The decision to publish an entertainment weekly was largely seen as an attempt by Gannett to take marketshare from altweeklies like CityBeat and similar papers in other cities. In non-industry speak, Gannett was trying to kill us.   

SUNDAY SEPT. 2: Carolyn Washburn, editor and vice president of The Enquirer, wrote a piece in today’s edition explaining the new look of the paper’s print edition. Washburn said the new look of the paper will be like the Weekly Reader newspapers you used to get in grade school, but with fewer pictures of animals.  

How romantic: A wealthy Russian businessman decided to test his fiancée-to-be’s love before popping the question by staging his own death, saying, “I wanted her to realise how empty her life would be without me and how life would have no meaning without me.” WORLD -2   

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter after 6. I figured with it being early evening, Walgreens, up on Madison Avenue here in Covington, wouldn’t be that busy. I’d walk up there and get me another bottle.  

There is a lot wrong in the brutal beating of Pat Mahaney, a 45-year-old white man, by six black teenagers in North College Hill. Sadly and somehow brilliantly, this is a teachable moment about to pass us all by if we don’t start grappling with and then telling some truths.  

For participants in the 2012 Cincinnati Loser League, Sunday, Aug. 26 was a special day — we had our annual fantasy football draft, and it was more important than a lot of stuff.   

THURSDAY AUG. 23: The University of Toledo Medical Center today announced that its kidney transplant program has been suspended following a botched transplant earlier this month resulted in a kidney being ruined by “human error.”  

Trash Dance captures the development of contemporary dance choreographer Alison Orr’s experimental performance piece featuring a crew of sanitation workers.
  

A 10-year-old distraught over smoothie company Jamba Juice’s use of giant Styrofoam cups created a Change.org petition to end Styrofoam usage, garnering more than 130,000 signatures and a call from corporate Jamba promising to phase out the stuff by 2013. WORLD +2  

Like a lot of Cincinnati neighborhoods, mine — Walnut Hills — is segregated and there are fine, even invisible-to-the-unknowing-eye dividing lines separating beauty from filth, danger from safety, white from black and the strugglers from the affluent.  

If a public figure’s name is trending on Twitter, you can generally assume one of the following: They just cut their hair (GASP!), updated their relationship status or died.   

SATURDAY AUG. 18: According to ABC News, librarians at Guantanamo Bay’s prison detention center have had to order more copies of the 1990s TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air starring Will Smith because a lot of prisoners like watching it.  

Some farmers are feeding cows discounted expired candy supplemented with nutrients instead of grain to deal with corn shortages due to drought. WORLD -2  

It’s an oversimplification, but I do not like Willard Mitt Romney and my dislike plays “Tag! You’re it!” with the smallest annoyances.

  

WEDNESDAY AUG. 8: For the second time in a year, Country singer Randy Travis was arrested for getting too wasted.