WEDNESDAY APRIL 27
It’s typically not a big deal to hop on a city bus in the morning, ask the bus driver if it’s going in the direction you think you left your car the night before and then enjoy the air-conditioned ride back to wherever you got wasted (Metro bus driver: “I ain’t mad at ya.”). Such understanding is apparently not always to be expected by professional drivers in Austin, Tex., one of whom recently determined on his own that two women shouldn’t be escorted in the direction of a Planned Parenthood clinic for fear that they might get abortions. The driver today received a $21,000 settlement after suing the
transportation system for firing him for his religious beliefs. System board members said the settlement was less than the cost of defending the lawsuit but that it sets a dangerous precedent for drivers who have moral problems with transporting football fans anywhere for fear that they will assault someone.
THURSDAY APRIL 28
It’s difficult for professional athletes and coaches to respond to hecklers, especially the funny ones who do research beforehand on the bigger mistakes one has made in his private life (poor Mike Leake...). That’s why Atlanta Braves baseball coach/Colerain High School graduate Roger McDowell on Wednesday had to come back on some San Francisco fans with his best material: homophobic comments and “making crude sexual gestures with his hips and a bat.” McDowell today apologized for the incident and said he felt bad because the man whose teeth he threatened to knock out had two daughters with him and obviously wasn’t a queer.
FRIDAY APRIL 29
Spring is widely considered to be a great time to get married: mild weather, blooming scenery, plenty of optimistic references in poetry to use in speeches (except for T.S. Eliot’s stuff — that guy had a bad attitude). That’s why most people aren’t upset about attending the many obligatory social events that come with each “Save the Date” card (seriously, no big deal, happy for y’all). The same can’t be said for the people of England, who today had to suit up for a wedding that cost them a lot more than a couple days of Spring and a $50 Target gift card, as the Royal Wedding reportedly ran UK taxpayers $40 million. The public cost was originally estimated to be much less until the prime minister declared the wedding a holiday and more cops volunteered to look for malingerers and cack-handed blokes since they’d be getting time and a half.
SATURDAY APRIL 30
Even those of us who are frequent critics of The Cincinnati Enquirer due to its
refusal to copy edit sports stories
blatantly pro-business slant can appreciate a fair and thoughtful article about a local Republican speaking out against someone we don’t like. Unfortunately, today’s story about state Sen. Bill Seitz suggesting that Gov. John Kasich tone down his “Dirty Harry routine” was completely ruined by a reporter’s decision to describe Kasich’s governing style as “punctuated by pungent vows and rejoinders.” A consequent dictionary search found the words to be fairly accurate, but a quick use of a thesaurus also suggested the phrase “shit-talking former Lehman Brothers executive with a 40-percent approval rating,” which would have been easier to understand.
SUNDAY MAY 1
The board game Monopoly is a lot like life — one minute you’re the first person to land on Park Place, the next minute your son is asking the president of the United States for his birth certificate and people are listening to him. The Enquirer today unveiled a similarly simplistic game, its “Cincinnati Budget Calculator,” which allowed Internet users to answer a series of seemingly disconnected budgetary questions and then added up the savings or cost at the end. By choosing one of two answers to questions such as, Would you raise property tax? (Yup.) Cut recycling? (Nope.) Stop paying City Council? (Sure.) Cut all human services funding? (Dude.), Internet users were able to quickly and easily solve all of Cincinnati’s problems and then get back to answering “fiesta” for every question on the site’s Cinco de Mayo quiz.
MONDAY MAY 2
It’s the day after Osama bin Laden was killed — you’re ready to party but you can’t find the flag pin you threw at the TV after John McCain announced his 2008 running mate. What are you supposed to do? First, don’t worry — there will be many new flag pins available in the near future. Second, if you’re near the Internet you can read about a group of local teenagers who today learned all about the Osama-free world they haven’t known since first grade. The local Community Press popped into Goshen High School to document its students’ questions about pre-Osama America, such as “Did people feel safer then?” and “If you didn’t have Twitter, what did you do?” Teachers reportedly did their best to keep students on topic, though several expressed frustration over how easily kids were able to reenact the raid of Osama’s compound using their cell phones and a violent video-game app.
TUESDAY MAY 3
City officials today announced plans to build a shortened streetcar line with hopes of later adding extensions to the riverfront and into uptown. Mayor Mark Mallory said the city plans to break ground in the fall, although he says he considered pushing the groundbreaking back to winter so streetcar opponents wouldn’t know it was there until they came back downtown for next year’s Oktoberfest.
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