Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts
HSUS has been getting pretty cozy with California’s Department of Fish and Game with bits & pieces of support. Now they not only want compensation, they want a place at the table.
The radical animal rights group has wormed it's way into Ohio's agricultural industries & with that foothold will be looking for any other chink in the armor to poison us with their mad agenda.
how's that for muckin' up metaphoricalisms?

AmmoLand article here

Disconnections
While the city bemoans "food deserts" they finance a restaurant chain that is in arrears on taxes but they did nothing to help a grocery in a similar position.
Meanwhile locally owned grocer Kroger has debuted a vending machine on steroids but only seems interested in marketing it to college campuses. I doubt the rougher neighborhoods in Cincinnati deemed food deserts are much worse than college campuses when it comes to vandalism & petty crime.
UPDATE:oh lord...

American Scream King

I really thought this was going to suck but it was actually kinda ok - funny but psycho - kinda like BiC HQ.

Moebius ~ 1938 - 2012

Spring Forward
It's that time of year again, when we need to run around & reset our clocks. Well, actually, modern electric clocks usually set themselves now & it's all pretty painless. Nevertheless, now that it's easy, Courtney Combs (R) wants to do away with the time change completely in Ohio. The history of DST is pretty nuts. Ben Franklin actually proposed it at one point. It's adoption came much later & in the United States was adopted one state at a time with adopting states not all using the same beginning & end dates for awhile. Currently, Hawaii (who cares) & Arizona don't use DST. Indiana was a holdout for years & what with the time zone difference between Ohio & Indiana there was always confusion.
Combs is nuts. I agree with him that it's pointless but we don't need to go back to the crazy patchwork of states having their own times. There's too much interstate commerce going on nowadays. If he wants to abolish DST, he should work to abolishing it nationwide. yeah, the states rights guys will howl ~ let 'em. Going rogue, tho will just cause confusion & will wind up costing the state money as we are constantly battling the confusion.

Preserving Springfield
plans are afoot to restore a couple downtown Springfield landmarks - The Lagonda Bank Building and The Regent Theater, also the home of Gus Sun's old booking agency.
The Turner Foundation and Springfield Preservation Alliance are behind the plans.

Noose Son story here

Kill the Poor

c'mon, GOP, drug testing is so 80s…..
We got morals now - values. NO immoral behavior by welfare & housing subsidy recipients should be tolerated. Combover's milquetoast Section 8 reform plan? amateur hour….
Look, we can ban porn, MTV & PBS on their TV sets. Why just drug tests? We can have random polygraph tests & question folks on their moral behaviour. Sex? Homo sex? Smoking? Drinking? Dancing?No Benefits For You !hell, these people should be cut off if they crack a smile. We can install smoke detectors & sound meters in the homes of welfare recipients. Smoking and loud sounds - music, fighting, laughter, should all be grounds to cancel benefits. Surfaces can be checked for bodily fluids to ascertain whether sex is being had. Prohibitions of contraceptives must be made and reports from abortion mills can be used to see if recipients might have murdered innocent potential free marketers.
20 hours of public service per week to receive benefits? Is that really what we want? Or do we want these recipients to go door to door apologizing for their failures & thanking the "taxpayers" for their largesse?
And, lets face it - these losers didn't get where they are by a virtuous life. Aid recipients should be required to attend and participate in government approved fundamentalist, evangelical, protestant churches of their choice.
There is no room for poverty in the richest nation on earth.

Go Johnny Go

Amazingly, Romans, Nazis & Martian princesses all have the same accent.

Resurrection ?

Like an icy hand reaching up from the grave, there's a new post at Building Cincinnati….
Or could it just be insomnia?

This book Reckless Endangerment, is really frustrating to read. Responsible middle class businessmen would never do the things these wealthy folks who depend on the government to bail them out did. But they do wind up paying for their gambling. The complicity of our wimpy political representatives is just the icing on the cake.
Also available in print & electronic format (sorry Tom) at the Hamilton County Library

Myth

Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell on Star Wars from BillMoyers.com.

This mini series was great. Of course, Campbell doesn't have anything on A Crowley but he's much more acceptable in mainstream culture. Hopefully WCET will carry it but it's at the HamCo Liberry (much to Tom Brinkman's chagrin), too.

Understanding John Kasich

Fishwarp story here

COA T is howling about the Cincinnati Enquirer(R) not endorsing their candidates. Endorsing Peter Srautberg, their nemesis Jean Schmidt & their & Bill's, Brian's & Justin's nemesis, Denise Driehaus has sent them over the edge. This after HamCo GOP Chair Al Trianifilou said of their candidate & co-founder Tom Brinkman

"[Brinkman] just needs a job."

COA T's role in the mainstream GOP is becoming increasingly marginalized. While their support of Cincinnati councilman Winburn (Rino) has waned since they first endorsed him their support of Councilman Smitherman (Dino) is still strong - but - did their influence in their campaigns actually accomplish anything?
Regardless of their support within their party, I guess we can always count on inanane ballot initiatives & Annoying frivolous lawsuits from them in the future.

It Just Keeps Getting Better

Gestapo training ground, Riverbend Music Center, known since 1984 for being the summer home of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra & aging, second tier pop acts like Styx, Ted Nugent, Stevie Nicks, Chicago ,etc….. has taken a bold step forward. Their "lawn seating" with crappy sound, no view & no protection from the elements will now no longer even offer a real lawn.

"concertgoers will encounter a lawn consisting of five layers: 120,000 square feet of non-flammable plastic turf; 660,000 pounds of non-toxic, acrylic-coated, round-grained, bacteria-resistant sand; two layers of crushed limestone; and 1.04 miles of drainage pipe"

I love the sound of hobnailed jackboots goose stepping on non-flammable plastic turf in the evening.

Fishwarp story here

Pat Speaks
Pat Buchanan talks & takes calls about the primary & his controversial book that got him canned at M$NBC.
This is as close as I get to talk radio.

Dear Newt,
Ron Paul defeated you in 5 out of 11 races tonight. You only squeaked by him in Colorado & Nevada. He essentially won in Missouri because you didn't even try there. You beat everybody in psycho fucking South Carolina but is that anything that convinces you that you could beat Obama?
Dude, stick to philandering….

Yesterday's Gone

This article over at The Urbanophile about Kodak & Detroit inspired me to write this about the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Now that the Fishwarp has decided to charge for reading their stuff online, the website has ceased being a perk & has become a product. While their investment in the site has always been a business operation, this really changes things. Just putting the paper paper online is pointless. If they don't embrace the new media format it would be like going into television & panning a camera up & down the pages or going into radio & just reading the articles like a service for the blind.
While the newspaper prints "all the news that fits", it's constraint is available pages. In broadcast media, what fits is constrained by time. A good example of using the web to transcend those constraints is WLWT's posting the entire streetcar dedication ceremony online - something they could never do on live TV. The Fishwarp has added cheesy "galleries" of photos but they are usually pretty lame. They have a commenting system that's flawed but their attitude towards it is still stuck in the ancient newspaper mindset. The intertubes facilitate dialogue but the Fiswarpers just toss stuff out like bird seed. In the article where Ms Washburn "explains" the electronic subscription model, she generated over 100 comments. Some of them justly asked for clarification but in old newspaper mode, the Fishwarp published & then washed their hands & went home.
The Fishwarp needs to forget about posting charts, maps & other graphics in low resolution gifs & jpgs & start using a vector format like svg that is more legible & can afford interaction for even more clarity.
Again, the site is not a newspaper, they need to ~shudder gasp~ use audio & video. They need to use links more effectively - they can keep the reader on their site by opening links in a frame if they want.
It's a new product - it's not business as usual.

I hate my family.....

Carl Q Christol 1913 - 2012

And just did how such a program ended up funded by residents’ sewer bills?
The Fishwarp asks the hard questions….
The racist HamCo 4H apparently receives about $2,750 per member from the Metropolitan Sewer District. What political wisdom went into that is beyond me but with federal mandates & lack of revenue, the county is looking to cut that subsidy.
Last year, the 4H pulled out of the Hamilton County Fair & held their own. While the county fair attendance nearly doubled, the 4H fair had pretty miserable attendance. They pulled out of the county fair because they believed it was too dangerous and (& county commissioner Hartman agreed) it was not a proper place for families.
When A.B.Graham started his farming club in 1902, I doubt he intended it to become a cult of welfare queens. Still, the funding was moved from one pot to another so Kid Monzel's ideological posturing rings more hollow than usual.

Fishwarp story here

TriCycle Hearse

Grrovy Green
yup - your dead arse can be carted off in a pedal powered hearse at Sunset Hills Cemetery in cloudy Eugene Oregon.

My Oscar Predictions
I have no clue, I have never heard of these movies. Well, Harry Potter which I despise. I know about Ides of March because it was partially filmed down the street. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sounds like something I might like but probably won't. Looking at my SchlockBluster history, the only eligible movies I even know from 2011 are Red State, Thor & Captain America. There oughtta be a category for best adaptation of a comic book since the visual element of the comic book puts a demand on the film maker that does not exist with a prose adaptation.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Of course Hollywood doesn't give a rip about true adaptations & the pencil neck momma's boys who dominate the Academy Awards piss their pants over SciFi, Action Adventure & Comic Book crap so there's no point. Since Red State actually kinda touched on real faith & morals - that's out.
Oh well, it keeps Billy Crystal off welfare, I guess…..

Media Bridges on the Move!
While a secret mobile unit would be cool, naw, Cincinnati's local access TV station & low power radio station will be moving up the Parkway to WCET at 1223 Central Parkway.
Read more

Child of the Moon

The B-side to Jumpin Jack Flash - I never knew this video existed. It kinda looks like it uses clips from a movie - can't tell. The young woman is identified on You Tube as either Leslie Gore, Linda Thorson or Eileen Atkins. She definitely looks familiar, pretty sure it's not Gore. The clip was made in 68 & IMDB has Thorson's career starting in 69 as Diana Riggs replacement on The Avengers but she doesn't seem old enough.
Anyway, it's fun.

Truth in Advertising

In this segment of last week's Billy Moyers Show, Kathleen Hall Jamieson points out TV/radio stations do not have to air 3rd party (SuperPAC) political ads & actually have an obligation to factcheck them. In the full show she cites the pro Issue 2 TV ad that used an anti Issue 2 spokeswoman's commentary and twisted it to promote their own view. Stations across Ohio yanked the ad.
If you see a political ad you think is untruthful (yeah, it's hard typing this through the laughter) her organization has a page with a collection of email addresses for Ohio TV station general managers so you can alert them to such ads. here

Fish Fries !

Forcing people to behave contrary to their common behaviour is a staple of religious domination. But having fun with it is just so fun. Springtime Catholic fish fries on Fridays are one of those bizarre religious traditions of fucking with people's heads that, if you aren't tied to it, are just fun nonsense.
St Boniface Church, on Chase Avenue in fertile Northside (currently not part of east Westwood), has a pretty good Friday fish fry through Lent, whenever that is. Folks are nice and beverage service by teenage girls in white shirts, plaid skirts & crew socks is too fun even for this heathen.

For more info,Click

this is just sooooo weird....

COA T Co-Founder, Tom Brinkman, is running for the 27th House District in the March 6th primary. Brinkman spent eight years representing the 34th District of Ohio. He apparently is unable to wean himself off the public teat.
Brinkman has sought a seat in congress twice only to have his ass handed to him by eerily hot Jean Schmidt. In his time in the Ohio house he has garnered a reputation for being hard to deal with. He has wasted taxpayers time and money pushing legislation he admitted would not pass. He used state money to buy grills for his neighborhood's park. At one point Columbus Monthly rated Brinkman "the single worst legislator in the 132-member General Assembly".

"Those surveyed ranked him as least knowledgeable, least hardworking, least likable, least compassionate, and least savvy."

When not trying to control your sister's uterus, Brinkman has been adamant about denying civil rights to homosexuals. That landed him in some hot water when his petition circulators falsified documents. The judge in the case, Ruehlman, a Republican, had this to say:

"I still think the real culprit is Rep. Brinkman.
I know politics, somehow (Brinkman) falls between the cracks and is not prosecuted - the guy in power is the one who should have been indicted."

Brinkman's shady politicking goes beyond sex, tho. His moral crusade led him to another ballot scheme funded by out of state entities & his teaming up with ministers who proclaimed,

a tax hike would be preferable to slots

And, Brinkman's efforts to stop slots in Ohio did indeed result in higher taxes for Ohioans. Mysteriously Brinkman & his cronies didn't try to stop a Republican governor from putting slots in race tracks. In fact one of those cronies is actually serving in Kasich's administration.
Lately Brinkman has railed against libraries having media other than books on their shelves.
Despite Brinkman's efforts to outlaw abortion in Ohio, Ohio Right to Life has not given him their endorsement in this latest election cycle.
The Cincinnati Enquirer (R) had this to say about Brinkman:

"The issue here is Brinkman's lack of effectiveness.
Few lawmakers are as honest, principled and consistent as Brinkman. But he exhibits those qualities to a fault, coming off as stubborn, ideologically rigid and unwilling to compromise. He's made many enemies in Columbus by refusing to see anyone else's side of things. This has limited his ability to work with others and get things done."

Obviously, Enquirer editors have a different view of ethics than Judge Ruehlman.
Brinkman, with his convenient morals, his inability to work with others, his shady dealings & unethical politicking, is clearly NOT a good choice for Ohio.

More here

Little Wing

by Andy Boller

It isn’t Kasich’s fault
It’s Kasich’s fault
It’s public workers’ fault
It’s the legislature’s fault
It’s everybody’s fault
It’s the Republicans’ fault

The headlines for a slew of Letters to the Editor at The Fishwarp 2/21/12
pretty good…..

Springfield Then & Now

A slideshow of then & now photo mash ups with an annoying narration & some dubious history.

What to do With a Dead Golf Course ?
How about filling it with dead golfers?
Well, it needn't be golfers but how about a body farm? The city is wondering what to do with the Dunham Golf Course in West Price Hill. 14 acres of green space would be great for a body farm for Criminal Justice students to use for forensic studies and the cost to establish it seems pretty nominal. Currently, locals have to travel 100s of miles to visit one of these facilities. Between the various schools with criminal justice programs in the area, the College of Mortuary Science, The Champion company up the street in Springfield & the FBI in the swank NE suburbs, it seems we could have plenty of demand for such a facility here. Add the economic impact of these guests on chili parlors, hotels & entertainment to the fees they would pay to use the farm & we could make out like rats.

Fishwarp story here

Britain's Wicca Man

Britain's Wicca Man - Matchlight from Matchlight on Vimeo.

Being wrapped in mystery & mythology seems to help legitimize religions. The more we know about the origins of religious groups, the less compelling they are. While advances in printing helped the Reformation, they kinda put the kibosh on any potential new movements. Al Crowley said it's best not to discuss your beliefs because you tend to wind up looking foolish as George Carlin demonstrated in his "Invisible Man in the Sky (who needs money) routine. Crowley's much publicized antics certainly didn't do him much good.
About a year ago the BBC commissioned a documentary on Wicca's founder Gerry Gardener that was scheduled to be aired around now. Patheos suggested 2/20/2012, but searching BBC.co.uk finds nothing. Even if it was scheduled, dunno when it might be available in the US.
Dunno if this documentation is better or worse. The ominous tone of the trailer seems to reinforce the whole scary/Satanic image of Wicca which is pretty corny & not really representative. The film showcases the work of historian Ronald Hutton who claims to have studied Wicca for 20 years which should be pretty thorough for a movement that's only about 70.
Anyway, looks like it might be interesting. Who knows if it will ever see the light of day.

What Do You Think of Northside ?
Take the survey and win BIG CASH PRIZES !
Survey

Duke's Claims Questioned
I recently bit he bullet & subscribed to the Cincinnati Business Courier. I have long held that business leads our society & not government, furthermore while the Fishwarp is adequate, it tends to dwell on sensationalism. The TV coverage of our community is nothing but alarmist soundbites and emergency run coverage - cherry picked emergency run coverage ~ Follow the Gun.
While the Friday edition of the Fishwarp announces the groundbreaking of the Cincinnati streetcar project amongst, Stuff video a YouTube hit, Pickup dangles off railroad bridge after riding on tracks, Blake Shelton delivers love songs with an edge, Teen testifies against stepfather in rape trial & Gunman prompts SWAT standoff - the Business Courier actually did some investigation into Duke Energy's inflated utility line movement costs in relation to the streetcar installation."Many communities have utilities located much closer to their streetcar rails – with no problems."

Tim Borchers, owner of Tampa-based City Rail Solutions LLC, said utilities often see streetcar projects as a way to get their aging infrastructure replaced at no charge.
"If you went to Europe and talked about the utility thing, they would laugh"

To find out more, pick up a copy of the Cincinnati Business Courier wherever they are sold or subscribe to get the whole article and many more informative articles about what is really going on the the greater Cincinnati region (besides murder, rape & YouTube news) every Friday. (Actually, one quibble with the rag is that they use the Greater Cincinnati region & simply Cincinnati interchangeably, but most people around here do the same thing anyway, so…..)

Well, not exactly…

Westwood, not the most welcoming community, has posted welcome signs in Northside. The real border is about 500 feet up the road, unfortunately.
Westwood Civic Association had asked Northside to cede the land in 2011 but the Northside Community Council opted to retain it. Westwood Civic was told explicitly to not place the welcome sign in Northside but with a typically arrogant and cavalier attitude, they have.
WCA has been given til the end of February to remove the sign and place it in the proper place.
Cincinnati neighborhood map

Ron Paul in Ohio

While the Ron Paul campaign has yet to have an official presence in Ohio, the Fishwarp reports area Tease are setting up support for the candidate.
This is a surprising move since Paul tends not to support their liberty crushing social & domestic security agendas nor their militaristic foreign policy views. Further, they have made a point of supporting mainstream business-as-usual Republicans in most other races - well, in SW Ohio.

In West Chester you can find the Ron Paul Tease at 5430 West Chester Road.
email chris.littleton@ohiolibertycouncil.org for more information

More Ohio supporters here

Who Does Council Member Smitherman Represent ?
Cincinnati City Council Members Smitherman & Winburn called for a special council meeting to showboat discuss the streetcar project. There, Smitherman peppered City Manager Dohoney about all sorts of minutiae. Dohoney has been upfront & transparent about this project from day one. What is strange is Duke Energy's assertions of specifications & costs which appear to be a money grab. But Smitherman took their numbers as gospel while even questioning Mr Dohoney when he stated the overall cost would be 110. If Smitherman were really representing the citizens of Cincinnati it seems he would want to direct his questioning at Duke. Instead, his behavior at the meeting indicated he might be representing Duke or residents in Hamilton County outside the city. It's been suggested his roles in the local NAACP might be conflicting with his role as a member of city council. What else is he involved in? He certainly doesn't seem too interested in preventing the citizens of Cincinnati from getting fleeced.

Lounge Power

In the late 1800s the East Street Shops industrial complex in Springfield, Ohio was the largest manufacturing facility under one roof in the entire world.
On the morning of Feb. 10, 1902, a wind-whipped fire, the most destructive fire in the history of Springfield, ignited by a chemical explosion, leveled the East Street Shops industrial complex and threatened the city's downtown.
Inadequate water pressure and antiquated fire apparatus contributed to the staggering loss to the city and its economy. Twelve manufacturing plants were in total ruin. The loos came to $406,682 or more than $10,000,000 today.
The businesses hit hardest were the Owen Machine Tool Co., Champion Chemical Co., Springfield Foundry Co., Progress Stove and Furnace Co., Indianapolis Frog and Switch Co., Miller Gas Engine Co., Green Manufacturing Co. and the Krell French Piano Company.

Full story Springfield Fire Journal and Gen Disasters

Bonus info on the Detroit Southern railroad line Michigan Railroads

8 Feet ?






More from The Monocle

Economic Indicators
In this day and age I have no idea why housing starts are any indicator of the economy. Heck, it's wild home buying promotions that got us in the pickle we're in today. I understand why housing starts got their clout after WWII but the population growth is sputtering out & a lot of those houses built in the second half of the 20th century were built to last. New housing for some time now should be growing at a pace rivaling M$oft's OS glacial pace of growth. That is - the market is saturated
ScienceFiction.com reports comic book sales had their best January since 2008. Dunno if this should be any kind of economic bellwether - it might just be some kind of ouroboric film / comic book entertainment cycle. Seems as good as using housing to gauge the economy, tho. I mean, what's a house but a place to keep your comic books?

The Perils of Extremism

How do Conservatives and Liberals See the World? from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

long video

Councilman's Frivolous Actions Leads To New Rules
In a letter to the editor a Cincinnati councilman complains of new rules that would keep him from wasting city resources with frivolous requests and demands.
This is what happened last time he was in office.

"The memos to the city manager's office come at the rate of about one a day, and sometimes as many as three or four."
"The requests for information are usually no longer than two or three sentences. The answers sometimes take days of staff time to complete."

Fishwarp story here

Ohio Caverns Expands

Ohio Caverns will offer up tours of areas previously unavailable to visitors this year. They will also be offering limited handicap access.

Noose Son story here

Driehaus Dominates

Luke Brockmeier, Denise Driehaus and Terry Tranter appeared on Dan Hurley Show on Feb 5 to discuss their bids for Ohio's 31st district.
Brockmeier, with a particularly annoying voice, seems to want to be the perfect Liberal©. Tranter, a Berding DINO who has already tried using the courts to secure his nomination, came off as over medicated. Driehaus totally dominated the room with clear thinking & well articulated ideas & philosophy. One can easily see why Republican gerrymanderers tried to get her out of the picture.

Glad I'm Not Alone

Glad I'm not the only one to have had a problem reading Atlas Shrugged. Individualism? As Ma Quim pointed out - that must be why there are no children in Rand's books. Just - as I pointed out - a bunch of really unhappy people.
So, I know I'm late but I doubt the sentiment would do any good, Happy B-Day Aynnye.

Don't Count Your Boobies Until They're Hatched

Damn, I miss Thurber.....

More Proof - Horror Sells

New Heartless Bastards On the Way !

Ex-Cincinnati band, The Heartless Bastards are set to release a new album, Arrow, Feb 14. Give 'em your email address & you can download Parted Ways for free. They also have special packages with vinyl & other goodies for $$.

Reanimating George
If you're freaked out about pentacles in Washington D.C.'s street grid, you probably won't bat an eye at plans to zombify George Washington - with Lamb's blood!
Apparently, William Thornton, physician and designer of the US Capitol had such plans & Washington's request to wait 3 days before burying his body made implementation of Thornton's schemes a definite possibility.
They probably would have been better off shippin' his dead ass down to Haiti, tho.

i09 article here

Money Talks
In a move that should surprise nobody, the big guys prevail & the bus driver and her passengers can all go to hell.
Fishwarp story about big media & big gaming throwing Joann Searles (and her passengers) under the bus here

When Did War Stop Being Funny ?

For years I was bombarded whit the hilarious hijinks of war by the likes of Tony Curtis, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Danny Kaye and more. In the South Pacific, soldiers drank from coconut shells and cavorted with beautiful scantily clad native women and Nazi prison camps were nothing but a party. The Korean War raged on for 10 years as surgeons drank, chased nurses & played one practical joke after another. But as the 70s wore on the Korean war became less and less funny. Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq… For some reason - not funny. You would think some of the UN military interventions could generate some humor - at least for the other side.
Some say we lost in Vietnam. Do the Vietnamese have shelves of war comedies? Are there a zillion Afghani war comedies about Russia being considered for remakes substituting America?
Maybe it's because we don't have a draft anymore. Maybe it's the draftees who were the funny ones and our current military is made up of a bunch of David Caruso clones.
Or maybe we're just not confident in the military actions that we take nowadays.

Looking at Life from the Grave

When most of us think of the undertaker, we probably think of Digger O'Dell, the friendly undertaker we try to avoid. These guys have a unique perspective on life, tho, as they see it at it's end. As the obstetrician sees life at the beginning, we are all pretty equal but at the end, we are all over the place. Sometimes it just looks senseless. Some funeral directors have pushed for healthier lifestyles.
And recently, Detroit funeral directors have targeted violent lifestyles in a way befitting the MC.

Clifton IGA Still A Ways Off

Apparently everybody's hired but the old building has caused some remodeling delays. Owners hope to know the opening date sometime in February.

WXIX story here

We Are Not Alone

Cincinnati City Council is battling itself over laws to curb the stealing of metal. People are stealing siding off of houses, copper pipes from plumbing & air conditioners and it's costing property owners thousands of dollars - frequently more than what the thieves get for selling the metal. City council is trying to regulate the sellers & buyers in the city. Problem is, we don't live in a vacuum. People just sell the scrap outside the city limits in Ohio or Kentucky. We need to address this on a state basis & even then, border towns like Cincinnati & Cleveland will need cooperation with Pennsylvania & Kentucky.

Fishwarp story here.

MC EScher in Legos

hey, I don't kid about this kind of thing.
BitRebels link here

Supplement the Budget With TV Game Show Winnings
Springfield, Ohio was recently awarded a police car by the state. Doesn't seem like much as TV game shows frequently give away cars. This got me thinking, tho. With Cincinnati's mayor being a minor reality TV star, a councilman who is a local access cable and radio star and policewomen who are reality TV stars, why not groom city officials & employees for game shows and then have hem split the winnings with the city?
It might catch on. Cities across the nation could compete on game shows. Forbes magazine could use winners and losers for more of their goofy lists. Tourists would flock to winning and maybe even losing cities to see what the hell is going on. Political careers could be made & destroyed. Ambulance chasers could start suing TV networks instead of cities.
I think it's a plan.

no no no no
Not that SOPA….

Fiscally irresponsible, COA T endorsed Cincinnati Councilmen propose more big union freebies

Fishwarp story here

Is Todd Portune Symathtic ?
The Porktown Fishwrap claims Portune has asserted that he's symathtic but I'm not so sure.
Meanwhile the county is blighting a county resident's home in the cause of automotive efficiency.
I say, Death to Symathticism !

hey, look! It's a ghost sign!




This building had been covered with cheap grey aluminum siding & was adorned with billboards. Coupled with the owner not tending to the lawn & the ugly fencing on the corner lot, it served to blight a decent neighborhood in the vicinity of The Comet.
Recently the billboards were removed along with the siding and faint ghost signs are now visible. Can't make out anything, but.... It was apparently a store but since the siding was practically a wrap it was impossible to tell. Of course the city now has it zoned residential but that's ok as the new owner, a neighbor who bought it because he "was sick of looking at it", wants to remodel it as a residence. The difference between a neighbor owner and some absentee owner can be amazing. I imagine the people next door are ecstatic.
So how much of a snob am I for liking a painted sign over a billboard?
I don't care
NOTE:Since taking these pictures a doorway has been carved out of the wall

Springfield, Ohio 1924

Is This the Best DAAP Can Do ?
When I heard UC art students, Steve Hilton,Joshua Smith and Jake Ogelsby, had been busted for graffiti, I thought, hey, maybe they did some good work? nope - just the typical brain dead tagging you'd expect from some dumbass kid.
sheesh....

WKRC story here

Romeo and Juliet

Coming soon to an adult video store near you. Romeo & Juliet XXX (SFW). Seriously. And in an effort to make it more accessible to modern audiences, it will be set in present day America (Burbank?). Budget was not a concern, I am sure.
My favorite part about this flick? It's being released 2/7 - just in time for Valentine's Day.
awwwww……
Now if Romeo was a vampire & Juliet was a zombie - that's something I could go for!

Singin' in Cincinnati
With the coming World Choir Games to Cincinnati and City Council's promoting the town as, "Cincinnati - the city that sings", it seems to me that loosening up the regulations on group singing in the Queen City might be in order.
To sing as an ensemble on Cincinnati streets ain't all that easy. You can find it all in Section 909-3 Loud Noise.
First thing you have to do is decide where you want to perform & find out the zoning designation that applies to that area. You will need a tape measure & sound meter. Fortunately, Hamilton County has a handy whiz bang map with all sorts of dynamic graphic clutter to find the zoning designations. You can find out what the arcane initials mean here. Then, going back to Section 909-3 Loud Noise, you can check the tables to see when & how loud you can perform. The Sunday to Wednesday tables are identical to the Thursday tables except, apparently, public music performances are not allowed in MA (Manufacturing Agriculture) areas on Thursdays.

If the area you desire is PD, HS, UD, IDC, or HD, you need to ask Department of City Planning and Buildings.
The acceptable decibel levels for various zoning designations & times are listed in the tables. What's interesting here is that, at no time can one perform over 75db even though the generally accepted sound of traffic is around 80db meaning the sound of traffic is more acceptable to our society than music nd it is illegal to be heard over the cars that, presumably, would be on the street.
After the tables at Section 909-3 Loud Noise we get to the best part.

The performance of one or two street musicians on unamplified musical instruments between the hours of 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. or between the hours of 5:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., for no more than a single period of 90 consecutive minutes in the vicinity of a single location and not closer than any of the following: a) 20 feet to a pedestrian crosswalk; b) 20 feet to a street vendor; and c) 100 feet to an open market as such are defined in section 845-3 CMC, shall not constitute a violation of this section.

So, your barbershop quartet can just go to hell. Also, if you want piano accompionment, you will have to haul your upright down to where you want to play (as long as it's not an MA designation on a Thursday) & play because your midi controller, laptop & Crate are criminal in Cincinnati - the city that sings - but only acapella and not between 1-5:30PM.

Cincinnati really needs to move into the 21st late 20th century on this issue and with the attention to music coming this summer, now is a great time to address it. The definition of decibel levels & how they are measured is a good first step but the limit to 2 people was brought about in the 90s to accommodate a particular issue in a reactionary way and has never been addressed in a rational, comprehensive way. The ban on amplification is just backwards & frankly kinda classist.

Quinnipiac Polls Ohio
Quinnipiac pollsters asked Ohioans about abortion, fracking, Kasich, Brown Mandel & Portman and lions & tigers & bears.
Brown & Portman are viewed favorably - Mandel not so much. The Ohio legislature doesn't fare too well. Kasich sucks. A strong majority don't want private ownership of exotic critters. Buckeyes see the merits of gas drilling but want the processes investigated & proven safe. Folks are pretty evenly split on abortion. As usual, the Republicans are opposed to personal rights.

Read the results here.
And these are the full results, not the interpretations the Plain Dealer, Dispatch & Daily News expect you to be happy with.

One for the anti-Paultards

hey, Murdoch, go fuck yourself!

Cincinnati Comic Book Expo Expands!

The Fishwrap's entertainment blog reports that the Cincinnati Comic Book Expo will be expanding from one day to two this year with a preview day for VIP ticket holders. This will coincide with Oktoberfest again and the Cincinnati Reds are scheduled to play L.A. that weekend, too.
Event organizer Andrew Satterfield said attendance was up 40% in '11 over the first convention in '10. Last year, of course, comics legend Jim Steranko was the guest of honor.
The 2012 Cincinnati Comic Expo will be September 22/23 at the Duke Energy Center.

Grand Comics Database

CLOWNS

HT to the Cincinnati Monocle

The Rise of the Praetorian Class
HT to one of the best named blogs in the world, How the Hell Should I Know?

Finally, Some Pro Business Legislation Out of Columbus

"A new state law that cuts start-up costs for micro-breweries and makes it easier for a growing number of craft distilleries and brewers to sell to the public will trigger growth and expansion in the emerging industry, promote tourism, create jobs and generate tax revenues, state and industry officials say."
"The law allows small breweries to serve samples and to sell their brews from tasting rooms without buying a $3,900 special permit, and it also allows more small-batch distilleries to open in Ohio and to offer samples of their craft spirits from their own tasting rooms. The legislation known as House Bill 243 sailed through both the Ohio House of Representatives and Ohio Senate with unanimous support and was signed into law by Gov. John Kasich in late December. It is scheduled to take effect March 22."

Still, as Eric Zamonski of Oakwood notes, it is not far enough. Ohio's unwieldy fees & regulations have Ohio ranked 32nd nationally for breweries per capita.

Noose Son story here

Made in Ohio

After some false starts, the NSX is slated to be resurrected right here in Ohio around 2015.
Noose Son story here.

Dan, Sheree the CMHA is not "Cincinnati's". It is Hamilton County's. If it was Cincinnati's, it would not have folks from Green Township on the board.
sorry, WLWT didn't have the video online.

Problems With the Popular Dead
While most of us are aware of the problems of heavy traffic at the Pere Lachaise cemetery with throngs of people visiting the graves of famous people like Jim Morrison, cemeteries like that or Cincinnati's Spring Grove Cemetery are pretty much set up for a good bit of traffic.
Smaller cemeteries, like Clark County, Ohio's Myers Cemetery in Pike Twp. aren't set up for heavy traffic. After the interment of Clark County Deputy Suzanne Hopper, their gravel roads haven't been able to hold up to the heavy traffic of mourners. They sought relief from the Clark County Sheriff's department and Sheriff Gene Kelly with the Clark County Engineer's office responded providing 4 truckloads of gravel that had been swept off public streets to resurface the roads in the cemetery incurring no capital costs to taxpayers.

Hey, Gingrich, SHUT UP !

	Iowa	New Hampshire
Romney	24.6%	39.3%
Paul	21.4%	22.9%
Santorum	24.5%	9.4%
Gingrich	13.3%	9.4%
Huntsman	0.6%	16.9%
Perry	10.3%	0.7%

Blogger formatting is weird.....

THE EDGE OF REALITY

Can you imagine Elvis teaming up with Roky Erickson?
Anyway, I think this song is the new anthem of this blog. This is pretty much the way we dress & light the place at Blogging Isn't Cool HQ, already, so….

Library Censorship
A reader found a library in Salem, Missouri blocked her access to sites concerning astrology, occultism & Wicca on their public computers. When she asked for permission to access the sites, the librarian told her she could allow specific sites (no blanket access to specific search terms) and that she would also be obligated to inform the police of the reader's actions.
I can get blocking some content to minors, like stuff about drinking blood & maybe sex magic, but astrology & ancient religions ?
heck, the library probably has dusty old books on these subjects sitting around that they don't even know about.
The real scary part about this is the notion that the librarian felt compelled to inform the police about somebody accessing sites about faith, spirituality & history.

The Hill blogpost here.

Bold Political Prediction #1
After extensive study, the Blogging Isn't Cool staff concludes that Jim Berns will defeat Sandra Queen Noble for the Libertarian nomination for Ohio's 1st Congressional district in March.
Stay tuned.

See and hear the candidates !
Noble

Berns

COA T Endorsed Councilman Proposes Redundant Government Spending
COA T's junior mule on Cincinnati City Council has proposed the city solicitor provide ethics training for council members. The solicitor already does this but what the heck…
Smitherman claims such training is common in the "professional" world. No matter that city council positions are considered part time (& pay 180% of Cincinnatians median wage). But, just as every initiative COA T proposes, his legislation is aimed at increasing spending & making government more expensive and a greater burden on the taxpayer.

Fishwrap article here

Blurry Camel-Back Cricket Moon

Top Chef Meets Carl's Jr.

yeah, I know it's old but it's the only one in the series with an actual foodie.
and chicks with scars are hot….

Fun in the 2nd Century
After inspecting the wall at Carlisle, as Severus returned to the nearest guest house not only as victor over die Caledonians but also having established a permanent peace treaty, he wondered what omen would present itself. Just then, a black soldier, who was a well-known buffoon and regarded himself as a bit of a joker, came up to him with a wreath of cypress. When Severus, thoroughly disturbed at being presented with a funeral garland and by someone of the colour associated with death, angrily ordered him to be removed from his sight, the man jocularly remarked, "You have been everything. You have conquered everything, now may the conqueror be a god." When Severus subsequently reached town, and wanted to perform a sacrifice, owing to a mistake on the part of a local soothsayer, he was first taken to the temple of the goddess of war, and then supplied with sacrificial animals that were black. He abandoned the sacrifice in disgust and retired to the local imperial residence, only to find himself, through the negligence of the temple attendants, pursued right to the door by the herd of black cows.

Historia Augusta Severus XXII. 4-7

Kid Monzel
Profile in Bankruptcy

When Chris Monzel ran for a county commission seat, he claimed the county budget could be met by finding efficiencies in the county's spending.
Since then he has suggested one time fixes of selling assets at fire sale prices which has state & county auditors raising their eyebrows. He has added new bureaucracy instead of streamlining bureaucracy. He has stomped his feet and resisted offers from the city of Cincinnati to cut costs at MSD. He has threatened lawsuits & raised MSD rates.
The guy has nothing. He offers no vision, no leadership and no ideas.

What's Inside a Blog ?
Stateside Associates named The Cincinnati Enquirer's "Politics Extra Blog" the best local political blog for Cincinnati. But is it really a blog? Or is it more like the old newspaper "Extra" as it's name implies?
Wikipedia points out:

Although not a must, most good quality blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via GUI widgets on the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites.

So, technically, it's a blog, I guess, but the lack of dialogue with the authors seriously detracts from it being any kind of "best" blog bigtime. In my book, the dialogue is the most important part. The Enquirer's political blog is one of it's worst blogs along those lines. When the author just tosses out posts in an attempt to stir up the locals, it is just tantamount to Erisean trolling - not good blogging at all. Campbell & Kiesewetter respond to posters, dunno about the sports or arts guys.
Furthermore, the free exchange of thought is hampered as cincinnati.com limits participation to people who are signed up with a 3rd party service that many people don't use for political discourse.
The Cincinnati Enquirer has been able to publish "extras" forever but has opted not to. As it contracts out printing to Columbus printers, that ability will be completely gone. I certainly use the cincinnati.com Politics Extra "blog" feature for information that I post & comment on here but I routinely interact with commenters here. It's a "best practices" kinda thing. For a great example of "blog" interaction along political lines, The Cincinnati Asylum, The Daily Bellwether or, to a lesser degree, Cincinnati Blog are great examples. The Cincinnati Enquirer is still the best news source in town but their political blogging sucks big hairy wet ones.

Channel 9 Meltdown

In John Kiesewetter's blogpost, Did you see the Ch 9 News meltdown?, he mentions WCPO's Ignite system. Since the guys at cincinnati.com are hyperlink challenged, here's what he was talking about, Grass Valley Ignite.
These systems are pretty intense, you can get your mitts on some low end stuff, sans robotics, at Media Bridges if you want a taste.

Modern Mall Mayhem

As the spectre of bestial savagery & violence permeates the malls like the piped in music, law enforcement & mall security are rising to the occasion to keep the places safe for consumers.
The Interstate 675 Organized Retail Crime Group (I675ORCG) is compiling data and talking with mall security around the nation to find ways of battling the growing problem.
Are the retailers themselves to blame?

"I don’t quite understand why retailers do it this way because it does create a very dangerous environment when you get so many people lined up to purchase a pair of shoes," Miami Twp. Police Maj. John DiPietro said.

Or is it the manufacturers?
DiPietro has created Power Point presentations for the I675ORCG.
Havoc hankering juveniles use high tech communication devices and state of the art satellite technology to pinpoint exact times and locations for their surreptitious attacks. Highly trained mall security specialists have had some success banning the teen terrorists outright.
But how safe are the parking lots ?

Noose Son story here

Multilingual Signage

Some folks on Cincinnati city council want to put multilingual signage in the downtown area. A big question is - what other languages should we post? Spanish is becoming more popular around here. The current mayor has been courting China relentlessly. The city has a strong German heritage. On top of that, Cincinnati has sister cities in Zimbabwe, Japan, Ukraine, France & Taiwan. To accommodate all those languages, we're gonna need some big-ass signs.
A better idea would be to license Alien Technology® like what John Carpenter used in the hit movie, They Live so we can just put up one sign & then distribute Alien Technology® sunglasses to the foreign devils.
With any luck they can do color nowadays.

COA T's witch hunt of Cincinnati councilwoman Laure Quinlivan has netted them a cool $10,000. That is, they have drained the city's coffers of $10,000. The altruism of these guys cannot be exaggerated. What's ironic about COA T's hatred of Quinlivan is that councilwoman Quinlivan has done more to encourage entrepreneurship & create jobs than COA T's mule, councilman Charlie Winburn, who even has his own custom made "jobs committee".
What will this award mean to city services? If another tragedy occurs due to a fire station brownout, it will most assuredly be on Mark Miller's bloody hands.

Timelines

As the dreaded PhaseBuch rolls out it's new Timeline feature that pretty much nobody likes, Google has decided to kill it's very nice Timeline feature. Beloved by students, teachers, sports fans & history geeks, it apparently had no value for the Google overlords.
The world has gone mad.

2011 Reading List
What I read last year
or - why this blog sucks....

• Over the Rhine When beer Was King
• Secret Agent 666
• Romania An Illustrated history
• Pirates of the Barbary
• Vamp - The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara
• The Rise and Fall of Downtown
• Ridgewood in the Country Club District
• Proposals for Downtown Cincinnati
• The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution
• Johnny Comet
• Hypatia of Alexandria
• Reckless Endangerment
• Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered
• The Teaching of the 12
• The Civil War in Kentucky
• The Last Frontier - The Roman Invasion of Scotland

Top 7 Days of the Week
1. - Friday
A kind of cathartic release day. It's really no different from any of the other weekdays but, it kinda is.
2. - Saturday
A whole day to yourself, except, of course, you've put a ton of things off all wek to do on the weekend so it's probably going to be filled with more work than what you did all week.
3. - Sunday
A whole day to do all the crap you didn't do Saturday.
4. - Wednesday
Hump day & I still think it's spelled funny.
5. - Monday
A fresh start to the work week.
6. - Tuesday
Has a fresh youngish, invigorated feel week after week after week….
7. - Thursday
It's almost Friday.

~This one is for the stockholders~

Nimbys & Numbers
CMHA wanted to spend $640,000 to renovate a uilding on Cincinnati's west side. The building has 12 units. They moved the current residents out & now the usual loudmouths are promoting the demolition of the building saying too much subsidized housing is concentrated in their community.
Nevermind this:

it [Westwood] now has about 1,100 subsidized housing units, or about 6 percent of all it's housing units. That’s less than subsidized housing’s 11.5 percent share city-wide

My question is, why does it cost so much & why move the residents around like cattle? That cost comes out to $53,000 per unit. Habitat for Humanity could build a whole house for that much. People routinely renovate their homes without moving out of them.

The Fishwrap's not very in depth article here

The Bacon's take here