Why Did the Enquirer Publish This?

In a new low, the Enquirer chose this story to pick up from the AP Wire. I guess they have a large equine readership down in the Bluegrass state that would be interested.

Brad "Down to the Wire" Wenstrup Has Nothing

Would someone break the news to the GOP Mayoral Candidate that Cincinnati is a City, not a Suburb? After waiting to nearly the last minute of July before he finally releasing his "platform" as promised, we got a whole bunch of nothing. As expected Brad Wenstrup has no plan to balance the budget. He does have a plan to abandon the urban core. I guess he thinks it doesn't need any more help and is perfect as it is. The "neighborhoods" need everything now. Way to appease Westwood! I mean this guy is as forward thinking as a 17 year old boy in the backseat of his Uncle's car with his 15 year old girlfriend wondering if she'll make him wear a condom. Well, the Reactionary Leaders in Westwood are ready to ride Brad bareback right now. Hell, Jim McNulty, vice president of the Westwood Civic Association would forgo an election for this guy. Forget that in the long run it spells doom. Forget that there is no plan, no vision for a city. Wenstrup is embracing concepts for the city that returns it to a 1958 mythical ideal that never existed! Next well hear he wants to build a Westood Lateral.

Wenstrup got someone at the HCGOP to come up with a few Conservative planks that don't address the 28 million or the possible 40 budget shortfall next year. No one in the local GOP is whiling to stick out their necks with detailed budget cuts that add up to anything near 28 million dollars.

Wenstrup is the quintessential empty suit Republican who appears to have no ideas not put into his head by others. This platform has no original ideas in it at all. It reads like a Congressional Republican bent on doing a whole lot of nothing, while still giving something to those who want to turn the City into an extension of Suburbia.

The only surprise: he doesn't call for tax cuts. He sounds like someone who thinks Tax cuts can cure Cancer, but that plank would have just made people laugh. He's got enough laughter for this as it is.

July Has Been Rather Cool

I was wondering why July has been so cold, it appears Hell has frozen over, because Gregory Flannery has written an article for Metromix Cincinnati.

Psychic Reporting From CityBeat?

I'm a fan of CityBeat generally and Kevin Osborne in particular, so I was surprised to see a bit of sloppiness in the new edition (on newsstands today, July 29). Osborne's latest Porkopolis column is about the mayoral race. To open, Osborne writes that "Dr. Brad Wenstrup . . . announced his platform July 29 in the city's Westwood neighborhood." Osborne goes on to describe (and critique) Wenstrup's platform, sprinkling quotes from the candidate throughout the piece. Osborne leaves the impression (hopefully unintentionally) that the quotes were spoken by Wenstrup as he rolled out his platform.

But wait....that can't be right, can it? Did CityBeat really hold its print edition until Wenstrup's press conference was concluded, give Osborne time to write it up, and then print and distrbute the new edition all on the same day?

Of course not. CityBeat is a weekly, published Wednesdays, so most people will read the column after the press conference has happened. Maybe it's understandable, then, that Osborne wrote about the press conference in the past tense. But Osborne should have made clear that the quotes he prints are not from the presser, but are instead from either an interview previously conducted with Wenstrup or (more likely) Wenstrup's press release announcing the platform.

CityBeat is an increasingly important voice in Cincinnati. Following the demise of the Post and the Enquirer's adoption of its new motto ("The Constantly Shrinking Newspaper"), Cincinnatians have few options for news coverage. If CityBeat wishes to remain one of those options, it should be more careful.

"You're God Damn Right I Did!"

COAST Tweets Truth, And Can't Handle It: This evening a lively debate on Twitter between Building Cincinnati's Kevin LeMasters and the Resident COAST un-named flunky brought forth a simple truth that COAST and the NAACP have been too chicken to be honest about: Their ballot issue is only about killing the streetcar and killing off the city. They have claimed it to be about the "right of the people" to vote, but that is, as crass as it will sound, "Bullshit." This exchange proves it, without a doubt:

@GOCOAST: Mallory: ""Yes' vote would kill streetcar" Of course. That's precisely plan. Someone, kill this stupid idea, please! http://bit.ly/2We1lX

@buildingcincy: @GOCOAST So it's not about empowering citizens, huh. It's about killing plan u don't like. Man, you've been a broken record last two days.

@GOCOAST: @buildingcincy Yes, kill that stupid idea. Limp. Dead. Cold. Move on to something else!

There you have it. COAST and the NAACP could not care less about giving people the power to vote, they are out to kill progress in the City and their main target right now is the Streetcar Plan. Their second target is High Speed Rail. Their goal, in my opinion, is the downfall of the City. Both the NAACP and COAST I believe would be delighted in a bankrupt city, where both groups then vie for control. Saner heads will prevail and the ballot issue will go down to defeat in November.

Mary's Back In Business; Flo Decides She Needs To Be Closer To Her

Hot off of Facebook: Hamburger Mary's is open, as of 5:00 this evening! If I knew how to post a screen shot of a website I would, but here's a cut-and-paste of what Hamburger Mary's just posted:

HEYYY HONNEYYY, come see me for dinner and COCKtails @ 5pm!! ITS OFFICIAL MARY'S is OPEN THIS EVENING!! XoXo, Mary

They've been teasing us for a week with hints that the reopening was imminent. It's fantastic that it's finally happening. Based on the FB response, I suspect the restaurant may be jam-packed tonight.

And Flo's Plate Full of Soul (which we reviewed last year) has moved: they are now on Vine Street in the storefront previously occupied by Tom's Pot Pies.

Both are awesome additions to Vine Street!

UPDATE: Good grief. Apparently, some of you think it's too much trouble to find Hamburger Mary's Facebook page on your own. So here's a link to it. And here's a link to Hamburger Mary's website. And here's one to her twitter feed. And one to the Business Courier article reporting the reopening. And here a link to Julie's post noting the auspicious occasion (Wine Me Dine Me doesn't display post times, so I'm going to claim to have scooped Julie on this one, regardless of whether that's true.) Here's a link to this post (how existential is that?). And here's a link to Hamburger Helper, which has nothing to do with Hamburger Mary's, but I was running out of stuff to which to link.

Can I get you guys anything else? Would you like some fries with that?

Layoffs Coming to the City Government

Critics are not stepping up, so City Manager will choose what gets cut from the City Budget to make up the 28 million dollar deficit. I watched Leslie Ghiz's Twitter posts during the budget meeting yesterday and they were negative, as you might have guessed. She has been constantly stating something must be done, but Ghiz refuses to be a leader and make any choices. That goes double for the GOP Mayoral Candidate, Wenstrup, who, along with the HC GOP leadership, is only worried about the Mayor's travel. As if a few thousand dollars is going save even one part time job. What GOP refuses to understand or more like as an election ploy is ignoring is that Mallory's travel will help create private sector jobs, which is something GOP should love. I also missed the GOP attacks on Bob Taft when he went to Japan as governor. Twitter didn't exist then, but so I guess I didn't get a chance to hear their anger.

We don't know details now, but will have them next week. It is going to hurt, and the election year rhetoric will do nothing to help.