Cincinnati Top Ten 2004

Based on comments, emails, and mostly my own opinion, here are the top ten people/events/groups/or whatever of the Cincinnati area for 2004.

1. The Repeal of Article XII
2. Mike Allen Affair
3. Snow Storm
4. O'dell Owens elected coroner
5. The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opens
6. Bob Huggins has DUI
7. Democrat Todd Portune Re-elected to Commission
8. Marge Schott Dies
9. Midpoint Music Festival
10. Cincinnati Fringe Fest

Honorable Mentions: Tasers, IHOP, The Growing Cincinnati Blogosphere, Luken Out & Mallory in Mayor's Race, Voter Turnout High, and billions of cicadas.

New Year's Resolutions

You may hate them, you may try them every year and fail, but I offer up the chance to make your New Year's Resolution public, thus increasing your chances of keep it. Maggie Downs writes about how she gets help keeping hers. You also could join Brad Thacker at The Comic Resolution' s New Year's Eve show 9PM at the Southgatehouse.

I will be spending my New Years with folks from CT at the City View Tavern.

I resolve to of course loose a few pounds, so please ignore it tonight when I am drinking beer and eating hamburgers and brownies.

Enquirer 2004 Top 10 Local News Stories

The Enquirer puts Mike Allen's problems at the top of its list with Bush's win as number 2. Bush's win is not the number 2 local story. It is not even making my top 10. Now that is for two reasons, one is that that news was really bad for the whole country, but the second is that it just was not a local story. It was a huge story, but to compare it to the snow storm is just not relative. Including Iraq as well is not how I would have compiled this list. I will have my own list either later today or tomorrow.

UPDATE: The Post has a list too.

GOP Candidate Wants Revote

Is the shoe on the other foot now?

Know in the News

The Cincinnati Post reports on inventive changes at the Know Theatre.

Lemmie Irrelevant?

Greg Korte reviews the rolls of City Managers of the past and present during a city crisis. Lemmie appears to have taken a back seat to the Mayor, which bucks history.

Korte also reports on some minor minor mayoral candidates vying for the top city job.

CPD Hiding Something?

The City Internal Auditor sstates that the police have been dragging their feet in the investigation of how the CPD monitors moonlighting by police as security for private companies.

Why is City Council dragging their feet on this? Why are they not dropping the hammer on the police management responsible? Why does City Hall fear disciplining the senior police officers?

IHOP Review

Went to the new IHOP in Oakley last night for a late dinner. It was good. I think the hype got to me, or my memories of food past did. I would not rank it great, but for late night food after a night at the bars, it is ideal.

UPDATE: I guess I did not give as much detail as some wanted. Hmmmm. They serve 4 types of syrup. I had the French toast, but it was a bit too crisp to be perfect. Since it was new it was spotless inside the restaurant and there was enough staff to there to field a marching band.

The service was fine for an IHOP. The staff was very polite. Almost too polite, which is 100 times better than rude.

In comments Tom asked how IHOP differs from the Waffle House. Well, IHOP is just a down-to-earth Perkins. The Waffle House puts the grease in greasy spoon, plus they serve grits.

Blackwell Tries to Avoid Deposition

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is seeking to avoid depositions for a lawsuit filed by voters challenging the Ohio election. I think Ken should just take his medicine and answer the questions. He is in charge of Ohio elections and he should have to answer any and all challenges to those elections. He has nothing to hide. He does not want to be forced to say anything about how he may have used his office to help Bush get elected. That might cramp his style as candidate for Governor.

No Christmas Day Off?

If I read the Mayor's column today correctly, city employees worked 12-hour shifts over the holiday weekend, including Saturday.

Snow Removal: The Private Sector

Much has been said about the City's and other area governments' efforts to clean the streets of snow and ice. What has been missed are the efforts of private companies and entities to remove the snow from parking lots. Some businesses take action to clear out the snow for customers, while others don't. My experiences have been bad so far.

I can attest that in my building's lot we have just barely one lane around the lot to drive, and the rest is just an ice patch. The Skytop Plaza on Beechmont is a jig-saw puzzle of parking spaces. I don't know who plowed it, but I would guess a rookie. The lot appears to have gotten a once over many days ago, but they seemed to cut a diagonal path across several rows of parking spaces, creating a maze where in some places people are parallel parking along snow piles, instead of in rows.

What I have not seen on the roads since my return to Ohio are the private plows, usually just a pickup with a plow on front, driving around to private businesses clearing out the snow. This has traditionally been a great way for anyone with a pickup truck to make really good money. Back in New York state nearly every other pick-up was equipped to handle a plow for the winter. The number of private plowers appears to follow suit with a low level of plows run by local governments. This is a natural result of the inconsistent snow fall that occurs in this area. What is lacking here is the small business man. This is as basic a business as one could have. Hell, even Homer Simpson did it. Where's Mr. Plow when we need him?

"Mr. Plow, that's my name, that name again is Mr. Plow" - Homer J. Simpson

Police Not Cooperating?

The Federal Monitor has stated that the police are not fully cooperating with the Monitor's staff, including refusing to hand over documents and refusing to allow ride-alongs. The Monitor was established as part of the Collaborative Agreement which included a 5 year police monitoring provision.

Have the police given up on the Collaborative Agreement? Has the CBUF also given up on it? Has everyone just forgotten what the hell it was in the agreement? I know I have. The police and the inner city communities were supposed to start to work together to try and change police and citizen actions. The police policy got the most attention. They have the formal policy to critique. The citizens have no formal policy, but have a basic public duty that should not be that difficult. Don't break the law and if you are witness to someone breaking the law at least help the police if they ask you what you know. We still have an “us vs. them” situation between the police and blacks in this city. The C.A. was to be a hopeful start of a change of that situation. Is it worse or just business as usual? I think we all can see that little has improved.

Back in Town

I have returned to balmy Cincinnati. The Airport was very busy. The flight was fine. The vacation was great. I am really tired.

Fathom a New Club?

Kari Wethington of CiNWeeky reports on the opening of Fathom a new night club. Fathom replaces what was Spy Club located on W. 5th Street.

Sounds like a bit of a Club Clau, but with more of an open feel to it. What's their target demographic? The hipster, the college kid, or both?

Over the Top and Over the Edge

Mr. Rick Hines, publisher of Cincynation.com, has in my opinion gone over the edge of taste, honor, and credibility. He created special page with an attack on me. I can take criticism of my blog and my writing, but it is amazing how personal this guy has gotten. I criticized his website and he goes ape-shit. I know he is desperate to make every penny he can for his real estate website, but using an attack on me to do so is either an example of an uber-sensative personality or is just someone who wants above all else to create a faux feud in order to get MORE WEB TRAFFIC to his site. He also lied about how many "hits" I get per day, but I will not push that one any more than mentioning it.

What is just funny is his tabloid abuse of the Airport, Comair, and the City of Cincinnati. It would appear Mr. Hines learned more from the National Enquirer than from the Cincinnati Post. I guess a recent flight he took was delayed and he feels the need punish someone and chose to make up stuff. The funniest (but also saddest) point and one where he should list his sources is this from his website:

City gave street cleaning crews the day off

The City of Cincinnati let street cleaning crews take the day off yesterday, even though side streets were filled with 9 to 20 inches of snow. "Looking down sidestreets, it wasn't unusual to see neighbors helping to push stuck cars," said CincyNation's Rick Hines. "The city had gotten off to a slow start on Thursday because employees didn't show for work. Was letting them take Saturday off a reward for their laziness? This is just plain, stunning incompetance in this city.

"Incompetance is a chronic problem in Cincinnati and there seems to be no end in sight. It all comes down to being lazy."

Jeffrey Hines, who lives in Mason, said all streets there were cleared early and he didn't see any problems in that well-maintained city.

Who was his source about the city giving the day off to snow plowers? What was funny and sad is that he quoted himself, yes the supposed another quoted himself. Being a pseudo-journalistic Bob Dole living life in the third person may be normal for Mason, but I think the rest of country could do without that type of silliness.

What I really don't get regarding the means to his ends is that his site is "Specializing in Cincinnati real estate," but if one wants to sell homes/property in Cincinnati, why would you try to drive away potential home/property owners by constantly saying Cincinnati is "Lazy" and sucks and over-hyping everything that happens in the city?

Finally, if Mr. Hines does not like my site, then I suggest he stops reading it, or at least stop posting so many comments. Now, he won't do either, but he especially will not stop posting comments because that is why he is playing this game, more attention. I have said my piece on the subject and I think have exposed his site's shortcomings, so I shall move on. I hope he can too.

Comair Grounded

I really don't get how this could happen. How does a computer go down long enough to ground the entire fleet of planes? If over use causes a system to fail in this day and age, I think it is time for new system manager. Someone is getting fired over this one. This is not even a primary function, it is about routing and tracking the crews, so it is likely a PC based system, as opposed to a mainframe system, but with airlines you never know. Hell, try re-booting. That is the first step every PC help desk has you do, I hope they have done that already.

I am flying regular Delta tomorrow and as of now the flight is on time and more importantly flying. Needless to say I shall be monitoring it closely.

UPDATE: Some Comair flights are resuming, reportedly 10 to 15 percent, but most remain canceled.

Happy Holidays!!

I hope everyone is digging out from the snow and ice. Have a great day today and tomorrow.

Quip of the Year

I don't know if this is really the best of the year, but it made my day. Paul McLEary at CJR addresses the "Merry Christmas" story being kept alive by FOX News and other media outlets:

So we have a suggestion for all the reporters and editors who are keeping this one alive: Instead of worrying so much about putting Christ back in Christmas, you might start thinking about putting news back in 'news reports.'

Indeed.

[Via Kevin Drum]

Tales of Brave Ulysses

Cream Reunion concerts are set for next May.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Well it is raining down in the FLA, but I understand you guys up there got a few flakes. I hope everyone is just staying home today, and by the news reports you might get a ticket if you go out to try and buy that last minute gift.

Post your snow totals if you would, I'll Start: Englewood, Florida - 0.0"

UPDATE: Rob Bernard has a post showing he got almost 13".

UPDATE #2: Nick Spencer has more on road reports and business closings. At the top of the hour we'll have news and sports.