New Downtowner

The Downtowner has be reborn as "The Downtowner, Pulse of the City." Biggest addition to this effort are in 2 places. First, they have a website: www.pulsedt.com. Secondly they have expanded their circulation to include Covington, Newport, Bellevue, Oakley, Hyde Park, O'Bryonville, East Walnut Hills, Clifton, Mt. Lookout and Northside. So far the new paper is expanding their presence in a positive way. They need to clear up the website first off, it is very clunky, and doesn't always format well or at all. They are akin to the Community Press, so if that is their target, go for it.

I Don't Like Mondays

Today is a travel day for me, off to toil away along the Mississippi for 3 days (on business). My blogging will either be normal or light. I'll likely be able to blog more, but when ever I am out of the city I tend to feel out of touch, but more interested in keeping up with what is going on.

Call it open for now. Keep the gloves on.

Bronson: Sinners Must Die!

No, Peter Bronson didn't actually write that in his recent column, but he might as well have. What he and all other "abstinence-only" advocates do when they refuse to talk about how contraceptives can prevent STDs because they hold the belief that those who have sex outside of marriage deserve to get STDs and suffer the results, which could include death.

Using fear in this manner is helping cause more needless deaths. Peter and his anti-sex pack may be out to thin the herd for their "cause," but they shouldn't be doing it with tax dollars.

As a society we have organized government to do what it can to prevent physical harm from affecting the citizens it governs. Educating kids about condoms helps save lives.

Guess what else educating kids about condoms does! Educating kids about condoms reduces the number of abortions. It does so by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancy's. I somehow thought Peter and his ilk wanted to stop abortions. I guess they only want to prevent all of them by controlling women's bodies. Reducing the number of abortions must not be something they are interested in doing.

Snarky Preemption: To the Trolls who are going to comment about John Cranley or some other Democrat's anti-abortion stance, stop. This post is about the fools like Peter Bronson who are anti-abortion and anti-condom. Save your foolishness for another post.

City Hall Isolated?

Joe Wessels has a good column today about a new website started locally that gives citizens an outlet to voice their views on pothole like issues: www.votercam.com.

The effectiveness of the website here in Cincinnati has to be evaluated with a strange situation:

Council Member David Crowley responded and got city transportation officials to contact Blackshaw. The only problem was city officials could not access the site because of restrictions placed on their computers. So the workers apparently looked at the site on their home computers and realized how concerned residents were.

Over a year ago there was a news story about my blog being blocked from City Hall and several officials had to request special permission to view it from City Hall computers. I understand the city not wanted a clerk to spend their time reading blogs on the job, but when a website is doing the City's job of identifying problems, wouldn't it be nice if City Officials could view the website and get cracking on fixing those problems? If they can't this done, then the City is making itself isolated. Kudos to the transportation department officials who viewed the site on their home PCs on their own time. Communication is a key element of government. When the citizens organize themselves and provide the simplest of ways to grasp a problem, the least the city could do is review what they are saying.

Law Dog's Drug Problem

Ken Lawnson has stated he has a drug problem that threatens he career. This is not a new story, this is not a unique story. This will make some people mock Ken, this will make some people feel sorry for him. Other will see the fact that Ken Lawson gave this interview to the Enquirer at the same time the Cincinnati Bar Association files a complaint against him and view the interview as PR tactic.

Is it Good Friday or Christmas?

It is snowing quite strongly on Good Friday afternoon. I'm stuck out here in the burbs working, so anyone else getting the snow?

Cincinnati Metro Population Compares Well

The Post listed out 2000 to 2006 population changes and Cincinnati is less than 10,00 people smaller than Cleveland. Further more, we grew more than San Fransisco and Boston in both percentage and actual number increase.

By the way, 2.1 million people is a big metropolitan area. That's the "big city." For those of you who grew up here, you don't have that perspective, but it is very true.