure is the confusion in how the system operates and the cost associated with implementation. After vigorous debate and discussion, our Party is urging a vote of "NO" on Issue 8.

(Emphasis mine.) Why on earth would the GOP highlight its "historical" position on PR? Whoever drafted this statement for the GOP should either resign his or her post or be asked to step aside. It's one of two things: it's either historically unaware at best, or extraordinarily insensitive at worst.

Before I explain why, let me make sure I'm not misunderstood. In November, people of various political stripes will take various positions on PR. That's why you see rather odd bedfellows like the NAACP, COAST, and the Cincinnati Business Journal supporting the measure. Some people will decide it's a great idea. Others will decide it's not. Neither decision makes a person or group inherently bad or good, inherently racist or not, or inherently democratic or undemocratic. People of good conscience can surely disagree over Issue 8. In fact, while I'm currently leaning towards believing PR is a good idea, I may vote against Issue 8 for an entirely different reason.

Having said that, the history of opposition to PR in this city is not pretty. According to the most complete account I've seen of the 1957 repeal, the motives for the repeal effort were downright racist. Here's how a paper posted on Mt. Holyoke's website describes the situtation:

In Cincinnati, race was the dominant theme in the successful 1957 repeal effort. The single transferable vote had allowed African Americans to be elected for the first time, with two blacks being elected to the city council in the 1950s. The nation was also seeing the first stirrings of the Civil Rights movement and racial tensions were running high. PR opponents shrewdly decided to make race an explicit factor in their repeal campaign. They warned whites that PR was helping to increase black power in the city and asked them whether they wanted a "Negro mayor." Their appeal to white anxieties succeeded, with whites supporting repeal by a two to one margin.

Let me be perfectly clear: I do not believe that today's HamCo GOP is motivated by racism in encouraging a rejection of PR. But why would the GOP embrace a history of which it should not be proud?

Neither of the two major parties in this nation has a terrific record regarding racism. While the Democratic Party now trumpets civil rights, this hasn't always been the case. Take the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Dems typically will be willing to talk about the shameful acts that occurred outside the convention that year. What we don't talk about, however, is the shame visited upon our party inside the convention. Just forty years ago, Democratic delegates from Georgia left the convention in protest because the DNC seated a racially integrated delegation from Mississippi. That happened within the lifespan of the majority of Americans. Have we--as a party and a nation--come a long way since then? Absolutely. But need we always be mindful of this terrible part of our history? Absolutely.

I'm not suggesting that anyone should vote against Republicans or Republican positions on the basis of things that happened 50 years ago. I am concerned, though, when party leaders--be they Republican, Democratic, or of any other stripe--make statements that demonstrate a lack of awareness of our roots, both as parties and as a nation. The historical opposition to PR is not something for anyone in this City of be proud of or to embrace, and I hope the local GOP will amend its position to make its current motives for rejecting PR clear.

MPMF Tomorrow!!!!

I realize there's a big banner at the top of this blog advertising Midpoint Music Festival (but for those of you who, like me, ignore banners) Midpoint is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Complete schedule can be found here. I hadn't realized it was this week until I saw Griff's post about Javier's joining the fray, and went to check the full schedule.

At the very least I'll go to Javier's Friday or Saturday, and hopefully will do much more than that. This should be a great weekend downtown and across the river, so please support the bands involved and come on down.

Right Here in OTR

Jason at Somewhere Over-the-Rhine knocks it out of the park with his take on the ill perceptions of OTR perpetuated by the media and the ignorant suburbanites who haven't been near OTR or Downtown ever in their lives, outside of a Red's or Bengal's game. Jason hits on a topic that I've been seeing for a while and have had in the back of my mind for a long time as a topic to blog about. It deasl with where the perception problem of Cincinnati comes from. It comes from the Native Cincinnatians that never left Cincinnati and are now living outside of the urban core. They don't travel a lot, they spend time in their closed off social networks, socializing only with high school or maybe college friends. They are ignorant and allow themselves to be sucked in by what ever the media says. Hell, if we trusted the media, we would think no crime ever happens in West Chester. When crime does happen there, or in Milford, or in Morrow, we don't hear those areas labeled at all. I wonder why.

[Hat Tip to Just Past Central]

Rocking for Obama on Fountain Square

A huge event will hit the square next on Octber 16th, when The National and The Breeders will do a free show from 5 to 9 PM. This is a rally in support of Barak Obama, so look for other political speakers to appear. Also, since this is going to likely be open to the public, look out for the brownshirts trying to disrupt it or try to make it look like the Dems are being disruptive.

Driehaus--Chabot, Neck and Neck

The Blogging Pros at Talking Points Memo have the link to polling for the 1st and 2nd Districts in Ohio:

"A new set of SurveyUSA polls in Ohio show Dems poised to pick up two out of four contested GOP-held district. In the First District, incumbent Rep. Steve Chabot (R) is holding a small lead over challenger Steve Driehaus (D) 46%-44%. In the Second District, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R) is holding an 8-point lead over challenger Victoria Wulsin (D) 48%-40%."

It has been months since a poll came out and this is great news for Driehaus. Look for money to be dropped into this race right now and for a big blitz to unseat Chabot by the Dems.

It looks like a much tougher hill for Wulsin to climb. The poll there doesn't mention the impact of the Independent conservative (Krikorian) in the race, however, which should be an impact to Schmidt, who has a very high negative with some conservatives.

Local TV Thread

Kate of KRM blogs on her favorite television shows. I have to admit, I kind of had a blog crush on her (there's a good definition of "blog crush" here) until I learned of her passion for Dancing with the Stars and Desperate Housewives. She may have won me back with her fondness for Amazing Race. And like her, I enjoy watching Christina Applegate in Samantha Who?, though I suspect for entirely different reasons (hey....I'm a 34 year-old American male....I grew up watching Married With Children! And having grown up in Buffalo, I have to love a woman who agreed to star in a sitcom set in that ill-fated city.).

All that is my long-winded way of introducing a discussion topic: what's your favorite local show or TV personality? And who's your least favorite? There is, of course, precious little local programming any more, but there's some. For that matter, who are your favorite all-time Cincinnati television personalities, including folks who aren't on TV anymore?

My own favorites? I like Newsmakers. I think Dan Hurley does a pretty good job. And even though I disagreed with him (and many of you) about the Bodies exhibit (he thought it was excellent), I thought he provided a great forum for both sides to be heard. Frankly, I wish WKRC would give him a full hour. Sometimes he jumps the shark on me (for instance, when he did a couple of shows on naturalism and showed pictures of birds the whole time...yawn). But overall, he's an asset to local television journalism. I also dig Bob Herzog, but that may just be my bias in favor of lawyers.

Least favorites? One name immediately springs to mind: Dave Lapham. Maybe I'd like him more if I'd grown up in Cincinnati and was a Bengals fan when he played. But seeing him on TV and listening to him on the radio fuels one reaction: change the channel!

Finally: I guess I shouldn't make fun of others' TV viewing habits too much. The other night, I found myself switching back and forth between two television shows: Live from Lincoln Center (the NY Philharmonic with James Galway) and The Ultimate Fighter, watching each with equal rapture. Yes, something's seriously wrong with me.

So please, weigh in with your local TV favorites, as well as you diagnoses of my psychological profile based on my confessed viewing patterns.

What's Ahead

Over the next few weeks, I hope to post on each of the ballot initiatives we'll see when we vote this year. There are five or six state-wide issues, as well as two proposals to amend Cincinnati's charter.

The most talked about of these are the casino plan, the payday lender reform proposal, and the local referenda on red light cameras and proportional representation. But there are a few others that haven't made many headlines.

To the extent anyone cares what I think, I'll be including with each post my view of whether the issue should pass. While I think I've made up my mind about most of these issues, I'm still very much up in the air on proportional representation. I'm emailing PR's backers for some additional information on the mechanism by which PR works (I understand it in its basic form, but I'm confused by how the redistribution of "over-votes" works.)

I'll also be staying away from national politics from now on, besides the extent to which the presidential race specifically impacts Ohio and/or Cincinnati. I don't think blogging the presidential race here is winning Griff many readers, and it seems to just trigger lots of comments from spammers.

Keeping Ohio's Water Safe

Earlier today, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill that would protect water from the Great Lakes from being diverted to other states.

Here in Ohio's southwestern-most extremity, we sometimes forget that we live in a Great Lakes state. And there are those in dry regions of the country who want to require that Great Lakes water be shipped cross-country to slake their thirst. Under the Great Lakes Compact, which President Bush is expected to sign, that can't happen.

For what it's worth: both Senators McCain and Obama support the compact. (I had inititally thought that McCain, from the great, dusty state of Arizona, favored Great Lakes water diversion. I'm glad to see I was wrong.)

Will a Hotel Replace Condos in Phase 1 of the Banks?

The Enquirer is reporting the Banks condos may not be in the first phase and could be replaced with a Hotel next door to Great American Ball Park.

So, is this the first step in changes that will alter the purpose of the Banks? Is this going to be nothing but a tourist area? That is what the suburbanites and John Cranley are clamoring for when they spout off asking when they will get to drink a beer at the ESPN Zone.

Obama 273, McCain 265

Today's round-up of polls shows Obama leading in enough states to win the electoral college.

I don't put much stock in this, as this site's poll tallies have fluctuated daily. Instead, I've posted the map to make a broader point: Ohioans, we may not be as important as we think we are.

Obama's campaign has said all along that they can win the White House without Ohio. And if the election were to follow the results below, that's exactly what would happen. McCain needs to win here, but Obama can live without us. The real "battleground states" this year are more likely to be Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Colorado.

Just some food for thought on a Monday.

UC Riots After Victory Over Miami

I know they won pretty big over Miami, but did they need to riot after the win?

Midpoint Venue Change

Javier's Restaurant and Bar has replaced Ink Tank as a venue for Midpoint. Please adjust your schedules as needed.