Imagine: High school restrooms without smoke

After years of cat-and-mouse games between high school teachers and restroom smokers, Dixie Heights High School is kicking butts.

Flick a lighter or take two puffs from a cigarette in a restroom, and a female voice rats you out. "You are smoking in a non-authorized area," it blares. "The proper authorities have been notified. Please extinguish your flame and exit the restroom."

No doubt smokers have been figuring out how to disable it since the moment it went up three weeks ago, but most teachers would be overjoyed to see its use expanded.

Think of it -- a voice that warns against smelly gym clothes, necking in the hall, writing on desks, sleeping in class.

It would be sweet justice. Until now, teenagers have had the edge in the technology wars, using text-messaging, cell phones, IPods and the Internet to forward test questions or get help with answers.

Now teachers can actually focus on their lessons rather than try to make a bust between classes.

This baby is big news

The biggest news of the weekend, not just in Cincinnati, but arguably on the whole planet, had nothing to do with Iraq, George Bush, politics, murder, mayhem or the NFL draft.

The biggest story was the birth of one of the rarest creatures on the earth -- an 86 pound male Sumatran rhinoceros.

The baby is one of only 300 -- make that 301 -- of his species left alive on Earth. Born to mother Emi and father Ipuh on Sunday night at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, the calf was up on its feet and nursing well within a few hours.

To measure the baby rhino's significance, ponder a few numbers. Once more than 50 rhino species roamed the world. Some lived in the tropics, others as far north as the arctic. Today there are only five species left -- Black and White from Africa; Indian, Javan and Sumatran from Asia. Thanks to hunting and habitat destruction, all are near extinction. Black and White number about 7,000 and 14,000 respectively. There are about 2,565 Indian rhinos known to exist and only about 50 to 100 Javans. Emi's and Ipuh's as yet unnamed calf, the third they have produced, is only one of 10 existing Sumatran rhinos in captivity.

The Sumatran is the smallest of the remaining rhino species -- only about four-and-a-half feet high at the shoulder, and weighing 2,200 to 4,400 pounds. With its stringy, reddish hair, it is the last descendent of the Wooly Rhinoceros which first appeared about 20 million years ago. By way of comparison, humans have been around for only about 200,000 years, according to Wikipedia.

Without breeding programs like that at the zoo, these creatures, a species 100 times more ancient than hamanity, don't stand much chance of continuing to exist.

Porky Park: Bringing home the bacon

When it comes to “pork barrel” spending, the usual rule of thumb goes like this: If it’s for your district, it’s pork. If it’s for mine, it’s a vital public project. As the Enquirer’s Malia Rulon reported Friday, Greater Cincinnati members of the U.S. House are split over this month’s passage of the $7.62 billion Water Resources Development Act, which included $25 million for a new riverfront park downtown, fronting the proposed Banks development. Reps. Jean Schmidt of Miami Township and Geoff Davis of Hebron, voted for the bill, while Rep. Steve Chabot of Westwood, and House Minority Leader John Boehner of West Chester opposed it because of what they saw as the legislation’s wasteful spending overall.

The story posed this question: Is the park pork? Probably none of these four House members would call it that, but they’d certainly admit it’s an “earmark.” That’s not necessarily the same thing. Earmarking is a legitimate constitutional function of Congress – appropriating specific funds for specific purposes, as opposed to a lump sum for a federal agency to carry out projects and operations.

Earmarking can be an efficient way to get projects done without many of the bureaucratic hassles. But Congress perverted the process into one in which such items are slipped into large spending bills anonymously, with no accountability or oversight, often literally at the last minute. They often can’t be debated, modified or weeded out. They’re used to reward friends, buy support, stroke lawmakers’ egos, even function as bribes. They encourage corruption, and they balloon federal spending ­– to the tune of $29 billion in fiscal 2006, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. In a word, they become pork – like Alaska’s famous $223 million “Bridge to Nowhere.” Republicans controlling Congress indulged in an orgy of such spending during the past few years.

Democrats vowed to rein in, if not eliminate, earmarks when they took over this year. Well, it looks like the rein hasn’t fallen yet. As the New York Times reported last month, the leadership simply re-defined the House rules to remove the use of the term “earmark.” But they’re still there. Much of the supposed earmarking "reform" is a carefully crafted illusion. The $124 billion war spending bill Congress just passed is $20 billion more than needed. Much of the excess is pure pork – a $25 million subsidy for spinach growers in California, for example – larded in there as incentives for certain members of Congress to go along with the measure’s Oct. 1 deadline for withdrawal from Iraq.

So is the riverfont earmark a $25 million “Park to Nowhere”? You can always argue that a project is somehow good for local economy. But often it’s a leap to conclude that Washington should be bankrolling it instead of private, local, state or other sources. A half a million for a teacup museum here, $250,000 for asparagus technology research there, and pretty soon, as the great Everett Dirksen would put it, you’re talking real money.

I’d suggest a three-part test for “pork”:
1. Is it something that should be funded by government at all, much less the federal government?
2. Is the project being funded on its own merits, or for political reasons?
3. Is the money allocated in an above-board, transparent process open to public debate?

Seems to me our local “water resources development” project doesn’t pass this test. I’d like to see park there as much as anybody, but this legislation is not the way to do it. Boehner and Chabot won’t say it, but I will: The park is pork.
Got a bone – pork or otherwise – to pick with me? Post a comment here or at our online conversation board on this topic.

They forgot their guns were there

I sometimes refer to mishaps involving firearms as “stupid gun tricks.” I think “magic gun tricks” might be better in the tales below because in each case, the presence of the gun seems to have clouded the owner’s mind with a fog of forgetfulness. Both of these gentlemen were able to go about their daily routines and forget they were even packin’.

Trick #1 – Phillip Thompson, 45, former Marine and senior aide to U.S. Senator Jim Webb, D-Va., was arrested March 26 entering the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington because he had a loaded gun with two extra magazines in his briefcase. He was charged with carrying a handgun without a license.

The gun belonged to Webb, he said, and he “forgot” he was carrying it for the senator. On Friday the case was dropped. U.S. Attorney Jeff Taylor said he didn’t think the crime could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Trick #2 – David Huckabee, 26, son of Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was arrested Thursday at an Arkansas airport when an X-ray machine revealed he had a loaded Glock pistol in his carry-on bag.

He was charged with a misdemeanor of carrying a gun in a prohibited place. His dad said in a rush to the airport, David just grabbed a piece of luggage that he forgot he kept a gun in.
A guilty plea resulted in a suspended sentence and 10 days of community service that he can pay off with a $100 fine. Case closed faster than you can say Guantanamo.

In these days of heightened homeland security, does anyone think these guys would have gotten off so easy if say their names had been Muhammad or Hussein?

Marcus Fiesel's bones

Neglect was pretty much a constant in Marcus Fiesel’s three-year life. It should be no surprise that seven months after his murder it continues in a squabble over his bones.

Marcus was an autistic child, taken from his birth mother because of neglect, then murdered by his foster parents, David and Liz Carrroll. David Carroll and Amy Baker, the live-in girlfriend the couple shared, then burned the body and dumped most of the ashes in the Ohio River. A handful of bone chips were scraped up from the fire site and put into an evidence locker at the Hamilton County morgue.

Once the Carrolls were safely jailed away, Prosecutor Joe Deters arranged for a free interment in a local mausoleum. All he needed was the OK of Marcus’ birth mother, Donna Trevino.

But Kevin Hughes, the lawyer who represented Trevino in a civil suit against the foster care agency that placed Marcus with the Carrolls, has accused Deters seeking “political” gain by writing a letter to Trevino telling her Marcus deserved a burial.

Trevino wants Marcus buried in Butler County, closer to where she lives, and Butler County apparently is willing to pay for that funeral.

Trevino and her lawyer, who told reporters he didn’t even talk to his client for a week after Deters contacted him, should get on with it.

Marcus was neglected his entire life. Leaving his bones unclaimed at the morgue is just one last insult.

Road rage, sports rage and now yard rage

What makes human beings willing to give up everything that's valuable to them to settle a score? When did people become so inept at discussion, negotiation, calm reasoning that the only way they know to resolve a conflict is for somebody to die?

A Clermont County jury doesn't have to answer these tough questions when it decides the fate of Charles Martin. All they have to determine is if the 67-year-old Batavia resident shot his 15-year-old neighbor after exchanging profanities with the boy and threatening him for walking across Martin's lawn. Police say Martin waited more than three hours for Larry Mugrage Jr. to return home and then killed him with two blasts of a shotgun.

Martin's lawyer blames it on "systematic harassment of an old man," and perhaps bad blood on both sides played into the tragedy. But when did human beings become so devoid of inner discipline or moral sanctions that they couldn't turn their cheek to youthful rudeness and simply let a bad moment pass by?

His attorney said Martin waited all his life to purchase his modest home, and was particular about it and his yard. If he is convicted of aggravated murder, he won't return to it for at least 20 years.

What breeds rage so great that it consumes the very things people like Charles Martin hold dear?

Don't make Ky. domestic partners an issue

Robbie Rudolph, Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s running mate and executive secretary in the governor’s cabinet, said Monday during a debate on Kentucky Educational Television that Fletcher may ask the General Assembly to deal with the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees’ decision to offer expanded employee benefits to domestic partners.

In other words, Rudolph says the governor wants to do something about UK offering benefits to unmarried and same-sex couples. The Legislature has more important things to do and Rudolph and Fletcher ought to stop trying to make an election year issue out of this.

UK, like the University of Louisville as well as other public and private schools around the country and many private companies, offer such benefits because it helps to attract and keep a high caliber workforce. The incremental cost of extending existing benefits to such couples is negligible.

In the past Fletcher was willing to take a pass on this issue, leaving it to university presidents to decide. But now he is in a competitive primary for renomination, a lot of big name Republicans are opposing him and he has a running mate willing to goad him with the political appeal of such a hot-button issue.

Fletcher should resist. Inflating the domestic choices of a handful of people into a policy issue is not a move of government leadership.

'The truth is always more heroic than the hype'

The late journalist and social critic Gerald W. Johnson had it right when he wrote, “Heroes are created by popular demand, sometimes out of the scantiest materials, or none at all.” But there’s a corollary: Sometimes, it seems, heroes are manufactured in order to create that popular demand. Exhibit A: Tuesday’s congressional hearing on the Pentagon’s recent, disgraceful record of war-story deceit.

During the hearing, members of the military told lawmakers about how officials crafted campaigns to create heroic but largely untrue stories about the death of former NFL star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan and the capture and rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch in Iraq. The military, we now know, covered up Tillman’s “friendly fire” death in 2004 with a false tale and turned Lynch’s 2003 ordeal after an RPG hit her supply-convoy vehicle into what she now calls “the story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting.”

Lynch (right) told legislators she’s “still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary.” But she shouldn’t be confused. A large part of conducting a war is building and maintaining public support back home for that war – or at least, preventing grim reality from eroding that support. Nothing works quite as well as the emergence of heroes – especially photogenic ones these days with compelling biographies and battlefield stories.

This is nothing new, of course. The recent film “Flags of Our Fathers,” for example, reminds us of how U.S. officials hyped and to an extent falsified the Iwo Jima flag-raising during World War II in order to shore up financial support for the war at home. You can look further back, as far back as Thermopylae at least, to find similar examples.

Often, it’s relatively harmless hyperbole that you can argue has served a greater good – such as preserving ancient Greek democracy. But sometimes, as Tuesday’s hearing reminds us, it’s a plain lie. The word “hero,” like “tragedy,” is grossly overworked anyway, and stretching it by deceit dilutes and cheapens the concept – and mocks the deeds of real heroes.

“The bottom line,” Lynch said, “is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes, and they don’t need to be told elaborate lies. ... The truth is always more heroic than the hype.” Too bad our leaders seldom seem to share that insight.

Go go Gonzales

Add Kentucky’s Jim Bunning to the list of Republican senators wondering out loud about whether Alberto Gonzales should remain attorney general.

In a posting last Friday I speculated that Gonzales might be hard of hearing since he has seemed to ignore the pointed criticisms over his lack of credibility in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, from such Republican senators as Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Sam Brownback, R-Kans.; and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Bunning, usually one of the most ardent supporters of the Bush administration and all its works, voiced his doubts in a teleconference with reporters Tuesday: “I don’t know how long Albert Gonzales can survive as attorney general.” According to the Associated Press, Bunning was asked if he still had confidence in Gonzales. “Let’s put it this way, I’ve seen stronger,” he replied.

It’s time for the AG to stop stalling and take the plunge.

The empty seat in the classroom

Our story today on the death of two Eastern High School students in a car crash resonates with me. I once taught in a high school that, like Eastern, had a string of tragic car crashes and, over several years, several student suicides.

High schools can seem like pretty transitory places with young people passing through (they like to remind you) as quickly as they can. But that's only surface talk. The truth is that over the course of four years, teachers and principals grow close to the teenagers who slide into their classrooms just before the tardy bell, or stay after class to ask a question when their peers aren't around, or act like tough guys so they don't have to show you how tender their hearts are.

When you lose one of those kids, it's awful. I can still see exactly where each one sat in my classroom, remember my last conversation with him or her. I hope it is of some small comfort to their parents to know that their children remain in their teachers' hearts.

Downtown - We'd better 'hop' to it

As a longtime downtown resident, I’m gratified by the new surge in enthusiasm for the city’s core evidenced by Saturday night’s Downtown Hoparound. If you weren’t among the thousands who came down to sample downtown’s top attractions on a perfect April evening, you really missed something.

From the city’s oldest gathering spot – the historic tavern Arnold’s on Eighth Street – to its newest – the night club Bang on West Fourth Street, which had its grand opening Saturday – places were jammed all evening with local celebs and “ordinary” folks mingling and enjoying a variety of musical acts. Others strolled the streets taking in the warm spring air, or sat on Fountain Square checking out the flower display.

Add to that a Reds game and a show at the Aronoff, and downtown truly was hopping – with or without the frog leg specials at several restaurants. It really makes you wonder why it has taken so long for area residents to catch on to what visitors often seem to think is a pretty neat downtown.

And yet … Downtown needs a lot more than busy Saturday nights in bars, restaurants and night clubs to thrive long-term, especially as a real “neighborhood.” That was the point of our Sunday Forum special by Tony Lang, “Downtown dream schemes,” which took a close look at the current downtown housing boom --­ and what experts and residents say needs to happen next. Top on many folks' list seem to be mid-price condos, transportation access (including streetcars), a movie theater and a supermarket.

I’m a great believer in the market’s ability to respond to the growing demand and create a win-win situation for residents, visitors and businesses. After literally decades of downtown fits and starts and missteps, I hope I’m not proven wrong.

But as Sunday’s story noted, there’s a limited “window of opportunity” to make this happen, especially to attract young professionals to live, work and play downtown. Better not fritter it away.

Why is Gonzales still there?

Attorney General Albert Gonzales, criticized for bad management, politicizing the Justice Department and misrepresenting the facts about the firing of eight United States attorneys, must also be hard of hearing.

How could he listen to the comments by Senate Republicans during and after his Thursday testimony before the Judiciary Committee and not realize it is time to resign? Remember, these are Republicans talking.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., senior Republican on the committee: “Your characterization of your participation is significantly, if not totally, at variance with the facts,” he said at the hearing. After Gonzales called him Friday for a post mortem on the hearing, Specter told reporters: “I told him, ‘Everything I had to say about the hearing I’ve already said.’ ” (translation: I said he lied, didn't you hear me?)

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, another Republican on the committee, issued an unenthusiastic statement Friday that handed the hot potato right back to Gonzales: “As for whether the attorney general should resign, that is a question I leave to him and to the president.” (translation: What the heck is he waiting for?)

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., at Thursday’s hearing: “Most of this is a stretch,” referring to Gonzales’ explanations. (translation: You expect us to believe this stuff?)

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., astounded at Gonzales’ 50 claims of not being able to remember things during the hearing, said later: “I think it’s going to be difficult for him to be an effective leader... At this point, I think (Gonzales) should be given a chance to think it through and talk to the president about what his future should be.” (translation: Go! Go now!)

Whatever Gonzales’ future should be, not even his friends think it should be at the Justice Department.

Classroom cops not the answer

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones, who has been nurturing a reputation as the toughest sheriff on illegal immigration north of the Rio Grande, now proposes a way to keep maniacs from unleashing mayhem on college campuses.

In a letter to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, Thursday, Sheriff Jones proposed a “mandatory armed law enforcement presence at all schools.”

The sheriff notes in a Friday story by reporter Jon Craig that his proposal “will not come without a price tag.”

I’ll say.

According to the Ohio Department of Education Web site, there are 3,623 public schools and at least 877 non-public schools in the state of Ohio. That’s 4,500 separate schools. If you were to put just one armed police officer in each of those buildings, you would need a force roughly four and a half times the size of the Cincinnati Police Department. And that doesn’t count colleges and universities.

State Rep. Courtney Combs, R-Fairfield, said in the story he will consider sponsoring legislation to train teachers to carry guns, who Jones suggested could then be “deputized” to protect the kids in the classrooms.

“It needs to be debated,” Combs said in the story.

No it doesn’t.

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings we all want to find some way to keep it from happening again. It is every parent’s nightmare to learn that you have sent a child off to someplace you think is safe, only to learn that the unthinkable has happened. We all want to protect our children. I don’t blame Jones or Combs for suggesting putting cops in every classroom or arming teachers – but that isn’t the way.

It should be remembered that Virginia Tech had its own police department. Several officers already were on the scene of the initial shooting in a dormitory when the second, more extensive incident took play across campus in another building.

No police officer, or group of police officers, could possibly cover every possible location where a shooting might occur. Police are reactive – they are called after the crime has occurred. The way to address keeping another Virginia Tech from happening is to be pro-active; to recognize the danger of a ticking bomb like Cho Seung-Hui and try to defuse it before it goes off.

Revisiting college mental health services

Last month, when a national study was released on mental health services on college campuses, it was hardly a "talker." It said more college students were making use of the services, perhaps in part because more were coming to college already on psychiatric medication. But it also said mental health services were inadequate at many institutions, and often students and parents didn't know how to access them.

In the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy -- with reports that gunman Cho Seung-Hui was referred for counseling services and exhibited disturbing symptoms of mental imbalance -- the report would probably get better play and more attention today.

I wrote a blog entry March 28 on the topic, which met with a variety of responses -- from "the stigma is dissipating enough that when they need (such help)and it's available, they'll use it," to "Yes, we have a lot to be thankful for that so many have lowered their standards, given up and succumb to their inability to cope."

Here's a chance to revisit the report and bloggers take on it.

The smoke is starting to clear

It was the perfect political dynamic – in Columbus Tuesday, legislators managed finally to get something accomplished by taking no action.

I refer to the state wide smoking ban, which though enacted through a vote of the electorate last year, has been unenforced because the Ohio Department of Health couldn’t quite figure out how to have rules against smoking in indoor public places or places of employment that would match up with a law that says quite clearly there should be no smoking in indoor public places or places of employment.

Everybody knows that means no smoking in bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and other places where members of the public might work or gather. The whole idea is to protect non-smokers from the smoke produced by those who do smoke. It is eminently sensible from a public health standpoint, but its passage came as such a shock to the Health Department, that it took until now for them to figure out what they would do about people and places that violate the ban. The result was several months of free pass for intractable puffers.

The rules are pretty simple: First-time violators will get a warning. Smokers will be fined $100 for each subsequent violation. Fines for businesses are $100 for a second violation, $500 for a third, $1,000 for a fourth and $2,500 for the fifth and subsequent violation. Violations that occur prior to May 1, when the rules take effect, will be ignored. There are exceptions for private clubs and some rooms in hotels and nursing homes.

The 10-member legislative Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) could have sent the rules back to the Health Department for revision, or with six votes could have sent the rules to the full General Assembly, but instead, met for three hours Tuesday and chose to do nothing. That means the rules stand. It’s about time.

There are, of course, some die-hards. The Ohio Licensed Beverage Association, a trade association places that serve and sell alcohol, has filed some suits, saying it’s unfair to exempt private clubs while restricting other businesses.

Despite the complaints in such suits, I have yet to hear of a single bar or restaurant that has had to close because the customers refuse to show up if they can’t light up.

Heroism forged in the Holocaust

One can only imagine what went through Prof. Liviu Librescu’s mind as the shots started ringing out next door to his classroom Monday morning. Maybe his thoughts flashed back to his terrible ordeal during World War II. Librescu, you see, was a Holocaust survivor who went on to become a renowned scientist and a senior researcher at Virginia Tech.

But we don’t have to imagine what he did Monday, thanks to the eyewitness accounts of some of the students whose lives he saved – saved by sacrificing his own. Hearing gunshots from the next room that sounded like “an enormous hammer,” student Alec Calhoun recalled, Librescu blocked the door with his body and told his students to flee. As they jumped out the windows of the second-floor classroom, gunman Cho Seung-Hui shot his way into Librescu’s classroom, killing the professor.

Monday, ironically, was the worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Librescu, 76, a Romanian-born aeronautical engineer who came to United States from Israel in 1978, was the most-published faculty member in Virginia Tech history. He will be remembered, too, for his act of incredible heroism.

As we learn more about the 32 lives that were senselessly snuffed out at Virginia Tech, it would be tempting to focus on the bitter irony of Librescu’s story – surviving the Nazi horrors only to meet a violent death in his beloved adopted country where, his son Joe said, he and his wife were happy to live “a simple life … between hills and mountains.” But maybe it would be better to celebrate the example he left of selfless courage – courage forged in that awful cauldron of hate decades ago, courage that steeled Librescu to stand up Monday morning and with his final act proclaim, “Never again.”

You can run, but you can't hide -- from this race

We all know Congresswoman Jean Schmidt likes to run -- marathons, six-mile jaunts around the Mall in Washington -- but her perennial opponent Victoria Wulsin does, too.

Wulsin has announced she'll run against Schmidt again in 2008.

It's turning into the race that never ends.

Wulsin campaigned for the Democratic nomination in 2005, when Rob Portman vacated the seat to become U.S. trade representative, triggering a special election. Losing to Paul Hackett in June, 2005, Wulsin was back vying for the seat by Spring 2006, won the Democratic nomination and battled not only up to the November 2006 election, but for three weeks afterward, holding out hope for provisional ballots.

Now she's thrown her hat in the ring for an election that is still 19 months off.

From a contender who was, " Victoria Who?" in 2005, she's become a familiar face and name -- so familiar that we almost can't remember when she wasn't running for the 2nd District seat. And Schmidt, who had to battle for it twice in 15 months, seems destined to stay in campaign mode forever.

These two women are political marathoners -- they like to run, they run to win and they apparently can run forever. But the race that never seems to end might just leave the rest of us winded.

So when is it not campaign season?

The ringing of 25,000 cell phones

How tragic and ironic that the most technologically connected generation in history had to find out through campus loud speakers, police bull horns and knocks on their dorm doors that a gunman was loose on the Virginia Tech campus.

Even when violence such as this can't be prevented, it can be minimized. Allowing a gunman time to move from one end of a 2,600-acre campus to the other while thousands of students flow from buildings without a hint of a shooting two hours earlier is a failure of communication, protocol and most of all imagination -- the terrible brand of imagination that leaders of any organization must employ in a world where "unthinkable" acts of violence play out with increasing frequency.

Surge with what?

President Bush says the Democratic plan to set a deadline to bring our troops home from Iraq gives “our enemies the victory they desperately want.”

In the past week we have seen a bomb go off in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament, killing one member; a suicide car bomber take out a bus station and market in the city of Karbala, killing 37; Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announces military tours in Iraq will be extended to 15 months; and three retired general turn down offers to run the Iraqi/Afghanistan Wars as “War Czar.”

What does the enemy want that it is not already getting?

Those 15-month tours – needed to supply the President’s “surge” strategy – bother me the most. They seem to be a sign of the strategy’s basic weakness.

Caring for the dogs and cats

Carol Sanger, president of the United Coalition for Animals (UCAN), says that more dogs and cats are euthanized every year than die from rabies, heartworm cancer and feline leukemia combined. That’s more than 33,000 animals in Greater Cincinnati put to death in animal shelters because there is simply nowhere to keep them.

To give perspective to the national scope of the problem, think of it this way: If you wanted every kitten and puppy born in the United States to have a home, every human member of the population would need to take in six dogs and nine cats. An obvious answer to this problem is to reduce the over-population of unwanted animals by spaying and neutering those we keep as pets. And that’s a solution UCAN plans to pursue with the opening of the area’s first non-profit spay/neuter clinic, 1230 W. Eighth St., Queensgate, which is holding an open house from 1-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (April 14 and 15).

When UCAN was founded five years ago it began a voucher system to subsidize spaying and neutering for pet owners who couldn’t afford the full cost of the procedures at local veterinary clinics. The vouchers covered the cost of about 1,000 procedures during the program’s first three years. In 2003, UCAN expanded, launching Pedigree Interiors, a non-profit consignment store selling high-end furniture, with proceeds aimed for the clinic it is now ready to open.

The $490,000 project in a converted warehouse is aimed a providing the service for pet owners from lower income urban and rural communities in the region. The clinic expects to perform as many as 8,400 surgeries in its first year and twice that many in its second year as the facility becomes more widely known. The UCAN clinic will partner with shelters, clinics and vets from throughout the area, accepting referrals and transporting animals to and from the clinic. Anyone seeking more information on the clinic and UCAN should check out its Web site at www.ucanclinic.org.

Under “Frequently Asked Questions” on UCAN’s Web site is a query about why people who don’t own a dog or a cat should care about this project. One way to answer is practical: Dealing with abandoned, unwanted animals costs American taxpayers about $1 billion a year. Projects like this may reduce that cost. Another answer is more philosophical: Caring for creatures unable to care for themselves is a uniquely human thing to do.

Seven nameless horses

Information flows by us all the time, but sometimes a story gets stuck in our heads. I keep thinking about a story we ran under the headline, Cold Took Toll at Turfway, about how winter weather affected betting on horse races.

The real story, for me, lay in the last few paragraphs. Seven horses were euthanized because of racing injuries during what's called the winter/spring meet, from Jan. 1 to April 5.

The great horse Barbaro's injury and death became a national tragedy. Millions of us calculated his chances, not for winning, but for living, and bet on him even if he was a long shot. But the seven horses that were put down at Turfway were viewed, I guess, as simply a shame.

The cold did indeed take a toll at Turfway.

The loss that registers with me has nothing to do with the hollow spot in bettors' wallets. It's the seven hard-working horses whose names we don't even know.

Who's willing to run this war?

The President is in trouble when three retired four-star generals turn him down for the unprecedented position of “War Czar” overseeing the conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Czar also would have the power to bigfoot such administration heavyweights as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates and to “task” the resources of the Pentagon and the State Department. That is bureaucratese for giving orders that have to be obeyed.

The Czar position, first reported in the Washington Post earlier this week, would report directly to the President. Creation of the job reportedly has been under consideration within the administration for a couple of months. According to the Post, the job was offered to Marine Gen. John J. “Jack” Sheehan, a former NATO commander; Air Force General Joseph Ralston, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and gradauate of Miami University); and Army General Jack Keane, former army vice chief of staff..

So why wouldn’t such men want such a powerful command? According to Sheehan, because despite all the hype, it still wouldn’t be powerful enough. “The very fundamental issue is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going,” he told the Post. According to the story, Sheehan said that after calling around to contacts still in the administration, he determined that Vice President Dick Cheney and other war hawks still hold more power with the President than more moderate officials looking for a way out of Iraq. “So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, ‘No, thanks,’ ” according to the Post story.

The questions must be asked: Why does the Commander in Chief need a “War Czar” to exert the powers of a commander in chief? What does it tell the President when the top three people he would pick for such a job won’t touch it because they think the administration is unwilling to face the reality of the quagmire Iraq has become?

After all that, I have one more question. Why in this great democracy, do we always want to create a position with the despotic title of “Czar” when we get into trouble? War Czar, Energy Czar, Drug Czar? The real czars weren’t all that successful, were they?

Playing the piano for Don Imus

Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Staples and American Express reportedly are dropping their ads from Don Imus’ radio show, outraged that his outrageousness has offended a customer base they seek to target. Do you suppose for all the years they had been subsidizing Imus’ brand of misogynous insult they had somehow mistaken it for the Prairie Home Companion?

Imus’ description of the Rutgers women’s basketball team was racist and sexist. It was also pretty typically Imus. Check out the op-ed column by Gwen Ifill in Tuesday’s New York Times.

Margaret McGurk’s well-done piece in Wednesday’s Enquirer about what pushes the content on talk radio also offered plenty of insight into how somebody like Don Imus gets to be somebody like Don Imus. I usually don’t agree with what Bill Cunningham has to say, but his quote about the piano player not knowing what’s going on upstairs in the bawdy house perfectly describes the “outrage” over Imus now being expressed by sponsors and broadcast executives.

Actually, the sponsors and executives aren’t the only ones playing the piano. Those listening to such broadcasts also have their fingers on the keyboard. The listeners also are the best ones to deal with somebody like Imus. You want to control what comes out of the radio? Turn it off.

Pitching a fit over the First Pitch

I realize the “issue” of Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory’s errant Opening Day first pitch is trivial beyond belief. I understand that people see he’s being a good sport about the ribbing he’s received. I know there’s no such thing as bad publicity here, and the national attention he's nurturing on this will be a plus for Cincinnati. Hey, maybe he shanked it on purpose ...

Still, I’m a little miffed at Hizzoner, and I’ll bet I’m far from alone. For many of us growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, and maybe beyond, baseball was still king. If you were a kid, that’s what you’d do all summer, any chance you had. We all had our dreams, however far-fetched, of major league glory. I wanted to be shortstop for the Pirates. God knows they needed one. Then we blinked and were past the age when big-leaguers have retired. But oh, the dreams of stroking a clean liner to left-center, of short-hopping a ball and flipping it to second in one motion, of making a pitch sizzlepop into the catcher’s mitt – the dreams remain.

At the very least, we’d give away our 1959 Mickey Mantle cards for the chance to throw out the first pitch at a major league game – that is, if our mothers hadn’t thrown those cards away long ago. In other words, we’d take it seriously.

So maybe what Mallory needed was a Derek Jeter to set him straight. Before throwing out the first pitch at the third game of the 2001 World Series, just weeks after 9/11, President Bush went to the hitting cage underneath Yankee Stadium to warm up. Jeter, the Yankees’ star shortstop, told Bush to pitch from the pitcher’s mound, not in front of it, and added this: “Don’t bounce it. They’ll boo you.”

Bush recalled later, “I wanted to make sure that if was going to throw out the ball I was able to do so with a little zip.” He did it with decent form, delivering a curve ball a bit high but over the plate – even while wearing a bulletproof jacket under his FDNY windbreaker.

Contrast that with Mallory’s pathetic flail – he practiced that? – that pushed the ball (far left, it must be noted) into the on-deck circle. I’d be tempted to use that old, sexist taunt that he threw it like a girl, but that would be an insult – to girls. His dog-ate-my-homework dismissal of his wounded duckball, complete with a Lettermanic Top 10 list of excuses, doesn't strike my fancy either.

Yeah, I know it’s all a hoot, but I also know this: If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. Ask Derek Jeter.

Kids taunting other kids about race

What would you do if you got a call from the school principal saying your child had been taunting another child for being of a different race? What's the appropriate discipline for such behavior by elementary school children?

Have you talked about racial differences with your children? At what age? After all, kids aren't taught prejudice in the classroom.

If your child were the target of taunting by other children would you call the school or the taunters' parents? Would your response be different if the taunting involved race?

These are questions raised by the story of an incident at a Lakota elementary school reported in Tuesday's Enquirer.

We've received a number of letters about this particular incident but we want to take the discussion into the broader community. We think this is a good topic for discussion in this forum and we also are opening up a moderated message board at Cincinnati.com. Keyword: Opinion. Or feel free to send an e-mail directly to me at dwells@enquirer.com. I'm also copying this post on the CincyMoms' race and culture and elementary education boards as well.

Fill the streets, not just the ballpark seats

Just back from a walk through downtown on Opening Day, I can tell you there's more to like out there than hot dogs, marching bands and even homeruns.

First of all, there is just nothing like crowded sidewalks with people jostling their way down Fifth Street and wedging themselves into crowds crossing Vine. There's a feel of purpose, energy, connectedness. It's not just that you feel you're actually in a big city, but that it's a city with big plans, and with people who know how to accomplish big things.

It's especially heartening to see families and older couples come downtown in large numbers. They look relaxed and comfortable, not -- as I too often see them -- rushing out of arts performances or evening dinners as if they will turn into pumpkins at the stroke of 10 o'clock.

Sure, it's a beautiful day and the Reds' opener, and adults like skipping work and kids like skipping school. But part of the excitement I saw on people's faces today was, I believe, the excitement of seeing so many other faces. I personally hate a wide-open sidewalk in front of me, or exchanging hellos with only the smokers who have stolen away from work to grab a cigarette.

I am absolutely fine with making room on the streets for strollers, or taking my place in a lunch line that snakes out of a restaurant and onto the street.

Until today, I didn't realize how much I had missed you all.