Wednesday, March 30, 2011

ok, so when the Libyan rebels take Tripoli & begin slaughtering the local defense & anybody connected to KaDaffy's regime, how fast will NATO be able to switch it's military humanitarian aid over to the other side?

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Fools There Were

Le Vampire

We seem to have lost something along the way. Back in the early 1900s, the picture, above, by Philip Burne-Jones, inspired Rudyard Kipling to write this poem.

The Vampire

A fool there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you or I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair,
(We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair--
(Even as you or I!)

Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste,
And the work of our head and hand
Belong to the woman who did not know
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand!

A fool there was and his goods he spent,
(Even as you or I!)
Honour and faith and a sure intent
(And it wasn't the least what the lady meant),
But a fool must follow his natural bent
(Even as you or I!)

Oh, the toil we lost and the spoil we lost
And the excellent things we planned
Belong to the woman who didn't know why
(And now we know that she never knew why)
And did not understand!

The fool was stripped to his foolish hide,
(Even as you or I!)
Which she might have seen when she threw him aside--
(But it isn't on record the lady tried)
So some of him lived but the most of him died--
(Even as you or I!)

``And it isn't the shame and it isn't the blame
That stings like a white-hot brand--
It's coming to know that she never knew why
(Seeing, at last, she could never know why)
And never could understand!''

This inspired Porter Emerson Browne to write a play, A Fool There Was, which was later made into a movie of the same name.
Nowadays we have books & comic books made into movies. Toys are made of cartoons and cartoons are made of toys. In our modern society, plays, poems and paintings have pretty much mothing in common. OK, their first letters... There is a creative & complementary cross discipline thing going on there, but that doesn't exist in converting an "asset" from one media to another. That's pretty much just "re-purposing". It's not exactly on the same intellectual plane.
Do teachers in schools promote this kind of exercise? It seems we are slaves to motion & dialogue. Have we become John Schuyler?
You can D/L A Fool There Was here.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Ault Park Turns 100 !

Buy my crap

The Fishwrap reports that Ault Park will be turning 100 this year.
When I first moved to Cincinnati, I lived in Oakley. This place was nearby & only saw real action in the summer. The pavilion was a wreck, the picnic tables broken & rotted & the road wasn't doing too well. Perfect for somebody like me. People talk about the place being overrun with biker gangs but I never saw that. They had a great 4th of July festival but it was kind of crowded. It was also only a few blocks away from a Taco Casa. Many taco salads were consumed there.
If you want to show your pride & celebrate the park & buying a motorcycle ain't in the budget, get my cool Ault Park junk from CafePress. Shirts, aprons, mousepads, mugs, you name it!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

File Under: WTF ?

Happy 80, dude, maybe in another 80 years you can finally live this one down. Live long & prosper...

Friday, March 25, 2011

Happy Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Day

100 years ago today a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York. Poor emergency preparation resulted in the deaths of 146 seamstresses on the 8th to 10th floors. Firefighters ladders could not reach the trapped women. Emergency workers could only watch as they were consumed by fire or as they jumped to their deaths.
This event is used to support the value of unions as the workers had only weeks before been fighting for better and safer working conditions. With or without a union, this should never have happened and should not be forgotten.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Fixing Potholes

Councilwoman Amy Murray is vowing to have 10,000 potholes fixed in 3 weeks. Can it be done?
Murray runs a company called The Japan Consulting Group & has been involved with Japanese business for a while. She has obviously seen the dismal failure in Japanese passenger rail & is fighting tirelessly to save Porkopolis from the same fate. But can she get some Japanese road repair savvy in Cincinnati? Hamilton Avenue is turning into a lifetime career for some local road workers, but in Japan major repairs have taken place since their recent earthquake & tsunami. If these guys can do this, road widening & pot holes should be a cinch.

HT to the Cincinnati Blog
Meanwhile, in COA Tland...

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

BARSOOM !

I have accepted the fact that Hollywood is incapable of original thought. Remakes of remakes of adaptations seems to be the best they can do. That they don't even pick good crap to adapt.....
Hugo Chavez bringing up the topic of life on Mars on World Water Day made me think of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter on Mars pulp series & why the hell doesn't anybody do that on film (or pixels).
Lo & behold! A film adaptation is due in 2012 which will mark the 100th anniversary of the character's introduction to the pulp world.
It will probably suck but you would need today's special effects tech to do the story.

HT to The Pagan Temple for Chavez' latest lunacy.
Party to Save the Pool!

The city of Cincinnati Recreation Department has decided to not open several pools this summer due to budget restraints.
Northside's pool is one of them. Efforts are underway to raise the approximately $45,000 needed to keep the pool open this summer.
Working Families' Movement of Northside will be hosting a fundraiser Thursday, March 24 at the McKie Recreation Center at 1655 Chase Avenue from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Local hip hop artists from Elementz and the Northside Drill Team will bring the party and Happen will be there to provide programming for the kids.

For more information, call 513-807-3898
or visit the FaceBook page.

Additionally, there is more info on the pool & how you can donate directly to the fund to keep it open here.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

What Happens When Auto-Cultists Willingly Sail Through Intersections

The faith of the road warrior must be mighty indeed to sustain him while blindly whizzing around in a death dealing 2 ton rolling bomb.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Come Again, Willie ?

Back when John McCain was running against Barak O'Bama for president, Cincinnati's bombastic radio fool, WLW's Willie Cunningham, predicted that if O'Bama was elected he would soon be sitting around singing Kumbaya with Islamo-terrorists who wanted to kill us all.

It appears the "Great American" was a little off.
While O'Bama continues 2 wars against predominantly Muslim States, he has just engaged in a third. Meanwhile, Ohio governor, John DICK Kasich has upped Ohio's support for school vouchers. This lets Ohio parents divert money from the public school system & give it to charter schools & private schools. In Ohio and the nation one of the fastest growing segments of charter schools is Islamic oriented. That is, madrassas. Ohio is alredy up to 19. Is that where John DICK Kasich's beloved heartland wants to invest it's education dollars?
It seems the one most likely to be sitting around singing Kumbaya with Al Quaeda won't be O'Bama but John DICK Kasich.

Gaga is a hoot

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Does Size Matter ?

These numbers aren't terribly accurate, they are rounded off, too, but they are close enough to get some kinda point across.
Back when Cincinnati began it was just a few square miles along the river. Around 1810 there were about 2,000 people and policing was pretty much a volunteer night watch thing. A police force didn't happen till 1828 which resulted in a force of about 7 men. The population in 1830 was about 25,000.
In 1850 the city annexed the rest of "the basin" boosting the city's area to about 6 square miles. The population was about 115,000. A police chief system was established in 1852.
Throughout the 1800s police got around on foot or on horseback. In the later decades they added horse drawn wagons to the mix.
Cincinnati began annexing nearby villages. Cumminsville was added in 1873. At the time of the courthouse riots of 1884, Cincinnati had a police force of 300. By 1900 the city had a population of about 325,000 & covered about 50 square miles. This would have given the city about 6 officers per square mile that they would traverse by foot or on horseback.
The police established a telegraph network as early as 1866 with "call boxes" & updated it to telephony by 1880. Prior to that the patrolling officer was pretty much out on his own. Cincinnati's was actually the first police department to adopt the telephone.
In 1904 the first motorized
police wagon" was introduced. In 1911 the police force adopted motorcycles and in 1912 patrol cars were introduced giving the officers a greater range & faster response times. Theoretically. Tires of that era were of notoriously poor quality & flats were commonplace.
The city ceased it's annexation campaign around 1914 when it had grown to just under 80 square miles.
By the 1950s Cincinnati's population peaked at over 500,000. Police cars had become specialty vehicles with powerful engines and advanced suspensions. Later, the call boxes were replaced with radio communications. If you were around in the 1960s you probably remember seeing the old call boxes. Through better communications & transportation the police were well equipped to handle the area and population.
By 2011 the population of Cincinnati has shrunk to just under 300,000. It has not grown it's area for almost 100 years. The police officers are aided with computer networks in addition to their better radios & an array of weaponry, the latest additions primarily being non-lethal.
The police force, at around 1,000 officers added another 100 around 2006. This gives Cincinnati approximately 13 officers, with damn near Batman-like technology, per square mile. This is more than twice the police per square mile of 120 years ago when we had roughly the same size population, only a slightly smaller footprint & police were running around on foot & communicating with stationary phones. Do all the high tech advances count for nothing? Seems like we should need fewer police, not more.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

ICANN OKs .XXX

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has okd the use of the .xxx top level domain. They did not approve .gay.
Not everybody was pleased. Somehow some people posting adult content think it will be good for their businesses. Porn traditionally spoofs popular names, titles & stuff. Will people get rich with urls like IBM.xxx or marthastewart.xxx ?
It will certainly make it easier for ISPs & governments to block the sites. This actually appeals to some adult content sites. One of their big problems is dealing with minors stealing their parents credit cards & accessing adult sites by lying about heir age. Parents are frequently less tolerant of the sites that have to deal with canceling charges than they are of their lying, thieving pervo-brats.
It won't bode well in authoritarian countries or in first amendment challenged Hamilton County with it's obsessive morals police like Simon Lies, Phil Burress & their minions in the CCV & OCA not to mention the local throng of Gothardites.
Fox News predicts it will bring an onslaught of porn to the internet. uh, guys? Have you looked at the internet lately? I have no idea why established sites would want to change their addresses or why non adult sites would choose the domain given it's likely banning in a number of markets.
We shall see. The phrase, "Be careful what you wish for" comes to mind.

Politico story here.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

CSO a Sell Out ?

photo by Rack Photo

The Enquirer is wondering why the Cincinnati Symphony is selling out it's shows.
Back in '07 I copied and pasted an article from The Cincinnati Post about attendance & auditorium size at Music Hall. Glad I did as it gathered a lot of good info & The Post ain't there anymore. Thank bog for crappy blogging.
Music Hall is one of the largest auditoriums and Cincinnati is not one of the largest markets around. It wasn't coming close to selling out in 07. Compared to the larger markets and audience sizes in other cities though, Cincinnati wasn't doing bad at all then. Now it's just smokin'.
11/24/07 article here.

HT to Cincinnati Blog
3CDC v. Neighborhoods ?

A recent article in SoapBox describes how some enterprising guys built up a following an Northside's Take the Cake and decided to launch out on their own with an Italian trattoria, A Tavola. With the following they had built up, they naturally went shopping for a space in Northside. 3CDC got involved & sold the new business on a space in OTR's booming Gateway Quarter.
So How do the neighborhoods of Cincinnati compete with the money & organization of a local juggernaut like 3CDC?
Sure, the neighborhoods have business associations, but they are like college student protestors compared to 3CDC's Xe. I'm all for a healthy city center and Northside needs another restaurant like it needs a hole in it's collective head but is the lopsided competition in the greater city's best interest?

Monday, March 14, 2011

Can it Happen Here?

With the recent earthquake & tsunami in Japan, we have to wonder if it could happen here. The 100LB gorilla in the midwest, of course, is the New Madrid seismic zone which will mark the 200th anniversary of it's last shift this winter.
From December 1811 to February 1812 There were several strong quakes - the strongest recorded in the midwest and a number of smaller shakes. Minor shakes continued on til March of 1813. Near the epicenter New Madrid was flattened, earth liquified, geysers of earth and water erupted & 15-20 foot waves were reported on the Mississippi. Vibrations were felt in Michigan and in Boston where the shaking caused bells to ring.

This map uses the Modified Mercali Scale. It doesn't really measure anything it just kinda codifies the reported effects.
For all the power of the quakes they didn't do a whole lot of damage because there just wasn't a whole lot to damage. As late as 1830 Frances Trollope described Memphis as a few wooden buildings carved out of the forest on a bluff overlooking the river. Cincinnati only had a population of a little over 2,300. The city consisted of just over 1,000 structures in an area that would roughly be the central business district and Queensgate today. The structures were primarily 1 & 2 story wood buildings about a quarter of the buildings were brick and there were about 2 dozen buildings made of stone. The brickwork was about the only thing to suffer in Cincinnati. Cracks in walls were reported, some chimneys toppled & a bucket of water fell over. Light was obtained from candles and oil lamps but apparently this caused no problem.
Modern experts on buildings & seismology tell us that modern buildings in Cincinnati, which have added steel to the construction mix, should be structurally adequate for another quake from that region. The problem would be what the buildings are built on. Landslides on Cincinnati's soft hillsides would be a major problem. Of course since 1811 we have also networked ourselves with electric lines, phone lines, water lines, gas lines & bridges. Ruptures of gas lines & downed power lines could result in fires, Ruptured water lines and collapsed roadways could severely hamper emergency crews.
Quakes in the New Madrid area have happened before around 900, & 1500. Following this pattern we should have had another around the second half of the 20th century. The quakes in 1811 were preceded by intense flooding near the epicenter. Maybe modern river management has abated the potential for a major quake along the Mississippi?
There was a quake in Anna, Ohio in March after the flooding of the Ohio & Mississippi rivers in 1937 but Anna was nowhere near the rivers.
The earthquake of 1811 was also preceded by a comet visible in Cincinnati in September and strange solar activity noted by Dr Daniel Drake. He also noted in the days prior to the quake, a darkening of the sky.
What is scary, now, in Japan is the damage at it's nuclear power plants. In southern Ohio a nuclear plant would likely be built along the Ohio river. Drake pointed out tremors were more severe along the river bed. Would modern building techniques be strong enough to weather an 1811 strength quake? I would hope so. I certainly wouldn't build a plant anywhere near New Madrid, tho. Of course people have......

Natural and Statistical View, or a Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country by Daniel Drake
Cincinnati Magazine article 10/08

HT to Losantville

Also in Drake's treatise he also mentions the fate of the county courthouse that preceded the courthouse destroyed in 1884. It was burned down in a mishap in 1812. I'd love to see the insurance policy on the latest courthouse. :-)

Friday, March 11, 2011

Navistar hires back 180 laid off workers & begins production of 3 new truck models. This will provide good and much needed jobs in Springfield. Kasich will probably take credit for the restoration of these union jobs but this has been in the works for awhile.

Noose Son story here.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

A Trip to South Cumminsville

Siezing the nice day by the face, I pedalled over to South Cumminsville for a visit. I was looking for the old "Lucky Circus Grounds" mentioned by Sparky09 in the comments in this article about the circus poster exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Cumminsville was established around 1800 and extended west along the northern banks of the Mill Creek westward to where it ran down along the western banks of the Mill Creek. Train tracks crossed the town and the area to the north was sometimes called Northside and south of the tracks was sometimes called Southside. Cincinnati annexed Cumminsville in 1873. More roadways cut through between the regions and sometime or other, when Cincinnati started to recognize official neighborhoods (1960s ?) the separated community was named Cumminsville and South Cumminsville. In the early 80s Cumminsville changed it's name to Northside.
Obviously, the center of the neighborhood wound up in Northside and along with weird new traffic patterns connecting to South Cumminsville got more and more obnoxious. South Cumminsville was mostly residential and the blighted areas along the highways & ramps gave way to factories, warehouses & parking lots. The residential areas are just kinda "what's left". Some new housing went in in the early 2000s. Dunno how that's working out. To get an idea of how things have changed, check out this "interactive" map contrasting the area in 1869 & now.
I entered S Cumminsville along the clusterfuck intersection where Spring Grove meets Elberon & Colerain.

Leaving Northside - an old Crosley plant

Then I entered an industrial wasteland.
Sparky09 said he lived in a house at the end of Roll Avenue and across the street were the fairgrounds. Roll is amazing. It was probably lined with houses along the whole 2 block stretch. Maybe 30-50 houses. Now there are about 6. You can see lot after lot with steps, retaining walls & foundations but only a few houses. At the end there is a dip and the Lucky Circus Grounds are now the Carl F Hille Memorial Field.


Sgt. Hille was a Cincinnati police officer in 1942. He was an avid baseball player and organized numerous sports activities in the police department but his life was cut short when he died in an explosion in the line of duty.

The last house on the right

Dunno if this is the house Sparky09 lived in but it sits at a high point with the field below it in the front and the west fork of the Mill Creek behind it. A circus in the field below in the summer at night would have to have been magical for a kid. Like everything else around there, tho, it was all pretty dilapidated.

This house is for sale

The next street over, Dawson, with a junkyard at the end, was a little more populated. This 5 bedroom, 120 year old gem at 3620 can be had for a cool $20,000.
Oddly enough there was a posting on South Cumminsville almost exactly a year ago on the cincinnati.com blog, 52 Neighborhoods.
It references a Building Cincinnati post from 2007. That post discusses eminent domain in revitalizing the neighborhood. From what I saw, buying up some of the abandoned industrial property might be kind of lucrative.
Anyway, here's some more pics. Click on the thumbs to see a larger image in a new window.

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Ya Want a Riot ?

While we approach the 10th anniversary of the 2001 riots of Cincinnati, we also approach the 127th anniversary of the 1884 riots. Compared to the 1884 riots, 2001's was like Spring Break. While 2001's had to do with police shootings that were frequently totally justified, 1884's was more about an alarming murder rate & the inability of a justice system to deal with the problem. In 1883 there were 96 murders compared to 2010's 72.
A Cincinnati Enquirer article titled "The College of Murder" stated:
"Laxity of laws gives the Queen City of the West its crimson record. Pre-eminence in art, science, and industry avail nothing where murder is rampant and the lives of citizens are unsafe even in broad daylight."
Cincinnati wasn't involved in prohibition back then. Unlike today, innocent people were at high risk.
As we look at our homicide rate & police force today, we can compare it to 1883.
The population of the city is fairly stagnant at about 333,000. Between 1880 & 1890 the population rose from 255.000 to 296,000. With over 1,000 police officers today armed with networked computers & phones / radios & cars that can cruise at 100 MPH, the police force of 1884 was comprised of 300 officers who had whistles an a few wagons. More than tripling the manpower & adding all the hardware has reduced homicide by about 25%. Maybe it's not the police - maybe it's prohibition.
Anyway, 12/24/1883 2 guys brutally murdered their boss & dumped him in the Mill Creek. They were caught & pretty much confessed immediately. Pretty cut & dried. One guy was mulatto & the other white. in March of 1884 the white guy was tried & sentenced to 20 years for manslaughter. People were outraged. A. - the laxity on the white guy and B. - the unfairness that the mulatto was likely going to get hanged (he was) sparked anger in the citizenry. Urged on by the Enquirer, folks met at Music Hall on March 28 & then marched on the courthouse to mete out the justice the murderers deserved. Police & the Sheriff's department stalwartly defended the courthouse & jail. Sheriff Morton Hawkins refused to use deadly force on the rioters (which was basically all they had). The small band of law enforcement officers was no match for the 10,000 rioters, however. National Guard was called in from Columbus, Dayton & Springfield. The guys from Dayton said, forget it. Columbus & Springfield forces had no qualms about using deadly force. Columbus brought a daggone gatling gun! Somewhere in the chaos attorney & militia captain, William Desmond, was shot and killed by a National Guardsman while he tried to defend the courthouse. That's his statue in the lobby of the current courthouse. In the end 56 people were killed and the courthouse burned including countless county records and a renowned law library.
There weren't any radio or TV stations back then - no helicopters to follow the white Bronco, so the papers published "extras" to keep people up to date. Joan Asche compiled a bunch into one document to tell the story. PDF
There aree certainly better articles on this subject. What inspired this post, however, was finding a mess of pics of the burnt courthouse at the Cincinnati Historical Society's website. These guys are so secretive & require so many oaths & vows, you'd think the History Channel & Alex Jones would be doing shows on 'em constantly. Anyway, ALL PHOTOS IN THIS POSTING COME FROM THE CINCINNATI HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S ONLINE PHOTO ARCHIVE located here their keywords are pretty wack, of course.

The Law Library

Hallway

Court of Common Pleas

Barricade with cool effect in the sky from a damaged negative


Article by Mark Painter in a 2003 Fishwrap here.

Wikipedia article here.
This Old House Honors Springfield

This Old House Magazine has listed Soringfield, Ohio's South Fountain Avenue in it's Best Old Neighborhoods for 2011 issue.
The area is already on the National Register of Historic Places.
I previously posted on the neighborhood here (with pictures!)
The South Fountain website appears to have disappeared. great timing....

Noose Son story here.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

A Blog Eat Blog World

On March 4 Randy Simes @ UrbanCincy posted an article, The Blogification of the Cincinnati Enquirer. He points to the Enquirer's employing local blogs at some compensation (Reds tickets?) including Wine Me Dine Me.
On March 7, UrbanCincy's Jenny Kessler reported the closing of Grammer's bar. The Enquirer reported on the story the next day. Or so I thought. In reality it was just the Wine Me Dine Me blog picking up Ms Kessler's original article.
Unlike Blogging Isn't Cool, which compensates it's legion of staff with top union wages and lavish pensions, Simes' UrbanCincy sweatshop compensates staff so poorly they are freezing to death in their apartments.
Even if all Wine Me Dine Me gets is the fabulous ad revenue that gives "Julie" a seat with the Bilderberg Group, it is certainly enhanced by the Enquirer's links that could have gone to the original article.
The laws and rules in the blogosphere are few and far between. I hope this doesn't result in bloodshed. Downtowners & all.....

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Creepy Sunday Afternoon Everybody !

Saturday, March 05, 2011

Debt & Leadership

After World War II, Romania found itself under the fist of Russia again, this time in the form of the Soviet Union. A proud Leninist, Marxist, Stainist, Nicolae Ceausescu entered the government as Secretary of Agriculture. He quickly rose up through the ranks of government & politics and took the helm of the south eastern European nation in the 60s. Ceausescu liked Stalin's move toward industrialization & guided Romania along the same route. Things went relatively well but the USSR wanted Romania to follow agrarian pursuits. Ceausescu felt that would make his country too reliant on his Ruskie overlords so he looked to the west to fund his industrial expansion plans. England and the USA welcomed Ceausescu with open arms due to his defiance of the Soviets and happily lent him all kinds of money.
Ceausescu outlawed abortion for women under 42 and deemed any woman with 10 or more children "heroine mothers". This put quite a strain on the country's orphanages.
Things went generally ok although there were a few bumps in the road. Soon people took notice of Romania's debt issues. Ceausescu vowed to eliminate the debt. And he did! But in doing so, unemployment went through the roof, there were food shortages, power outages and people died of exposure in their homes. Romainia's HIV/AIDS population was disproportionately high.
In 1989 people had had enough. After a large protest in Timisoara, the people laid siege to Ceausescu's palace in Bucharest. He bungled an escape & was captured, tried in a kangaroo court and summarily executed.
This marked the end of communism in Romania but I think we can see that austerity measures have consequences.
You might recall that Timisoara was also the site of what was the largest peasant revolt of the time back in 1514 as well.
Hungarian nobility had been very harsh with the peasantry that did most of the labor. Gyorgy Dozsa led a revolt against the nobility and even had had a few successes. Istvan Bathory was called in & squared off with Dozsa & his men. Dozsa was roundly defeated & captured. For his punishment, Dozsa was placed in a metal chair in a bed of coals where he was cooked alive. When he was looking good, his captors tore at his skin with tongs and forced his followers to bite into the wounds and eat of their leader's flesh. The peasants who complied were set free (albeit with some psychological issues) and the peasants who refused were "cut up".
Istvan Bathory might ring a bell, too. Other than the fact there was more than a baker's dozen of them, he was grand dad or great uncle of Elizabeth Bathory AKA the Blood Countess. Every goth boy's wet dream, Beth was the chick who allegedly tortured and killed 600 peasant maidens and bathed in their blood.
The things our modern American leaders could learn from SE Europeans in history...

Friday, March 04, 2011

To Sequel or not to Sequel

Is there really any need to tap into the Blade Runner universe again? Seems like a fairly generic thing if you just go off of the time period created by Philip K. Dick & Ridley Scott. If you drag characters out of the original story it would just be kind of sucky.
Anyway, that's what Alcon Entertainment wants to do. I say, save your money & make something on your own. Or try another franchise. Grendel is screaming for movie adaptations & could cover any number of worlds or settings.

Guardian story here.

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Cincinnati, well, Ohio recently lost another great one. I had only known of Robert Howe as a historian and kid's textbook author. I had been told he was an educator and just assumed he was an elementary school educator. I had no idea what all he had done. I'm still wondering if I used his book in Ohio History when I was a kid.....
From his Enquirer obituary:
Robert Howe graduated from Hughes High School, the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering, and received a PhD from Purdue University.
He served in the Navy with the Seabees in World War II.
His career at UC began as an engineering lecturer and concluded as a full professor. Howe taught soil mechanics, highway design, traffic engineering, and surveying. With no computer to analyze his dissertation data, he used the floor model at an IBM sales office in downtown Cincinnati, where he attracted curious bystanders. He taught UC's first course on computer programming and served as a student advisor.
Howe was actively engaged in civic affairs. Serving as a long-time member of the Charter Committee, he ran unsuccessfully for City Council and served on the SORTA board.
He gave talks and tours about Cincinnati history. He wrote Ohio history textbooks for fourth graders and seventh graders and co-authored a history of the ancient and medieval world with his wife, Helen. His manuscript on "How Cincinnati Became Greater" examined the development of the 9-county OKI region.

Cincinnati Enquirer full obituary

Knowlton's at the Corner from the Cincnnati Historical Society Bulletin Fall 1975
Wright Pat Shows Off It's New Computer

Wright Patterson Air Force Base, outside historic Dayton, OH, will show off it's new Cray "Raptor" system Friday. Cray Computer is probably best known for supplying Batman with his Batcave computer system.
The liquid cooled Raptor with petascale technologies checks in with virtually 89,805 gigabytes of memory and can scale to over 1,000,000 cores using AMD multi-core processors. The lucky bastards intend to use this Linux box for weapon systems design, modeling and simulation studies.
For more info on this beast click here.

Noose Son story here.
Alternative Casino Design

image by Anjil119

Utilizing Romanian anti-grav technology, a casino with traditional old school architecture could hover over Broadway Commons while preserving the current ambience of the neighborhood and preserving the parking facilities as well.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

The Reason We Absolutely Should NOT Build a Streetcar in Cincinnati !

The Altar of the Twelve Gods was built by hippies about 2,500 years ago & marked the center of Athens. Now it is covered by IPAS rail lines and as upgrades progress, elitist archaeologists want to pause construction to study what has been unearthed. This is expected to have a negative impact on commuting OU students.
The northern part of the proposed streetcar route has a vast network of underground temples dedicated to The Sausage Queen that were built thousands of years ago by nomadic Indo Germanic tribes and have all sorts of strange curses on them that could invite plague and worse if new tracks are laid into the roadbed.
Stop the madness NOW !