In a rare move, I have to give props to the Greater Cincinnati-area (Hamilton County) voters for turning back an effort to enact a tax to build a new jail in the city.

Actually, it involved more than building a jail but, in fact, the new jail would have taken the lion’s share of the $1 billion price tag that came with this issue.

My motivation for voting no might not have been the same as some — I’m just tired of putting band-aids on issues that require real work. Cincinnati, like other cities, has an incredibly high teenage unemployment rate, as many teen job programs went the way of the dinosaur. Also, job prospects for working-class folks aren’t the greatest, either. Why not put some people to work and help yourself in the process by lowering crime and getting some of that money back in the form of income taxes?

Also, this would help people want to move back into the city, which has been steadily losing population since the late 90’s.

However, this requires a real plan, not a quick fix that would have just seen us being asked for more money for yet another new jail after they would have filled this one.

So, let’s hope for real solutions and just not build warehouses for people.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Okay, first Imus, a 60-year-old man, blamed his disrespect of black women on his being influenced by rap music.

Now, Duane “Dog” Chapman says that he used the word “nigger” because of “a bond he shares with the black community” but, after the blowback from all of this he says, “I now learned I’m not black at all.”

He stated this on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes. He offered some other gems, too!

“I thought that I was cool enough in the black world to be able to use that word as a brother to a brother. I’m not.

I didn’t really know until three or four days ago what that meant to black people.”

You’re a 50+-year-old white man and you don’t know that the word “nigger” is an insult, particularly when it is used in a profanity-laced tirade, complaining about a black person?

I don’t expect this guy to be a genius, or even particularly smart. But, he should realize that the rest of the world is not stupid enough to buy this.

In a related story, Joshua Alston of Newsweek ponders if these n-word tirades and subsequent apologies are ploys by D-list celebrities to boost their profiles.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Well, you’ve finally done it! You’ve reached a new high in the polls. Of course, it just happens to be the highest disapproval rate the history of the Gallup Poll.

George Bush has just topped Richard Nixon’s disapproval rate. At the height of the Watergate scandal, Nixon’s disapproval was at 48%. In a recent poll, 50% of those polled said they “strongly dissaproved” of the the job Bush is (not) doing.

This poll also continues to reflect the fact that a majority (59%) still don’t think America is making significant progress in Iraq and 60% want a reduction in U.S. forces there.

So, as Congress is poised to grant Bush nearly $200 billion more for Iraq, don’t you think they might actually want to look at the polls?

Popularity: 14% [?]

I was kind of riled up yesterday when I read about 6 white football players from Hamline University in Minnesota dressing up, in blackface, as African tribesman for a Halloween party.

Once again, photos of this appeared on Facebook and, as a result, these players were suspended. Previously, I have shared other stories about people dressing up in blackface. So, this should come as no surprise. Also, you can almost chalk it up to youthful stupidity.

However, what happens when adults, who should know better, do the exact same thing? Worse yet, what if it’s a federal government employee who does it at a work function?

Right now, the assistant secretary overseeing the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division has egg on her face. Julie Myers was forced to apologize for her participation as a judge in a Halloween costume contest where the panel awarded an employee the “Most Original Costume” award and even took a photo with him. So, what’s the problem? The employee came dressed as an inmate in prison stripes, dreadlocks and makeup used to darken his skin.

According to a spokesperson for ICE, the employee was not in blackface but “makeup that was a darker color than his skin.”

Sadly, these are supposed adults carrying on like this. If this is their idea of humor, this says a lot about their views on people of color.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Over the weekend, I heard all types of the news on the unrest in Pakistan. Despite what our government wants to tell us, Pakistan is ruled by dictatorship. If not, how else can a general (and supposed president) suspend a nation’s constitution, black out all media and even fire a supreme court (the same court that was to decide if his election to president was even legal) when it doesn’t side with him?

But, if you look, the story isn’t as much about what a government is doing as it is about what the people are doing in response to it.

This is the lesson of Pakistan.

Today, I see that even lawyers are taking it to the streets in protest of having their rights trampled. Thousands of attorney are squaring off with police as they say “no” to having their constitutional rights taken from them at the word of one person. This follows protests by other Pakistanis from all walks of life, all saying “no” to be ruled by a dictator.

In this country, as we see more and more of our rights taken away, we heap scorn on the people who say “no”. We live in such a fear of another attack, that we allow people to tap our phones and read our mail to “protect” us. We allow people to take away our First and Fourth Amendment rights because we have be scared into compliance, not realizing that once these powers are taken, they are not easily returned back to the people. Some of us laugh at the possibility of ever ending up like these nations we see on TV but, we need to remember that this things don’t always start with a military coup. Sometimes, it’s the gradual erosion of one’s way of life that puts you on the same path.

What we should take from Pakistan is that freedom and self-determination are the best defenses against tyranny and terror. It is the absence of the prior that make the growth of the latter possible.

Popularity: 28% [?]

As I have stated before, the Republican platform consists mainly of the issues of guns, God and gays but, in more desperate times, they also pull out their trump card: race.

In the late 60’s, Richard Nixon was able to use race to get Democrats, disillusioned with their party’s embrace of civil rights for black people, to join the ranks of the Republican party. In the 80’s, Ronald Reagan kicked off his presidential campaign with a speech on states rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the very place where many Civil Rights-era murders took place, most notably those of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney.

Now, it seems that this strategy may be released yet again in attempts by at least one candidate to get into the White House.

Strategist for Rudy Giuliani are preparing to undertake a race-based strategy to pull in votes from “social conservatives” (in this context, it’s a code word for racists). What does it involve? Consider the following:

The themes the campaign are lining up for renewed emphasis are those reflecting Giuliani’s confrontational stance towards black New Yorkers and their white liberal allies, as well as his record of siding decisively with the police against minorities who launched protests alleging police brutality during the years he was mayor from 1994-2001.

Giuliani’s eight years as New York’s chief executive exemplified a Northern adaptation of the GOP’s politically successful “Southern strategy” - the strategy playing on white resistance to and resentment of federal legislation passed in the 1960s mandating desegregation - resistance that produced a realignment in the South and fractured the Democratic loyalties of white working class voters in the urban North from 1968 to 2004.

“Race is at the heart of Rudy’s story,” according to Wayne Barrett, one of Giuliani’s preeminent biographers. Giuliani ended race and gender preferences in New York’s city contracting. He eliminated open admissions at City University and re-instituted testing requirements for the school — requirements which disadvantaged black and Latino applicants seeking to complete the four-year curriculum. Also angering black leaders, Giuliani instituted tough law and order policies that were consistently cited by his administration as the driving force pushing crime rates down over 60 percent during his tenure as Mayor.

Equally important in courting a racially conservative Republican primary electorate in the current presidential election, Giuliani brought to a halt the black and minority domination of New York city politics.

Once again, we see this strategy at play with a party that then has the nerve to ask us why they aren’t getting our votes. When your presumed front-runner is embracing these tactics, we would have to be total fools to put him in a position to allow him to enact policy based on these beliefs on a national level.

Black folks in New York already know what Giuliani’s “leadership” meant to them and I have heard enough to know that I don’t want to experience it for myself.

UPDATE: In a semi-related article, the Miami Herald is carrying an article on Giuliani’s legacy of racial animus.

Popularity: 16% [?]

The tried and true political strategy of Republican lawmakers is “guns, God and gays”. I find the latter most funny because there are so many gay Republicans. However, in the Republican party, being gay is tantamount to a crime, particularly if you are looking to hold public office.

This brings us to the case of Rep. Richard Curtis, a Washington state legislator. Curtis recently resigned after it was discovered that he had sex with another man he met at an adult video store while at a GOP retreat.

This was uncovered after Curtis went to police that he was being extorted by the man in question, Cody Castagna. Though Curtis initially denied it to newspaper, police reports show that Curtis complained of being extorted by a man with whom he had sex with in a Spokane hotel.

When Castagna was arrested, he told authorities that Curtis had reneged on an agreement to pay $1000 for sex with him. Curtis had only paid him $200 and Castagna threatened to out Curtis if he didn’t pay him the other $800.

According to Curtis, he didn’t solicit sex from the man. Instead, he was trying to “help him out”. Curtis also says that he didn’t give the man $200 for sex. Instead, he gave him only $100 for “gas money”.

Curtis is married, for now.

A Republican successor has been chosen and will serve out the rest of Curtis’ term.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Before anyone gets on me about blaming Oprah or bashing a “leading black”, hear me out.

Recently, it was reported that allegations of physical and sexual abuse of girls at the hands of a matron (dorm parent) working at the all-girl Leadership Academy she opened in South Africa had surfaced.

According to South African police, the woman in question is accused of choking and beating some students and is also accused of fondling at least one girl there. The matron has been suspended. Another matron and the school’s principal, Dr. Mzimane, had already been placed on leave prior to the alleged fondling incident.

For her part, Oprah has issued tearful apologies to students and their families but, as far as I know, has not made any public statements about this issue in the U.S.

However, could it be that Oprah, unintentionally, created an environment where such abuse could thrive? One Chicago Sun-Times columnist thinks so and I am inclined to agree. The rules of the school state that parents are only allowed to visit their children once a month. Also, children are only allowed to use their cell phones and email on the weekends.

In this country, we know that abuse also goes on in schools but, knowing that a parent could show up at any time, that a kid could call a parent at any time or that, at day’s end, a parent could know what happened, would not embolden many to say the wrong thing to a student, much less put their hands on a child. By keeping these children, as the columnist put it, as “virtual prisoners”, they were left at the mercy of an abuser.

Also, let’s be real, this was supposed to be a dream come true for poor parents to offer their daughters an education that they might not have otherwise received. So, for the sakes of their children, they went along with the rules. But, from what I understand, many parents complained of this arrangement. It now appears that these complaints went unheeded, to the detriment of some students there and to the detriment of the school’s and Oprah’s reputations.

I believe that her school was and still is a wonderful idea. But, perhaps Oprah should actually listen to parents and learn the lessons that the abuse in her own past should have taught her — kids need to be able to talk to their parents about anything. In order to do so, they actually need to be given the actual ability to do just that. It is in silence and secret that abuses like these are allowed to flourish.

Popularity: 48% [?]