OH NOOOOOOOOO!
Old Saturday Night Live character Mr. Bill makes an uncredited appearance in a Plain Dealer 9-11 photo essay. Either someone at the PD has a really twisted sense of humor, or the copy desk needs some pop culture awareness training.

Last Sunday at 10 a.m., Momentum Christian Church held its first service at the Cinemark Theatre in Valley View. Before the gig began, parishioners noshed on Starbucks pastry and coffee in a lobby lined with posters of Fred and Ginger, Costner and Kutcher, and Borat.

As those seeking the word stepped over stacks of paperback Bibles and took their upholstered reclining seats, blurbs such as "A church for people who hate going to church," and "No necking in the back row!" flashed upon a screen that would show the film Hollywoodland later that day.

A drop-dead gorgeous brunette in ultra-low-rise jeans fronted the four-piece rock band. They played "Cleveland Rocks" as slideshow images of the Free Stamp and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame blazed overhead. The crowd, which numbered over 100, loved it, applauding and offering woot after woot.

Lead minister Dan Smith, clad in a KSU T-shirt, took the stage. "Isn't this a cool place to have church?" he posed, then introduced a short video that featured clips of Julia Roberts, Eddie Murphy, Shrek and even Pee Wee Herman as they laughed and laughed. Smith called the images "what we hope Momentum starts looking like in the future."

There was prayer. There was music. People stood and raised their hands to the screen. They sang along to the lyrics broadcast upon it. There was a video of Smith inviting people on the street to hug him. It rolled along to "Everyday," by Dave Matthews Band (and from whose video Smith seems to have borrowed the "free hugs" schtick). The enthusiastic crowd clapped and laughed as Smith fielded rejections as well as embraces.

There was a life-size cardboard cutout of John Madden hawking Sirius Radio's NFL broadcasts (the ad did not refer to Sirius's most famous headliner, Howard Stern). There was Mark 12:37 and Psalm 37:4. There was communion, which was self-serve. There was Smith, likening the simplicity of his iPod to his main directives: "Love God. Love People."

"Come six weeks," Smith predicted for the assembled, "I will guarantee you will learn how to love God and it will bleed into other parts of your life."

And if not, the comfy seats, hugs and steaming cups of Starbucks just might suffice. — Erin O'Brien

SMOKE AND LAWYERS

Pay attention, this gets complicated: Smoke Free Ohio is pushing a ballot initiative that would ban smoking in all enclosed public places in the state. Smoke Free is backed by the American Cancer Society and other anti-smoking organizations.

Smoke Less Ohio is promoting a state constitutional amendment that also bans smoking in public places, but with so many exceptions that it's practically meaningless. Smoke Less is backed by — cue ominous music — RJR Reynolds.

The two groups have a bit of a rivalry, to say the least.

Last winter, Smoke Less spokesman Jacob Evans pored over the fine print of Smoke Free's petitions and found a curious detail: A few Smoke Free petition circulators hadn't correctly identified who was paying them; they named the ACS, instead of the consulting group that had hired and trained them. That's not allowed, so Smoke Less sued.

One appeal and two rulings later, 40,000 signatures on Smoke Free petitions went up in, um, smoke. Smoke Free appealed again, with a new argument: Secretary of State Ken Blackwell screwed up. And it's true. Blackwell's chief election counsel told the courts that yes, Smoke Free followed his office's advice, and that "circulators correctly disclosed ACS as the person employing them."

But the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals would have none of it. "We reject the Secretary's interpretation," the court ruled Monday. Sure, it cited several precedent-setting cases. But it seems the most compelling argument came from one highly regarded source: the dictionary.

"In common, everyday language, the word "employ' meansÅ " the opinion read, going on to cite entries from the Random House Dictionary of the English Language and the American Heritage Dictionary.

Unfortunately, the appellate court lacks the jurisdiction to fire the Secretary of State for this and other crimes and misdemeanors (remember being asked for voter registration cards to be printed on 80-pound stock paper?). So the court simply regrets the "inconvenience" of it all.

In the meantime, Smoke Free is further appealing to the Ohio Supreme Court, and still collecting signatures.

— Charu Gupta

BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUICE!

Unless you're in the rapidly dwindling minority whose faith in the virtue and competence of Republicans is unshakable, then you've probably heard that Ken Blackwell has sometimes been accused of using his power as Ohio Secretary of State to help fellow GOPers through tough elections. Like President Bush in 2004. And now Blackwell's running for governor.

But you know how testy Republicans get when confronted with their own words and deeds. So in exposing Blackwell's latest shady maneuver, the Plain Dealer took an oddly hands-off approach: It didn't name him.

In a September 11 front-page story, reporter Joan Mazzolini detailed how local officials worry that electronic voting machine malfunctions in the upcoming elections could create pockets of malfeasance if backup paper trails are printed only from memory cards, as the Secretary of State's office has mandated. A source from the county prosecutor's office adds that this would seem to violate Ohio law.

A hole to bury a shitload of Strickland votes in this fall? Perhaps. But while two different Blackwell employees are quoted in the story, no mention is made of their boss. Suddenly the Secretary of State is an office, not a person. And certainly not a person who might use his role as state election overlord to his own advantage. Who would even think such a thing? Let's stop talking about it right now.

Traditionally, when something stinks, reporters are quick to name the people taking the dumps. But Mazzolini says there was no thought to naming (or not naming) Blackwell.

"You only get so much space and the story wasn't about him running for office," Mazzolini says. "It was specifically about what happened in Cuyahoga County and the possibility that this could happen again."

And if it keeps the rightwing rottweilers quiet for another day, so much the better. — Dan Harkins

chatter@freetimes.com