About 100 people who are marching from New Orleans to Detroit to call attention to the problem of poverty in the United States stopped in Cincinnati this afternoon.

Marchers in the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign arrived at the Purple People Bridge, then proceeded to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center where they discussed the issue of economic slavery in America.

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No matter what a politician says, coal has never been and can’t be “clean” or serve as an “alternative” fuel that’s good for the environment. On position held by many groups is that limiting the use of coal is necessary to create the incentive to come up with energy alternatives that truly don’t harm the environment. The League of Women Voters is one of those groups.

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Violence begets violence; it certainly doesn’t have the effect of bringing about effective communication that ultimately leads people to understand and embrace positive actions. So why would Ohio schools – institutions of learning and thought – allow hitting kids as punishment?

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When staff writers leave CityBeat they have, in the past, had an opportunity to publish a “so long” piece. It’s usually done as a column or a first-person commentary. My last piece for CityBeat will be a review of a new book that looks at the current U.S. slave market.

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During an election year, city council and the mayor member profess to care about the most vulnerable in our society, but their actions are speaking much louder than words. Mayor Mark Mallory allowed a city budget proposal to go forward that would have eliminated all human services funding and the meager investment was only restored after groups like the YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter and the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless organized strong and vocal opposition and the money was restored.

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We reported here yesterday that City Councilwoman Leslie Ghiz posted personal information on Facebook about two citizens who had emailed criticism about her pressuring of City Manager Milton Dohoney to remove the Occupy Cincinnati protesters. The news quickly spread on Twitter (which you can follow in our live aggregator below), and Ghiz removed the posts shortly thereafter.

The incident might not seem like the hugest deal — largely a petty socio-political discussion on a conservative's personal Facebook page among a bunch of likeminded people. But the publication of the home and email address of a citizen who opposes an elected official crosses a major ethical line.

We purposely didn't publish screen shots of the posts due to the private information involved. It would have been relevant only in demonstrating the pettiness with which Ghiz offered the critics' opinions to her collection of angry friends. “These are some of the lovely emails my campaign has been getting because I believe the law should be applied evenly and equally to everyone,” the first introduction reads. How does she expect people to react to such sarcasm? “Oh dear, Leslie, I also care not for such a movement and its collection of anarchic rogues. Let me set down my tea cup and console you."

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Local angry guy Rich Hoffman should have stuck closer to the Glen Beck style that made Butler County Tea Partiers like him — too much Rush Limbaugh got the bull whip performer ousted today by the local organization he helped start.

The Enquirer reported this week that Hoffman recently ranted on his blog about a vague group of pro-school tax women in the district, calling them prostitutes and describing how their husbands “roll them over at night and insert their manhood” before leaving hundred dollar bills in their purses, and then defended the remarks when contacted by The Enquirer.

The Enquirer’s early report (updated once Hoffman got the axe) included the following:

The head of the anti-school tax group NoLakota wrote on his internet blog site that Lakota school mothers are “just prostitutes to their husbands who do everything they can to be away from them aside from the occasional sex.”

“Their husband’s (sic) roll them over at night and insert their manhood into these women of the bedroom and hundred-dollar bills find their way into their purses. The women don’t know what the man does to earn the money, nor do they care. They are busy saving the world one child at a time with howls of safety and more regulations as they rush to the polling places at election time,” wrote Hoffman, who is also a bullwhip performer and periodic guest on local radio talk shows regarding Lakota funding issues.

A photo of Hoffman wearing a cowboy hat and holding a whip had been presented on the homepage of The Enquirer for most of Thursday, when NoLakota Treasurer Dan Varney told the newspaper that Hoffman had been banned from further association with the group. Varney said the group’s decision wasn’t in response to the publicity of The Enquirer’s report.

Hoffman’s writings also include a reference to “crazy PTA moms and their minions of latte drinking despots with diamond rings the size of car tires and asses to match, (they) plot against me with an anger only estrogen can produce,” The Enquirer reported.

NoLakota says it has removed all references to Hoffman’s personal website, called "Overmanwarrior's Wisdom," (overmanwarrior.wordpress.com), where he writes lengthy diatribes against public school funding, teachers and political opponents and in one post compared the pressure he was under to that which Rush Limbaugh faced after calling a Georgetown University student a prostitute and a slut.

Hoffman wrote:

The progressive mode of attack they use to protect their positions which cannot withstand scrutiny is to attack people like Rush Limbaugh whenever he says something they believe they can use against him in an emotional argument. Conservatives typically are terrible at playing this game with progressives because they tend to operate on a belief system rooted in the truth. So they can easily be attacked because if they cross the line, they feel bad about it, and that guilt is used against them to change their behavior in the future.

Hoffman’s blog also includes numerous clips from the Glenn Beck TV show, a lengthy story about film production inspired by Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit and more several Star Wars clips.

Hoffman as of Thursday afternoon hadn’t responded to a request from The Enquirer seeking comment, and CityBeat never tried to contact him out of fear of him thinking we were treading on him.

The following is an eight-minute video published on the Overmanwarrior site titled “A Whip Stunt to Save America,” wherein Hoffman uses his patio table as a metaphorical Constitution, a bowl of water as American civilization sitting on top of a cup (everything we put our tax money into) and then whips the cup out from underneath without spilling civilization all over the Constitution and then says, “I don’t really understand the progressive way of thinking — they don’t really belong in this country in my opinion.”

A social worker that has written a new book criticizing Cincinnati’s development efforts in Over-the-Rhine will conduct a book signing Thursday.

 

Alice Skirtz, a Cincinnati native, is the author of Econocide: Elimination of the Urban Poor. She will host a book signing from 4:30-6:30 p.m. at Skirtz & Johnston bakery at Findlay Market, 113 West Elder St.

 

Proceeds from book sales at the event will be given to the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. Skirtz is the founding organizer of the coalition.

 

The book profiles growing economic inequalities in the city that is reflected in policy debates over contentious issues like panhandling, homelessness, planning and funding for affordable housing, zoning for social service agencies and site selection for shelters.

 

Written from a social worker’s perspective, Econocide focuses on advocacy for people who are most vulnerable in society to promote and make sure they’re included in the socio-economic policies of local government.

 

"Based on over 40 years of experience in working with the urban poor, I wrote this book to call attention to how they have become increasingly at risk of being removed permanently from the community and civic life," Skirtz said. "The growth of privatization has led to increasing economic inequities, lessening influence in administrative and legislative affairs, and decreasing access to housing and even public spaces. I intend for this book to lead to a change in how we treat the urban poor."

 

The book includes a blurb by David Mann, a local attorney who also is an ex-Cincinnati mayor and former congressman.

 

“You cannot read her book without tears coming to your eyes at some point and without wondering why a supposedly enlightened society cannot better balance the needs of the least among us with overall economic health and viability,” Mann wrote. “You will ask yourself why we cannot do better.”

More than 20 Occupy Cincinnati protesters were arrested last night just hours before a morning parade was scheduled to celebrate the life of local billionaire Carl Lindner, who died on Monday. The Enquirer's homepage this morning includes a lengthy account of the arrests and reactions by Occupy, along with a live feed covering the parade, which was to begin at Great American Ball Park and end near a Kenwood restaurant where Lindner enjoyed eating.

Lindner supporters gathered at various locations along the parade route, including dozens of Cincinnati Police standing outside District 1 around 9 a.m. Students stood outside a school on 9th Street singing songs about going to heaven. (Occupy Cincinnati representatives have not acknowledged the correlation.)

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The Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center (IJPC) along with many other abolitionist groups say it does. Over time the public in Ohio has voted to eliminate one round of death penalty case appeals and the inadequate funding of defense in these cases has been eating away at the “super” due-process required by the U.S. Supreme Court. The intent was to put safeguard in place to make sure a fallible system implemented by fallible people wouldn’t result in the death of innocent people. But those same fallible people are destroying that system little-by-little.

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