Hopefully this isn't goodbye. But with the way things are in this economy and in this world today, I'm being forced to take a break from this column. We hope it can come back in the fall. Meanwhile, I'll be putting my reporter’s hat back on and writing in the news section.
Read it in print

Though I’ve technically never been homeless, I realize that like so many people I’m really just a paycheck or two or a major illness or some unforeseen catastrophe from being in some serious financial ut-oh. Giving up sometimes seems like a great idea. Or getting a simpler job.
Read it in print

I’m Joe Wessels, HSD. Yeah, that’s right, I have a high school diploma. I earned it in 1992 from Colerain High School. After graduation, I spent a fall cutting grass and shoveling frozen dirt from one pile to another at Maketewah Country Club.

The experiment is over. I’m not a suburban guy. It doesn’t totally surprise me. I grew up in the suburbs, but my heart is in the concrete and noise and combustible nature of an inner city — namely Cincinnati.
Read it in print

Let’s stop being a town of shoulda, woulda, coulda. With Cincinnati City Councilwoman Leslie Ghiz’s announcement May 19 that she no longer supports the city’s streetcar initiative, she joins Republican colleague Chris Monzel, who never liked the idea from the beginning. And that stinks.
Read it in print

I had an outside chance of wandering into a two-headed deer-cow hybrid that could fly. But I ventured onto the Fernald Preserve anyway. When I was growing up out in northwest Hamilton County, Fernald was like our own private Area 51 far away from Roswell, N.M. Now the former Fernald Uranium Processing Plant has gone from Super Fund cleanup site to a nature preserve complete with a refreshingly balanced and frank museum inside a $3 million visitors center.
Read it in print

It seems young people are finally taking an interest in politics again. Ceair Baggett is 21 and a manager at Cincinnati Bell, overseeing some of their retail operations. He’s a graduate of Taft High School and Xavier University, lives in Mount Airy and owns a home in the West End he’s re-modeling. And he’s running for the Cincinnati Board of Education.
Read it in print

Lockland police officer Brandon Gehring shouldn’t be in the hospital right now. He was simply trying to do his job. Unfortunately, thanks to elected officials so damn proud of their ability not to spend money, Gehring wasn’t equipped with a two-way radio that would allow communication with officers in another department a few miles away.
Read it in print

I joined about 200 politically-minded people at Xavier University April 15 to hear eight of the 12 living former Cincinnati mayors explain how the more things change the more they stay the same. Even former mayors of Cincinnati find that moving our city forward can be as challenging as getting a barge to hop over the Suspension Bridge. And, damn, Jerry Springer still is funny. And Bobbie Sterne can still put men in their place — politely, of course.
Read it in print

To most, Interstate 74 is the highway that starts in Northside and works its way northwest through rural southeastern Indiana. It’s the best way to get to Indianapolis and cheap flights. From Indy, though, I-74 goes on to Davenport, Iowa, connecting to cross-country Interstate 80.
Read it in print