OK, so yes, it is teh funny to gawk at the Ohio GOP gubernatorial primary these days. A frequent lunchtime topic of conversation at my office is just how much more painful it could be to watch Ken Blackwell and Jim Petro try to outdo one another. The spectacle is something we should probably be greatful for, because for the moment, it’s taken away some of the attention on just how pathetically inept the Ohio Democratic primaries are about to become.

Three candidates in the gubernatorial primary? Nope; after an embarrassing round of “we’re not really trying to make this endorsement process difficult for anyone” (see, for instance, ODP Chair Chris Redfern actually calling a blogger to reassure her that they’re not trying to make Fingerhut drop out of the race), lo and behold, Fingerhut’s out. (Not that I think he had much of a chance in the primary, anyway, but come on, it’s a primary.)

Then there’s the now-contested race between Paul Hackett and longtime Congressman Sherrod Brown for the chance (chance!) to run against Mike DeWine in November — Hackett declared first, Brown later only when he sensed some vulnerability in DeWine’s seat. Only now there’s pressure on Hackett to drop out of the Senate race and go back to Cincinnati to run against Jean Schmidt again, leaving the field clear for Brown — which is suddenly trumpeted as “Hackett definitely out” from some quarters. (No definite response from the Hackett campaign yet.)

Oy. Bickering over who should go to which race in order to make it “easy” for the party’s preferred candidates kind of, I don’t know, defeats the purpose of the primary, yes? Save it for November, guys.

(Chris‘s on-the-money post on the subject is what spurred all of this tonight, so start there and work your way through the links. Worthwhile reading.)

UPDATE: Hell, I hadn’t even finished the last post edit and he dropped out.

I’ve kind of stayed out of the whole “Mohammed cartoons” thing because it seems like it’s too big to get around (on the one hand, if the group reacting to the photos were here in the States, I’d probably dismiss them out of hand as crackpots and crybabies — but because it seems like it’s now at least a couple of sovereign nations doing the “crying”, it’s harder for me to be so glib.)

But then I see things like this:

and it’s harder to be quite so undecided. (The photo is an AP photo from Nairobi, Kenya; the link is here.)

Found this at the Volokh Conspiracy, where I also saw this story about similar reaction to an editorial cartoon published in the Akron Beacon-Journal which (I thought, anyway) very clearly pokes fun at the way in which news organizations are dodging coverage of the issue rather than the Islamic religion itself. You can read for yourself, but the gist is that Muslim groups in Akron are condemning the paper for even that.

…

Not wanting to leave a poor taste in everyone’s mouths after that, I’ll relate a story from yesterday’s Mass at St. Francis. I don’t know how it came about, but a couple of guys from Turkey — Muslims — were hosting a special feast in the church basement after Mass. One of them made his invitation pitch from the pulpit at the end of Mass, and from what I could gather (his accent was pretty thick), it was a celebration in rememberance of Noah and the flood, a story present in both Christian and Muslim traditions. After the flood, Noah and his family had to mix together all of the meager food they had on the Ark and made some kind of pudding with it in order to share and celebrate being saved, and apparently the tradition now is that you cook this pudding up and share it with friends and neighbors, Christian and Muslim alike.

Anyway, so this guy got up and gave his spiel in heavily accented English, and when it was all done, the whole church applauded. I don’t know exactly why (it’s not like everyone who gets up to make an announcement gets applause), but it was nice to see.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.

Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was in stable condition in the intensive care unit of a Corpus Christi hospital Sunday, said Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Health System.

The accident occurred Saturday at a ranch in south Texas where the vice president and several companions were hunting quail. It was not reported publicly by the vice president’s office for nearly 24 hours, and then only after it was reported locally by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times on its Web site Sunday.

Katharine Armstrong, the ranch’s owner, said Sunday that Cheney was using a 28-guage shotgun and that Whittington was about 30 yards away when he was hit in the cheek, neck and chest.

Each of the hunters was wearing a bright orange vest at the time, Armstrong told reporters at the ranch about 60 miles southwest of Corpus Christi. She said Whittington was “alert and doing fine.”

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Since I didn’t see the news tonight, found first at boingboing, where the first question was, “Are lawyers in season right now?”

I should stay home with Carl more often, if stuff like this is what I can expect in the mail on those days:

And particularly when it’s personalized:

All right, all you readers out there who have a passion for brew. I’m working on a project at school where we are–TA DA–promoting the whole damn category of beer.

The slight catch is that those silly beer brewers have already launched a campaign (you may have seen the “cheers” commercial during the Super Bowl), but we need to tell them whether or not it is a good idea.

So, in the name of good market research, take a few moments to check out Here’s To Beer, the campaign website, and tell me what you think. Is this information that is useful to you? What do you think?

To many, Super Bowl Sunday is a celebrated athletic contest. To those of us studying marketing, it’s a case study in progress. (In fact, today, we trudged through a short, one-hour midterm and were rewarded in the second hour of class with a screening of several brand-spanking new beer commercials to be aired during the big competition.) It’s funny, in the ad world, they talk about who “wins” the Super Bowl–which one big commercial strikes a chord? USA Today and the Wall Street Journal both have polls that crowns a winner.

**Spoiler alert!** I don’t know if the beer commercials I saw will win, but at least two were pretty funny. One involved an office full beer hidden like Easter eggs, and the mayhem that would ensue; another showed two roommates who came up with a way to hide the refrigerator stocked with beer–a revolving wall that unfortunately, revolved into the neighbor’s apartment.

Anyway, watch the game for the commercials. And if you’re interested in seeing what some of my schooling is like, my professor will be on the NBC Nightly News this evening!

OK, seriously, I usually like the Washington Post. They provide good, in-depth coverage of all goings-on inside the Beltway. But
this?!? I must say I’m wondering about the editors…

Do we really need to know the role astrological sign plays in political decisions?