Sunday, July 27, 2008

Lee Enterprises is shopping in the Joe Mokwa aisle



Michael R. Allen once told me has some contraption on his blog that lets him see who is visiting his website, where their computer is registered and what link they rode in on. So after I got Confluence City up and running, I went looking for something that answers to that description and found Stat Counter.

It's terribly addictive. You feel like the owner of a store spying on your customers. (Except you're not making any money off them. Or, at least I'm not.)

For example, I see that someone in the Quad Cities (homebase of Lee Enterprises, publisher of the Post-Dispatch) with a Lee Enterprises computer has been reading my musings on disgraced Police Chief Joe Mokwa.

I'm not flattered and thinking the Post is looking to scoop me before The St. Louis American comes out on Thursday. After all, Mokwa is a member of the Post's Community Advisory Board, along with Mayor Francis G. Slay and his Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford. As the Political EYE in the American pointed out back in April, no black elected official serves on the board, and Mokwa's black counterpart in the fire service, Sherman George, was never invited to serve either.

If Lee Enterprises is snooping me out, it's probably because Rainford or one of the Post's other Slay-connected community advisors sent them here on some errand or another: "Look what a weirdo this guy is! See, you can't believe any of the crap he writes about us!"

Or maybe the Mokwa scandal and Slay's first attempt to cover it up and exonerate Shakey Joe has finally soured the Post's love affair with Francis and Jeff? That would be cool.

It will be interesting to see if Mokwa remains on the Post's Community Advisory Board. It's possible he will. After all, the late Kirkwood City Council Member Connie Karr (one of Cookie Thornton's victims) remained on the board, according to the Post website, after she was killed - indeed, until the EYE pointed out that the Post had one dead white elected official on its board but no living black ones.

Mind you, there is still a page on the Post site that lists the late Ms. Karr as a community advisor! Lazy website editing, or a latent belief in the paranormal at Lee Enterprises? You be the judge!

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