Another Take On the SGH Situation

I am going to start calling the Southgate House Closing as more of a Southgate House Situation. Yes, that makes it sound remotely like I'm referencing a reality TV show.  While the drama surrounding the family business dealings involved might bring that to mind, that's not my intention. This guest column on Each Note Secure from Margaret Darling of the Seedy Seeds makes it clear to me that there are two separate issues at stake here: 1)What will the New location of the Southgate House be like (and where will it be) and then 2)What will be come of the Southgate Building?  So SGH closing isn't the only issue, there is a much more complex concern. a "situation," if you will.

Number two becomes the more cloudy concern.  The operators of the SGH are planning on opening a new place.  We'll just have to wait and see where that is and how well the new location will work.  The Southgate Building is something different and the resulting owners don't appear to have the plan in place with what to do with the building.  That is bigger concern to me.  I don't fear that the new location for the SGH will be like.  I fear that the new owners will not use the building wisely.  It would be a great place for a music venue, but the building needs to be used wisely.  It is important to Newport and needs to continue to enrich the culture, no matter what it becomes.  We have a situation and the City of Newport needs to keep that situation from ruining a vital piece of the community.

Luke Brockmeier Campaign Kickoff Speech

Luke Brockmeier is running in the Democratic primary for the 31st District in the Ohio House. Above is his speech from his campaign kickoff event. For more information on his candidacy check out www.lukeforohio.com.

Editorial Note: I am a supporter of Luke Brockmeier.  I am biased towards his candidacy and will not hide that in the least. As a political blogger, I am not going to censor myself, but will endeavor to be honest in what I write. This is an opinion blog, however, and it is the opinion of this blogger that if you live in the new Ohio 31st House District, you should vote for Luke Brockmeier in the Democratic primary in March and then when he wins, vote for him in November of 2012 in the general election.  If you don't live in the 31st, then you can still help a progressive candidate bring change to Columbus by contributing to his campaign: HERE.

Cincinnati and Findlay Market Featured on NPR Morning Edition Story

NPR had an interesting story this morning on it's Morning Edition programming that included interviews here in Cincinnati on opinions on Congress.  It took place at Findlay Market and included quotes from Dan Korman, owner of Park+Vine located in Over-the-Rhine.

Anti-3CDC Bias is Abundant This Holiday Season

So, a report comes out naming a census track in Over-the-Rhine as the most income mixed census track in the nation based on 2005 to 2009 data and then all the biased media fingers point to 3CDC.  It doesn't surprise me that attacks will be made on 3CDC for its redevelopment efforts, but this attack is totally unfair.

Track 17, the area cited, is located in the Northeast part of OTR.  What the article doesn't mention is that 3CDC's efforts are not in that area. If they had looked in track 9 or 10, then they would have found areas like the Gateway Quarter, Main Street, Washington Park. The variances in income cited in Census Track 17 are almost totally caused by the nice homes up on Mulberry Street at the top edge of the district.  Pair this with the sparsely populated area below it and presto...the numbers fall into place giving the disparity.  When you cut neighborhoods apart, then you can find lots of things.  Hell, if 1 person making $100,000 moved to Queensgate, I think with the low population in that area, they would take over Track 17's title.

The other big bias in the article was drawing in the Metropole issue, which is not located in OTR and is a vastly different situation.  The Metropole on the surface fits the conclusion the writer had formed, so adding it in was like icing on the cake.  If you are going to draw in unrelated incidents, there is a nice empty field sitting in Norwood near Smith and Edwards that could serve someone's political agenda.

A significant part of the article attempted to look at OTR overall and provided a reasonable view on 3CDC's efforts, but this has nothing to do with cherry picking statistical and using that as the basis of the article.  That makes a biased and just false claim that 3CDC caused the disparity.  In fact with the time frame involved, 3CDC had not completed that many new locations and had at best purchased the empty, unused buildings that become the condo/apartments now flourishing.  If you want to write an article criticizing redevelopment of OTR, then start typing, but keep the misleading statistics out of it.

I do credit one thing in the article without hesitation: the photo.  The photo looks to me to be of Track 17, at least in part. In contrast, if you look at CityBeat's article on this story, then you should notice that the picture listed is not in Track 17 at all. It's of Gateway Quarter and it's inclusion with either a careless mistake or purposeful deception.  I'll let you decide on that.

Southgate House Closing

According to it's Facebook page, the Southgate House will be closing it's doors after this New Year's Eve show. This esteemed music venue has been serving the great Cincinnati music scene for decades and has been the sight of scores of epic concerts.  News that it is closing a big blow to the Cincinnati music scene.  The post indicates that the owners may move the business.  There is no announced reason for the move and no word on what necessitates the closure or what will happen with the historic landmark.

Joe at EachNoteSecure.com has more on the closing, which had been rumored recently.

UPDATE: Lauren Bishop of the Enquirer has more.

Biased Gannett Bleeds On Enqurier

If you've read this story about Rob Portman's participation in the 'Super-Committee' you would think the only person of interest on the committee was Rob Portman.  You'd also assume that what ever Portman was doing, he was doing it without any hint of politics or partisanship.

The bias of the article was astonishing to me.  I'll use the cliche 'putting lipstick on a big' because that's basically what it did.  You can still smell the stink that was the 'Super-Committee,' but you can also smell the gallons of perfume trying to hide the Republican responsibility for the failure of the committee. I understand that Portman is local, but it is biased to make him the focus of the coverage when he was at best a single member of a team that failed. We got no insight about the Democratic members of the committee. We got a cloudy puff piece on a Republican that didn't hide the failure, but went out of it's way to make Portman look like he's not to blame.  It's homerism of a different political/partisan bent.

The most annoying example of bias in the article came in how the reporter alternately labeled the American Enterprise Institute vs the Brookings Institution when describing a person quoted for the article.  The AEI was referenced without any qualifying partisan adjectives:

"Portman is the key to me," Norman Ornstein, a longtime congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Fiscal Times in August, after the 55-year-old Portman was tapped to be one of the six GOP lawmakers on the bipartisan panel. "Rob is smart, decent, not a crazy. He is the kind of person you'd want on this panel."

On the other hand the Brookings Instituion was labeled as 'left-leaning:'

Thomas Mann, a congressional expert at the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank, similarly said the "supercommittee was doomed to failure" because Republicans took such a hard line opposing any significant tax increases. "The minor concessions were not serious," Mann said, referring to a GOP proposal that offered some revenue increases. "As a consequence, I don't think there were any pivotal players."

Gannett and the Enquirer know the AEI is a Conservative think-tank. It may be representing the more libertarian wing of the Republican Party, but it clearly is at a minimum a 'right-leaning' think tank.  Bias runs deep and when you don't treat groups the same, you sink farther down into the muck with FOX News.

What Did You Buy Today?

Now, be honest, tell everyone what you purchased today on the holiest of shopping days.

I bought lunch for a couple of friends and that was it. It was at an independent restaurant, to boot.

It was a good day!