Police Back Off, Enquirer Writes Horrible Headline

The police are stumbling all over themselves trying to back off their "great suspicion" that the corner market crime ring was linked to "terrorism." None of the local powers that be will come right out and eat crow:

Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen said the investigation is continuing, but there is so far no connection to terrorism. "If there are financial links to terrorists, they have not been established," Allen said.

I love the firm manner in which Mike committed to his answer: I know Noth-ing.

What was the headline writer (editor?) thinking when they wrote the headline - subheader combination of "Man free in theft ring case: Terror tie uncertain?" This combination leads one to believe that because the terror ties were "uncertain", he was set free. It creates the impression that the terrorism was the only charge. The man is free on bail, not freed because has been tried yet. The evidence against the crime ring I would bet is very damaging. Ken Lawson is of course involved. I have to ask the obvious. Is he trying to make a victim out of his client(s) from the "racist" police that assumed a terrorism connection. This faux victim hood is his plan for acquittal. Ken is going for a modified Chewbacca defense. Draw attention away from the facts of the case and zero in on the peacock strutting of the Police Chief and Prosecutor. Morons are easy dupes for a fake left, and we have plenty of morons here in Hamilton County.

Elkington Can Kiss His 100K GoodBye!

CityBeat had a story last week where Mr. Elkington reported made a few bigoted comments at an OTR luncheon:

Elkington and his boosters make much of his commitment to diversity -- African Americans own 35 percent of Beale Street businesses, according to Cranley. But at a recent Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Elkington told the crowd that years in development have taught him to never rent to a Chinese restaurant.

"If it's an inside joke to developers, we didn't get it," Charter Committee city council candidate John Schlagetter says.

Elkington says the comment was meant as a joke, but it's true that he doesn't rent to Chinese restaurants.

"I just made that a policy," he says. "Chinese businessmen are hagglers. They use different math."

That is just totally outlandish and outright racist. I wonder when he says "Chinese" if he means those from China or is he vastly ignorant and mean all Asians?

You know things hit the fan when the Cincinnati Enquirer actually refer to a CityBeat Article anywhere in there paper, let alone in an editorial:

Mayor Charlie Luken and Councilman John Cranley want to hire Elkington for $100,000 to make bigger things happen on OTR's Main Street. But we can't get there by offending more ethnic groups. Luken says he's been flooded with e-mails, and will talk to Elkington again. OTR offers opportunities for all private investors. The city needs to make 100 percent sure Chinese-Americans are as welcome as any.

The Enquirer does report that Elkington denies the CityBeat Quote were he calls Chinese businessmen "hagglers." Come on John, everyone knows Jews are the "hagglers", the Chinese are good at math, the Scotsmen are cheap as hell and won't invest a dime in OTR, and the Irish will drink anywhere you open a bar.

Oh, and yes....(Cough, Cough) on the last part, for all those keeping score.

Vigilancia Politica 20031008
VigPol is Back. Sorry again about missing a week, but I am back for the duration.

"Unhip" Cincinnati

The Christian Science Monitor has taken a hard look at Cincinnati and our Young Professionals. I don't like being called "unhip" because that is a really bad rap on Cincinnati, but one we can't easily avoid. We are a "cool" city surrounded by some of the most stale minded people in the country. The majority of suburbanites want to live in a stoic life with the PTA, youth soccer, high school football, church festivals, and tolerance for theocratic fascists like Phil Burress.

The city needs to start looking out for itself more. The county does nothing to help. The suburbs sponge off the big city aura, but stay locked in their sheltered cul-de-sacs. Groups like Cincinnati Tomorrow, featured in the article, are in my opinion (biased as it may be) are the foundation for a vibrant city society. Social structures are what societies are built on and by combining our efforts our market share will become more attractive to business and then to government officials.

Nick Spencer got a great mention. I seemed to not seek John Cranley's name mentioned. I wonder where he stands on young professionals? I would guess he would want us standing outside a Hard Rock Cafe behind the velvet ropes, waiting for the West Chester crowd to go home.

Arnold Yes! Local Politics No!

I am watching WLWT-NBC at 11:00 PM today and I saw a report during the first ten minutes on the California Governor's recall election. In case you missed something, WLWT is the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati, Ohio. That was OHIO.

Ohio does not border California. When the governor of Indiana died, that was very relevant to Cincinnati area views, which includes parts of Indiana. Stories on Kentucky government are also fair game. If might be nice if we got a story on what Bob Taft was doing up in Columbus (again the one in Ohio).

Now, I seem to remember something about an election right here in Cincinnati. 26 people are running for something? Instead we get an "Around the Nation" report and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" update. What the Fuck? Where is the local news? Damn it folks, a "Tall Stacks" commercialnews story giving the menu? I guess interviewing the candidates for next month's election is just not interesting enough for the brain dead "Reality" Show junkies hoping they finally merge the Bachelor, Fear Factor, and Dirtyhotelmaids.com into one television program. Watching a single guy tempt fate by picking a wife from a group of dirty hotel maids that eat sheep balls for money is a formidable match for picking the city's leaders.

Reformation II?

With groups like Voice of the Faithful, is a Roman Catholic split far way? American Catholics have a large segment pushing for change in the church much like Martin Luther did nearly 500 years ago. Couple this along with radical traditionalist Catholic, like Mel Gibson, who prefer to turn back the clock and be "pre-Vatican II" Catholics. Orthodox Catholics, who might also be called conservative Catholics, fall in as the "establishment" Catholics who like the Church as is. I don't know where moderate or liberal Catholics will go if the church does not change. I would predict that the choice of the next Pope will be critical for the future of American Catholics. I would not be surprised to see a break-up/schism or massive defection to other protestant sects for American Catholics. I of course don't really give much of a damn about this or any religion, but the Catholic Church does wield influence in the world, and it is the biggest Christian denomination in America.

Timing of Iraq War

Rob Bernard points out that he did address why we went to war when we did. His answer was:

We attacked when we did because it appeared those opposing our timetable weren't opposing when we were doing it, but that we were doing it at all. Might it have been better if we had waited for a better postwar plan? Sure, but that's 20-20 hindsight talking. There was not a single person, either pro or anti, talking before the war about the postwar plan.

Rob makes part of my case for me. No one was talking about post-war Iraq. Why was that? Well, that is not true, many were asking about the post-war Iraq, those questions came mostly from Democrats, like Joe Biden in this 02/11/2003 NewsHour segment, but also Senator Lugar (R) asked questions that no one in the Bush Administration answered significantly then and still have not done much of it to date.

Lugar's initial comment:

How long might U.S. troops conceivably remain? Will the United Nations have a role? And who will manage Iraq's oil resources? Unless the administration can answer these questions in detail, the anxiety of Arab and European governments, as well as that of many in the American public, over our staying power will only grow.

Biden's initial comment:

The one lesson universally learned from Vietnam is that a foreign policy, no matter how well or poorly articulated, cannot be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. The American people have no notion what we are about to undertake. This is a gigantic undertaking in what the word that we don't like to hear: nation building -- nation building.

Rob's comments still do not pass muster as to why we had to fight then. If they only reason was that France was not going to support us, then I still can’t find what harm would have it caused if we instead waited for more troops to arrive, waited for Turkey to come around and let us stage troops from our bases there, and waited for everyone other than France to come around and support our actions? We might have reduced the number of causalities significantly, especially from the post-war violence. We would have kept Saddam in power for 6 to 8 months longer, but Bush left him in power from his inauguration up through this year without any significant fretting as to the fate of the people being oppressed in Iraq.

MIAMI 45, Akron 20

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.

Coverage: Enquirer, Hamilton Journal-News, and Akron Beacon-Journal.

Corrupt Empowerment Zones & Terrorism?

Leave it Howard Wilkinson to write about the story beneath the story. Franco Wantsala is wanted as part of the crime ring fronting stolen merchandise at local corner markets. Mr. Wantsala is the staff accountant for the Cincinnati Empowerment Corporation which is the local agency that awards funds to entities in empowerment zones. This “little” connection might give the boycotters something to crow about, assuming they are paying attention and don’t jump to this man’s defense out of knee-jerk reaction.

Wilkinson was able to get a high ranking authority, Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, to honestly comment on the crime ring's link to terrorism:

Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, whose Organized Crime Investigations Commission launched the probe nearly two years ago, said it was not at all clear that Saleh and his alleged co-conspirators were funneling money to Middle East terrorists.

"There is no hard evidence of that; there is just hard suspicion,'' said Petro. "That's something for the feds to investigate. We were investigating an organized criminal activity."

I wonder who locally was pushing the terrorism connections? The original Enquirer story has this reference to terrorism:

Federal authorities are following up on the $37 million to see if it funded any terrorism, Humphries said. Officials here believe it did, Chief Tom Streicher said, but have no proof.

The Post reported Streicher's direction quote on the link to terrorism:

"We can document that money is being sent to the Middle East," Streicher said, adding there is a "strong suspicion" the money is being used to fund terrorism. He acknowledges, though, "there is nothing concrete -- yet."

This quote is presumably why the Post used this headline for the article, "Theft ring, terrorism linked." Since when does "suspicion" mean a link? AG Petro said there is no hard evidence, so basically these guys are guessing terrorism is involved. If there really was terrorism involved, where are the National news stories on this issue with a press conference from John Ashcroft? Now there is still the report from an ex-wife of one of the accused were she says, "I think they're involved in terrorism, I've always have." Who tipped WCPO off as to location of this ex-wife? They had very little time to get this story since the men were only arrest on Thursday and the story is filed on Friday, complete with a "shaded" video clip. Now, WCOP could have the fastest staff in the world, but I would bet someone in the CPD or Prosecutor’s office let a name slip.

Threats from "Evildoers" (UC)!

Rob Bernard quips: "The reason you don't invade Clifton is because UC didn't invade Oxford 12 years ago, lose, and promise to get rid of those plans in order to get Miami to stop shooting." Well Rob, "someone" did steal the "Victory Bell" for several years until it "magically" appeared again. Our intelligence has said, and I am sure Senator Mike DeWine will back me up on this, that it was member of the UC Cabal. The Bell is under threat, and we must crush that threat before something happens. We can't wait until next year's game, we must act now!

That leads me into what Rob did not address. Why couldn't we wait to go to war? Bush's claim was that we were under threat (I say imminent was the Administration talking point until they could not support the claim), and that we could not wait. We could not wait because Iraq was a threat, which as we now know what not true.

The bottom line, the only reason we could not wait to go to war was that Bush knew he could not fight one in an election year, and still get the credit for it without a Wag the Dog charge. We could have gone into battle this Fall with the entire world on our side and with a plan for the post-war. We also would not have had the 87 billion dollar bill to pay, or at least not nearly as big a one.

Why does this matter? Well, I am a person who does not believe the ends justify the means. Do I regret the ends? No, I am glad Saddam is gone. What I refuse to let happen is for George Bush to be praised for his actions and then reelected by an ill-informed and ignorant public. Now I of course have virtually no real influence beyond the small number of people who actually read my work, but I think I am part of a chorus that must sing and show that the President acted poorly, made political choice in the timing of the war, and seems willing to spin his "victory" into some grand battle that illustrates his "brilliance."

Now, are you with us (Miami) or with "them" (UC)? (cough, cough)

Corner Market Crime Ring

Jay Love tried to make this into a civil rights violation during his 1230AM radio show today. He did not like the arrest and/or indictment of 23 people alleged to be involved in a crime ring that fenced stolen goods getting a lot of attention before anyone was convicted. I wonder where Jay's complaints were when the Erpenbeck scandal broke and was front page news for months on both daily newspapers. Erpenbeck got 100 times more attention than this crime ring bust will ever get all before he or anyone implicated went to trial. Why didn't Jay complain about that?

The problem with the news coverage and the headline whoring by Mike Allen and the CPD is that they threw around the "terrorism" charge without any evidence. Money going to the Middle East is not by itself evidence of funding terrorism. Allegations like this WCPO story are more substantial, but it comes from an ex-wife of one of the accused so ulterior motives are something to be considered. Sensationalism is a bedrock of news, but when it could cause a hate crime, then restraint should take precedence.

Rush Limbaugh is Just an Idiot

With apologies to Al Franken I had to mention the Rush Limbaugh tragedy. Ethan Hahn at Queen City Soapbox comments on both of stories concerning Rush. I actually feel sorry for the man at this point. He is either a drug addict or a wrongly accused person. Based on Rush's comments Ethan referenced, Limbaugh sounds like he is hooked on painkillers. If he was not, I think he might have denied being a drug addict, instead of his refusal to talk about the issue.

On the ESPN issue I think Rush's real problem was that he crossed the line that I assumed he was not going to cross when he was hired, the political one. I assume Rush would stick with commenting on sports and not bring political comments into the issue. Topping it off, he makes stupid comments that almost appear to have been more of an automatic machine reaction. He normally just spouts off the usually talking points and Conservative clichés that he just let one slip without thinking about what he saying. The ESPN thing will not hurt his career much. Painkillers could kill his career.

Miami Strike Reporting

John Koval's column from today's Miami Student on the reactions and actions of Miami University students and strikers respectively, was a nice and balanced take on the situation. I am sure the students supporting the strike will hate the criticism leveled on their acceptance of being "radical," which I took as basically being Stalinists like the folks at International Answer and the World Workers Party. These "Transnational Progressives" are the bane of us on the left. Their acceptance of Neo-Communism (including the faux anarchists or just old fashioned communism) had fractured the left into a liberal wing and a populist wing, the liberals being the more libertarian while the populists being the unionists and embracing a form of authoritarianism.

The strikers are a sympathetic group, but confrontation with the school in the end will have been a poor choice. The school has nothing to give them.

Example of Overt Racism from a Blogger

Zee over at SpicedSass seems to just not care about what she says on her blog. I find it amazing that a human being is this racist and bigoted and prejudice all wrapped up in one.

WMD Revisionism

Some local revisionism on why we went to war.

We invaded Iraq because they we thought they weren't living up to their end of the UN resolutions. These finds, without a single WMD find, prove that they weren't.

What Rob does not answer is why the war could not wait until say, now? Why not wait until we had the whole world on our side and we had a plan for what to after we won? What was the rush??? Oh yea, we were under imminent threat from WMD, that is why couldn't wait. Now of course we know there were no weapons, just plans for weapons. There are "plans" for weapons at UC. Why don't we invade Clifton? Those evil Bearcats are a threat to my Redhawks, damn it!

Detecting a Pattern?

Am I detecting a pattern with the latest Maggie Downs column? It is a very well written and a nice column, but why is it in the Metro Section? Is this coffee shop going to advertise with the Enquirer or the new Weekly? When is the weekly supposed to come out? It was slated for Fall and it is now Fall. Is Maggie the poster gal for the Real Life, Real News program? This is real life, but is it news? This column would make a very entertaining piece if it ran with video and was played during the 5 PM "news" hour on any of the Local TV stations. Is Maggie the manifestation of what Gannett wants to make its newspapers into? The print version of the Today Show?

I like Maggie's writing, and she is a really great person as well, but I wish she would write more about what is going on, not on what people could do in their spare time.

UPDATE: Wes Flinn adds some comments.

Young Politics

Greg Korte has a good take on young voters. This part is a bit self serving, but still very very true:

Notwithstanding the Internet, television remains the primary source for news for young people. And television does a poor job covering local campaigns - especially one in which 26 Cincinnati City Council candidates are competing for attention.

Radio does a little better than TV in covering local politics here in Cincinnati, but the internet I think does a great job. And yes, that was very self-aggrandizing.

Real Life, Real News, Real Crap?

Jim Romenesko's Media Memos has a lengthly memo purportedly from Enquirer Editor Tom Callinan about a new program hitting Gannett newspapers and how it specifically affects the Enquirer. This plan, "Real Life, Real News" amounts to basically human interest market driven news. What we are going to get now is giving readers what they want, or say they want. We therefore can expect to get less of hard news. The marketing study part of this program indicates a gender and age gap. It seems that all that means to the Enquirer Management is that we (the readers) want to make the Metro section in a Tempo part deux. This except sums up what they are going to do to change their age gap:

Real Life source: As we developed a product aimed at 25-34s, we created an e-mail list of several groups of young professionals and creatives and invited them for several get-acquainted discussions over the summer. The discussions reinforced much of what we have talked about - they are interested in local news about neighborhoods and things unique to Cincinnati, places to go and things to do, goods things happening in the community, news from their neighborhoods, restaurants, local music, travel ,careers, health and fitness, arts and culture. They want to see and hear from their own generation, not what they see as our out-of-touch critics. And, they talked about looking forward, not to the past (complaints about the "riots" obsession…and, Pete Rose - many of them were born after the Big Red Machine days).

We are now going to get Dateline NBC and People Magazine in the pages of the Enquirer. If we young professionals care about what our politicians are doing I guess we are just shit out of luck. Charlie Luken, Simon Leis, and Phil Burress can do what ever the hell they want, but since the Enquirer seems to think "we" want to burry our heads in the sand, I guess we get the same crap you can watch on every Local TV station, FLUFF. Callinan tried to say this was not fluff, but it is. It is human interest gone amuck.

A second negative appears to be an abandonment of the City of Cincinnati. The suburbs will now be the focus of the paper. Every example from the memo dealt with suburban issues. The Enquirer seems to be following the ways of WLW.

The only positive thing from this memo is the realization of the importance of the internet and an increase in special content for the internet. What that exactly entails was not detailed. The Enquirer has recently increased the number of times a day they are updating the front page of their website with news stories. This is a positive step. It would be nice to do this on the weekends too, but they would need to hire some new to do it, or just break down and hire me to do a blog (cough, cough).

More from Gannett.

UPDATE: Dr. Andrew Cline at Rhetorica has a very different view on this "new" program.

Feeding Racists

Talk about generous, according to an inside source Cincinnati Tomorrow fed Nate Livingston and Amanda Mayes tonight at a special "After-Five Walk." It appears that Nate and Amanda were using the computers at Media Bridges and after the CincyTomorrow event there ended the word was passed in the building that they had a bunch of food left over and the first people to partake were Nate and Amanda. Doesn't that violate the boycott? Doesn't eating the "white man's" food somehow taint Nate? Is Kabaka Oba going to have to "purify" Nate from the "devil's" food?

ISP Problems

My cable Internet connection is giving me fits, so my posting will be intermittent. I am skipping my VigPol column this week. I apologize to my readers for that, and I promise to be back next week.