WEDNESDAY NOV. 17
For most parents, determining which elementary school your child will attend is fairly easy — just look up which public school is closest to your home, sign little Billy up and tell him to wash his hands a lot. Local media reports today noted that hundreds of parents last week went through a lot more trouble to ensure their kids got into Cincinnati Public Schools' most sought-after programs, with many camping out for days to be at the top of the list. The first-come, first-served application process, which resulted in 410 students being placed on waiting lists for such esteemed institutions of 5-year-old learning as Fairview-Clifton German Language School, has drawn criticism from some parents who say that just because they work at night their kids shouldn't have to go to school with the poor kids.
THURSDAY NOV. 18
Anyone who has followed the city of Cincinnati's budget-making decisions during the past couple of yeas has been privy to an epic buncha bullshit extremely difficult process, with all the unions and safety concerns and political implications involved. That's why it was great to learn today that a collection of streetcar opponents has taken our collective displeasure with Cincinnati City Council's general incompetence and used it for its own gain: to childishly mock the proposed streetcar. A group of streetcar opponents lead by Citizens Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes has taken rewriting children's songs, replacing pleasant tales of friendship and community with terrifying scenes of mayhem that ensue after police layoffs. COAST’s Mark Miller today released a video on Facebook of himself singing to the tune of the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood theme, "It’s a dangerous day in this city ’hood/ A dangerous day for a citizen," while changing out of his wingtips and into Timberland boots.
FRIDAY NOV. 19
If you were to judge what marriage is like by depictions in beer commercials, you'd likely believe that most of them are pretty terrible and most husbands are real dicks who prefer doing idiotic things with their friends than spending time with their wives. (Exhibit A: The Coors Lite commercial where the dude has a doorman outside his apartment who won't let his wife in; funny, but inappropriate.) A new study by the Pew Research Center agrees at least in part with such an observation, as it found that 39 percent of Americans believe marriage is becoming obsolete. The report noted that one in three American children currently lives with a parent who is divorced, separated or never married and four out of five Americans believe that a single parent or an unmarried, opposite-sex couple with children is a family. The changing views of family are largely being attributed to young adults age 18-29, who researchers say are more likely to have unmarried parents or friends who do and have had access to reruns of Jerry Seinfeld's hilarious TV single life every day for the past 10 years.
SATURDAY NOV. 20
Being a Democrat these days is tough, with all the Tea Partiers and Republicans pointing out how big you want the government to be (things were a lot easier back when W was in office and you were just perceived as a huge pussy). But there's one place where being a Democrat sucks worse than Washington, D.C., these days — at any airport security line in America. President Obama today gave his thoughts on the FAA's new aggressive body pat-downs, calling them a necessary inconvenience. Speaking at a news conference following the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Obama said the process is one of the more frustrating aspects of the fight against terrorism but actually pretty funny if you think about it.
SUNDAY NOV. 21
There are a lot of crazy things occurring on college campuses every day, with all the protesting and partying and camping out for days to get tickets to basketball games. But on the campus of Ohio State University, something even crazier is going on — adult humans playing a form of the made-up sport of Quidditch from Harry Potter. The Columbus Dispatch today described a collection of dorks students engaging in a real-life version of the game on an otherwise normal grassy lawn on the campus. The sport has reportedly spawned competitive leagues across the country and an annual Quidditch World Cup in New York, where this year 46 teams will compete for the title of "Best Group of Uncoordinated People Getting Exercise While Carrying Brooms For No Reason."
MONDAY NOV. 22
We at WWE! admit that we don't often read stories out of the Bible — too many big words, lots of scary scenes. But an AP report today described a recent version of the Bible that used gender-neutral words such as "human" and "people" rather than "man" and "mankind," which we found funny. Turns out the story was about how these changes caused many to decry the version as too liberal, leading to the latest version being changed back to the pro-"man" wording. Translators say the latest edition gets back to the roots of the story and includes a never-before-released scene where God threatens to come down from heaven and embarrass every man on Earth with the size of his privy member.
TUESDAY NOV. 23
It's not every day you get to consider something as cool as a giant animal roaming the earth (Creation Museum billboards not withstanding). That's why today's report by NPR of a massive prehistoric creature that might have been able to fly 80 mph for up to 12,000 miles was pretty cool. Scientists say the pterosaur (part reptile, bird and giraffe) had a 35-foot wingspan and would have been comparable to a dragon (also very cool). At least one scientist cautioned that while skeletal remains of wings suggest the pterosaur would have been able to fly there are actually no fragments of the creature's body so it could have been really fat and not felt like it.
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