Vegas, Atlantic City, Akron

Kyle from The Chief Source and Ben from Keeler Political Report today posted reports with video about the "skill games" parlors opening in The Valley. There are now two on Portage Path and one on Merriman in the convenience store there.

The reports are great. The boys when in and tried their hands and Kyle, having just returned from Vegas, offers expert testimony that this is gambling:



I've been watching these parlors for a while but haven't gotten around to posting yet. You can read my previous thoughts about the skill games issue.

Some additional thoughts:

Honestly, if I had the choice between allowing table games and undercover slots, I'd go with the table games which are incrementally less evil.

The City of Green is considering licensing skill games which should make for a home rule battle with conservatives on the side of cities for a change.

The latest information I can find on the efforts to legislatively proscribe skill games is from July first. By the way, that article quotes the operator of an Akron game parlor, but it doesn't say which one.

I'll try to track down what is happening with the court case, settlement and public records controversy that prompted the last post on the issue and post an update.

Highland Square in a State of FLUX

I drove through Highland Square today and noticed a sign in the window of, well, of The Part of the Big Building that Doesn't House Chipotle. It says tomorrow night The Part of the Big Building that Doesn't House Chipotle will house a one-night art show called Flux. The show will feature artists local to the neighborhood. As of this morning the floor of the space was gravel and the only art was a large pottery piece recognizably made by a potter who works out of a storefront on Doppler.

Other than the signs on TPBBDHC, I've heard nothing about it. According to the sign, the show is sponsored by Albrecht, Inc. which may explain things. It will be interesting to see how well it is attended by Square folk.

Breaking: Russ Pry Is New County Executive

From the Beacon Journal:

The Summit County Democratic Central Committee has tapped county Democratic Party Chairman Russell M. Pry to be the new county executive.

Tonight's vote at Akron's North High School was 201-38.

Pry will finish the term of the now-retired James McCarthy and will have the option of running for election to a full four-year term in November 2008.

From Akron News Now:

While gaining this position, he'll have to resign from the Akron Public Library Board and Summit County Board of Elections. But that's not a concern to him, right now he wants to focus on the county and the economy was the topic of discussion.

He was pleased to be chosen and said that his leadership in the community makes him qualified for the job.

ANN also has audio up of Russ talking about economic development.

Absent word that he plans to step down as Party Chair, we presume he will not. Which will be interesting.

Quinny Numbers: Strickland Soaring and Trouble for George

The latest Quinnipiac U poll in Ohio is mostly good news for Governor Strickland. He has a 61% approval rating and a microscopic 15% disapprove of his job performance. One unreported stat: 15% disapprove of Strickland and all those people write conservative blogs (grin.)

Seriously, the numbers reflect a few things. First off is, the Governor's brilliant budget strategy. I've hashed this before but it's worth repeating: The Governor proposed a modest budget that moved the ball on his priorities but carried no deal breakers and didn't exceed his grasp.

Second, I think people understand that we have a Governor who actually has leadership ability, in contrast to the blank space that was Bob Taft. That in itself may be enough to give Strickland an extended honeymoon.

The potentially bad news is the perception of Ohio's economy. Right now the Governor is riding high in spite of the economic problems -- real and perceived -- bedeviling Ohioans. This won't last indefinitely.

Meanwhile, the numbers on the state's U.S. Senators are a study in contrasts. Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich have similar approvals - Brown 44%, Voinovich 45%. But Voinovich's disapproval rating of 34% dwarfs Brown's 19%. Moreover, much of Voinovich's strong disapproval comes from defecting Republicans. 32% of Republicans disapprove of Voinovich, while only 12% of Democrats disapprove of Brown.

Similarly, each Senator has similar approval numbers among Independents -- Brown 41%, Voinovich 40%. But for Brown only 22% of Independents disapprove versus 35% for Voinovich, suggesting that he is weak among both left-leaning and right-leaning Independents. Finally, Voinovich's disapprovals among White Born-Again Evangelical Christians are an ugly 34%.

This confirms my suspicions about a fundamental tension for Republicans. Mike DeWine's loss was evidence that an Ohio Republican needs the right wing of the party to mobilize to win. Ken Blackwell's crushing defeat indicates that the right wing alone can't put an ultra-conservative over the line. And the numbers on Voinovich are the latest indication that the party's right wing is unwilling to compromise on moderate politicians for the sake of winning elections.

All of which is good news for Democrats, but we can't be complacent. The current environment makes it difficult for Republicans to win, but Republicans losing is not the same as Democrats winning. The new crop of statewide officials needs to start notching some real successes if this is to be anything more than a temporary deviation from Ohio's rightward trend.

The Mayor on Highland Square.

We all are wondering what the hell is going on with Highland Square. The new buildings are up, but as of now we have only one spot filled -- with a Chipotle restaurant, no less. So far no grocery store and nothing but rumors about other possible businesses moving in.

Highland Square Neighborhood Association waxes conspiratorially about all this. In particular they think that no grocery has moved in because Steve Albrect, who new buildings, doesn't want the competition for his Acme #1 down the street. As for the lack of other tenants, I've heard everything from he charges too much rent to he's holding the neighborhood "hostage" for more parking.

I'm no fan of Steve Albrect, but this is ridiculous. He didn't sink millions of dollars into the neighborhood to let the buildings stand vacant earning him no money. He's a lot of things, but he's not a suicidal businessman and that would be business suicide.

HSNA Gadfly President Lisa Bostwick took this worldview to Monday night's Akron City Council meeting. Council was meeting to consider the Eastgate Urban Renewal project. As the Akron Beacon Journal reported, she spoke out against the project in Goodyear Heights based on the vacancies in Highland Square. Akron News Now has audio of Plusquellec's response which at that point was notably calm, diplomatic and respectful. I've heard that after that response Bostwick continued to press her case and things got testier.

Plusquellec says that both the Albrect and the city have met with potential businesses and that Albrect has turned down a national ice cream franchise because it's not appropriate to the neighborhood. In other words, it might put Akron landmark Mary Coyle's Ice Cream out of business. I heard the rumor of a Hansen's Ice Cream moving in, so now we know what happened to that.

I appreciate the work HSNA did in persuading Albrect against turning the neighborhood into a strip mall. But the way things have devolved into name-calling and paranoia saddens me. They've diminished their victory and may well push the parties into making some decisions that would be truly disastrous for the neighborhood.

It just might be that the difficulty finding tenants may have something to do with the overabundance of retail space in Northeast Ohio. After all, a newly built strip mall off 77 at the Ridgewood Road exit still isn't at 100% occupancy after over a year and for months was home to nothing more than a tanning salon.

Top Chef -- I'm Ready for My Close-Up Mr. Colicchio

Unable to find a freelance Top Chef blog, I'm stepping up. Pull up a chair, open a fine vintage and snark with me. Those who want all policy all the time, sorry. And yes, there will be spoilers.

The following I blogged more or less in real time.

The suspense factor in this show suffers a bit from what Roger Ebert calls The Unmotivated Close-up. With a dozen contestants, you can pretty much figure out who the bottom and top will be by whom the camera focuses on in the kitchen and whose in-competition interviews air. As of now, we know almost nothing about Sara N, Casey or Camille (except that the producers went for some eye candy this season) because none has been in either the top or bottom.

This week we have an unmotivated close-up in the scenes from the previous episode. Usually we see scenes of the week’s winner and the chef who ends up packing knives. This week we get a fair amount of detail about Lia who was in the bottom four but survived. As I write this, I’m guessing that she either stages a comeback or she’s heading home.

Quickfire.

Again the Unmotivated Close-up is telling. The first interview of the day is with Casey. Casey is one of four chefs who get an interview about how they came up with their dishes. And Casey wins the quickfire.

The problem with Top Chef, in contrast to other reality/contrast shows, is that we in the audience are missing the key information – how stuff tastes. This is a good example. I’m hard pressed to imagine a French toast with foie gras, but apparently Casey made it work.

Elimination Challenge

There’s drama when they pick teams, we have the Howie and Joey pairing that has been the theme of the ads for this week, with the now-immune Casey rounding out the three. More drama as Howie and Joey are ticked off at Casey’s attitude.

And then a hot tub shot. As I mentioned, the producers recruited some hot female chefs this year. Not as easy as it sounds as people who spend all day tasting butter and cream often have the waistlines to prove it. The show has never been about hotties, and the near-hotties in past casts have all taken early showers. Now we have a hot tub in the loft and for two weeks running we’ve had a shot of one or more shapely, bikini-clad female chefs taking a soak. It’s just possible that Bravo wants to move beyond the core gays-and-chicks demographic for their reality slate. And by the way, they teased last episodes hot tub shot. Just possible.

As the challenge plays out, it looks unnecessarily difficult. Not enough money, too little time, no access to a pantry. I mean really, Team Tuna runs out of soy sauce?

Judge's Table

The Unmotivated Closeup comes through again. Lia wins it all. Olive oil poached shrimp sounds intriguing. I may have to check out the recipe.

Wow. In all likelihood someone is going home because of a teammate. Team Tuna is in the bottom because Casey forgot to correct the seasoning in her tartar. The first rule of cooking is Taste Everything. Whatever tensions grew between the teammates before appear forgotten – they are united against the bullying of the judge’s table.

Team Pineapple is in trouble because they tried dessert at Dale’s suggestion but from the sounds of it, he was the strongest of the three. But didn’t anyone see either of the two previous seasons? Dessert is death on this show. They brought on one pastry chef and even she couldn’t pull off a dessert. Of course she was last year’s attempt at bringing on a cutie, which didn’t work on any leve.

And packing her knives is Camille. Since the judges said it was the worst dish of the lot, not a surprising choice. Among other things, she was lead bikini in the last two hot tub shots. It was a close up, but not unmotivated.

Kucinich Toasted in TNR

Absolutely hilarious piece on The Koosh just posted in The New Republic. For those of you who don't care to register, here's a taste:

As the underest of underdogs, it's Kucinich's right--and perhaps even his duty--to project an unrealistically outsized aura of confidence. But it would be hard for this confidence to be more misplaced. For one thing, there's the fresh memory of the Ohio Representative's 2004 run for the White House . . . And then there's the reality of Kucinich's current campaign, which is actually in worse shape than the last one.

After all, in 2004, Kucinich managed to raise a respectable $13 million and had the support of a coterie of lefty celebrities, including Joaquin Phoenix and Danny Glover. This time around, Kucinich has taken in less than $350,000, according to the most recent campaign finance reports; and his most notable supporter is his new wife, Elizabeth, who--being 31 years younger and about a half-foot taller than her husband--turns many heads when she accompanies him on the campaign trail. (Elizabeth was not, for the record, a contestant in Kucinich's 2004 first lady search.) Worst of all, Kucinich has watched Mike Gravel fill the gadfly role in the race, stealing his thunder on Iraq and other issues at the two Democratic debates. Indeed, about the only thing as fantastical as Kucinich's claim that he'll be elected president is his claim that he's running in the first place.

Kucinich's '08 gambit is less a presidential campaign than it is an elaborate fiction. That's because, aside from participating in the debates, he does virtually none of the things a presidential candidate does.

And:

Even the straightforward task of public relations--which, for a money-strapped candidate like Kucinich, is crucial, since his campaign's lifeblood is free media--seems to be an afterthought. A reporter trying to reach the Kucinich campaign gets routed to press secretary David Bright's cell phone--which Bright rarely answers, because, as he explains in his outgoing message, he lives in "rural Maine," where cell phone coverage is spotty.

And:

So Kucinich wages a Potemkin campaign. He declares that he expects to be president while he does nothing that would make that possibility, remote as it already is, closer to being a reality. Every politician, to be sure, lives in a bubble; but Kucinich's campaign exists in its own biosphere. On his recent swing through New Hampshire, he began his day at a high school in the university town of Durham, where a group called "Teaching Peace" was holding a conference. There, amid booths selling "Unscented Peace Vigil Votives" and Native American crafts, he mingled with about 100 people. Many of the adults already seemed to know him. One, a self-described "awakening coach" named Robert Foulkrod, first met Kucinich when he came to a retreat on Foulkrod's Maine farm 20 years ago. "I'm trying to inspire the city of Nashua to be organized for Dennis," he explained, before adding, "I'm not organizing it myself. I'm into awakening people. Do you know anyone in Nashua?" Meanwhile, Kucinich's attempts to win the support of those he didn't personally know--namely, the high school students in attendance--were largely for naught. "I'm not old enough to vote," one explained apologetically after Kucinich asked for her support. "But you're old enough to influence thousands!" he pleaded in response.

Since Blue Gal is the blogger I respect most who actually considers Kucinich's more than an elaborate joke, I surfed by her site to see if there is a defense of her guy, but so far no.

Instead, here's a YouTube she participated in, responding to Glennn Beccckkk's tasteless jokes about his marriage. BG and some compatriot Dennis fans basically took a page from the Chuck Norris lists. It takes a while to get to the point, but it's actually funny. And since it's about Kucinich I'll add: intentionally funny.