"I'm special and I don't have to obey the law"

Eight "protestors" were arrested in Downtown Cincinnati last night. Yes, you can peacefully protest but when you try to use the cover of the protest to break the law, you may get arrested. And if you mess with the police trying to arrest someone, you will definitely get arrested. You will get no sympathy from me.

What I'm seeing today is a segment of the population, African American and White American but not Hispanic (as far as I can recall), who think they're special and that laws don't apply to them. Throw their fast-food bag out the car window? Sure, why should they care? Run a stop sign? No accident, no foul! Drive around with a broken tail pipe dragging on the ground? Man, where's the problem in that? None until it breaks off and ends up in someone else's radiator!

And then they get all indignant when a cop pulls them over. They're like, go get that drug dealer instead of me 'cause I'm special. Well, where I live here in Norwood, Ohio, the cops go for the drug dealers, too. As long as some people believe they can ignore the laws of society, we're going to have problems.

Background: Earlier this week, University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing was indicted by a grand jury for murder following a traffic stop where he shot an unarmed driver and killed him. This protest, which started peacefully but appeared to be turning violent when the arrests occurred, was in response to the shooting. The family of the victim expressed their displeasure that the event was turning violent and disassociated themselves with the march after the vigil. 

From the ridiculous to the sublime

Every once in a while, I get a day that has a bunch of good as well as funny news. Today was such a day. As some would say, I'm going to cover the ridiculous to the sublime.

I'm starting with a picture of the front of the Life section of today's edition of USA Today. Can you read the main headline? Neither can I. Flipping the paper over does no good, either. You have to open it up; then you can see it says "Knightley, Wright have a long history with history."


Next, we have the report from Maine Republican Party chairman Charlie Webster that "In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted on Election Day." They just showed up and voted. The people in Maine know all of their neighbors, who apparently are all white, and these black people certainly weren't their white neighbors. Where did they come from? Where did they go after they voted? Charlie wants answers and he wants them now!

We can't laugh at him any more because Charlie has now apologized for his comments. He says he is not racist because he plays basketball with a black person.


For our third item today, there's news that the U.S. Air Force has scrapped a $1.03 billion Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project, claiming there is no useful functionality from the money spent and it would cost another $1.1 billion to get something going by 2020. Funny thing, this project was bid out at $88.5 million in 2005. Wouldn't you love to be one of the contractors involved? You work hard for seven years, getting paid each step of the way, and then you get to walk away without having to make the thing work. It happened to me once on a $10,000 project and it was a disappointment because my project was going to work and be rather slick besides.


Today is America Recycles Day. Here in the Cincinnati area, we get a lot of help from Rumpke Recycling, which seems committed to recycling as much as they can. Today is also The Great American Smokeout. For the life of me, I can't see the connection.


Finally, news from Norwood, Ohio about the generosity of Police Officer Matt Evans after investigating a report of money stolen from Sharpsburg Elementary School. This money was going to pay for a field trip to watch a Cincinnati Cyclones hockey game. After taking the report, he withdrew money from his personal account and anonymously donated it to the school. He wanted to keep his generosity secret but now the secret's out. A tip of the hat to Officer Evans who doesn't want to be reimbursed. Instead, he says to "make sure to pay it forward." I'm going to donate $20 to the Norwood Police Association.

Eight people in Norwood, Ohio talk about politics

The Wall Street Journal wanted to talk to a diverse group of voters about the election, the economy and other topics. They started with Ohio, a swing state, then picked Hamilton County, a swing county, then drilled down to the City of Norwood, the second largest city in the county (after Cincinnati) and ended up picking my block in Norwood. Neil King, Jr. interviewed eight of us from four families and wrote a story for today's edition of the WSJ, "Fearful Ohio Voters Careen Between Competing Camps" (subscription required; pictures by Andrew Spear).

In 1968 Andy Warhol said, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." I'm going to enjoy my 15 minutes and then get back to work.