Last week, the Ohio Democratic Party shit-canned Megan Pappada, its new coordinator for women's outreach, just a few hours after she was hired, when blogger Jill Miller Zimon (WritesLikeSheTalks.blogspot.com) uncovered Pappada's "seedy" past on the Web. Turns out when Pappada was 18, she wrote a letter to the Ohio State University student newspaper in which she suggested that there was too much diversity on campus.

"[The] plan to bring more minority faculty and students here is ridiculous," Pappada wrote in October 2000. "Why should minority students receive more scholarships and opportunities because they are minority?"

Pappada is 25 now and readily admits to once being a naïve freshman with an ignorant opinion of race relations. Even good liberals experiment with conservative thoughts in college. But should bad thoughts really be held against us after we graduate?

Yes, says the Ohio Democratic Party.

"She said something completely unacceptable in the public domain," says ODP Communications Director Randy Borntrager. "The views expressed publicly were unacceptable to the Democratic Party. And she failed to retract that statement for seven years." He did not explain how one might even go about such a thing.

Borntrager says Pappada should have mentioned the letter in her interview - but admits that if she had, she would not have gotten the job. A background check that would have red-flagged the letter prior to her hiring was never conducted, says Borntrager. "It fell through the cracks." But he will not reveal who dropped the ball on that one.

Meanwhile, Pappada - still hoping for a job with the Democratic Party in the future - has issued an apology for being a teenager. "As an inexperienced college freshman, I wrote an op-ed that attempted to minimize the value of diversity on the OSU campus," Pappada said in a letter to local bloggers. "However, I ultimately succeeded only in publicly demonstrating my own inexperience and shallow worldview."

Apparently she was on the job long enough for the chip to be implanted.

Online, ODP Web master Todd Hoffman defended the firing in his own letter to a local blogger. "As an employee of ODP, any statements, past or present, in the public domain reflect upon the Party so we let her go within hours of learning of the situation," he wrote.

Speaking of public domain, Mr. Hoffman, the Free Times discovered some online court documents your employers might have overlooked. In 2001, you got two OMVI's (operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated), a hit/skip, and a resisting arrest charge that was pleaded down to disorderly conduct. Damn, that was one crazy summer, huh?

But the ODP apparently is less interested in dangerous actions than it is impure thoughts. After Free Times brought the arrest to the attention of the ODP, spokesman Borntrager said that Hoffman would stay. But he wouldn't get into whether Hoffman had disclosed these little details in his interview. "What's important is that I know about it now," Borntrager said, adding, "This is different. And I think this is now becoming a witch hunt."

Becoming? - James Renner

COFFEE BREAK

Phoenix Coffee superbarista and CEO Sarah Wilson-Jones reports that locally owned, independent coffee returned to Coventry Road as of Monday, with the fifth Phoenix café opening on the storied commercial strip. The new shop moves into space vacated in June by national coffee chain Caribou.

Wilson-Jones says this makes two national chains Phoenix has outlasted in Cleveland Heights - the first being a Starbucks that used to operate down the street from Phoenix's Lee Road location.

Even if the Coventry Phoenix and the building it's in are new, there's a dose of nostalgia associated: The address above the door - 1954 Coventry - is the same address where Phoenix founder Carl Jones started his first local coffee dynasty, the original Arabica, back in 1976. The original building was demolished and the (long gone) Arabica moved around the corner after a fire. But the original landlord, Lewis Zipkin, rebuilt on the same site and happily welcomed Jones - who founded Phoenix Coffee in 1990 - back after the national coffee chain fled the scene.

Wilson-Jones says Phoenix plans to open a sixth location at East 9th and Superior, in the KeyBank Center, in about two months. - Michael Gill

SUBPRIME WATCH: THE WRATH OF CONS

You've lost your job because Ohio's economy is in the tank. A sudden illness forced you to use up the last bit of savings. You tried to refinance, but a maverick mortgage broker took you for your last dollar. Now your last refuge, your home, is in danger of going into foreclosure. But wait. The game's not over. There's yet one more way you're gonna get screwed: "foreclosure rescue."

One Cleveland woman shared her experience with a foreclosure rescue scam on the condition that we not name her.

The woman says that after her impending foreclosure was noted in the Legal News in September 2005, she was contacted by a man named Desmond Maddox, who said he worked for a Euclid-based company called Financial Protection Industries.

Once inside the door, Desmond charmed the 40-year-old woman, she says. She was afraid of losing her home of 13 years to bad employment and medical luck, but Maddox promised to help with rebuilding credit scores, negotiating loan terms with banks, assisting with refinancing, everything that could avert foreclosure. He asked for $950 up front, for lawyer fees and court appearances.

"I thought it sounded great," the woman says. She signed over a check to Maddox, but never asked for a contract in return.

For the next 15 months, the Cleveland woman tried to fend off foreclosure one month at a time, while waiting for Maddox to work his magic. "None of it was true," she says. "None of the promises were ever kept."

Maddox first responded by asking for more money. When she refused, he stopped returning messages left on his voicemail. The woman finally wised up and notified the Better Business Bureau earlier this year.

Free Times was unable to locate phone listings for FPI or Maddox. Of two separate 888 numbers for FPI provided by the BBB and the Cleveland woman, one went to a full mailbox, the other to a fax line. According to the BBB, FPI is one of 20 or so companies that have cropped up to con Clevelanders desperate to save their homes. Another city resident lost $1,500 to FPI, the BBB reports.

And the problem is widespread, with BBB branches nationwide tallying up complaints in the hundreds against so-called mortgage foreclosure rescue companies. Victims often fall prey to the same tactics used by predatory lenders: unsolicited phone calls, flyers and house visits.

"They end up throwing away more money and lose valuable time they need to instead contact lenders or consumer advocates," says Sue McConnell of the Cleveland BBB. McConnell's agency says beware of strangers making personal approaches, like handwritten notes in your front door or mailbox.

Bypass such temptation and contact your lender directly about how to restructure your loan or refinance, the BBB advises. And always ask a trusted legal or financial professional to first review any terms that entail upfront costs. Finally, don't forget that legitimate help can be found through Cuyahoga County's Foreclosure Prevention Program. Call 216.436.2000. - Charu Gupta

MART WARS COMMAND CENTER

The Put It On The Ballot referendum - which seeks to give voters a say in whether Cuyahoga County raises its sales tax from 7.5 percent to 7.75 percent to support the construction of a medical mart and convention center - has opened up a war room. Activists Tim and Gloria Ferris report that supporters have gathered about two-thirds of the 46,000 signatures required by a Friday deadline to bring the tax increase to the voters.

To help get the rest of the way, the Ferrises are using their house at 4022 Denison Ave. as a Tactical Operations Center to be open 24 hours a day through 2 p.m. Friday, staffed by volunteers at all times.

"We will be handing out petitions at the front door, printing walking lists and maps for anyone who wants them, and taking finished petitions back in and transporting them off-site for safe-keeping," Tim Ferris says. "The issue isn't about the convention center or the medical mart. It's about the people having a say in whether we raise our taxes." - Michael Gill

DIEBOLD REWRITES HISTORY

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, can be edited by anyone with a laptop and some spare time. What most casual users don't understand is that Wikipedia keeps track of the IP addresses of the computers people use to edit the site. Last week, a new tool called Wikipedia Scanner was launched. The Scanner allows you to easily search all edits a specific person or company has made to Wikipedia. It shows you what they edited, and when the edits occurred.

One of the first things the Scanner kicked up was a number of edits to Wikipedia's article about Diebold, the Canton-based company that makes electronic voting machines. Seems someone using a computer from inside Diebold's corporate office attempted some damage control in 2005.

In November of that year, he or she deleted links to articles that criticized the company, and edited out large sections of text, including:

€ "The [software used in Diebold machines] is easily compromised, in part, due to its reliance on Microsoft Access databases."

€ "In August 2003, Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for President George W. Bush."

€ "In June 2005, the Tallahassee Democrat reported that when given access to Diebold vote-counting computers, Bev Harris - a huge critic of Diebold's voting machines - was able to make 65,000 votes disappear simply by changing the memory card that stores voting results for one that had been altered."

The edits were eventually reversed. Nobody from Diebold returned our phone calls.

A day after the deletions were reported in the British newspaper The Guardian, Diebold changed the name of its voting systems division. Diebold Elections Systems will now be called Premier Election Solutions. Its new headquarters is in - wait for it - Texas. - James Renner

When cranky chef and author Anthony Bourdain visited Cleveland last winter to tape an installment of his show No Reservations, he spent some time with - who else? - cranky author Harvey Pekar. Cartoonist and Pekar collaborator Gary Dumm was also invited along, and drew some panels that will be used in the show, American Splendor-style. "I don't know what the hell the show's gonna be like," says Pekar, who accompanied Bourdain to Sokolowski's, among other places. Dumm, who also created illustrations for Bourdain's blog, says it includes a drag race between Bourdain and his old friend ("and nemesis," the Travel Channel Web site adds) Michael Ruhlman. Oh, and Toby Radloff makes an appearance. C'mon, what more could you want in a food show? The episode airs at 10 p.m. Monday, August 27 on the Travel Channel (and repeats at 1 a.m. Tuesday).

RUST BELT REPORT

Case Western Reserve University plans two-year celebration of Charles Darwin.

Looks like Case is pressing hard for the top party school ranking.

Cleveland MetroParks Zoo holds auction for artwork created by animals.

Abstract monkey-poo paintings criticized for being rather pedantic. And the hippo's sculpture of a woman bathing seems to insist upon itself.

Broadview Heights man alleges he was forced into slavery by company that sells magazine subscriptions.

And they forced him to read People.

Hundreds of Cleveland-area traffic-camera tickets may have been issued improperly.

Trying to raise additional funds by offering T-shirts with the grainy camera image of your car and the words "I Sped Today!" may have been over the line.

After complaints, Cuyahoga County lowers recent home valuations.

Property tax takes said to have dipped from "shitty" to "shit-on" levels.

Ex-Plain Dealer editor Doug Clifton to be inducted in local journalism Hall of Fame.

Now if only we could get Foghat into the Rock Hall, to balance things out.

ODOT plans to eliminate access to Carnegie Road on new Inner Belt.

How do you get to Carnegie? Practice, off Chester, down East 55th hang a left around the corner, avoid that crack dealer, practice.

Northeast Ohio uniform company gets caught overcharging police and fire departments.

Damn, imagine what the Girl Scouts must have been paying.

Oberlin College begins offering co-ed dorm rooms.

They're all co-ed by the second day anyway.

Jim Petro says he thinks he would like to be next Chief Justice of Ohio's Supreme Court.

And Ken Blackwell would like to be a sith.

19-year-old Brecksville man jumps through elderly couple's bedroom window, undresses, says he needs to take a shower, jumps back through window, stabs himself with piece of wood fence, then falls dead of unknown causes.

If only he'd made a list and stuck to it.

Workers for the Downtown Cleveland Alliance pass out fliers asking people not to give money to panhandlers.

Panhandlers resell flyers for "donations."

Lorain celebrates 200-year anniversary.

With a series of well-orchestrated drive-bys.

Republican State Senator Kevin Coughlin attempts coup to overthrow Summit County GOP chairman Alex Arshinkoff.

How he could even tell it was Arshinkoff through that gloryhole isn't known.

Free Times supports democracy in Cleveland. Force a vote for convention center funding. Learn more at Putitontheballot.com