Cincinnati Rollergir;s Black Sheep and Silent Lambs take on Demolition City Roller Derby (Evansville) 7:00 PM tonight at the historic Cincinnati Gardens
College ID gets ya $2 off admission
Parking is free. Metro routes 41, 43

Newt, a Kirareyaku?
In Japanese samurai films, the hero frequently gracefully slaughters countless antagonists, blood & body parts flying every which way. In contrast to his grace are his victims who die, as Seizo Fukumoto explains,

Whenever we die, we have to do it in a way that is unsightly or clumsy, not graceful. In this buzama, we find beauty. To die in an uncool way is the coolest."

This appears to be Newt Gingrich's strategy - to go down in a clumsy, uncool way that - thru it's gruesome horror - is somehow politically cool. I don't get it. Ron Paul never expected to win, just to show the popularity of his ideas & get them put on the table. Gingrich, like some bloated, semi-animated corpse just seems to want to go down in grotesque and ghastly ways repeatedly like in a zombies vs. samurai epic.
It is kinda fun to watch but it would be a lot cheaper for Newt to be an extra in a movie than a kirareyaku in a political campaign.

More on Kirareyaku at NPR

Goessling IGA Still in Limbo

Missing in the article is the plight of the people hired to work there who haven't been able to work months after they thought they would have started due to the anti-business delays.
THX to local Fox 19 for keeping up the coverage on this. (altho, I'd say Clifton is central - not west)

Horror Sells

cool - I 'd almost vote for Santorum just for this ad - if I thought he could keep it up.....

More on Horror Sells

No Pink Slime in Queen City Sausage
Recalling the old adage, "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made", one might imagine that with the latest hysteria over "pink slime" would have people thinking sausages are rife with the stuff.
But, Queen City Sausage, via a statement from PhaseBuch, states there's no pink slime in their sausages.

Elmer Hensler, founder and president of local Cincinnati favorite, Queen City Sausage Co. started his company on the principle that "You never cheapen your product! We stand firmly behind this and want to get the word out in a consistent and meaningful way." Consumers need to realize that "pink slime" which has captured the national spotlight and other similar tactics are deployed throughout the meat industry, especially in sausage making. These highly questionable practices must stop. Those who meet Elmer Hensler know that he has been speaking against mechanically separated chicken and turkey, beef defatted tissue, and "pink slime" for many years. "Read the ingredient labels! If the label states mechanically separated, make another selection" said Hensler.

Queen City Sausage PhaseBuch

This Trayvon Martin shooting and all the publicity & race baiting it has spawned has got me wondering. While a lot of people say that being black means being suspect, including COA Ter boy Slitherman - the guy was a stranger in a gated community. He wasn't some schmoe walking down a public street.
Cincinnati has a "Citizens on Patrol" program that links up observer citizens with the police directly. They are not allowed to carry firearms, they are not supposed to patrol alone & I don't think they are supposed to even approach somebody committing a crime. This George Zimmerman guy was out alone with a gun & maybe affiliated with a neighborhood group that may or may not have had affiliations with police. How paranoid the guy is that he needs a gated community AND armed patrols is a serious question that needs to be asked. I'd be getting the Hell out of Dodge if I thought an area was that bad.
Still, why wasn't Martin informed that there was a neighborhood watch group & how to communicate with them when addressed? Instead, his mom just tells him it's "a cruel world" and "that being a black man in America could be dangerous". Smitherman claims his 16yr old has only recently been allowed to walk around on public streets alone. WTF? I guess I was roaming the mean streets at half that age, riding the bus - all the time alone because I didn't have to worry because I was white? I do remember some black kid trying to kick my ass for no reason out on the (public) street when I was about 16 - but my dad hadn't drawn me a map.
Still, what's weirdest, is that a guy kills another person & the extent of the initial investigation seems less exhaustive than a suspected DUI. Even police are usually taken off street duty for the length of an investigation after they shoot somebody and we DO know why the cops are out on the street. Zimmerman? Probably should have been hiding under a bed.

An ABC timeline

When the city selects a streetcar design, they should certainly not overlook this classic French design!

WOW MAN, the colors!

Photo by David Ohmer
The Spring Grove Cemetery Horticultural Team has announced that it's about peak spring color time t the cemetery. Cherries, magnolias, forsythia, daffodils, and crocus are still blooming. Redbud, viburnum carlesii, tulips, Siberian squill and more just starting this week.
As per every spring, they have re-graveled their roads in places, so be careful on bikes.

heh heh
and the neighbors thought they didn't like me already....

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