Now that the cattle cops have hogtied that psychocow, I suppose that means we have six more weeks of raging boycott. Dang. The cow stuff was more fun than the boycott bull that is running amok.

        Some news lately makes me want to jump a fence and spend a week in the woods at Mount Storm Park.

        • Can't manage: Since City Manager John Shirey cleaned out his desk, a steady drip of embarrassing scandals is leaking out of City Hall. Excessive and costly cell-phone use. Employees caught using city computers to surf porn sites all day — and nothing done about it. Ridiculous overtime for salaried managers. Now Councilman Pat DeWine is looking into improper use of city cars. Is there any doubt now that Mr. Shirey should have been fired a year ago?

        • Rated R for a reason: I saw Black Hawk Down the other day. What a surprise to see a movie that is faithful to the book, fair to our soldiers and doesn't sour it all with anti-war rants. Hoo-ah! It's a good movie made more poignant by our sudden appreciation of the men who fight our battles.

        But during the very realistic profanity and grisly scenes of men being blown to bits, I wondered: What kind of self-centered so-called “adult” takes a 9-year-old kid to an R-rated movie? The little boy sitting in front of me was with his grandmother and her boyfriend, I gathered. Grandmothers have changed a lot. They used to know the difference between indulgence and borderline child neglect.

        • If only: Imagine how Cincinnati Mayor Ken Blackwell would handle the boycott. Polls showed the Ohio secretary of state could have defeated Charlie Luken and Courtis Fuller. But he said no when the Republican Party recruited him.

Demand this

        Too bad. As a respected strong black mayor he could tell the boycotters that they represent nobody — and make it stick. And I'd like to see them call him an “Uncle Tom” for not climbing aboard the race train that is dragging our city over a cliff.

        • Contempt of court: Why is federal judge Susan Dlott allowing the Black United Front to negotiate in bad faith in mediation to settle a racial profiling lawsuit, while extorting boycott demands outside the courtroom? If that's “mediation,” I'd hate to see a double-cross.

        • Prince of a guy: The artist formerly known as a punch line is a real Prince after all. His spokesman says he did not cancel a show here because of the boycott, and never talked to boycott leaders. That flatly contradicts claims by the boycotters that Prince told them he would join the boycott. So who's twisting the truth? My guess is the reverends formerly known as reasonable.

What bias?

        • “What smell?”: Network execs are in deep denial about the No. 1 bestseller Bias by Bernard Goldberg. But there's a reason it's so popular: Americans are fed up with liberal bias and opinions peddled as “news.” Media bosses stridently deny bias. But I guess it's like living next door to a landfill — they've been breathing polluted air so long they can't even smell it.

        • Oh, boycott: And to all who called to join my Coalition of Really Annoying Protesters: Sorry, but boycott leaders have not invited us to join their campaign to cripple Cincinnati. They don't need our CRAP. It's already their leading export.

        Contact Peter Bronson at 768-8301; fax: 768-8610; e-mail: pbronson@enquirer.com. Cincinnati.Com keyword: Bronson.

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