Kabaka Oba Dead

The Enqurier is reporting that Kabaka Oba died earlier today.

Mayor Mallory has issued the following statement:

"I want to express my deepest sympathy and condolences to the family of Kabaka Oba. I have known Kababa for many years. Even though he was seen as controversial, some of the ideals that he talked about like economic inclusion, equality, and justice cannot be disputed and should be embraced by us all."

I personally found Oba's views to be abhorrent, adding nothing but hate to our local political discourse, but no human being deserves to be murdered.

Tainting the Jury Pool?

Is this an attempt to taint the jury pool in the Howard Beatty case? Is this a backdoor attempt by the defense to try and sell their fruitless self-defense strategy?

Bad Debate at NKU

A pox on both sides from me. This anti-abortion display should never have been erected on a public university's grounds. It is a religious display and demonstrates where 99.9% of the anti-abortion motivation is sourced.

That being said, the professor and students involved should not have removed the display in the manner they did. They should have protested it being there and sued to have it removed. In the article NKY's President refers to it as the destruction of property, that is over the top, but what was done was the wrong way to handle it. It is a form of protest, and they can argue a 1st Amendment defense, but the freedom of speech clause may not be their best bet.

This sounds like it would have been much simpler to have the anti-abortion side hold a protest, with temporary crosses while they are there, but be forced to remove them when the protest ended. If that was what was supposed to happen, well, then the students just helped clear the grounds of discarded items.

None of this improves the situation. It will just drive a bigger wedge into the growing cultural gap in our society. That I fear is the goal of many on the anti-abortion side.

UPDATE: The Post has more. The most interest element here is that a police report valued the crosses at $600. Now if that is true, then why they hell didn't these anti-abortionists cut to the chase and buy $600 worth of condoms and pass those out on campus? They would have a great protest cheer: "Reduce Abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies!" Instead they turn to symbols instead of actions that could actually have results.

UPDATE #2: Nice to see the anti-abortionists seeking to turn the other cheek. Oh wait, lol. This story from the NKU paper has photos of the destruction. The professor involved looks, shall we say, nutty! I will repeat something I post in comments. If a group of students is not allowed to erect a 6 foot penis, or, for that matter, take 400 dildos and plant them in the ground, then there is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.

UPDATE #3: The AP has the story, so this should be making the talk radio rounds in the coming week. Once Bill O'Reily gets a chance, he will drag this thing out till the cows come home to roost.

Howard Beatty Charged with Shooting Oba

Self Defense is the reported defense.

It is most telling seeing the varied reactions. From the near ranting of Nate to the foolish post at the Beacon, this was a big event in the City. How quickly Nate has turned on someone who was his steadfast ally.

What I find most offensive is how on Television last night the story at WLWT was painting Oba as a nice guy who is likeable and pleasant. They failed to mention his past anti-Semitic and anti-white remarks that came out of his mouth nearly every time he called into 1230 AM's call-in shows. I can understand not attacking the man while he clings to life, but that does not mean you have to put a package together that equates a self professed black-separatist to a civil rights leader.

Kabaka Oba Shot Near City Hall

Details are here and here.

Reports in the articles state he was targeted specifically and one or two African Americans are sought for questioning or are outright suspects.

He was shot multiple times and his condition is not currently known.

Picture Contradicts Article

I believe this article is talking about the City of Cincinnati proper and Hamilton County, not metro Cincinnati. The picture accompanying this article lists the following caption:

"Mohamad Ramlawi, owner of the Halal Market in West Chester, has some fun with customer Asiya Chaudhry, holding her granddaughter, Eman Chaudhry, 2, of Mason. Ramlawi is a native of Lebanon, and Chaudhry is from India. Immigrants made up almost half of Cincinnati's population in 1850; now they make up just 2.6 percent."

If immigrants are going to save the "city," then how are they going to do when they are out in West Chester? This is a very poor job of Editing. I don't know if this picture or the caption made it to the print edition, but the online version makes the entire article appear off kilter.

UPDATE: Edited for the Lebanon City-Country confusion. That doesn't alter the point of the post.

We Ain't Uneducated

Cincinnati ranks highest among Ohio Big Cities in residents with a college degree at 34%.

Bad Boys, Bad Boys

Whatcha Gonna do!

Simon Leis' deputies are going to be patrolling in the OTR. How far behind is a new COPS! Cincinnati episode?

BushCo Is Scum

Most are failing to see what the disclosure that the Bush Administration authorized the Plame Leak means.

First ask yourself, why did they do it? What was their motive? The motive was politics. It was meant as a means to discredit a critic and make there political position (the war) look better. It did not benefit the county in the least. It is not a national security issue to ruin the career of a whislteblower.

How is this different from other slime politics? Well, take the Swift Boat crap. There you had Bush using proxies to smear John Kerry with lies. That is dirty politics, but crosses a different line. Here Bush used his powers of the Presidency, his governmental powers to tear down a domestic foe. This was meant to ruin the life of Wilson and his wife. That is an abuse of power. An Abuse of Power is a high crime, an impeachable offense.

Now, a nice wrinkle to this is that Bush, via Executive Order, gave VP Dick Cheney the power to declassify information. That may be enough to shield Bush, but Cheney should resign or be impeached.

The election of 2008 would be greatly altered if Cheney resigned and someone else popular was made VP, someone who would be running in 2008. If I were a Machiavellian, I would be looking at the likelihood of this playing out. (Yes, my mind is looking at this.)

Bottom line, Bush, Cheney, Libby, Rove, etc. are scum. If they get by without feeling any consequences from this, it is an example of how truly ignorant, or blindly loyal people are to a man who has lied regularly to them. If Bush gets no flack for this, his cult following really is a cult.

Dare I?

I was torn on posting an open thread today. The natives appear to be a little restless, so I fear a battle royal might ensue.

Have at it, anyway.

Downtown on the Rise

Downtown Cincinnati is moving forward. Main Street may be dying, but the CBD is looking up.

Bizarre

Can we say TV movie of the week? Meredith Baxter Birney call your agent!

Blackwell: Oops

Ken Blackwell allegedly unknowingly invested in the Diebold while he was requiring counties to purchase Diebold voting machines. Blackwell claims he did not know this, and his investment manager did it without his knowledge.

Ok, When did he know and when did he sell the stock? He claims he just found out that he bought the stock over a year ago. I am not a millionaire, but unless I am buying into a mutual fund, I know when I own stock outright, and Ken Blackwell should have sure as well known that as well. It should not take the man a year to figure this out. If he was embarrassed by it, well he should be and should have fessed up long ago. He did just find out about it, then he appears to not be the man who would oversee the financial interests of the State of Ohio, which as governor he would do.

Reason #721 not to vote for Ken Blackwell. Reason was is because he's a republican, which makes most of the other reasons redundant.

DeLay to Quit House, Leave Race

Say it Loud and Say it Proud, GOOD RIDDANCE!

Government Propaganda

Right under our nose lies a blog based on the Enquirer's website that looks to be pure government propaganda. Justin Rood has the story and takes down the Grandma in Iraq who is a Public Affairs officer. She's open about it, as it lists on her Enquirer blog:

I get to a variety of construction sites because my job takes me there. I do public affairs, which means taking pictures, communicating the progress and accomplishments of our projects, writing news releases, planning and conducting media events, escorting reporters, ceremonies and you name it.

The fact she lists that is good on her part. Why hasn't the Enquirer made that part of her blog descriptions?

Also, does the Enquirer edit or fact check her PR posts? She is a positive spin machine. She writes only about what she does. Who picked her? She just happens to work with a team of builders. Why do they need a press agent?

This stinks to high heaven. I had not read this blog before. I assumed it was a grandma going off to serve in Iraq and she would be posting the everyday goings on. Instead we get what smells like Rummy's wet dream PR machine. Does the Pentagon get to review her posts before she posts them?

Let's Go Reds!

If you are going to the game, have fun and boo the President for me!

Connect the Dots?

Well, this just fucking sucks. No place to hide on this one, it is going to drive fear into people, and for once I will not blame them. I don't the people shot were random victims. If you connect the dots from the shooting scare at Newport on the Levee that happened a matter of a few hours before this incident occurred, and since the victims were reported to have been at the Levee that evening, I hope police are on the ball and looking for connections. [/ snark]

The Newport story didn't get much newspaper ink, and I think it only made the Kentucky edition of the paper. WCPO had that and link the stories based on I assume the Levee connection.

Jammin On 2.0

Mark your music calendars for May 12 and 13th Jammin On 2.0. The line-up is out and it looks great.

Strickland Has Big Lead

Ted Strickland currently has a solid lead over both Blackwell and Petro. With the fight going to heat up between Blackwell and Petro over the next month, neither fairs a good chance of going into the Summer within 10 to 15 points of Strickland. It will take money to beat Ted Strickland. The GOP has it and will use it, only to a point. The GOP candidate has to have traction. By Summer the GOP will start cutting its losses based on the national party trends, and Ohio may be sick of the GOP enough to keep national money out of the state. DeWine will get the money to win. Blackwell/Petro won't get the same kind of push from the National GOP leaders.

Courting the Bigot Vote

Malia Rulon of the Enquirer reports on Sen. Mike DeWine's choice to sign onto the same-sex marriage ban amendment in the Senate. Sen. Frist the Boss Bigot in the Senate who is doing all he can to the the mind numbing moron bigot vote. That's the voting block out there that actually would be influenced by someone who seeks to oppress gays and lesbians.

DeWine sounds as if he fears the base will leave him. He is playing all nice with Bush when the President visits Cincinnati on Monday, making for a mess of an opening day.

DeWine is in trouble and he knows it. This kind of crap is going to send the moderates to Brown in truck loads. When you think you can only win by pulling out your base, then you are not doing well, and you are marginalized.