WEDNESDAY APRIL 1
Cincinnati´s local media got quite a treat today from angry Westside residents, who boarded up a Westwood house even though the city had already padlocked the doors. All the major TV news networks (plus The Enquirer, which let two of its reporters take breaks from tweeting to work on the story) accepted an invitation from a group called Westwood Concern to watch them board up a house that troublemakers regularly use to do bad things. The group — which has also threatened to put all of its garbage out in the street if people don’t stop speeding down Queen City Boulevard — said the city’s legal action wasn´t enough and the additional boards they put on the windows make it look more like a crack house you´d see in a movie.
THURSDAY APRIL 2
Things have gone from bad to worse for cigarette smokers — first cigarettes turned out to be unhealthy, and now they’re super expensive — but legislation passed today by the House of Representatives is going to flip that bad news on its ass and hurt the cigarette companies for once. A new measure has put cigarettes under the control of the Food and Drug Administration, ending a 15-year debate over whether cigarettes are a food, a drug or a figment of our imagination, the latter of which was successfully argued by tobacco executives during a 1994 hearing. The FDA won’t be allowed to ban nicotine or tobacco but will have the authority to regulate contents, make ingredients public and ban all cartoon advertisements that aren't scary.
FRIDAY APRIL 3
If your first reaction to the thought of two men making love is to go, “Ugggh, man! That shit is gay!” then you’ve probably generally assumed that America’s heartland is a place where you’d fit in. That might not be true now that Iowa has become the third state to legalize gay marriage (and the first without an IKEA store within 200 miles). The unanimous decision from Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled that the man-woman marriage rule violates the state’s constitution, which is more important than keeping people from getting grossed out by gay marriage announcements in the local newspaper. The Polk County Attorney’s Office isn’t expected to ask for a rehearing but noted that people in Utah have a lot of money.
SATURDAY APRIL 4
When a casino bans your father for life, you swear on your family name that you’ll never go back to pull their slot machines no matter which Country music artist performs there. But when said casino undergoes a $355-million dollar renovation and adds 200 flat-screen TVs, you say to yourself, “I wasn’t the one who kicked over the exit sign for no reason. Why should I suffer?” Argosy Casino’s transformation to Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg is underway, and the new gaming boat will more than double its floor space and add many new betting seats. A spokesman for the depressing smoky bingo hall glamorous gaming metropolis said the improvements will help Argosy withstand future competition from Ohio, which is nearly broke enough to legalize gambling.
SUNDAY APRIL 5
We at WWE! got pretty wasted on Saturday night, but one world leader apparently had more gin and tonic in his system than us on Sunday morning, when Kim Jong Il decided to shoot a missile into the air and piss off many world leaders. The AP today reported the fallout, as the U.S. and Japan tried to convince China and Russia to make a big deal out of the rocket launch. The U.S. fears that the incident was a demonstration in order to sell rockets to countries that hate us, but Russian authorities believe it was a response to President Obama’s recent speech on international security, which Jong Il didn’t take seriously because he thought Obama sounded really eloquent and was trying to trick him.
MONDAY APRIL 6
With the economy and credit crunches hurting businesses across the globe, many companies are adapting their strategies to save money. (John Fox says the water stays off at CityBeat until the Dow hits 10,000.) But USA Today has reported that another strategy is to make new products that make adults happy, like giant Cheeto-balls (messy and funny) and lipstick shaped like a marker (drawing lips on your face is weird in the first place). Social scientists have noted that while this marketing strategy does generally work, it’s mostly because wasting money can make people feel rich.
TUESDAY APRIL 7
The Enquirer today reported good news and bad news from the Butler County Sheriff’s Department. The good news is that Sheriff Rick Jones won’t accept hippies driving through his community with weird bags of vegetation. The bad news is that the first person he busted Monday for possessing the hallucinogenic herb Salvia divinorum got his charges dropped because the drug wasn’t illegal yet. An 11:08 a.m. fax to the local media described the arrest of an 18-year-old white male wearing a 311 T-shirt and smelling like oregano and Axe Body Spray, but a Sheriff’s Deputy later realized the new law didn’t go into effect until the next day. A department spokesperson said that although the Salvia charges were dropped the suspect was still in custody because he’s a hippie.
CONTACT DANNY CROSS: [email protected]
