Despite being holed up in the office much of the weekend, I was able to get to the Taste yesterday and enjoy much (maybe too much) scrumptious food. Here's a few random thoughts.
1. My brief feelings of nostalgia for when Taste was on Central Parkway ended as I walked the block of the festivities between Sycamore and Broadway. Like Central Parkway, that area is wide open--and almost completely shade-free. The shade of the tall buildings that surround Taste between Race and Sycamore really does help to keep the temperature comfortable.
2. Julie led a discussion here (and at her solo blog) a little while ago about national chain restaurants winning "Best of Taste" awards. I agreed with her that it seems a little off-putting for those restaurants to win awards in a "Taste of Cincinnati" competition. But maybe I'm being hypocritical. Is it really chains that we don't want to see win, or was it the type of chain that won this year that's upsetting? Carrabba's is just so corporate suburban. Red Lobster may as well have a booth. But I don't remember any opprobrium when Hamburger Mary's was winning for best dessert. It, too, is a national chain, but maybe not so off-putting because it's not so cookie-cutter.
3. I wish there were a little more participation from downtown restaurants. I'm also always intrigued by the placement of the booths. For instance, who decided to put Taz next to Andy's? I kept hoping some sort of shish kabob street brawl would break out.
4. Finally, is it just me, or are strollers becoming the size of SUV's? And why do mothers seem to need to use them as battering rams to cut a path through the crowd? Maybe that's just the selfish, single guy in me speaking, but there's a special place in Hell for women who bruise your shin with their fortified stroller.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Taste of Fringe
Two volunteers braved the throng of suburbanites at the Taste of Cincinnati yesterday to help promote the 2008 Cincinnati Fringe, which starts Tuesday night. They are even sporting this year's spiffy volunteer T-shirt. If you want to volunteer, it is not to late. Click here for more!
For full Fringe coverage, please head over to
The Conveyor where we'll be blogging from the bowels of the Fringe festival headquarters on a daily basis.
500 Miles to Modern Music
WOXY's 19th Annual Modern Rock 500 is at full speed, have a listen. Today is one of those days I wish I had an HD radio. The days of wishing may be behind me.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
6 Years Is a Long Time
Today marks the 6th anniversary of my first post to this blog. Six freaking years! It is Memorial Day Weekend, so I find it fitting to remember my first month of posts. On my first day I managed to mention Greg Flannery, Peter Bronson, Darryl Parks, Sensible Don, and the Taste of Cincinnati. Time just goes by quickly.
This blog isn't ending. I don't want to scare anyone that I'm going to quit, though some may want that! I've been posting less lately, and that I don't think that will change. Adding new writers I think has really made this blog a much better place to come for opinion. I'd even consider adding someone else new if there are any other takers out there, email me!
I think much has changed in 6 years, in the city and in the world in terms of attitudes. I think my attitude has changed a lot. I don't know that I've changed my ways much, but looking back on what I was writing about the first day, I think perspective and a little more age has moved me along. I care more now, than I did then, but I care enough not to say as much now. So, we'll see how things change over the next 6 years. In the mean time, check out the www.theconveyor.com for some non-political writing with the second year coverage of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, kicking off on Tuesday.
This blog isn't ending. I don't want to scare anyone that I'm going to quit, though some may want that! I've been posting less lately, and that I don't think that will change. Adding new writers I think has really made this blog a much better place to come for opinion. I'd even consider adding someone else new if there are any other takers out there, email me!
I think much has changed in 6 years, in the city and in the world in terms of attitudes. I think my attitude has changed a lot. I don't know that I've changed my ways much, but looking back on what I was writing about the first day, I think perspective and a little more age has moved me along. I care more now, than I did then, but I care enough not to say as much now. So, we'll see how things change over the next 6 years. In the mean time, check out the www.theconveyor.com for some non-political writing with the second year coverage of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, kicking off on Tuesday.
Taste 2008
It's time for the Taste of Cincinnati and preparations where underway this morning in earnest.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Way To Bury The Lede, Kimball....
I was shocked at the apparent harshness of a sentence when I read the following opening line of this story in the Enquirer:
Seven years? For exposing a kid to a little cold water? Maybe not approved by the Parenting 101 textbook, but still, that seems tough. Seems like a cold shower might even be preferable to a swat on the behind. But, well, whoops, it turns out there's more:
Umm, he wasn't sent away for seven years for giving the kid "a cold shower." He was sent for beating the crap out of the child, and then leaving him in a shower that was way too cold for far too much time. Sounds like the boy could have suffered hypothermia. Seven years might even be a lenient sentence.
I generally like Kimball Perry's courthouse reporting, but this time his opening line might have been a little too succinct.
Johairo Munoz was sent to prison today for seven years after he admitted to placing a 3-year-old boy in a cold shower as punishment after the child soiled himself.
Seven years? For exposing a kid to a little cold water? Maybe not approved by the Parenting 101 textbook, but still, that seems tough. Seems like a cold shower might even be preferable to a swat on the behind. But, well, whoops, it turns out there's more:
Munoz became outraged with the child soiled himself, prosecutors said. He beat the child with his hands and belt and then held the child under a cold shower for up to 30 minutes. When the child was taken to the hospital, his body temperature was 92 degrees, six degrees below normal.
Umm, he wasn't sent away for seven years for giving the kid "a cold shower." He was sent for beating the crap out of the child, and then leaving him in a shower that was way too cold for far too much time. Sounds like the boy could have suffered hypothermia. Seven years might even be a lenient sentence.
I generally like Kimball Perry's courthouse reporting, but this time his opening line might have been a little too succinct.
What Am I Missing Here?
WEST END - In a passionate defense of herself and her staff, the interim principal of Hays-Porter Elementary School blamed parents Wednesday for the extreme disciplinary problems that have plagued the new school since it opened in August.
Adonica Jones-Parks, addressing the school's "chaos" publicly for the first time, said teachers, staff and outside agencies are trying hard to curtail student violence and other misbehavior. But parents too often don't follow through on discipline, she said.
Let's see, elementary school kids are what --- first grade through, maybe, sixth or eighth grades? So ages 6 to 14 or so, right? Presumably Hays-Porter Elementary School is run by adults and the parents of these children brought them into the world, so have assumed the responsibilities of adults even if they themselves are children. Yet, "chaos" apparently reigns? How can that be? Why should "chaos" be tolerated by adults charged with supervising children? Why should an elementary school simply be allowed to become a training ground for the penal system?
Is education critically important for the lives of these children? Do their parents believe that? Do we believe that? If we all, including the parents of these children, can agree that education is critical to the future of these children, then how can we tolerate "chaos"? How can we as a society not intervene into an environment that allows such "chaos" to occur? What would that intervention look like?
I think about how my late mother handled those moments of "chaos" involving me and my brother and our friends. More often than not it was simply THE LOOK that instilled fear and calmed the chaos, in that we had learned from experience that THE LOOK was to be respected. Embodied in THE LOOK were years of learning boundaries and discipline and respect for those who had authority in the world by virtue of their status --- Now, it seems that such respect has all but disappeared in much of our culture. How do we teach respect in a world where respect is not valued?
Are we to simply write this situation off to poverty or racism? Is that a legitimate response in the face of the world in which these children will become adults --- a world where a black man with a foreign sounding name, raised by a single white mother, is poised to become President of the United States. Are we to simply say to another generation of children in our cities, "we don't know what to do with you, don't really care much about you because your own communities seemingly care little for you, and therefore, we will do nothing about the chaos you create and live in --- other than partition it"? This is not enough. As Senator Obama has said:
"A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family contributed to the erosion of black families — a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods — parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pickup, building code enforcement — all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continues to haunt us.
For all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it — those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations — those young men and, increasingly, young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future."
Adonica Jones-Parks, addressing the school's "chaos" publicly for the first time, said teachers, staff and outside agencies are trying hard to curtail student violence and other misbehavior. But parents too often don't follow through on discipline, she said.
Let's see, elementary school kids are what --- first grade through, maybe, sixth or eighth grades? So ages 6 to 14 or so, right? Presumably Hays-Porter Elementary School is run by adults and the parents of these children brought them into the world, so have assumed the responsibilities of adults even if they themselves are children. Yet, "chaos" apparently reigns? How can that be? Why should "chaos" be tolerated by adults charged with supervising children? Why should an elementary school simply be allowed to become a training ground for the penal system?
Is education critically important for the lives of these children? Do their parents believe that? Do we believe that? If we all, including the parents of these children, can agree that education is critical to the future of these children, then how can we tolerate "chaos"? How can we as a society not intervene into an environment that allows such "chaos" to occur? What would that intervention look like?
I think about how my late mother handled those moments of "chaos" involving me and my brother and our friends. More often than not it was simply THE LOOK that instilled fear and calmed the chaos, in that we had learned from experience that THE LOOK was to be respected. Embodied in THE LOOK were years of learning boundaries and discipline and respect for those who had authority in the world by virtue of their status --- Now, it seems that such respect has all but disappeared in much of our culture. How do we teach respect in a world where respect is not valued?
Are we to simply write this situation off to poverty or racism? Is that a legitimate response in the face of the world in which these children will become adults --- a world where a black man with a foreign sounding name, raised by a single white mother, is poised to become President of the United States. Are we to simply say to another generation of children in our cities, "we don't know what to do with you, don't really care much about you because your own communities seemingly care little for you, and therefore, we will do nothing about the chaos you create and live in --- other than partition it"? This is not enough. As Senator Obama has said:
"A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family contributed to the erosion of black families — a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods — parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pickup, building code enforcement — all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continues to haunt us.
* * * * *
For all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it — those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations — those young men and, increasingly, young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future."
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