New Bexley Council Member

ThisWeek has an article up about Hanz Wasserburger, the newly appointed City Council member who will finish out Helen MacMurray's term. What little I know about Wasserburger comes from the resume and cover letter he sent in when he applied for the job (p12-14).

(By the way, if it seems like I've been linking a lot more to ThisWeek lately, I have been. They have a new Bexley beat reporter named Quinn Bowman who has been doing an excellent job, including helping me out with a heads-up about the Peter Yarrow documents. Putting additional source material online like this is a good way to gain admirers in the blogosphere).

Three things pop out- First, he's been a pretty high-ranking lawyer working for Ohio and Texas working for Republican bosses, but losing his appointment with the most recent changeover. Of course, that doesn't really mean anything, especially since his most recent gig was in the Auditor's office, which is the only one that stayed in GOP hands (Mr. Wasserburger is listed as 'unaffiliated ' in his voter registration).

Second, he's from my 'hood. He votes in precinct 3-B, just like me, meaning that he lives in South Bexley. Our neighborhood is younger (Mr. Wasserburger is a year younger than I am) and the houses are smaller than the stereotypical Bexley house. It's good to make sure all areas get representation, so I'm happy about that.

Third, I'm afraid my wife might vote for him in November due to the existence of one particular line on his resume - he wrote a Lifetime Network Movie. "Her Fatal Flaw" premiered on the Television Network for Women last year, and garnered positive, if sparse, reaction amongst IMDB users.

More, if and when.

OSU Dems 'meet the candidates' night

I went to the event at the Drexel Gateway with my wife and daughter. Twelve-Month-Old Charlotte got a lot of attention from the electeds and staffers, which was good because I cannot initiate a conversation on my own to save my life. There's not a lot of substance for me to report. I talked about the GIRFOF education amendment with Stephanie Groce of the Columbus Board of Education. I got a surprised laugh out of Franklin County Commissioner Paula Brooks when I said I was behind a shadow internet campaign to get her to move to the 12th. She was very nice and put Charlotte's shoe back on when it came off. 2010 Buckeye (Peter K.) picked up Charlotte's water bottle when she dropped it during the speechifying portion of the evening. Hearcel Craig, newly appointed to Columbus City Council, was thrilled that he could get Charlotte to wave.

Mayor Coleman was there for a bit. His plainclothes detail was quite unobtrusive, but would have blended in better if he had put on one of the nametag stickers. The Mayor shook my hand and commented (of course) on Charlotte, but he had that sort of VIP automaton thing going on.

Ed Leonard, the new Franklin County Treasurer, was much different. He's on the ballot in '08, but as he said, he's already running. He's got some big shoes to fill, but it was obvious that he wanted to earn his job by doing it well and winning an election. I hope he can maintain the energy and sincerity.

Even worse than my conversation initiation skills are my conversation joining skills. So I never got a chance to talk to Ted Celeste (State Rep.), Andrew Ginther (City Council), or Herb Asher (frequently quoted OSU PoliSci prof). I got a chance to stand two feet away from each of them for several seconds until it started to feel awkward. That's something I guess.

I was a bit annoyed with some of what I heard/didn't hear, but I'll talk about that some other time. The OSU Dems put on a nice event, we enjoyed ourselves, and I'm looking forward to election season.

Yarrow Documents

I did a post last week on Peter Yarrow, folk-singer, anti-bullying activist, and ex-con. My point at the time was that there was a lot of smoke, but... In a country that obsesses over sex, celebrity, crime, and acts like a dog in a Gravy Train commercial when all three are present at once, I was sure that details of the alleged offense would be all over the internet. Especially since the complaints from parents were supposedly based on information that their kids found all over the internet. After failing to find salacious details, but finding plenty of people with a motive to imply that unspoken details were more salacious than they actually were, I challenged my readership to convince me that Yarrow had actually earned the negative reaction he was receiving.

I updated that post yesterday, because a reader who had actually read a more detailed description of the complaint, to which Yarrow pleaded guilty, informed me that it included Yarrow being manually stimulated by the 14 year old victim. Today, ThisWeek has posted a collection of clippings, including the news reports at the time, in pdf format. It starts with an extremely unflattering opinion column from a few years ago that nevertheless contains the actual words "so the singer is not exactly a sexual predator."

That was the standard I used at the end of my original post. I'm ambivalent at this point. If you're interested in the topic, I highly encourage you to read the clippings, and feel free to weigh in here.

Bloggers on the TeeVee

The Ohio News Network does two Sunday Morning Talking Head News Shows, one out of D.C. called "On the Hill," and one out of Columbus called "Capitol Square." The first half of this week's Capitol Square was on bloggers, and more specifically, Ohio political bloggers. The featured guests included two print journalists, and two well-known denizen of the 'sphere: Matt Naugle of Right Angle Blog and Jill Zimon of Writes Like She Talks.

Going into viewing the show, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm a fan of WLST and I've never cared much for RAB, so I had some expectations, but I had never seen either of them speak on camera. I also didn't know the format, as the show was basically promo'd as "Hey - Bloggity Blog Blog!" Was this supposed to be Right vs. Left? Pixels vs. Ink? Those are the typical TV frames for blogging stories, and I'm okay with some of that. I've got a side to root for either way.

The way it ended up going down (h/t plunderbund for the youtube link), however, was actually quite disappointing. Mr. Naugle came across as a caricature of a blogger. I've been struggling with how, and even if to write the next sentence. Superficially, he is not an attractive individual and he has a mild speech impediment. It doesn't matter in the 'sphere, but it matters on television. Much more to the point, he made paranoid/angry sounding rants about the 'liberal media' and how the job of bloggers was to report things that the MSM intentionally avoided. He used his platform to blurt out an inflammatory statement about the recreational activities of the son of an elected official. He evaded the questions that that raised about whether there was an ethical line that he would not cross in his writing.

Jill was well prepared, conversant with the issues, and frankly so professional that she seemed much more like one of the panelists than a blogger under glass, leaving Mr. Naugle to carry the 'blogger' flag. Or drag it behind him, as the case may be.

A legitimate question to ask might be: "So what if someone on Capitol Square made bloggers look bad to the Capitol Square audience?" Bloggers either will or will not gain respect from the media and political establishment by working for it post by post, there is little or no point in lobbying and waiting for heads to nod sagely and say "citizen journalism is the future." Even so, there is little or no point in feeding the 'Real Journalism will alway be better than random-social-misfits-writing-on-the-internet' theme that many commentators like to follow.

Jill tried to fight it. I'd like to think that people were paying attention to what she said, but it's hard to divert one's attention from a train wreck.

Immoral Liberties and Operation Respect in Bexley

Update- I mention below that I did not have access to the full text of the Washington Post articles. I have it from someone who does have access that I was missing some key details. The accusation did involve physical contact.

ThisWeek Bexley is reporting that Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame, opted not to perform a scheduled concert in Bexley earlier this week, sending his daughter to perform in his stead. According to the article, several parents of Bexley Middle School students protested to school administrators that the invitation to Yarrow was inappropriate. Why, you might ask?

Peter Yarrow, in recent years, has been championing a cause called Operation Respect, in an effort to reduce bullying in schools, with the ultimate goal of reducing school violence. The topic seems particularly salient this week, but that's neither here nor there. The parents weren't complaining about the message, sponsored by Bexley Schools, they were complaining about the messenger.

During the summer of 1969, Peter Yarrow was in a hotel room in Washington, D.C. He was in the District to perform with his group, Peter, Paul, and Mary. At some point, two sisters, one 14 and one 17, were there as well. On March 27, 1970, Mr. Yarrow pled guilty to taking "immoral liberties" with a minor, referring to an incident between Mr. Yarrow and the 14-year old.

In May of 1970, the girl's family sued Yarrow for $1.25 million dollars.

In September of 1970, Yarrow was sentenced to 3 months in jail on the Immoral Liberties charge.

In November of 1970, a judge reduced the sentence by three days, allowing Yarrow to be at home with his wife for Thanksgiving.

In January of 1981, Yarrow was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter.

In 2004, Yarrow's conviction became news once again as Republicans criticized candidates Martin Frost in Texas and John Kerry for allowing Yarrow to campaign on their behalf.

All of the unlinked facts above are given in articles by the Washington Post or New York Times published as the events unfolded in 1970. I have access to the full text of the NYT pieces, but only the first hundred words or so of the WaPo articles. If you search the internet, however, you will find many more "facts." I absolutely cannot stand when folks repeat allegations without sourcing, and I especially hate it when people out and out plagiarize, cutting and pasting without indicating that the words are not those of the poster. This is why I put "facts" in quotations. Let's start with Wikipedia. This is what they have to say about the incident in question:

In 1970 he pleaded guilty to taking "immoral and improper liberties" with a 14-year-old girl. The girl and her 17-year-old sister went to Yarrow's hotel room seeking an autograph. Yarrow answered the door naked and made sexual advances that stopped short of intercourse. Yarrow served three months of a one- to three-year prison sentence and was pardoned by President Carter in 1981. The singer has acknowledged the incident as "the most terrible mistake I have ever made."


This account adds several pieces to what I listed above. First, the girls went looking for Yarrow. Next, Yarrow answered the door naked. Following that, he made sexual advances. He did not have sexual intercourse. He was sentenced to 1-3 years and served 3 months. He later claimed the incident as his worst mistake.

The first thing that pops out of that list is the sentencing. Both the Times and the Post assert, at the time that Yarrow was sentenced, that the sentence was 3 months. So Wikipedia has got at least part of it wrong. Where did they get the wrong idea? I don't know, there is no citation in the article.

When I used to have students turn in obviously plagiarized work, I would simply Google strings of words that were likely to be unique to the source. So in this case, I googled "Yarrow answered the door naked." I got 75 hits. Almost none of them gave any citation. Some cited Wikipedia. One cited The Awareness Center. The Awareness Center has details on hundreds of cases. Peter Yarrow's case link leads to a missing page. At least one source cites World Net Daily, a conservative mouthpiece on the web. WND has a 'copyrighted story' that uses the quote, so I assumed that the more salacious details were coming from less-than-reliable sources.

Oops. You know what they say about assuming. The World Net Daily 'Exclusive' from 10/31/04 plagiarizes heavily from a New York Post piece that came out 01/15/04. Which hard-hitting News Corp. journalism was the source of the story? The Page Six gossip columnist. Now, where did our gossip columnist get the info? It was still primary season, so there's lots of candidates, but more importantly, where did they go for confirmation? Reports at the time.

That's as specific as it gets. "As reported at the time..." I can tell you that it wasn't reported that way in the New York Times, and it doesn't look like those details were included in the Washington Post's account of the arrest, the plea, or the sentencing. It's possible that the details came out in reports about the girl's family's lawsuit. It's possible that it was reported in the New York Post gossip column.

So, one day in 1969, Peter Yarrow answered a door. He may or may not have been naked. He proceeded to say or do something that would be considered by common sense to be improper, but the impropriety seems to stem from the age of the victim, not the act itself, as charges were filed only in connection with the 14-year-old, not the 17-year-old who was also present.

So here's a guess. He showed up at the door naked. He explained that the human body is natural and other 1969 hippy-dippy stuff. The sisters agreed, took their clothes off and hung out naked. End of story.

Maybe not. If anyone has better information from a reliable source, I'd be happy to follow up. If I were to be convinced that the guy was a sexual predator, I'd help to make sure that he wasn't getting himself invited into Middle Schools. Until then, however, I hope folks can take info from anonymous plagiarists of partisan gossip columnists with at least a grain of salt.