Reds just lost the opener. I'm inclined to agree with Paul Daugherty's blog -- Opening Day is largely a pageant. A good way to look at it when the final score is 4-2 in favor of the other guys.
“The Short Trip with Long Memories” is the new advertising slogan for the Cincinnati USA Regional Tourism Network, unveiled Monday in a story by Enquirer business writer Alexander Coolidge. It is supposed to appeal to people from nearby states looking for short getaway vacations.
Good luck with that – but wouldn’t it have been better to include the name of the region in a slogan that is supposed to make people think about it? You know, something like “(Your city’s name here) is for lovers!” or “What happens in (Your city’s name here), stays in (Your city’s name here)!”
I admit I had some misgivings early this year when I read that the New York Philharmonic had accepted an invitation to perform a concert in North Korea. I thought the orchestra would be, as arts critic Terry Teachout put it, “participating in a puppet show” that would help give an aura of legitimacy to the repressive regime in Pyongyang and its mercurial (to put it politely) dictator, Kim Jong-il, who is officially known as “Dear Leader.” But after watching PBS’ delayed broadcast of the Feb. 26 concert, I think the Philharmonic and its backers did the right thing.
The broadcast presented a frank, critical view of North Korea, with segments narrated by Bob Woodruff of ABC painting a stark picture of life in that austere, obsessively insular society. We saw 3-year-olds brainwashed with nursery tunes glorifying Dear Leader; empty high-rise buildings built for show with elevators that don’t work; the Arrival/Departure board at the airport with only one flight listed; the national obsession with racial purity; robotic adults parroting boilerplate language of unthinking, unreasoned hatred for Americans. It is, in essence, like a gigantic religious cult.
The concert program itself was obviously designed to convey certain messages to the audience. The Philharmonic insisted on having the final say over the music played, as well as requiring a nationwide broadcast so that all North Koreans could hear it.
With Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony – a work by a Czech composer living in Iowa using themes inspired by Native American and African melodies – the orchestra portrayed the vitality of an open society embracing various cultures. Likewise, Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” showed the swirl of urban energy and color that a mingling of influences – American jazz and French dance-hall tunes – can create, except in societies like North Korea.
But Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” Overture, drenched with Voltaire’s satiric view of “best of all possible worlds,” took the prize. The orchestra performed it without a conductor. That was meant as a tribute to the late Bernstein, a gesture not unlike the riderless horse at a military funeral. But its deeper symbolism, we can perhaps hope, affected at least some of the North Koreans who watched the performance:
A free people, free to develop their own talents and follow their own paths, are perfectly capable of working together without a leader – “Dear” or otherwise – telling them how to act, what to think and how to express themselves.
A spoof video posted to YouTube (where else?) this week puts a new twist on the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s “misspoken” recollection of landing in Bosnia “under sniper fire” in 1996. The video (“Hillary Wasn’t Lying!”) adds gunfire and explosions to actual footage of Clinton’s uneventful arrival – footage that shows her shaking hands with soldiers, hugging a child, posing for photos, singing at a USO show with Cheryl Crow. The funniest bit is when Clinton points repeatedly at the track of a tank; the video’s creators put a pistol in Clinton’s hand while the narrator talks about how she displayed “a little marksmanship on a terrorist hiding under a tank.”
It’s clearly a fake, with the added effects obviously superimposed. It’s not going to fool anybody. But it does bring up a serious issue, pointed out by my colleague Bruce Holtgren: What happens when a video can be doctored to fool everybody? Will it be open season on any public figure whose enemies seek to destroy him or her? Will we see fake footage of a senator or governor in bed with a prostitute and not know it’s fake? Will we see a years-old video of a now-presidential candidate at a church service he swears he never attended?
Then envision the futility of a public figure trying to explain it away and somehow prove it’s not true, that moving pictures can and do lie. As former Labor Secretary Ray Donovan asked after being acquitted in a fraud case: “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”
Video technology is taking huge strides forward all the time. We may be nearing the point at which Hollywood could make a computer-generated, full-length feature movie that looks absolutely real but uses no live actors. Surely we’re nearing the point where a doctored video could sway public opinion.
The news Wednesday that Saddam Hussein secretly financed a 2002 “fact-finding” junket to Iraq by three Democratic members of Congress left the lawmakers scrambling to deny they knew anything about Iraqi intelligence officials paying for the trip. “Obviously, we didn’t know it at the time,” said Michael DeCesare, a spokesman for Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington, and the Justice Department agrees there’s no evidence they knew.
But now they’re trying to rewrite history about the trip, and somebody ought to call them on it. “The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children,” DeCesare said. “That’s the only reason we went.” That’s simply not true. It was clearly a partisan propaganda stunt meant to undermine President Bush, who was at the time pushing for a resolution to authorize military force while trying to pressure Saddam to open up to U.N. weapons inspections. Meanwhile, remember, Iraq was firing on U.S. and British planes in the U.N. no-fly zone.
Before even leaving on the trip, McDermott stood in front of the Capitol, on national TV, and said Bush “will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war.” On camera in Baghdad, McDermott appeared on ABC and said that while “the president would mislead the American people, … you have to take the Iraqis at their face value.” Rep. David Bonior of Michigan chimed in with similar drivel about how honorable Saddam was compared to Bush, but the third member of the group, Rep. Mike Thompson of California, kept a low profile. Columnist George Will called McDermott's comments “the most disgraceful performance abroad by an American official in my lifetime.”
Many will say in retrospect that McDermott and Bonior were right, that “Bush lied,” even though the flawed intelligence at the time made “liars” out of nearly every elected official, Republican and Democratic, who spoke out on Iraq. But the larger point is this: The supposedly “anti-war” mission, which in previous eras would have been considered borderline treason, may actually have helped to create the conditions that led to the U.S. invasion the next year.
The House trio’s show of solidarity with Saddam had to have helped give the Iraqi leader, who it turns out was not all that savvy about U.S. politics anyway, a faulty impression of the situation in Washington and of the prospects for military action. With such support for his position among some elected officials, surely the U.S. would lack the will for "regime change." Perhaps Saddam dug in his heels and refused inspections, “knowing” we’d never invade. So when Will called the House members “useful idiots,” he was at least half-right.
Sen. John McCain, who wasn’t exactly a fan of Bush at the time, put it this way: “If Congressman McDermott and Congressman Bonior want to go to the floor of the House and question the president’s credibility, go right ahead and do it. Don’t go to Baghdad and do it. You are helping the Iraqi government sell to the Iraqi people their hatred of the United States of America, and it’s wrong and I honestly do not understand it. These are supposed to be grown, mature individuals.”
In the end, it really doesn’t matter who paid for trip. What matters is that McDermott & Co. got their 30 pieces of air-time silver.
There's something about this photo by The Enquirer's Pat Reddy that I love -- maybe because it captures the spirit and passion of what visionaries can accomplish together. Or, maybe it's because some photos just perfectly capture a moment.
This photo does all those things. It shows Corporex chairman Bill Butler (right) and renowned architect Daniel Libeskind sharing the moment (and maybe even a small feeling of relief, because it wasn't easy) at Wednesday's dedication ceremonies for the Ascent at Roebling's Bridge in Covington.
I'm no architecture expert, but much about this building reminds me of stories about Frank Lloyd Wright. His buildings had quirks and huge engineering challenges for those who actually had to build them, because Wright pushed the envelope. Same for the Ascent, where glass and steel were asked to do things they normally don't have to do. Wright's buildings beautifully align with their surroundings. Architecture buffs from around the globe still go to see them decades later. This, too, should be true for the Ascent.
"Buildings matter," Butler said in his remarks Wednesday. I think he's right and that the Ascent will matter in positive ways we only can begin to predict.
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is proposing a novel way to ensure the integrity of elections – count ballots by hand.
Well, not all of them. What Brunner is wants, according to a story in the Columbus Dispatch, is for 11 counties to volunteer to do hand counts of 7 percent of the votes cast in each of those counties. These hand “audits” would presumably give the public confidence in the results spit out in the regular tabulations of Ohio’s assortment of paper ballots-optical scanners and touch-screen voting machines. At least it will give them confidence if the hand counts match those of the machines.
I applaud Brunner’s initiative, although I am not sure how she decided on 7 percent and 11 counties. Anything that would improve Ohio’s distressing election rumors of lost and miscounted votes would be welcomed. I do take issue with Brunner’s stated desire to do away with the touch-screens before the November election, however. She has said the machines make Ohio’s votes unreliable.
Statements like that from top officials help create the doubts she now wants to alleviate with the hand-count audits.
Schools have been expanding their reach for many years, adding kindergarteners and then preschoolers to their primary school program. Many offer after-school care and summer school, and some offer year-round schooling.
The idea is still in the planning stages with a call out for proposals.
On one hand, it's not a surprising development given how often school staffs talk about their frustration with all the factors outside their control -- from parents on crack to children who are left alone or abused.
But should public schools take on the parenting role to this extent? Is it a wise expansion of services for an institution that is already involved in children's lives, or is further shifting the focus from a school's main purpose -- to educate children?
Policy wonks in the crowd -- or just people who want to know more about toll bridges and roads -- should check out last night's "Kentucky Tonight" program on Kentucky Educational Television.
Regardless of where you stand, it's an illuminating discussion about how to pay for mega-projects such as the Brent Spence Bridge replacement. And the guests also describe some ways that modern toll roads operate that might surprise some of the critics.
Two of the guests are from Northern Kentucky: State Rep. Joe Fischer, R-Fort Thomas, and Fort Mitchell Mayor Tom Holocher. Click here for a link to the program information and a video stream.
Enquirer political reporter Pat Crowley reports today on a last-ditch effort by Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear to get a referendum on the ballot to find out if Kentucky voters want casino gambling in the state. The odds -- pun intended -- appear slim, but Beshear rallied a number of politicians, educators and business leaders to pressure legislators to pass a bill.
Some of those playing dodgeball, apparently in hopes that the issue will go away, are in the Northern Kentucky delegation. State Sen. Jack Westwood comes to mind. From Crowley's story:
"I don't hear a lot of people in the Senate expressing any real desire to vote on this bill," said Sen. Jack Westwood, R-Crescent Springs. Westwood said he is uncertain about the issue until he sees the version that passes the House.
I have a suggestion for Sen. Westwood, because I'm not grasping how any fair-minded person can oppose letting the process go forward. All of Kentucky needs to know either way, and casino gambling will have a huge impact on Northern Kentucky.
Westwood could clearly support the concept of letting the voters decide without being for or against casino gambling itself. He could actively work to see that a referendum bill with good wording gets through the Senate sooner rather than later. He could match his genuine concern for fetal development with greater concern for economic development.
It's time for leadership. The only reasons to postpone this referendum are bad ones.
They're qualified and hard-working and yet they fear they won't be hired -- because they're moms.
There's a new name -- maternal profiling -- for the old problem of employers discriminating against women who have children or may one day plan to. Sometimes they're simply seen as a risk -- will they be juggling childcare arrangements when you need them to complete a job, will they have to stay home with a sick kid when they're supposed to make a presentation? Sometimes they're discreetly slipped into mommy tracks that never lead to top jobs.
Twenty-one states (not including Ohio or Kentucky) specifically ban discrimination based on marital status. There are federal laws and state laws in Ohio and Kentucky that prohibit discrimination against pregnant women.
Still, on-the-job issues get murky. Women often don't know how much employers can ask about family issues, and discriminatory behavior can be subtle and hard to prove.
I'm interested in if you've encountered this matter -- maybe as a mom, but maybe as another employee who feels you've had to pick up the slack when a co-worker continually has to deal with family issues, or as an employer who has to manage it all.
And I don't think for a minute that dads aren't discriminated against as well -- let us hear your thoughts.
One of the oddities of education reform in Kentucky is that school superintendents don't get to hire principals. Instead, the power is vested with the school's site-based council. There were a lot of good reasons for this reform. Still, as the years have unfolded, it has become apparent this is one of the flaws in the site-based system that needs correcting.
At least it seems that way to me, maybe because I've been in hiring/firing leadership roles for more than 25 years now. I can't imagine having an outside committee tell me who I have to hire. If you can't trust your superintendent to hire good principals, you need to remove the superintendent. Nor can I imagine being the sole decision maker in any complicated organization, and schools certainly fit that definition. There is a role for the site-based council in principal hiring, but -- as the cliche goes -- the buck should stop at the superintendent's desk.
The Kentucky Senate has passed a billthat is a step in the right direction, although I don't think it goes far enough. It would give superintendents the right to fill principal vacancies, in consultation with the council, in schools that are in the "failing" designation based on Kentucky's system of school testing and performance
This should become law, and my bet is that it will work well enough to expand to all schools.
If Obama really disagreed with the hateful words of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, he should have left Wright’s flock and publicly denounced the man as soon as the words were uttered, Krauthammer reasoned in Friday’s paper.
I usually respect the intellectual force Krauthammer brings to is commentary, but in this case it seems clear to me that he went looking for justification of his own bias in Obama’s speech, rather than an explanation of the senator’s position. I believe Obama’s speech was a remarkable description of the racial divides in this country. He was trying to get us to see the other sides of those divides in an attempt to understand our differences. But according to Krauthammer, if you don’t hate “them” you can’t be a friend to “us.” He ignored the fact that Obama condemned Wright’s offensive words as distortions that “denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.” Instead, Krauthammer condemned Obama for continuing to love the good things he knows about Wright – his support of the poor, his assistance to the sick and homeless, his preaching of self-reliance.
Timothy Leonard, a regular contributor to the Enquirer’s Letters to the Editor columns, posed a question to Krauthammer’s column with a submission Friday. This letter will appear in print Saturday:
“Charles Krauthammer says Barack Obama should have left his church when he knew the pastor made hateful and untruthful statements about the United States Government. Does that mean all Catholics must leave their church because their bishops covered up priests' crimes against children, or that all Jews must abandon their religion because Israel bulldozes the homes of Palestinians?
"Jewish and Christian prophets have always said harsh things against their own people. It is part of the religious experience: sometimes good, sometimes bad. Obama demonstrated his understanding of that in a speech that reminded me of Lincoln's Second Inaugural: ‘with malice toward none; with charity for all ...let us strive on to finish the work we are in.’ ”
I appreciated a tone in Barack Obama's speech on race that I can only describe as instructive.
Politicians and officials preach to us all the time. They use slick, rhetorical phrases, throw in a heart-wrenching story and spend more time deflecting the issue at hand than exploring or explaining it.
Maybe Obama's speech didn't answer every question on his relationship with his controversial former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and those he did answer may not have satisfied everyone. But he showed that he's willing to take on a sensitive issue -- probably the most sensitive one this nation faces -- and to do it calmly, thoughtfully and very personally.
He laid open some of Americans' deepest fears about race, and did it with respect and great civility. We could choose not to go where he wanted to take us -- refuse to try to see things from others' perspectives -- but he showed that he was unafraid to try to lead us there.
MSNBC has plans for a new true-crime show called “Mindhunters” about serial killers. They’ve been in town this week interviewing people who were connected to the Donald Harvey case 20 years ago.
The so-called Angel of Death was convicted of killing more than 30 people, mostly at Drake Hospital and other health centers where he worked in Cincinnati and London, Ky.
Harvey’s claim to be a mercy killer was laughable. He is a remorseless creature who killed simply because he could.
The MSNBC crew has interviewed him up at Lucasville, where he is serving consecutive life terms. Others they’ve talked to include Bill Whalen, his defense attorney; Joe Deters, who was an assistant prosecutor on the case, and me.
Whalen later wrote a book about the case: “Defending Donald Harvey.” Deters served as the prosecutor’s office spokesman during the case and was on the nightly news almost daily for weeks during the investigation, turning himself into a household name for Cincinnati. In 1987 I was one of several Enquirer reporters on the story. Paul Clark, now our arts and entertainment editor, and I spent several interesting days documenting Harvey’s early life down in Owsley County Kentucky. It wasn’t pretty.
Photographer Gary Landers and I later managed to get into the Laurel County Jail down in London for an interview with Harvey after he confessed to killing nine patients in a hospital where he worked down there. He loved to talk about himself. According to the MSNBC folks, he still does. The show is supposed to come out later this year.
This is a story that seems to have a life sentence.
Paula A. Kerger, president and CEO of Public Broadcasting Service is coming in to meet with the Editorial Board on Monday. PBS is the nation’s largest noncommercial media organization with 355 member stations, including CET here in Cincinnati.
Anybody have any questions about public television they want us to ask?
Kerger has been a strong proponent of using public media for teaching and learning, pairing national productions such as “The War” by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, about the home front during WWII, with local programming and oral history projects produced by local stations.
Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer earned well-deserved disgust this week for his betrayal of his wife, Silda, after being caught in a sex scandal.
But while the prostitute involved with Spitzer is hardly a sympathetic figure in this tawdry drama, she is a human being nevertheless. The degrading manner in which Spitzer regarded her -- and in which she seemed to regard herself -- makes this story even sadder.
The hollowness of the so-called Kristen's words as she guardedly discusses Spitzer's requests is painful to read. "I mean it's just kind of like. . . whatever. . . I'm here for a purpose. I know what my purpose is. I'm not a moron, you know what I mean," she tells the woman arranging the tryst.
The other woman questioned the safety of Spitzer's requests, which apparently included unprotected sex -- this with a woman whose name and face he couldn't remember.
Some commentators have archly wondered just what $5,500 paid to a prostitute could buy. The answer is human dignity.
"Kristen" wasn't really a person to Eliot Spitzer, which allowed him to treat both her identity and her health as cavalierly as he liked.
When their "purpose" is pleasing or appeasing men like Spitzer, women like Kristen are left to look at their lives as "whatever."
It’s been a tough week for Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, with his casino gambling plan in limbo and his politically risky proposal for a 70-cent-a-pack cigarette tax increase getting slapped down by the House. But it was clear from Beshear’s speech Friday at a Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Covington that the governor isn’t about to give up on either proposal.
His first big applause line in the crowded Radisson Hotel ballroom came when he mentioned the $500 million to $600 million in revenue he projects the state will receive from casinos if his plan is adopted. “I’m going to go to the mat on this issue,” Beshear said. “This is the first time this issue has really been discussed in Kentucky. In other states it’s taken four or six or eight years to get it passed. … So if this means taking on a controversial issue and losing, then bringing it back and losing again, that’s what I’m going to do. Because that’s what a governor ought to do.”
Beshear, a Democrat who opposed raising the state’s cigarette tax while running for governor, said he changed his mind after seeing projections of “continuing reduced revenue” from the state’s fiscal forecasting agency. Once he decided to change course, Beshear said, he figured a large increase would be necessary, given the uncertainties surrounding the casino amendment. “I can’t think of a tax that’s easer to raise than the cigarette tax. It’s a voluntary tax,” Beshear said. “Let’s raise it big enough to actively make a difference in the revenue stream, and to actually have a health benefit as well.”
The budget the Democratic-controlled House approved on Wednesday contains only a 25-cent hike in the cigarette tax. Beshear said he intends to keep pushing for the higher figure. He told the Louisville Courier-Journal on Thursday that the House plan counts on projected revenue and savings that won’t materialize, in Beshear’s opinion. Unless lawmakers correct the budget – notably by adopting the 70-cent tax – Beshear said he may call a special session of the General Assembly to fix it.
Beshear’s hastily arranged appearance in Covington was part of the governor’s statewide media push this week to counter his recent policy setbacks – what he called “the fun we’ve been having in Frankfort lately.” He also brought words of praise for Northern Kentucky, particularly for its success in economic development. “The way you have come together, the way you have ignored artificial boundaries of city and county … has been nothing short of miraculous, and you have seen the results of it,” Beshear said. “I go all around the state saying we’ve got to band together as regions and work together as regions to get the kind of economic development you need.”
I am just back from the press opening of Freedom Sisters, a Cincinnati Museum Center exhibit that honors 20 African American women who made enormous contributions to the civil rights cause.
It was an inspiring morning with four of the women at the exhibit in person -- journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, long-time president of the National Council of Negro Women Dorothy Height, poet and educator Sonia Sanchez and former NAACP chairperson and widow of Medgar Evers, Myrlie Evers-Williams.
To a person, they described their own contributions with humility, shared their hopes that young people would be inspired by the exhibit and stressed that there is much work to be done. Hunter-Gault quoted a Haitian proverb to describe the scope of the work: Behind the mountains, more mountains.
Their wisdom and strength was inspiring -- with women like these in the fight, how could our nation not move toward more inclusion and equality?
But as I walked up from the lower-level display into Museum Center's rotunda -- literally crawling with students on field trips -- I was struck by how much isolation still exists. The students were settled at tables with their classmates and almost every table was filled entirely with students of one race. Clearly, very few of the schools represented at the center today had any racial diversity.
Columnist George Will may think Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is the logical choice to be either Democratic presidential hopeful’s running mate, but Strickland thinks that kind of talk says more about the state’s importance than his.
“Howdy Doody could be in this office and the same speculation would occur,” Strickland told the Enquirer editorial board Thursday, referring to the title character of a popular 1950s children's TV show.
“I have no interest in the position (of vice-president),” he said during a lengthy, wide-ranging interview. “I feel it’s a little preposterous of me even to sayI have no interest in it.”
Reacting to Will’s nationally syndicated column, which appeared on Thursday’s Enquirer op-ed page, Strickland tried to deflect the issue with some self-effacing humor. “After I read it, I told my staff I was a really important person and they should start treating me as such,” he said. “Unfortunately they didn’t pay any attention to me.”
But he stopped short of saying categorically that he’d turn down a request to join the ticket of either Sen. Hillary Clinton, whom Strickland has endorsed, or Sen. Barack Obama. “If I were asked, I would say, ‘Thank you. I’m glad you think I and Ohio are that important, but I have some suggestions,’ ” mentioning former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as a good alternative.
“I think this interest in me (as vice-president) has everything to do with Ohio and its perceived importance as a swing state, but I’m not letting it go to my head as far as a feeling of self-importance,” Strickland said.
“I try to say this as clearly as I can: I have a job I like. I don’t know in fact what I’ll do after my first term. I don’t know if I’ll go for a second term or get a T-shirt shop in Key West, Fla. ... Unless I commit an impeachable offense, I’m going to be Ohio’s governor for the next nearly three years.”
Narcissist of the week: “To be honest, when I saw (Spitzer’s apology) yesterday, I was the first one I thought of.” -- Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen in an Enquirer interview
Do we need Mike Allen’s – or anyone else’s – expertise on what it is like to humiliate your family and trash your career by having the secrets of your illicit sex life laid bare?
By the way, in reference to a post below, I know that Eliot Spitzer is a Democrat and Mike Allen is a Republican. All that proves is that being a self-centered twit is a non-partisan issue.
So far at least, Spitzer, unlike Allen, hasn’t had the gall to put his newly uncovered “expertise” on his resume.
Unless you’re a policy wonk, phrases like “workforce development” fall into the category of subjects you know are important but kind of dull.
But Carl Wicklund, the Hebron plant manager for Wagstaff Inc., brought the subject home recently with a scary story that summarizes why we’ve got big problems in this country. Imagine having $20-per-hour jobs in this down economy that you can't fill.
I heard Carl at a recent meeting of the Education Alliance Steering Committee in Northern Kentucky, of which I’m a member. The schools have to do more, and they need more parental, business and political support, he maintained.
Wagstaff makes casting systems for the molten aluminum industry. I don’t claim to understand what all that entails, but it involves expensive equipment – they’re installing a $1.5 million machine now -- and good workers who know how to run the gear. While others bemoan the loss of good jobs overseas and the trade deficit, Wagstaff exports overseas and sells around the world. It can be done.
When I talked to Wicklund on Tuesday, he had three machinist jobs that paid about $20 an hour with benefits – a better wage than a lot of college graduates make. Beyond the standard drill of hiring, he’d expect applicants to have about two or three years experience in the trade or technical school experience.His search to fill all his machinist jobs has been going on for nearly 18 months. (At Wagstaff’s Web site, you even find a page that says “Wagstaff is always looking for skilled CNC machinists and welders.”)
A big issue at the Hebron plant is that the great majority of applicants can’t pass a simple math test – something the job requires. Wicklund also pointed out that the math skills he needs have changed from years ago. It’s not about computation, it’s about application. The computers do the calculations, but the machinists have to know how to interpret and apply the numbers to get the equipment back to norms.
Wicklund wants people who see this as a good career path, not just a job. He needs people who understand that education didn’t stop when the superintendent handed them a diploma in 12th grade. “I don’t think anyone in my plant hasn’t been to school at least once every two years,” he said. “I can’t – they can’t – live like my parents did. It’s mind-boggling.”
Unfortunately, parents, educators and manufacturers seem to be figuring these things out faster in places such as Korea, India and China. Maybe they’re hungrier than we are. Here in Kentucky, we have too many parents worried more about the start of school interfering with the end of summer vacation. We have school funding that is such a mess that even if local taxpayers stepped up and did more, it would cut the inadequate amount the state provides.
Carl Wicklund sees the results. More people should be as worried as he is.
There. At least somebody’s said it right up front.
If you’re watching the news accounts of the soon-to-be-ex-New York governor’s call-girl scandal and resignation this week, you’d be listening in vain to find out what party he belongs to. NBC’s Today Show never mentioned Spitzer’s party during 11 segments about him on its Tuesday broadcast, according to Media Research Center, which tracks media bias (something we all know does not exist, don’t we?). Neither ABC’s nor NBC’s evening newscasts Tuesday identified him as a Democrat, but put the party tag on Republicans responding to the scandal.
Likewise, news Web sites’ stories either buried his affliliation deep in the story, or not at all. The New York Times’ story online Wednesday, for example, identified Spitzer as a Democrat in the 17th paragraph. The Associated Press story that appeared on the Enquirer’s Web site buried it in the 18th paragraph. The Washington Post story simply alluded to his “fellow Democrats” in the 12th paragraph; USA Today did the same in the 22nd paragraph. The Chicago Tribune didn’t mention his party at all, but noted in the eighth paragraph that a Republican leader had said he’d call for Spitzer’s impeachment. CNN didn’t identify his party at all.
Contrast that with recent stories about U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, whose lawyers are trying to invalidate his guilty plea for soliciting sex in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport men’s room last year. The Associated Press noted Craig’s political party in the first paragraph of its story, as did the Washington Post. CNN had it in the second paragraph, as did the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
By the way, both senators are Republican, in case you've been on a desert island the past year.
You could select different news outlets and different incidents, but I suspect the outcome would be pretty much the same. In a negative story about a politician, a Republican’s party affiliation gets far greater prominence than a Democrat’s. In other words, a news judgment is made that party affiliation is relevant when a Republican is involved in a scandal. Why? I’ve heard the argument that it’s a matter of hypocrisy, but that rationale implies an assumption about a political party that a journalist has no business making.
Besides, it’s now apparent there has been no bigger hypocrite in American politics than the arrogant, self-righteous, faux-moralistic Spitzer. Gosh, you’d think he was a Republican.
They say nothing’s certain except death and taxes, but I’m not so sure about taxes – at least cigarette taxes in Kentucky. Not while elected officials are playing chicken with budget and casino proposals, and the clock’s ticking for the legislature to get its work done by April 15.
After a flurry of proposals, meetings and counterproposals late last week, it appears that Kentucky could either A) boost the cigarette tax by 70 cents a pack, which Gov. Steve Beshear now wants; B) raise it a more modest 25 cents, which House Democrats want; or C) keep it lower than nearly every other state at the current 30 cents, which everybody apparently wanted until last week when they realized a casino amendment probably wouldn’t pass the House – and if it did, Senate President David Williams was prepared to “cremate” it on his side of the Capitol.
This has to be galling for Beshear, who not only centered his campaign last year on bringing expanded gambling to Kentucky, but vowed along the way – and even after he was elected – that he wouldn’t raise cigarette taxes. What he’s got now is the worst of both worlds.
Give him credit, though: Once the House leadership started floating the 25-cent plan, Beshear must have figured that if he was going to break his tax pledge, he might as well go whole hog and advocate a hike that could cover most of the anticipated budget gap. That could change the debate, but it’s hard to see Kentucky coming anywhere close to a 70-cent hike. That would put Kentucky’s tax at $1 a pack, nearly at a par with Ohio, and way above the 69.5-cent average of neighboring states.
I really like this story -- a delightful feature by education reporter Bill Croyle. It's about a bunch of custodians at Dixie Heights High School who just might have made Dixie Heights the cleanest school in Kentucky.
And they don't just care about things; they care about kids. That includes surpassing expectations. They not only shovel snow in front of the school, they help clean snow and ice from student cars to increase the odds the kids will get home safely.
But there's a bigger point here, too, contained in the last two paragraphs of Bill's story:
That diligence by the staff has actually made the kids take more pride in their school.
"I think the kids here respect the school a lot more because of them," senior Emma Adkins said. "They instill a sense of responsibility in students."
Unfortunately, that's not true at all schools. Even old schools needn't look worn inside and out. Sloppy surroundings affect the students. Appearances matter and so does caring for others.
Hats off to the Dixie custodians for being such good teachers.
I'm still a skeptic. But the bill the Kentucky House will soon consider to help pay for mega-projects such as the Brent Spence Bridge seems like a big improvement over the first iteration. (Click here for our most recent story.) Here's why I say that:
-- It sets up a statewide authority that could issue bonds and levy tolls instead of a local authority.
-- The authority couldn't privatize the roads and bridges.
-- Once costs are paid, tolls could be removed. Cynics should note there is precedent for this in Kentucky with former toll roads now offering toll-free driving.
Having said that, I still think it's too early to let the Feds off the hook to pay the lion's share of a core responsibility. As one respondent to my earlier post noted, the Constitution calls it "interstate commerce."
I hate anonymous Internet postings but I hate this stupid idea more.
As noted on Pat Crowley’s N.Ky. Politics blog, Kentucky Rep. Tim Couch, R-Hyden, has filed a bill that would require anybody posting to a Web site to first register using their legal name, address and valid e-mail address.
Generally speaking, I think people who put up anonymous postings and comments on the Internet are cowardly blowhards. But they have an absolute First Amendment right to be cowardly blowhards if that’s how they prefer to communicate with the rest of the world and Couch’s proposal would clearly be an unconstitutional infringement of free speech.
His objection to anonymous postings is that they often are nasty. He said some parents in his Eastern Kentucky district had complained to him about mean-spirited anonymous comments aimed at their kids. Like I said, cowardly blowhards, or perhaps in this case, name-calling children. But Couch also said he’s been the subject of anonymous online nastiness himself. That’s rude, but it’s no reason to rewrite the First Amendment.
People who disagree with public officials have an absolute right to say so – politely or not. You should be willing to put your name to your opinion, but that’s a free speech choice.
I, David Wells, think Tim Couch’s proposal is a boneheaded idea designed to placate a few constituents without really accomplishing anything.
See, it’s easy. But you should feel free to respond to this opinion, by name or not.
Another clash of religious and secular life, with Harvard caught in the middle.
After a request from a group of Muslim women, the university set aside six hours as women-only workout time in one gym. A Harvard official said the provision allows Muslim women to dress appropriately for exercise, which their religious code would not allow them to do in the presence of men.
That's raised complaints at Harvard. Even though the restriction is for one gym and the least-used one at that, and for only six of 70 available hours, some men are angry that it cuts into their prime gym time, and other students find it sexist or preferential to one religious faith.
Here's my take: Muslim women are probably not the only females who would appreciate the option of exercising in a single-sex facility -- and there are probably men out there who feel the same. With multiple gyms at its disposal, why doesn't Harvard give both sexes small windows of their own gym time?
That's not to circumvent the issue of making special accommodations based on religious practices, admittedly a sensitive matter. It calls for even-handedness and fairness, but also for acknowledging that, for college students, their campus is their home. Making no accommodation for them to observe their religious practices is simply disrespectful. But giving preferential treatment to one faith is also completely wrong.
The best scenario is for colleges to be familiar with the religious practices of their students, just as they are aware of other preferences and needs and to accommodate them in a way that is respectful to everyone. That could mean offering dietary options, designating spaces that students can use for any kind of private reflection, and building respect for religious and ethical differences into the culture and conduct code of the school.
One of the things I like best about this election is that no one's behaving exactly the way they're "supposed" to behave. Journalists are talking about the big migration of Ohio Republicans to the Democratic ticket, but voters have been smashing down demographic stereotypes in primaries and caucuses across the country.
It could be, as some analysts propose, that voters are being strategic or manipulative, crossing party lines to promote the election of the weaker challenger.
It could be that voters are confused, still trying to figure out what's substantially different between Obama's and Clinton's platforms, or how conservative McCain is, or which candidate best addresses their particular concerns.
But it also could be that this election has freed people to re-examine their own political beliefs and party affiliations. It's not an exercise we undertake often. We may move out of our comfort zone for a particular candidate, but rarely -- and only uncomfortably -- do we step back far enough to say, does this party affiliation still fit my personal beliefs?
However we answers pollsters' questions or weigh in on political blogs, this election has challenged us to privately re-evaluate our own positions, to think about whether we've been politically consistent or inconsistent, whether our stance on social issues matches up to our fiscal beliefs, and whether we're voting our hearts or only our histories.
Issues change. Parties change. The world changes around us. Allowing ourselves to consider whether we've changed is one gift of this messy, fascinating election season.
This updates my post from yesterday on the battle that has broken out over improving or replacing Kentucky's system of testing students.
Kentucky Education Secretary Jon Draud, who left his state House seat in Northern Kentucky a few months ago to take the job, deserves kudos for a smart, thoughtful response to all the political jockeying and lobbying taking place.
He said Tuesday (detailed here in Pat Crowley's story) that he will form a task force that not only will examine testing but might also look at enhancing the state's 18-year-old education reform act.
Sometimes creating a task force is the political way to send hot issues to freeze to death. That's not so in this case. An important debate has started, but no one appears to know enough at this point to make the best decisions. I don't think it's hype to say there's no issue more important to Kentucky's future.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Gov. Beshear today came out flatly against the bill to replace the state's current testing system. Click here.
Remember how the states played the “Me First” game with the presidential primary schedule, leapfrogging each other to get earlier dates until they bumped up against the New Year’s bowl games? Well, some of those early-bird states don’t look so smart now.
They were counting on the presidential contests being 100-yard dashes that would grant them the honor of quickly and decisively anointing the nominees. But after Tuesday night’s developments with the Ohio and Texas Democratic primaries – which saw Hillary Clinton shatter the “inevitability” of Barack Obama, who previously shattered the “inevitability” of Hillary Clinton – it’s looking more like a marathon.
Clinton said as much in her Ohio victory speech Tuesday night, looking forward to the primaries to come this spring in Pennsylvania (April 22) and other states. “They want their turn to make history,” she said. “They want their voices to count.”
Well, yes. Doesn’t everybody? Except maybe Democrats in Florida and Michigan, who broke party rules by going too early in the primary season and were stripped of their delegates. Or were they? If the Clinton-Obama race remains this close, the “phantom” delegates could be the subject of a floor fight at the Democratic convention. Michigan’s and Florida’s voices may count at last – and get the last laugh.
For those curious about whose history-making turns are next, here’s the remaining primary schedule:
March 8: Wyoming (Democrats) March 11: Mississippi April 22: Pennsylvania May 6: Indiana, North Carolina May 13: Nebraska, West Virginia May 20: Kentucky, Oregon May 27: Idaho (Republicans) June 3: Montana, New Mexico (Republicans), South Dakota August 25-28: Democratic National Convention , Denver September 1-4: Republican National Convention, Minneapolis-St. Paul
Was there any doubt? John McCain was declared the winner everywhere Tuesday night almost as soon as the polls closed.
The Arizona senator is the Republican nominee for president, having won the required 1,191 delegates. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee conceded – finally.
So in November it will be McCain against – somebody.
Voters turned away from their polling places. Officials scrambling to print more paper ballots for voters to fill out. Candidates suing to keep the polls open. Accusations of voters being "disenfranchised."
Just another election in Ohio, right?
While it's too early at this writing to evaluate just how widespread and serious the problems in Tuesday's Ohio primary will have been, not having enough paper ballots on hand for party "crossover" voters is clearly at the center of it, particularly in Cleveland/Cuyahoga County.
You can argue about how many "extra" ballots should be prepared, the logistics of how you get enough of the precinct-specific ballots to each polling place, and what should be done with the reams and reams of leftover ballots. But here's one indisputable fact: If you didn't have to use paper in the first place, it wouldn't be an issue.
Less than two months ago, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner ordered Cuyahoga County to switch from the direct recording electronic (DRE) or touch-screen voting system it was using, along with another 56 of the state's 88 counties. Her action was based on a study she commissioned that, predictably, warned that DREs -- or Diebold Republican Evils to the election-conspiracy theory set -- were vulnerable to security breaches and could theoretically be tampered with, although it didn't document any instances of such tampering or even evaluate the possibility of it happening.
The Ohio ACLU, warning of potential problems, sued to stop the switchover, but lost early last month. And an Enquirer editorial wondered whether "Brunner's frenzied solution is worse than the actual -- not perceived -- problem."
Wonder no more. Cuyahoga's forced scramble to change its voting system has taken its toll. Add to that a rush-hour ice storm in the area, near-record turnout and shortages of poll workers, and you have a mess.
In January, Brunner said she was ordering the changes to "avoid any loss of confidence by voters," but Tuesday's primary snafus may help create a loss of confidence.
A big battle has broken out in Kentucky's education community over state Senate Bill 1, which would dramatically change the way students are tested in Kentucky public schools. The Senate leaders didn't help things by orchestrating a hearing last week in which they basically gave the opponents little or no time to speak.
Why should you care? For starters, we all have a stake in our kids being successful in school. (The alternative, I guess, is Kentucky's latest claim-to-fame as having the nation's fastest-growing prison population, a system costing state and local governments a fortune to prop up.)
SB1 would throw out CATS and replace it with a nationally standardized test such as the ACT college entrance exam. It also is opening up a divide between higher-achieving districts, such as Fort Thomas, that see CATS as not raising the bar well enough, fast enough, and CATS supporters, who say it needs reforming but schools need to stay the course to keep improving.
Perhaps the biggest rap on CATS is that there is no good way to use it to track individual student achievement from year to year. SB1 proponents tout cost savings and reduced days when teachers have to spend basically "teaching to the test," a practice that certainly has taken a lot of the energy and passion out of education for both teachers and students.
On the other hand, SB1 could eliminate testing in the area of arts and humanities. That would be a tragedy if you believe in a well-rounded education, because more schools would cut back. Student writing portfolios would carry little or no weight, too.
So, in the spirit of that debate, I'm going to post excerpts from an e-mail (he gave permission) from Northern KY University professor Steve Newman to members of the Northern Kentucky Council of Partners, an education advisory and support group of which I am a member. If you want to read a position from the other side, click here for an editorial from the Courier-Journal.
Dense subject. Important issue. What do you think?
Dear Council of Partners Members,
... the design of the CATS tests make any proposed solutions difficult if not impossible to implement.
One problem is that the CATS tests are intended to evaluate schools, not individual students. The tests use a matrix design, with several different tests in the same subject and for the same grade level being given to different groups of students. This makes it difficult to compare individual students with their peers. Consequently, the tests do not provide meaningful feedback about individual students to teachers and parents. The tests do not provide timely feedback either because it takes five months to get them graded and returned.
An even more serious problem is that the tests are not aligned with postsecondary and work force expectations. We have all worked hard to correct this problem, and we have made some progress, but the problem seems just as intractable now as it was a decade ago.
The problem is in part caused by the wide range of topics covered on the CATS tests and the amount of instructional time these tests consume. Teachers are stretched to cover all the required topics and often do not have the time to cover important topics effectively and in depth. Unfortunately, these are often topics essential for success in postsecondary education.
The CATS tests in mathematics put too little emphasis on essential arithmetic and algebra skills. The consequences are profound. The college remediation rates in mathematics are high and appear to be getting higher. There are too few bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, in part because our incoming college students do not have a sufficiently strong background in mathematics to be successful in these disciplines. Our economy suffers as a result...
Many of the leaders supporting Senate Bill 1 are in our region. Senators Westwood, Stine, Roeding and Thayer are among the 10 co-sponsors of the bill. (Senator Stine joined the others last week.)....
The time for change is long overdue.... Sincerely, Steve Newman Department of Mathematics Northern Kentucky University newman@nku.edu
"Vote!" said the sticky note left on the inside of my front door this morning.
It was my 17-year-old daughter's reminder to herself, as if she'd forget.
Jessa has been waiting for months to take part in her first election, and neither rain nor snow nor having to get up early was going to stand in her way.
There are certain moments in a parent's life when the past rewinds in front of your face. I could swear it was only last year when Jessa was standing beside me, hip-high, at the voting booth as I explained the process, or helping me set up a Kids Voting booth at our precinct so she and her second-grade friends could "vote."
And then today she was off to the polls before I was, voting for a candidate about whom she feels passionate and able to articulate her reasons as well as anyone I know.
"Your daughter was already here," the poll workers told me when I signed in at my precinct. We exchanged a smile. That, after all these years, was the point.
The best house-to-house campaigning going on in our community has nothing to do with Tuesday's election. It's the nine-year campaign to strengthen young, at-risk families conducted by the highly effective program, Every Child Succeeds.
ECS logged its 250,000th home visit last week. The program sends nurses, child development experts and social workers for one-on-one, hour-long sessions with young parents. The experts deliver information on child safety, health, early intervention, stimulating learning and understanding children's cognitive and emotional needs. Average age of the parents (mostly moms) is 20, and most have little outside support.
Typically, babies born in such families are at risk for delayed development, abuse, neglect and poor academic performance. But ECS partners up with the moms throughout their pregnancy and through their child's first three years of life. It builds a relationship so that the women are open to information and know where to turn when they need help. They take better care of their babies and of themselves.
The infant mortality rate for ECS babies is a quarter of that for Cincinnati babies as a whole. Better than 90 percent of them are developing normally, compared to 65 to 84 percent of infants without the support. And ECS moms are much less likely to use alcohol or tobacco during pregnancy and overcome depression at a much higher rate than other young moms.
It's such a solid success story -- making it truly a shame that it's still only able to serve 28 percent of families eligible for the program.
For the many skeptics who have spent years voicing their suspicions that The Banks would never get built, Friday’s announcement of an April 2 groundbreaking for the massive riverfront development may have seemed off by one day. As in: April Fools!
But you might forgive those skeptics, as well as the project’s developers for scrupulously avoiding the symbolic first day in April. Cincinnati’s long awaited residential/commercial/entertainment district has been plagued by a decade of false starts, political mud wrestling, postponements, missed deadlines, cast changes and backtracking. Fool me 12 times, shame on everybody. What the project didn’t need was yet another punchline.
Even after last fall’s celebrated deal that finally sealed the project plan and developers in place, financing woes forced planners to blow past deadlines, self-imposed or otherwise, to make sure the money was there. The latest month-long delay saw developers Carter & Associates and Harold A. Dawson Co. cobbling together the required financing of $74 million for The Banks’ Phase 1A, which will include 300 apartments, 70,000 square feet of retail and a garage at Second and Main streets.
Hamilton County Commisioner Todd Portune said it’s "probably a great sense of relief for a lot of people." No kidding. For years, this moment has seemed a mirage, a faraway dream. Is it OK to pinch ourselves now?
Many people won’t believe it until they see the shovels actually digging into the ground. But for Cincinnati boosters who believe this project is vital to our region’s economic development and cultural progress, the start of The Banks can’t come a day too soon. Then again, maybe it can.
Maybe some cracks are emerging in the positions taken by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and some of our local and state politicians that would inevitably push primary responsibility for funding the Brent Spence Bridge replacement to state government and newly created local entities.
The State of Kentucky obviously doesn't have the money. So, if those folks get their way, the only realistic alternatives are tolls or new, higher local taxes to support bond payments.
I'm not knee-jerk against tolls. What I am against is the federal government pleading poverty as it abdicates a core responsibility -- providing funds for infrastructure that is of national importance. After all, President Eisenhower pushed creation of the interstate highway system for national security reasons.
We are not talking about replacing the Licking River Bridge between Newport and Covington here. This is a dangerous, functionally obsolete bridge that is a key link on the primary artery between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico.
I called Sen. McConnell's office recently and asked if McConnell -- who is, after all, minority leader and one of the most powerful politicians in America -- had looked at a bill sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. The bill to create a national infrastructure bank to fund projects of national significance seems like an idea well worth examining. McConnell's staff said the senator had no position on the bill and hadn't looked at it, and he continues to push the notion that the federal cupboard is bare.
What's also interesting about the bill is the list of co-sponsors, which include the two leading Democratic presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. This might explain why Obama specifically mentioned the bill in an ad that ran this week in The Enquirer and Clinton spoke eloquently about the federal responsibility for infrastructure in an interview with our editorial board. Meanwhile, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., sits on the Senate committee where the Dodd bill landed. But, in this story by Pat Crowley, Bunning certainly wasn't very warm to the concept.
Maybe that bill isn't the answer. The point is that there are reasonable options emerging, and it's too early to accept the argument that we need new local taxing authorities to shoulder the costs of nationally important projects. Once those mechanisms are created, we will have guaranteed that the feds will say the problem is solved and move on.
