Franklin on the Fourth

“Since there is no proper ceremony for observing the Fourth of July, it’s left to each of us to decide how to reflect on the meaning of freedom,” begins an editorial in the New York Times, on this the Fourth of July, 2009. I am going to spend at least part of this Fourth reflecting on the meaning of freedom, which of course will be different from what it might mean for somebody else, especially down here in Southern Ohio. My reflections on freedom on the Fourth will focus on the most famous Boston native, Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers. I will try to show how he might be relevant to us on this two-hundred and thirty-third anniversary of our nation’s independence.

Franklin was born in a place, and at a time, 1706, that was not hospitable to freedom, either political or intellectual. Massachusetts was still an English colony, which greatly limited its political freedom, and the political freedom of its citizens, who thought of themselves first, it should be pointed out, as English, not American. They didn’t think of themselves as having rights as Americans, because the United States, did not exist when Franklin was born. As they looked at it, it was their rights as English subjects, not as Americans, that were being violated. Boston was not hospitable to political freedom because England, and the King in particular, wanted to continue to exploit the Massachusetts colony for economic gain.

But neither was the Boston Franklin was born into hospitable to intellectual freedom, to freedom of conscience, because there was a tradition of intolerance in Massachusetts that had been established by the so-called Puritans, or Calvinists, who first settled the colony. The Puritans did not come to Massachusetts to establish freedom of religion. They came, at great personal sacrifice, and with heroic determination, to establish a colony where their religion, where their brand of Protestantism, would have a complete monopoly. The Puritans were, not to mince words, religious fanatics. If they had not been, they would not have taken the great risks and made the heroic sacrifices that they did. If they had not been religious fanatics, they would not have persecuted other Protestants — and Catholics—for not sharing their particular Calvinist beliefs, for not believing human nature was inherently and totally depraved and that salvation came not on the basis of what anyone might do or not do but only as a gift from God, who chose mercifully to spare a few of them at random from burning in hell forever for reasons known only to Him.

Innate Depravity

Massachusetts and Boston in particular was a bastion of Calvinistic intolerance in the 1600s, much like the Taliban intolerance of our own time. New England in general was a region obsessed with the issue of salvation, and who was and who was not going to be saved, and how it was possible to tell what the signs were that somebody was among the Elect, whom God had chosen for salvation. By the time of Franklin’s birth, the Calvinists had lost control of the colony, which was no longer a theocracy, but the tradition of intolerance and the obsession with salvation and doctrinal purity had not disappeared. Franklin’s father spent what free time he had in the evening reading and talking about religion. It was his hope that Benjamin, with his bookish bent, would study for the ministry. It was to America’s and the world’s great benefit that Franklin’s father did not have the money to send him to Harvard to become a minister, where Benjamin might have been indoctrinated into the ideology prevailing at the time. Instead, he was allowed to follow the bent of his genius and the pull of his proclivities, becoming the extraordinary self-taught, inventive and revolutionary figure that he did. Franklin regretted the time he had spent reading religious books in his father’s house, considering such disputes and speculations about doctrinal matters and the afterlife a waste of time. His sex drive was almost as strong as his drive to learn, and the restrictive attitudes that prevailed in his father’s house and in Boston toward the body and the mind, were not compatible with his nature, or for that matter with human nature.

Brotherly Love

When at the age of 17 he left Boston for Philadelphia, a city where the Quakers rather than the Calvinists had been the most influential of the Protestant sects, he found the kind of freedom he needed to flourish, economically, intellectually and, eventually, politically. He became part of the generation that embraced the ideas of the Enlightenment and revolutionized the world. It was a generation that saw science and technology, rather the religion and faith, representative government rather than theocracies or monarchies, as the best hope for humanity. The Founding Fathers were for the most part not orthodox Christians. They were Deists, who did not believe in revelation, the divinity of Jesus, the infallibility of the Bible, or in miracles. The opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence refers not to the Christian, the Hebrew, the Muslim, or the Hindoo god, not to the Bible or to Jesus, but to “the laws of nature and of nature’s god . . .”

Deists believed God made the world, but once having made it He left it to function according to natural laws. He did not micromanage human affairs, He followed a hands-off policy. Knowing how oppressive theocracies were, the Founding Fathers and Franklin adopted a constitution and established a government that was tied to no particular religion or god. It was not an oversight or an accident that Christ and Christianity were not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. The Founding Fathers and Franklin intended that church and state be separated, as a way of preventing the establishment of a state religion. A citizen of the United States could be of any religion or of no religion. The United States stood for not just freedom of, but freedom from, religion. A person had as much right not to believe in god as to believe in god. Christians have been trying ever since the Revolution to encroach upon and transform American government, arguing that America began and should remain a Christian nation. The majority of Americans may be Christians, but that does not make America a Christian nation, anymore than having a majority of Jews would make it a Jewish nation or a majority of Muslims would make it a Muslim nation. The fundamental constitutive fact of the U.S. implied in the Declaration and stated in the Constitution is that it is not a nation of any religion. The Founding Fathers and Franklin knew from the history of Europe and of Massachusetts that a theocracy is ultimately incompatible with democracy, that God makes a tyrannical and ultimately a rotten head of state. If a fish rots from the head down, so does a theocracy.

Christmas Spirit

In response to a controversy over a Nativity display at Shawnee State Forest, I posted a River Vices blog titled “Common Sense” back in December 17, 2007. Recently, a little belatedly, the minister who had campaigned for a Nativity display on public property, Rev. Gary Chaffins, emailed me to express his consternation at what I had written about him, about the display, and about Christianity on River Vices. He wanted an explanation. I offer this posting, “Franklin and the Fourth,” as part of my explanation to him, my addendum to “Common Sense.” On this Fourth of July I invite whoever might be reading this posting to go back and read or reread that posting to see what I wrote. I would hate to think what this country would be like if fanatical clerics had the kind of political control and influence that they have in several countries today. God help us if the Christian Taliban ever take control at the local, state or national level in our country. If I recall correctly, Islamists destroyed a historic huge statue of Buddha because they saw it as an idol of infidels. This competition between gods and religions, between true believers and infidels, between the Elect and the damned, can get very nasty, and in this nuclear age it could lead to annihilation. Fanatical believers who can’t wait to get to the next world, and paradise, don’t have preserving this world as one of their priorities. In this age of technology, the people on our shrinking planet are like the passengers on that Egyptian airliner that was possibly taken down into the Atlantic by an apparently disturbed backup pilot who muttered something like “God is great!” One disturbed religious fanatic who is at the controls of a nuclear nation and believes fervently that God is great could be in position to take the whole world down with him.

It is sobering to recall that Governor Strickland, himself an ordained Christian minister, and at the controls of our state government, decided that the Nativity display could remain at the lodge in the Shawnee State Forest, and that no other religious group had the same privilege. Though previously opposed to the extension of gambling, Governor Strickland has recently decided that there should be slot machines at race tracks. Religious displays at Ohio public parks, slot machines at Ohio race tracks–they were both political decisions, I understand, and politicians cannot survive without making compromises and even on occasion sacrificing principles. The recent economic meltdown is a reminder of the wisdom of one of the American proverbs Franklin compiled in Poor Richard’s Almanack: Neither a borrower, nor or a lender be. Perhaps we should add neither a borrower, lender, or a gambler be. What we are doing as a nation when we allow those who think the Founding Fathers were, like themselves, true believers and Christian fundamentalists, is taking a big gamble. We are opening the door to ecclesiastical tyranny, opening the door to those who think they know exactly what God wants us to do, sexually, ethically, and politically. They know exactly because the Bible tells them so.

On this Fourth of July we should remember that one of our Founding Fathers rejected what his father believed, and only after he did was he able to become the extraordinary creative, constructive, revolutionary American that he was. Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love, not Boston, the home of the mean god, was the cradle of liberty. That’s what the Fourth is supposed to be—a celebration of revolutionary change, of the triumph of understanding and tolerance over ignorance and superstition, of liberty and freedom over spiritual and political oppression.

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Ten Commandments of City Council Etiquette

I am told by those who do their civic duty and attend Portsmouth City Council meetings that His Honor Our Lapdog Mayor recently reprimanded a Local Capped Citizen for trying to address that august body through the non-functioning microphone without first taking his John Deere cap off, which is one of the Ten Commandments of City Council Etiquette. His Honor Our Lapdog Mayor is particularly sensitive to displays of disrespect since he is the most disrespected public figure in Scioto County, and particularly at Kroger’s Supermarket where he has been calling in sick and otherwise making a liability of himself for thirty years or more. The Drug-Dealing Pimp who sits to the right of His Honor Our Lapdog Mayor on city council reportedly audibly gasped when he saw the Local Capped Citizen approaching the non-functioning microphone with his cap on. The Drug-Dealing Pimp nudged Sleepy, the councilman to his right, to call his attention to the insult that was about to be perpetrated. The Adulterous Minister who sits on the other side of the council table scowled when he saw the Local Capped Citizen approaching the non-functioning microphone. The Adulterous Minister at an earlier council meeting had publicly reprimanded local citizens for not addressing him as “Reverend,” so he was very sensitive to slights and insults from the capped as well as the uncapped of whatever religion or political party they might belong to.

Of course, Council rules forbid local citizens who speak before Council from mentioning any city official by name. Hebrews of Old Testament times were forbidden to utter the name of God or writing it without leaving out the vowels, as in Y*W*H. So too are citizens addressing the Council forbidden to speak the names of those members of Council, or even allude to them euphemistically as His Honor Our Lapdog Mayor, Drug-Dealing Pimp, Sleepy, Adulterous Minister, etc. If they do mention names, they are ejected by the Chief of Police Chief, known as “Inspector Cluzot,” which nickname he earned in part for his Campaign Against Domestic Bloggers Over Sixty, and in part for his history of Botched Drug Busts of Christian Couples Over Seventy.

As a public service, I have done research on the Ten Commandments of City Council Etiquette and I will present them here with the hope that local fast food restaurants, and the slow ones too, will print them on menus, and that the opening of City Council meetings will include, along with the salute to the flag and the silent prayer, a reading of the Ten Commandments of City Council Etiquette:

1. Thou shalt not wear a hat, cap, or head covering unless it is a requirement of your religious faith, as it is for orthodox Jews, devout Muslims, Catholic women over the age of fifty, and loyal Buckeye fans of all ages and denominations.

2. Thou shalt not in addressing Council mention the name of any city official, nor use any euphemism for same, such as Lapdog Mayor, Drug-Dealing Pimp, etc.

3. Thou shalt not think that His Honor the Lapdog Mayor thinks he has the best job in the world just because he does not have to punch a time clock, can come and go as he pleases, as he often does, and has no one to tell him what to do or when to do it.

4. Thou shalt not take photos or otherwise take notice of His Honor the Lapdog Mayor if you should happen to see him driving over to Kentucky in a city vehicle to buy gas, cigarettes, or lottery tickets.

5. Thou shalt not think, just because several Council members sometimes shut their eyes and have trouble keeping their heads up, that they have dozed off or are otherwise not closely following the important business at hand.

6. Thou shalt not be shocked when a Council member appears to be mathematically challenged, and to not know two and two equal four, or to not remember whether he was instructed to vote yes or no on the particular ordinance on the agenda.

7. Thou shalt not, even if you recently had colon surgery, release any gas during Council meetings, particularly audibly, not when the air-conditioning is on the fritz, and particularly not if you are sitting near His Honor Our Lapdog Mayor’s wife, who is honorary chair of the Journey Within Chapter of the Fart-Free Portsmouth Committee.

8. Thou shalt not think that when a Council member is busy texting during a meeting that he is contacting one of his prostitutes rather than closely following the important business at hand.

9. Thou shalt not think that when a member of Council who is about to be recalled by angry voters but resigns instead is resigning so that Council can immediately appoint a replacement who is every bit as obliging and crooked as he or she was, and possibly even more so.

10. Thou shalt not think that the concerned citizens who come to Council meetings each week, and not the crooked and incompetent members of city government themselves, are the ones who, like the Statue of Liberty, are keeping the promise of democracy alive and the flame of freedom lit.

Wired World

In the last quarter-century or so, and particularly in the last ten years, computer technology has transformed politics tremendously at the international, national, and local levels. The past few months have demonstrated what computer technology is doing on the international level. In today’s (17-06-09) New York Times, columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote, “The unrest unfolding in Iran is the quintessential 21st century conflict,” by which he meant that computer technology is at the heart of the conflict. Every website in Iran became a potential pocket of resistance to the authoritarian government, as did every “twitter” that was sent over the internet, so the government of Iran started blocking websites used by dissidents. Not to be outsmarted, or out-interneted, the dissidents resorted to a free software program developed for dissidents in China, called Freegate, which is small enough to be carried on a flash drive. “Have flash drive, will surf!” could be the motto of these pesky Paladins. With Freegate, a dissident can connect to a server outside China that changes the I.P. address constantly, so the government can’t block it. Messages sent on Freegate can be encrypted and the message easily deleted from the computer on which it was sent.

Guns are a much older form of technology, and in the streets guns trump computers. But streets are not where the conflict between dissidents and governments are ultimately decided, not any more at least. Conflicts are decided one way or another in the hearts and minds of people, and governments and the news media no longer have a monopoly on deciding what constitutes news. Bloggers have helped break that monopoly, and any one of the millions of Americans who own a cell phone camera can scoop the main stream media and the professional journalist. A decisive moment in the Virginia contest for governor occurred when candidate George Allen at a small gathering in a rural setting referred to someone filming the event by a racial slur, calling him a “macaca,” meaning a person of Indian or Pakistani descent. Allen made other serious mistakes, but that one recorded blunder quickly circulated in the blogosphere and was considered to have been the straw that broke the back of his campaign. The internet was crucial to Obama’s campaign for the presidency, making it possible for him to come from far behind to overtake Hillary Clinton and other frontrunners, and then go on to defeat McCain in the general election. The internet, like sex, favors the young, and in no one area did McCain show his age to more disadvantage than in his computer illiteracy. When he admitted he was computer illiterate and that he did not use email, he reinforced the impression, especially among the young, that he was out of touch with the times, lagging behind even most ten-year-olds and perhaps some dogs. In a New Yorker cartoon, one dog, at a computer, says to another dog, “The nice thing about a computer is that no one knows you’re a dog.” Though McCain reportedly owned fourteen dogs, it is unlikely any of them were computer literate. You can’t teach an old dog new technology.

1980

As I pointed out in one of my very first River Vices blogs, back in 2004, and I have repeated in other postings since, local politics have been transformed profoundly by the internet and the blogosphere. Back in 1980, the small clique who controlled Portsmouth politically and economically were able to drive three councilmen from office through a concerted media campaign that involved local radio stations, the Portsmouth Daily Times and local clergy, no less. If the small clique who now control Portsmouth ever look back nostalgically, it would be to that 1980 campaign, with its parades, speeches, and vilification of the councilmen for maliciously standing in the way of progress, by which was meant a new downtown mall. There were concerned citizens in Portsmouth back then, but what did they have to fight back were pathetically few: mimeographed flyers, telephones, and letters to the editor, which may or may not have been printed, and if they were printed probably would be censored, because no criticism of prominent people by name was allowed. That policy still prevails at the Portsmouth Daily Times, but fortunately computer technology and cell phones make it possible for concerned citizens to communicate instantly with hundreds and thousands of people in the local area.

As president of the Shawnee Education Association (SEA), at Shawnee State University, I revived SEA-VIEW, the faculty union newsletter, and, with Jim Flavin, made it available on hard copy and online at the university. But it was the students at SSU who inaugurated a new era in Portsmouth journalism when they published the first paper edition of the Shawnee Sentinel, in 1994; and when they expanded news coverage beyond the university and put the Sentinel online its readership and its influence multiplied exponentially. When Dr. Clive Veri was president and attorney Steve Donohue was Vice President of Practically Everything at SSU they tried to prevent the students from circulating the Shawnee Sentinel on campus, just as the government in Iran and China are trying to clamp down on bloggers and tweeters, but when the Sentinel went online the genie was out of the bottle.

Stifling Bloggers

Still, attempts were made in city government to stifle bloggers and the Shawnee Sentinel in particular. I heard that at one time city employees were told they should not read the Sentinel on city computers, and Portsmouth Police Chief Charles Horner publicly denounced local websites, labeling those who write for them “domestic terrorists,” and he did what he could to restrict what councilman Bob Mollette could post on his website. Along with Bob’s wife Teresa, who has a public information website, the Mollettes used their technological knowhow to clean up the corruption and cronyism. I would not be surprised to learn someday someone is writing a dissertation on the influence of the computer technology on local governments focusing on the the Mollettes as an example of the best of American citizens, a couple willing to spend many thousands of hours and dollars to make local government more responsive to the people.

The semi-official line of the small clique who control Portsmouth, a line parroted by their hirelings in the media, is that there is a small clique of intractable individuals who are making it impossible for the city to move forward with such projects as the renovation of the Marting building. Since it takes a majority to win any election, and since the Marting building has been turned down decisively several times by voters, and since other proposals have been passed that the clique disapproves of and campaigned against how can a small clique be responsible for impeding progress, unless it is the small clique of lawyers and developers who have a stranglehold on the city? It is a majority of the voters of Portsmouth who are opposed to the corrupt clique, a majority who are computer literate and who know better than to believe everything they read on the editorial pages of the Portsmouth Daily Times or hear from Steve Hayes on WXNT. There was a time when the people of Portsmouth had no other source for local news, when they could be manipulated and brainwashed by those who controlled the media, but those days have come to an end in our city, just as we hope they will in Iran and China. Internationally, nationally, and locally, technology has liberated people from ignorance, rescued them from isolation, and united them in the cause of truth and justice. Through wireless communications, the whole world is wired.

I will stop now. My cell phone with a megapixel camera is ringing and my computer is tweeting.

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No Justice in Portsmouth

317 Front Street

I've heard a number of times in the last twenty years that one of the things that has accelerated the economic decline of Portsmouth has been the practice of excluding outside businesses from getting a foothold. The Chamber of Commerce and civic leaders would strongly deny this accusation. Undoubtedly, the Chamber of Commerce and public officials are all for new businesses, in principle. However, what an individual is strongly for in principle, and in general, will not necessarily be what he is for in practice, not when it is his particular business that would face more competition. "Not in my backyard!"

A current possible example of this "Not in my backyard!" attitude might be the obstacles the city is placing in the way of J. & P. Caulking, Inc., a Columbus-based construction and renovation business that has bought several old buildings in downtown Portsmouth and begun to restore them. In November 2008, the owners of J. & P. Caulking, Paul Adkins and his family, bought a three-story brick building on 317 Front St. for $12,900. I was told that 317 Front St. had previously been condemned by the city. Built in 1900, according records in the County Auditor's office, the tall narrow building was in danger of collapsing, but the Adkinses  thought it could be stabilized and renovated. Their plan was to create apartments on the two top floors and an ice cream parlor on the ground floor. The city granted the new owners a building permit, but it wasn't long before Larry Justice began bugging the Adkinses about one thing and another. If anybody should be hauled in to court because of rundown property, it is Justice himself, for the building in which he once had a manufacturing business, on Spring Lane, is an embarrassment to the city, as I pointed out in a previous blog. 

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Since he is the Residential Building Inspector, the Sidewalk Inspector, the Code Enforcement Officer, and the Land Reutilization point man, Justice is in position to do a lot of mischief. Most recently, he had warned the Adkinses that the color they are painting the side of the building is not a color the Architectural Review Board would approve, and the large display windows that have been installed on the ground floor are not acceptable either. Why not? The windows are manufactured by Peachtree Doors and Windows, a solid Wisconsin company that has been in business for over forty years, so the Adkinses cannot be accused of using shoddy materials. Instead of harassing and impeding the Adkinses, the city should be doing everything it can to help and encourage them to restore 317 Front St.

Stop Work Order

I think a review board is a good thing for any community to have, but it is not a good thing to use as a political tool to harass outside contractors trying to do business in the city, especially when that outside contractor is investing many thousands of dollars to renovate a building that has some architectural value but a building that constitutes a public hazard as long as it stands as it is, looking like it could be blown over in a good wind storm. If the city is not going to seize the building as a hazard to the public, and go through the expense of tearing it down; if the city is going to grant the Adkinses a permit to renovate the building, then it shouldn't harass them and order all work on the building stopped because of the color the east side of the building is being painted and because the design of the windows on the front are not up to the Architectural Review Board standards. Give us a break, please! This is Portsmouth where so many of Neal Hatcher's properties were for years allowed to become an eyesore and the neighborhoods they are in become hangouts for drug dealers and prostitutes. This is Portsmouth where there are still neighborhoods that look like rattraps and breeding grounds for poverty, drugs and prostitution. And yet Larry Justice has ordered all work on 317 Front St. stopped because the color of the paint on the side and the design of the new windows allegedly do not conform to the design  standards of the Review Board.

The city appears to be harassing the Adkinses about another building they are in the process of restoring, at 1511 3rd St., on the east side of the city, a neighborhood that needs more than a face lift: it needs major surgery. But the city and Larry Justice ordered work on 1511 3rd stopped because of the equipment parked outside the building. There is a crying need for parking space, don't you know? Ordering the Adkinses to stop working on 1511 3rd St. because their equipment is taking up parking space is like towing away a doctor's car while he is inside treating a patient.

Why is the city and Larry Justice doing this? Is it just random stupidity and incompetence? Or is there a jealous contractor who had hoped to pick up 317 Front St. for a pittance but was surprised when the Adkinses came along and paid $12,900 for a building that had been condemned and would require many thousands of dollars to renovate? When I say jealous developer I don't mean Neal Hatcher but rather a minor league developer. But it is not the minor league developer but Justice who may be in the best position to impede outsiders, who are not close to the ruling clique that the Building Inspector and Mayor Kalb obligingly serve. One of the ironies is that Justice complains about the  color of paint and the design of windows at 317 Front St. do not conform to Portsmouth's high architectural standards while the building in which  Justice once conducted a business (Quality Sheathing Co.) on Spring Lane, is a sight to behold and has been for many years. When Justice  failed to pay Workmen's Compensation taxes, the state put a a lien on his property and got a judgment against him for $7,053.76. Justice has been officially reprimanded in writing at least twice, once for lying to his immediate superior about an important zoning matter, and again for his contacts with a state official, in which he claimed authority and a job title that he did not possess. Not only has the state got him for not paying taxes, SOMC has had to take him to court to pay a hospital bill. Is it too much to hope that, next year, in addition to a new mayor, Portsmouth may also have a new building inspector? That would be a situation in which no Justice would be welcomed.

817 Spring Lane, site of deadbeat Justice's failed business.

Apple Falls

             Apple  Falls

Everyone's a  relative.
They  couldn't be nicer to you.
Kinship's a great palliative
If you're not drunk and feeling blue.

He hears, downstream, rushing water,
The turbulence of Apple  Falls,
Like Susanna, his stepdaughter,
Twisting the heads off of her dolls.

Leaning over in the canoe,
He plucks a solitary straw,
Takes another swig of brew,
Gaping in the collateral maw

Of kinship, looking for some clues
To what the patriarch Paw-Paw,
What the brothers,  uncles, nephews,
Might  do to his damned  son-in-law.

After the  last  drop of liquor,
He  stops paddling, begins to nod,
Drifting, drifting, down  Red River,
Like a straw in the hand of God.

Robert Forrey

[I maintain a poetry blog at http://xpalidosis.blogspot.com ]

Gaming the System

America’s favorite pastime is no longer baseball; it is gaming the system, whatever the particular system may happen to be. And no state may be quite as good as Ohio, or any city in Ohio as good as Portsmouth, at gaming the system.

What is meant by “gaming the system” is when the players in any system, by breaking or at least manipulating the rules, subvert the system for their individual advancement or enrichment. Two large systems currently being gamed to death are Wall Street and major league baseball. The recent international financial meltdown was the result of financial players making enormous profits by bending and breaking the rules, that is by gaming the unregulated sector of the financial system. Banks had to play by rules that were instituted after the the Crash of 1929, but players in hedge funds and derivatives did not. Hedge funds and derivatives did not have to report their holdings and activities; did not have to maintain a minimum balance; did not have to make an accounting to federal or state agencies; did not, generally, have to do anything that would interfere with their freedom to game the system and fleece investors of billions.

A corresponding kind of deregulation and gaming took place in major league baseball. Because of lax oversight by the office of the baseball commissioner and the collusion of the union, cheating players were able to use performance enhancing drugs and supplements to bulk up like the Hulk and break records with banal frequency. When he appeared to testify before a committee in Washington, the retired slugger Mark McGwire, no longer on steroids, looked like the incredible shrunken man. Not just McGwire’s, but many of the records set in the major leagues in the last twenty years have become suspect, and the integrity of the game, and the huge profits tied to it, are in jeopardy.

Shadow Government

In Portsmouth, unscrupulous lawyers and developers have been gaming the system for almost half a century. They are able to do it in part because a form of deregulation took place in the early 1960s with the creation of a so-called “community improvement corporation,” which morphed into the Southern Ohio Growth Partnership. The SOGP is a private corporation, but, in conjunction with its acronymic cronies, the GPEC, CAOSC, SOPA, etc., it has become a shadow government with much more money and power at its disposal than the pathetic city government that operates out of the Municipal Building. In 1964, the Portsmouth City Council declared that the predecessor of the SOGP, the Portsmouth Area Community Improvement Corporation, had a mandate “To promote the health, safety, morals [sic!] and general welfare of the inhabitants of the community . . .” “General welfare,” is a broad category that can and apparently has meant anything and everything having to do with the citizens of Portsmouth, including high school athletics.

What safeguards and rules did the City Council establish to insure the SOGP was not going to abuse its mandate and pull any fast ones? None whatsoever. The City Council provided the SOGP with a blank check, allowing the unelected and unregulated members of the SOGP, and their colluding allies, to fill in the blanks and do what they wanted, and what they wanted, not surprisingly, was usually to promote their own interests. Unlike public officials, the SOGP does not need to rely on or seek approval from voters. The SOGP does not need to placate the most vocal group in any community, the taxpaying property owners. The SOGP relies instead on rebates, dowager dollars, and, in particular, pork, a financial steroid provided by the government. Rebates, dowager dollars and pork provide the SOGP and its surrogates with the money to finance “community improvements,” which include everything from new offices for the SOGP (the Welcome Center) to a new high school athletic complex, a complex as impressive, according to original designs, as the televangelist Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral, in California. In the worst recession since the Great Depression, in one of the most chronically depressed crime- and drug-ridden cities in Ohio, a multi- million dollar high school athletic complex is being built in the center of the city. In any other chronically depressed city, a multi-million dollar high school athletic complex might not rank near the top of municipal priorities, especially since the city already owns a historic municipal football stadium (built for the forerunners of the Detroit Lions) and a baseball field that has served high school athletes and a minor league base team well enough until now.

Shell Games within Shell Games

It’s one thing when children or adolescents play games; it’s another when dishonest adults do. The game the adults are playing is, in effect, pin the tail on the donkey, the donkey in this case being the hard-pressed property owners of Portsmouth, and the tail that is pinned on them being the property taxes that will be used to help pay for the long term maintenance of the athletic complex. Shell games are being played within shell games, a shell game being a swindle in which something of value (millions of dollars) is paid to Hatcher for something of little or no value (the blighted property he acquired to build a mall that did not materialize). Will the athletic complex bring new revenues into the city? Not likely. The tax base of the downtown area, further depleted by the new non-taxpaying public university will be further eroded by removing hundreds of additional acres of property permanently from the city’s tax base.

If we can’t have a mall, or a gambling casino, let’s have a high school athletic complex that is one part Woody Hayes and three parts Donald Trump. How did Portsmouth, without debate or the approval of voters, get a multi-million-dollar high school athletic complex? The athletic complex is the result not of a pressing need or of long-range careful planning but rather of the need to bail out the local developer, Neal Hatcher, who had acquired hundreds of pieces of property in the center of the city with the aim of building a mall. He ended up owning at least twenty-three pieces of property on John Street, once the la Rue Saint-Denis of Portsmouth’s prostitutes. Hatcher’s mall never materialized, just as the mall back in 1980 never materialized. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, Portsmouth’s dream of a mall is insane. The craziness resulted in Hatcher having on his hands hundreds of pieces of property he helped blight, acquired through means both underhanded and heavy handed, such as eminent domain, means that have made him infamous locally.

Go Bucks!

With the cooperation of our corrupt city government, money laundering foundations, and the Portsmouth City School system, he unloaded his mall-apropism off on the public, just as the Marting Foundation did the Marting building, just as the Thatchers did their house on Franklin Boulevard, just as Dr. Rooney did his house on Camelot Drive, just as George Clayton did his Kenrick’s building on Second Street, and just as Dr. Singer did his festering eyesore on Washington Street. But when it comes to gaming the system, none of these crooks can compare to Hatcher, who is the Woody Hayes of Portsmouth and whose war cry should be (what else?) “Go Bucks!”

I love football and played it in high school and would not have gone on to college if I hadn't. But think of the pressure on high school athletes who will have to prove worthy of this Roman- or Trojan-like high school complex. Think of what will happen if the team ever ends a season with a 1 and 9 record, as Woody Hayes did in 1940, at New Philadelphia High School. Think of the scandals we have to look forward to when high school coaches and athletes cut the ethical corners that have historically been cut at Ohio State to meet the expectations of rabid Buckeye fans like Mike Mearan shouting, “We’re number one! We’re number one!” In a state where being number one in anything else appeared out or reach, being number one in college football was all that was left. If having “Road Rage” Hayes stomping the sidelines, punching reporters, officials, and even players; if having a notorious sore loser like him as coach and playing a schedule that somehow managed to avoid Notre Dame, the perennial powerhouse; if that was the price Ohio had to pay to be number one in something, well so be it.

Let’s hope Portsmouth can avoid similar shenanigans, but don’t bet on it. If you believe winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing; if you say you believe in competition but fix games and that you believe in democracy but “fix” city officials the way dowagers do lapdogs; if you say you believe in God but worship money, then you can’t help cheating, you can’t help gaming the system, because that’s the only way you can win. The current recession has resulted in the postponement of half of the athletic complex, but of course not the half that includes the football stadium. What we have to look forward to, however grim the next couple of years may be, is not bread and circuses, but Crispie Cream donuts and high school football games. Let the gaming begin!

Incredible Shrinking DAILY TIMES

Our anorexic local newspaper, the Portsmouth Daily Times, recently announced that because of shrinking revenues from advertisers it will no longer publish on Mondays. It will shrink from a seven-day to a six-day newspaper. Though it was not mentioned in the public statement, shrinking circulation probably factored into the equation. The paper claims a circulation of about 12,000, but someone who worked at the paper said PDT routinely inflates circulation. Truth, whether in regard to circulation or local politics, is not the PDT’s strong suit.

Over the last half century, because of shrinking circulation, the PDT has been decreasing in pages and increasing in price. On January 1, 1960, the paper contained 34 pages and sold for 7 cents. On January 1, 1970, it contained 38 pages and sold for 10 cents. On January 1, 1980, it contained 18 pages and sold for 20 cents. On January 1, 1990, it contained 16 pages and sold for 30 cents. On January 1, 2000, it contained 16 pages and sold for 50 cents. As of January 1, 2009, it contained 16 pages and sold for 50 cents. Even allowing for inflation, the cost per page to the reader has gone upward steadily with the passing years. A single page of the paper now costs the reader who gets it from a machine about fifteen times as much (ouch!) as in 1960.

The shrinkage in the number of pages and the cost per capita per reader reflects, in part, the shrinkage in Portsmouth’s population over the last century. In 1907, the city’s population was approximately 50,000; in 1950, it was approximately 35,000; in 2000, it was 20,909. In 2005, it had slipped, in one estimate, to 19,072. The 2010 census will probably show a further decrease. . The decline in Portsmouth’s population reflected the decline of heavy industry in the U.S. and in the Midwest in particular. The decline was what could be expected in an American Rust Belt city, and then some.

Shrinking in Influence and Moral Stature

Though it is not as easy to measure, there are some statistics to suggest that the Portsmouth Times has shrunk in terms of influence and moral stature in the community since it was founded in 1861 by twenty-one-year-old James W, Newman. According to Nelson Evan’s A History of Scioto County (1903), the Portsmouth Times, with Newman as owner and editor, “early became prosperous and attained a wide influence and prosperity.” Under a new ownership, it became a daily in 1894. “So far as circulation was concerned,” according to Evans, “the Daily Times bounded into almost instantaneous popularity.” Its success was all the more impressive because the paper was Democratic in its political sympathies though Portsmouth was staunchly Republican. That changed in the twentieth century, of course, with the paper becoming rabidly right wing.

With the formation in 1962 of what later became the Southern Ohio Growth Partnership, the instrument was created by which a handful of men, largely Republicans, were able to control the shrinking and decaying city economically and politically. Through pork and government monies, and Foundation finagling, they learned how to make poverty pay. A culture of dependency replaced a culture of enterprise and competition. City government was corrupted and city officials became puppets. Portsmouth became a a company town but without the company. Because the PDT became the mouthpiece of the Southern Ohio Growth Partnership, and the lawyers and developers who dominated it, the PDT’s name became mud with many citizens. Most newspapers are now experiencing extreme financial problems and a number are on the verge or already have folded, but the PDT has an additional problem. It has earned the enmity of a number of Portsmouth citizens who believe it is biased in its reporting and subservient editorially to the lawyers and developers who control the economic and political life of the city. Some of those critics of the PDT had this to say when I asked them for their reaction to the Monday cutback. “Given the nature of that rag, will it really matter?” “Maybe they should take some lessons from the Cleveland or Akron newspapers and do some real investigative reporting, but then they would lose all their crony advertisers!”“Maybe they should just make it a weekend paper, that way it will at least have more than 6 pages.” “I do not waste my fifty cents on it, so I won’t miss it anyway!” “Speak the truth and the truth will set you free.”

The First Rule

In the first forty years of its existence, the Times, as a weekly and daily, had only three editors. The turnover among editors and reporters has been high in the twenty years I’ve been in Portsmouth. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I thought the high turnover was not just because of the low pay but because anybody with any self-respect, not to mention journalistic ethics, would get out as soon as they could, because if they stayed around for very long, they would end up getting fired, as two veteran reporters, Mike Deaterla and Jeff Barron, were last year. Not given to investigative reporting or liberal opinions. Barron was fired for making the mistake of mentioning that somebody arrested for dealing drugs was employed as a mechanic at Glockner Motors. A PDT reporter must never ever report anything that might embarrass a bigwig or a business that advertises in the PDT. That is a rule that should be hanging on the wall of the press room on 5^th St. I didn’t think an editor could have been any more obliging to the SOGP than Arthur Kuhn was, but after he was fired not too long ago he was replaced by Jason Lovins, who has shown there were depths of casuistry and deceit that Kuhn apparently would or could not sink to.

It Pays Not to Advertise

Speaking of shrinking influence, it may pay to advertise, but not in the PDT. Look at what Jim Kalb’s ludicrous thousands-of-tiny words full-page ad in the May 3 PDT got him in the May 5 primary election. He lost by more than a 2 to 1 margin to a newcomer, Jane Murray, who ran no ad in the PDT, not even a teensy-weensy one. Kalb came out first in only one of the city’s twenty-four precincts; she won in twenty-two of them. Kalb had learned nothing from city solicitor David Kuhn who in 2007 spent thousands of dollars in PDT ads, including a quarter-page ad in which he boasted that he had the support of such local luminaries as Mike Mearan and Clay Johnson! Kuhn was clobbered in the election.

In influencing voters and swaying public opinion, an ad in the PDT is about as effective as an editorial in the PDT. Whatever position the PDT takes, the public opposes in the voting booth. I hope before much more time goes by that the shrinking PDT will completely disappear. The disappearance of the shrinking PDT will represent a step forward, not a step back for the city. I call it the Prostitute Daily Times. I look forward to the day when there are no prostitutes or PDT dispensers on the street corners of Portsmouth.