New Wave Hookers
Ever wondered what a pimp's office looked like? How their phones worked? There was a time when porn was fun, had some semblance of a plot & wasn't just gross, mind-numbing sex-a-thons.

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A COA T/CCV Vision For Libraries?

From the Film Agora
State budget cutting will have a profound impact on Ohio's libraries. Hamilton County, after creating a brand new $60+K job to cut red tape (instead of just cutting red tape), diverted $35+K from library funding as well. The Hamilton County Library has cut it's budget about 23% over the last decade as costs for materials, energy, maintenance & everything else have increased. Recently Cincinnati transferred all their materials for the blind to Cleveland. The state has now cut $5 million from libraries for access to that material. Presumably there's a lot of recorded media in that collection.
Looking at places to cut, Tom Brinkman of COA T, CCV, Make Let Ohio Vote, Article XII, etc. proposes eliminating movies and music.

"They've gotten too far away from their core mission which is providing reading material and materials to help people do research and improve their lives,"

It's not a core mission issue, it's a technology issue. In the olden days there wasn't much in the way of film the average shmoe could watch at home. Nowadays all sorts of documentaries are made and distributed on DVD. Music has been available in libraries for years on vinyl, tape and now CDs are in the mix. Libraries have existed for centuries originally housing clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform, later, scrolls of papyrus were used. Papyrus was pretty easily destroyed, heck, it destroys itself but the fires and sackings of the libraries of Alexandria are famous. One of the famous destructions happened around 400 when Christians took to destroying non-Christian works. This was depicted in the recent movie, Agora. Will Ohio's Christianist zealots use budgeting to mold Ohio's libraries to their vision? Is Brinkman's "core mission" code for a library system that promotes his anti-gay, anti-abortion, generally anti-sex agenda?

Fishwrap story here.

More on Alexandria here.

Overtime

76 or Fight

Sally LeRoy
Looks like we'll get to vote on judge's age limits this November. Back in 1968 Ohio decided to put an age cap of 70 on judges. There are no upper age limits on any other elected office in Ohio. 1968 was also a huge year for youth as the median age made a sharp shift downwards due to the baby boom generation. In 1971 the voting age was dropped from 21 to 18. Ironically, these younguns now want to raise the age limits they applied when they were younger. Lessee, Sally LeRoy would be 68 this year….
This handy chart can kinda show how U.S. age distribution has changed over the years.

Notice how the top keeps getting thicker & that bulge in the middle keeps getting higher? That's ME!
Whatever. I don't see why we need to have an age limit on judges anyway. Our state legislature just likes controlling things, I guess.

Gem City Noose story here

Science Fiction Fun in Cincinnati
or
神圣的睾丸

whew!, there's some good free sci fi this week in Porkopolis. First off, on July 26 at MoBo, is Serenity @ 9PM. The New York Dolls will be at Shake It Records @ 5PM, so you'll probably just want to make a night of it in hot sticky Northside Tuesday. Maybe grab a burrito with the liberals at The Comet @ 7:30
The next night, the 27th, at the Mercantile Library will be 2001: A Space Odyssey (or as VegasAnt called it, "the movie about the funky magnet") @ 7P (reservations requested.
Beam me up, daddyo!

Annual County Fair Ranting

2010 Clark Co. Fair Queen Amanda Haddix
Barely 2 days in a and the Clark County paper of record has two optimistic articles on their county fair and 52 80 98 133 282 photos.
This year the Hamilton County 4H has expressed their contempt, fear and loathing of the city of Cincinnati and boycotted the Hamilton County fair and held their own at an amusement park in western Hamilton County. The Fishwrap has 2 glowing articles & 1 picture about the 4H fair but no followup deeming it a success (other than a headline) or, as many commenters say, an abject failure - basically a club event. 4H hasn't been crowing about their fair on their website of FaceBook page. From the Fishwrap article, there's no evidence they even sent a reporter.
The Hamilton County Fair intends to go on without the 4H. There is no doubt the absence of the 4H will impact attendance negatively
I am numb to Liberal accusations of racism but the language the 4H, Hamilton County Extension Director , Tonya Horvath, and County Commissioner Greg Hartmann use in describing the city environs most certainly deserves the label. I never witnessed the hatred of the county seat from suburban and rural residents in Clark County like I have in Hamilton County. Add in the contempt from the local paper and their glee at fanning the flames of divisiveness… Perhaps the Fishwrap should change it's name to The Area Around Cincinnati Enquirer.
If a goal of 4H is to develop good citizens - running away & hiding isn't a good lesson.

Hamilton County Fair August 9-13
Clark County Fair July 22-29

Judge Denies COA T's Ludicrisity
Judge Norbert Nadel, who you may know from his appearances on the McRothengerg Group which frequently features COA Ters who may or may not quit the show halfway through, dismissed their argument against the city/mayor over the mayor's car allowance.
Nadel pointed out:

giving an allowance for a car is undoubtedly less of a burden on taxpayers than the city (owning) and maintaining a vehicle for the mayor's car

Again, another COA T scheme that would wind up costing us more.

Fishwrap article here.

Old Springfield High

Springfiel High School
On Preservation Ohio's Top 10 Most Endangered Historic Sites list
The old Springfield High school building was built 100 years ago in 1911. For the past few years it has sat empty. In 1960, due to an increasing population and a northward trend in this population, a new high school was built on a large tract of land at the north end of the city. It was called Springfield North and the old Springfield High became Springfield South.
As the population migration to the north was primarily white, the whiter, wealthier families were drawn to the district even more & North became the "white school" and South became the "black school". The irony of North adopting the fetish of a panther, especially in the 60s, was not lost on many.

As the overall population shrank from the 80s on, the need for 2 schools, the rising cost of maintaining the older building became prohibitive. With state school building money flowing like water & the vast grounds around North, it was decided to build a new building there, demolish the old North & close South.
While North was fine, it was certainly no architectural gem. An orange brick mess of boxes, it was typical 60s institutional crap. South was designed and built at a time when architecture meant something, buildings were built to last and to inspire the people using it. Unfortunately, it wasn't built for upgradability. Heating is probably antiquated. There is no air conditioning (I never had AC when I was in school). The thick walls & floors would make wireless networking problematic. The auditorium is probably antiquated. Trying to find a use for this building is going to be hard and expensive. Now it has made Preservation Ohio's Top 10 Most Endangered List.
Springfield schools tried foisting it off on Catholic Central. Their building erected in 1958 probably needs replaced but the last thing they need is an even older building. Wittenberg or Clark State might be able to use it but would need help paying for renovations. Those 2 seem to be slowly gobbling up the city anyway.
About the only thing saving this school right now is nobody having the cash to demolish it. As South Fountain sees a bit of a renaissance, it would be sad to see this place go. Maybe Harry Denune could fill it with garbage.

I’d rather be a laid-off municipal employee than a private sector worker
boy, at a time when public sector labor unions are getting major scrutiny, this is about the last thing they need.
A City of Cincinnati worker with a history of writing bad checks, running stop signs, theft by deception and working for Tom Luken was obviously the right person to head up a local city workers labor union, CODE.
She's been accused of siphoning off over $750,000 from the 800 member union over it's 8 year history & right before her indictment she goes off on a "vacation" that nobody seems to know about. She explained that away handily saying the other union members were "idiots".
yow
Hope the Harry's Law folks are watching.

Fishwrap "missing" story here.

Fishwrap "indictment" story here.

BYTE BACK

Byte magazine, started in 1975 pretty much reported the birth of personal computing. At one point there were a gazillion PC magazines but with the advent of the intertubes, the geeks migrated online & the paper publications began to suffer. McGraw Hill dumped the magazine on a tech publisher who promptly killed the magazine around 1998.
This July it came back online under InformationWeek.
Wondering how to make a Mac 10.7 install disk? Check out Byte.

Harry's Law

The Fishwrap reports that the TV show Harry's Law will be making more of an effort to establish itself in Cincinnati in it's second season. They have taken area glamour footage of the usual landmarks & are targeting Arnold's as a bar location that will be recreated in far off TV land.
I wanted to like this show. I like Kathy Bates ok & some of the creator's other shows have been ok. The thing is Cincinnati is a goddamn soap opera in itself. The producers of the show have focused on 60s liberalism crap with saint-like poor black people & demonic wealthy white people. If the second season doesn't take some shots at Ohio's "new sheriff", I would be amazed. But the first season's homage to Cincinnati & Ohio were some Ohio flags in the background and a shot of the city skyline shot from KY but depicted as from OH. Unfortunately they completely skip the border town nature of the city. Not even a mention of the neighborhoods.
The local NFL team is rated the worst in the league & leader in arrests in the league. That's gotta be good for something. The real life cartoon characters of Tom Luken, Chris Smitherman & Bill Cunningham would fit right in. The liberal & idealistic causes of things like The Drop Inn Center, NURFC, The Museum Center & The Gamble House would be right up Harry's alley. The CCV, COA T, The Creation Museum? A field day. They should, at least, have some copies of StreetVibes lying around the office.
This town is a goldmine for the producers of Harry's Law. All they have to do is subscribe to the Fishwrap.

Devil Games

Media Bridges, Cincinnati's community access cable channel' June Horror Camp came up with this short piece. Haven't seen it on TV but with all the Sillyman programming, I don't know when they would have time to air it. Too bad they didn't get him to play the devil….

Windfarms Will Destroy the World


Onion story here.

3D !!

YouTube has a 3D function. I don't know how good it is. This was made with a 3D animation program, Strata 3D. I don't know if stuff is too close, if the cameras are placed well…..
Basically you take 2 videos, upload 'em, pop the left & right videos into place & YouTube does the moshing. It syncs them up using the soundtrack. If you have an animation with no sound it freaks out but there is a manual sync to avoid that.
And don't tell me you don't have the goofy glasses - you know you do.

Clap Your Hands

Great editing…..
Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band will be at Shake it Records in bucolic Northside, Cincinnati, OH on 8/1/11

Magic Mushrooms

From the beginning, the shooting of David "Bones" Hebert
circumstances have been sketchy. This call is what got police involved. While Hebert was extremely intoxicated at the time, a person's drunken behavior, while different from his sober behavior, is usually pretty consistent. As he had no reputation for violence the idea of him attacking a police officer is kinda suspect. With a .33 BAC, his staggering or stumbling makes perfect sense. The wildcard was that he was reportedly on "Magic Mushrooms" too. What one usually finds around here is Psilocybe cubensis - Psilocybin mushrooms. It's a hallucinogenic that is really just kinda like pot on steroids. But there's another kind of mushroom, Amanita muscaria, which is a little more intense and can cause "bouts of marked agitation with confusion, hallucinations, and irritability followed by periods of central nervous system depression".
After almost 3 months autopsy toxicology reports verify Bones had "Psychedelic Mushrooms" in his system - but what kind? That'd be too much to ask our local media.
Unless the mushrooms in question were the Amanita muscaria type, it sounds like the incident was likely the result of an over zealous police officer misinterpreting a highly intoxicated person's erratic movements.
Bonesfest will continue tonight at Bogart's and tomorrow, 7/10, in Hoffner Park

Fishwrap story here

WLWT story here

Vanishing Heritage

Iconic silent film star Theda Bara's work is not well known due to the destruction of her films. Not many people in her home town of Cincinnati know much of her. Her image is actually better known than her work. People who went to Xavier University might have a better idea of who she was since the school owned the house she built when she retired to Cincinnati.
No more. Xavier has decided an empty lot will serve the school better.
Bara's legacy continues to slip away piece by piece.
Cincinnati should really do something to memorialize all the folks from here who have gone off to make it in the theater. Theda Bara, Doris Day, Janice Rule to name just a few. I don't know where or what, but we just really shouldn't forget.

A previous post on Theda Bara here

Fishwrap article about demolition here

Cartoons !

A long time ago, during the Cold War, I worked at an engraving shop & once in awhile people would come in with the weirdest shit. Mainstream printers wouldn't work with the average Joe wandering in off the street but we were a small company and we had a lot of weird old tech lying around. The basement was a complete trip.
Anyway, one day this young woman came in with some old engravings she wanted to get some prints made from. Apparently they were from a German Nazi era underground paper that was decidedly anti-Nazi. I believe there was some intrigue involved with them getting into her or her dad's or grandfather's hands. They were dirty and corroded but this is what we got. (We assumed any captions were set in type outside the illustration)

Is John Kasich Suffering Dementia?

In a recent AP article, Kasich's erratic and often contradicting habits are discussed.
His animated mannerisms sound ominously like Sillyman's. Gayle Channing Tenenbaum's description, "it’s a rare day when Kasich doesn’t say something that surprises" is the kind of thing echoed by nurses in nursing homes full of Alzheimers patients. "It’s interesting to watch him because you just don’t know what particular thing he’s going to be grabbing onto at that particular moment".
The article further points out irrational, conflicting behavior, "He is candid yet secretive. He is acerbic yet personable. He quibbles over media access yet is omnipresent on Twitter and Fox. He’s made a cause of taking on public workers after spending most of his life as one". Compounded with what the article describes as a constantly manic demeanor, a disheveled appearance and not caring about personal consequences, it kinda makes a guy wonder if the new sheriff might just be suffering schizophrenia.

In a recent Fishwrap article about Cincinnati possibly using battery powered streetcars they posted pictures of old trolley cars from the 20s to the 60s. If this is how they will cover the replacement bridge proposed to span the Ohio River, I guess we can expect slideshows like this.

FWIW, needing a recharge every 5 miles makes the battery idea sound kinda pointless. I think we should be thinking about Mentos & Diet Coke rocket powered vehicles instead.
Imagine the possibilities….

Happy Independence Day, Y'All

For the Lame Challenged

Incendium Arts
Sunday, July 3 @ The Northside Rock-n-Roll Carnival in vibrant Hoffner Park:
6:00 Umin
7:00 Darlene
8:00 The Harlequins
9:00 Pickled Brothers Sideshow
9:30
Incendium Arts Fire & Light Performance
10:00 Ford Theatre Reunion (Lexington, KY)
11:00 Buffalo Killers
12:20am Mallory

Fireworks

Dante's Gypsy Circus
Tonight @ 11 at Northside Rock-n-Roll Carnival in lush Hoffner Park the fireworks will be supplied by Dante's Gypsy Circus
Also on the bill or tonight...
6:00 Todd Hepburn
7:00 Mack West
8:00 Kry Kids
9:00 Soapland
10:00 Chick Pimp, Coke Dealer at a Bar
11:00 Dantes Gypsy Circus
11:30PM to 1AM | Brian Drabant and Kevin Frey spin Lost 80's, Classic House and Nu-Disco

It's All About Safety
From the Globe Gazette:

Little Amyrillis Vermont was trampled to death by the Thompson High School marching band after rushing out into the street chasing candy thrown out by the local Shriners in the Independence Day Parade.
"It was awful" commented Alma Hix, "First it was the trombones, then the cornets and then the reeds. oh God, the reeds…
"It was relentless" claimed Ewart Dunlop
"The Thompson High offensive line has nothing on the marching band", quipped Mayor Shinn.

Sound kinda nuts? That's because it is. Even though area officials know of no "candy-related injuries" at parades they are banning the practice of parade participants throwing candy out to kids due to pressure from our shadow government, the insurance industry.
An organizer in Kettering cited a child being injured rushing into a parade to greet her parents. No candy involved. Maybe the solution is a minimum age for parade attendees. Shackles for minors has always been a good idea in my mind. Maybe chicken wire along the parade route. Maybe everyone should sit at home and watch parade entries walk past a camera in a studio in front of a green screen. Viewers could then select the background of their choice.
ugh - how much safety do we need?

Noose Son story here.