I'm working on the mixtape of a lifetime. This is not, of course, a mixtape in the traditional Hip Hop sense, replete with recycled beats, guest appearances and endless self-aggrandizing promotional drops. My mix is a personal collection of tracks that I've chosen to capture the range of emotions I experienced as Barack Obama became our 44th President of the United States.   

As Barack Obama prepares to become America's 44th president on Jan. 20, there are many who see something of themselves in his progressive, time-for-a-change victory against the ruinous Republican status quo. Those include visual artists working on the fringes, showing in urban co-op galleries with limited hours or in coffee houses and group shows at alternative spaces.   

When Aretha Franklin takes to the stage at President Barack Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, it would be fitting if she were to serenade him and his guests with the late Sam Cooke's anthemic 'A Change Is Gonna Come.' During 2008, the song has come to represent not just Obama's quest to become President but also to bring about a better, post-Bush America once he's in office. And the success of his campaign has come to signify the whole arc of the civil rights movement, from the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott to the White House.   

If the way Sen. John McCain is running his presidential campaign in Greater Cincinnati is any indication, maybe it's a good thing that he's trailing Barack Obama in all the polls. McCain's judgment is under scrutiny again after he appointed Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters as his campaign's southwest Ohio regional chairman despite a record of questionable actions.  

A local judge put the smack down last week after a defendant mumbled that it was bullshit that he'd have to stay in jail until his court date. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman thought that an alleged Northside Taliband gang member saying "bullshit" in his courtroom was actually bullshit itself, so he sentenced him to six months.  

In recent months, the government has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to help out banks, investment houses, insurance companies and others ensnared by the mortgage-crisis-induced financial meltdown. Auto companies might be next. Our new president should consider reviving the Federal Writers Project, a Great Depression-combating New Deal program that put some 6,600 people, not all of them trained writers, to work.  

We at WWE! don't always try our best. But our journalistic indifference results in harmless poop jokes and curse words, unlike Cincinnati Enquirer reporters, whose bad sense of humor often results in the public embarrassment of poor people.  

I couldn't believe Andrea was putting more salt on her French fries. We were having lunch together at the Frisch's on Glenway Avenue. She got the Big Boy platter but paid more money and substituted onion rings for the cole slaw. I had the salad bar that features, of course, iceberg lettuce.  

America has spoken. Our next president is Barack Obama, and although I didn't vote for him I accept him as my president and hope for success unprecedented in the history of the United States. God knows we need success right now. I hope he's up to the task and leads all Americans to a renewed prosperity and continued safety.   

A Catholic church in South Carolina has some new rules for its parishioners who voted for Barack Obama for president: They have to tell God they're sorry before taking communion again.