Regarding the article "CityLink Divides West End" (issue of Dec. 21-27), I live in Over-the-Rhine, I work at Procter and Gamble, and I love the city of Cincinnati. Three years ago, my wife and I decided to move to the city from the suburbs, and our new house has been on the Summer Tour of Homes.
I was at the recent West End Community Council. What a joke. Dale Mallory, I am sad to say, did not show any leadership. I'm sending you this e-mail to voice my opposition to CityLink.
While I believe the concept of CityLink is good, I don't agree with the location. Given its goal of transforming lives of people who are currently not well off, I think CityLink would want to be in an environment where people can be inspired to transform their lives. The West End is not that nurturing environment — it has lots of drug, alcohol and burglary problems. I can only speculate that bringing people currently residing in and around Washington Park, a known problem area in Over-the-Rhine, will make the problem far worse for the West End community, not better.
Not everyone wants to have his/her life transformed. It's a sad reality, but you have to consider it. Once a person has relocated to the West End hoping for a warm meal/bed and been turned away by CityLink, I doubt that he or she will wander back to Washington Park. No, they'll likely bring more crime to the West End and Clifton Heights communities, our communities.
We're showing our commitment to the city by living in the city. We're investing to rehab old houses or build new ones. We shop in the community stores (e.g., the one at the corner of Ravine and Warner), and we dine in our community restaurants. We plant new trees on Klotter Street. We create neighborhoods where people know each other. We help the people in need.
Putting CityLink in the middle of it will scare people who want to move back to the city, all of which take these neighborhoods backward, not forward. Please help us.
— Gerard Buisson, Over-the-Rhine/ Clifton Heights
Abuse Begins with Animals
In response to Drew Abas' letter ("Protect the Children," issue of Dec. 21-27), he offers a litmus test for bystanders when they view a child being beaten. If it were an adult being treated that way, he asked, would you then recognize it as abuse and call the authorities? Why the dual standard for not protecting society's more vulnerable members?
I wholeheartedly agree and would like to offer another suggestion on how we can prevent child abuse before it starts. The Animal Rights Community of Cincinnati (ARC) was given a grant to compile data and resources on how animal abuse and neglect is the No. 1 indicator that there is other abuse in the home. Additionally, those who start off abusing animals seldom stop there.
Read the accounts of every serial killer. Without fail, it's there, sometimes buried deep in the article, but he (or she) started off by torturing the neighborhood cats or dogs or squirrels.
This pamphlet is available free of charge by sending a SASE to ARC, P.O. Box 31455, Cincinnati, OH 45231. We would love to also get these in the hands of every law enforcement, social worker and teacher in the city that when you hear of animal abuse in a home, don't think: "It's only a dog." It seldom is.
We also need to educate our judges, evidently, as a local one let off a man who tortured and slaughtered three cats in front of a traumatized child. He wasn't given jail time, which under the law he could've been, and he wasn't sent for anger management counseling. He was given a slap on the wrists and set free. If you think that this makes our society safer, well, you might feel differently after reading the pamphlet.
— Jayn Meinhardt, East Walnut Hills
Wake Up and Smell the DJs
I picked up CityBeat's year-end issue hoping to be drawn into the possibility of reading some interesting and new things about film and music in this past year. So I promptly turned to Mike Breen's article, "The Good, the Bad and the Sucky" (issue of Dec. 14-20). Despite some well-deserved attention paid to the Heartless Bastards, a superb band, I ran into the same old politicized and cliquish rhetoric that torments left-of-center journalism in this city.
The article, which droned endlessly about the Greenhornes, Scribble Jam, etc. — all things consistently local and good — offered little in terms of fresh ideas and new musicians yet plenty of negativity. One thing I find humorous is CityBeat's seeming ignorance of all music that doesn't have anything to do with a drum kit and guitars or vocals, Hip Hop and otherwise.
There's much more going on than at least Breen knows or wants to write about. There still are real local musicians who DJ and produce electronic music yet get absolutely no attention. Instead, DJ Food is highlighted, a man who's been on a major distributor for over a decade now.
The one place which seems to be a great match for the upstart to veteran electronic musician is myspace.com, a site Breen immediately wrote off, literally. I suspect his choice was made because of myspace's current owner, Rupert Murdoch, or the fact that Breen might not have even tried to use the hub as a networking tool.
Besides some Drum and Bass acts mentioned sporadically in local zines, Cincinnati remains a desolate wilderness for great talent in Electronic music and the press is aloof to their efforts. Most things in Breen's article were relevant in 1993 when I was starting college, such as Punk, CBGBs and even a mention of the Sex Pistols. Here's a suggestion: Drop the old hat music journalism — The Clash, Talking Heads, Television, Flaming Lips — and talk about more local talent, talent that goes beyond two or three bands.
Granted, promotion of Electronic music in this town suffers, but is it because they don't try hard enough or is it due to a lack of media coverage? I operate a recording label with an old college friend and musician at myspace.com and network with droves of like-minded artists locally and from major cities in and outside of the United States. A little coverage of events at The Exchange or any local Electronic club/artist would go far in opening an otherwise regressive "Rock and Folk only" attitude inherent to Cincinnati.
— Aqqa [email protected]
