Yelp Helps After School Special - March 30th

On Friday March 30th the Cincinnati Yelp community and a laundry list of local non-profit organizations are congregating at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center for a great event to help out a wide variety of causes. The Yelp Helps After School Special (A Giant Party For A Good Cause!) brings the vibrant social media community here in Cincinnati together with a strong collection of very worthy non-profits. Hopefully fun and a little education will ensue.


Groups like Caracole, Crayons to Computers, Enjoy the Arts, and Women Helping Women will be present and attendees will have a chance to learn more about those organizations and find out what they do and how you can support them.

Enjoy the Arts is presenting the entertainment with an ETA Cabaret with spots from grand organizations like the Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the NewEdgecliff, Theatre.

Come for the food and drinks from tons of local Restaurants. It will be great opportuny to find a great organization that could use a contribution or voluneer support and while you mingle and eat you can chat with non-profit representtaives.

Full lists of the organisations, Resturants, and entertainment is on the website link above.

It all starts at 8PM, but you need to have an RSVP to attend. Get out and have some fun for a good cause.

Oh, and if you are so inclinced to dress-up, the theme is school themed, so nerd it up, dig out the prep school wear, or the ladies can use their imagination. If I find some tape, a pair of nerd glasses may be in order. I

This is What a Douchebag Thinks Like

When you are at home pondering about what a Douchebag looks like, you most often get the image of a frat-boy or some guy wearing a baseball hat inside a bar on a Friday night.  Well, if you want to know what someone like that has rolling around in his head, I will point you to anti-education and anti-women Rich Hoffman of West Chester.  Based on his photo in the Enquirer article, this guy looks more like someone with a really misplaced Indiana Jones fetish, than a frat boy. His thoughts make him the spokesman for Douchebags the world over.

This guy is part of the effort to block any and all tax levies for the Lakota School district out in Exurban paradise of West Chester.  This is one guy I am so glad lives out there.

Greg Harris Has Dropped Out of County Commision Race

CityBeat broke the story earlier this week that former Cincinnati Council member and Democratic Candidate Greg Harris is dropping out of the race for Hamilton County Commissioner.  Harris's job will be requiring him to travel extensively, so he won't be able to effectively campaign or later serve on the commission.

The Hamilton County Democratic party will be able to name another person to run in November.  Harris was unopposed in the Primary last week.  This opens up the possibilities.  I would not be surprised to see some familiar names brought up as possible contenders to face off against Hartman.

With the Presidential election taking place this year, the Democratic nominee will have very strong coattails to seize upon.  President Obama won Hamilton County by pulling in non-regular voters to the polls.  All expectations are that he will do this again in 2012.  Republican Hartman ran against an non-endorsed candidate in 2008 and still only got 216,000+ votes, compared to 251,000+ votes for Democrat Todd Portune, running the same year in a separate race.

With the right candidate, say a John Cranley or maybe even a Jim Tarbell, Hartman could go down.

The problem is having a campaign team.  Neither Cranley or Tarbell have a campaign up and running and it will take resources.  Both have the most important resource to have in November: name recognition.

The other name I could think of would be Cincinnati Council member Cecil Thomas. Thomas is term limited and he ran against Tarbell in 2010 Dem primary for commissioner, so he has interest in the job.  Thomas does not have the name recognition of Tarbell or Cranley, but he's a pretty conservative Dem and a former police officer.  That type of resume plays well in the inner-suburbs.  Add the fact that he's African-American and likely can county on support of Obama voters who bother to vote down ticket, he could be a strong candidate, if he can get a campaign off the ground soon.

Salon Writer Comments on Occupy Cincy Settlement

Natasha Lennard of Salon has some mixed thoughts on the Occupy Cincinnati settlement with the City of Cincinnati. She's not pleased with the limited free-speech zone.  I myself actually find the over-all elements of the settlement to be reasonable.

Did Kasich Allies Offer Quid Pro Quo to Control the Ohio GOP?

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that the chairman of the Portage County Republican Party, Andrew Manning, has filed an affidavit with police claiming that "allies" of Ohio Govenor John Kasich offered Manning influence over Gubernatorial appointments in return for not running for Republican Party statewide central committee.

A Kasich spokeperson claimed the Governor would never do what was alleged.  That sounds like something close to a non-denial denial, meaning that it may have happened, but without Kasich's knowledge. So that might let the Governor off the hook, at least if his supporters don't turn state's evidence.  It all then comes down to who these "allies" are.  Manning needs to name names so police can get to the bottom of this and then the public can judge the politics of what is alleged to have happened.

If Kasich is another Nixon, we need to get him out office now.

John Fox Hired as VP of Events and Programming for 3CDC

Former CityBeat publisher, editor, and events director has been hired by 3CDC as the Vice President of Event Productions & Programming, accroding to a press relase issued this morning. His responsibilties will include the events at Fountain Square and the soon to be finished Washington Park. He will also be in charge of fundraising and sponsorhsips of the programming at the Square and Washington Park. Fox's position I conclude is filling the job left open when Bill Donabedian left 3CDC Last year. Bill is a co-founder of MidPoint and was key in the success of Fountain Square's popular summer music programming. I really like John and I believe he has been a vital member of the Midpoint team, so I hope he can carry much of the same ideals to the Square and the Park. I hope Midpoint itself can become part of the Park's future voice.

CityBeat Sold to SouthComm

CityBeat has been sold to SouthComm of Nashville, Tennessee. SouthComm (www.southcomm.com) is the owner of five other alternative weeklys beyond CityBeat. The purchase includes A-Line Magazine and the Midpoint Music Festival. Dan Backrath will remain as the leader of the paper.I know nothing of this company or of any of its other publications, so no word on what if any other changes will occur. Time will tell. This is the second big change after changing editing staffs earlier this year.

UPDATE: CityBeat Editor Danny Cross has a blog post discussing the acquisition of the newspaper.