Business executives fear this hermit's one simple trick
God forbid a low-rent blogger obtain an "unauthorized interview" of powerful officials within the state's budding military-industrial complex.
The Rooster is not the largest publication in Columbus. Not by a long shot. But what we do have is an audience of the most powerful individuals in the state.
Today, I planned to attend the Anduril summit hosted by Columbus Business First at the Hilton in downtown Columbus. (You can read about Anduril’s quest to bring nerd fascism to Ohio over here.)
As you might imagine, I had some questions about the event examining “Anduril’s impact” on the region.
Why was a publication like Columbus Business First laying out the red carpet to massage the leathery testicles of some of Ohio’s most powerful executives and politicians?
Why should we trust anything coming from JobsOhio after the Intel scam becomes more apparent every day?
But I planned to keep those questions to myself. The $175 price for a ticket wasn’t chump change, and I registered under my real identity and occupation, because I didn’t want to get kicked out when some business gremlin inevitably recognized my swollen Irish skull bobbling around the complimentary continental breakfast bar.
Sadly, however, my reputation as a cantankerous knave precedes me, as I received this email from Nick Fortine, the publisher of Columbus Business First, on Tuesday afternoon:
This is duplicitous on Fortine’s part. There is less than zero percent chance that Columbus’s premier Denny’s placemat would have credentialed me as “appropriate media.”
But, it's good to know that the specter of a low-rent blogger rubbing shoulders with this prestigious speakers’ list caused heart palpitations in the business community:
Zachary Mears, Senior Vice President of Strategy, Anduril (keynote)
Tim A. Colburn, Executive Director, Pickaway County Port Authority / Pickaway Progress Partnership
Kenny McDonald, President & CEO, One Columbus
Zachary Mears, Senior Vice President of Strategy, Anduril
J.P. Nauseef, President & CEO, JobsOhio
Well, congratulations to all these men for being ascribed to The Bust Up List.
Nauseef and McDonald will likely be the first to realize that it would have been easier to let me pay $175 to sit on my phone in the back of a conference room and send a couple of sternly worded tweets.
Regardless, it’s still pretty gross how “appropriate media” continues to take corporations and their whores at JobsOhio seriously. It does nobody any favors, except for the powerful interests to which the “appropriate media” is supposed to be hostile.
When JobsOhio announced the Intel plant, it was expected to be operational by 2025 and create 20,000 jobs for the state. And we’ve gotten jack shit other than a bunch of ruined farmland and a hole in the ground while Intel continues to flounder.
Why are Columbus Business First and “appropriate media” shining Anduril’s shoes and taking their projections seriously before there is even a shovel in the ground? Because apparently this meeting of business geniuses couldn’t handle the presence of a blogger without risking some sort of embarrassing incident or “unauthorized interview.”
But let me stop complaining. Their obsequiousness is good for my business.
Why did a Franklin County Commissioner visit Israel with a Congressional delegation, anyway?
Last October, I wrote a dispatch about how the Franklin County Commissioners have a pretty sweet gig, given that there are only three of them and they face little to no scrutiny from regular citizens, unlike city council.
Yesterday, I attended only my second commission meeting. I wanted to see if Commission chairwoman Erica Crawley had skipped out on work after posting that she was taking a vacation “for her mental health” five days after The Rooster reported she “blew through” a red light, hospitalized an old woman, and might have done some light insurance fraud while attempting to escape accountability for her actions.
Commissioner Crawley did not attend yesterday’s meeting. As of this writing, it’s not exactly clear where she flew, though we can probably presume that she left Franklin County.
After the meeting, I walked out of the bathroom and saw Commissioner Kevin Boyce and County Prosecutor Shayla Favor walking together through the halls.
I could have busted both of them up over their sponsored trips to the apartheid state of Israel. But given that I had never encountered either on camera, I figured it was best to train my ire on Boyce, an almost assuredly corrupt commissioner who has obtained substantial political power without ever having to face any hostile questioning from citizens or the press.
I was right in my suspicion that Boyce wouldn’t handle the camera well.
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