WEDNESDAY SEPT. 15
Most people understand that as soon as you drive a new car off the lot it's worth less than what you paid for it — you might get a 100,000-mile warranty, but there's no retrieving that down payment just because a teenager in the neighborhood said your Prius is gay. Hamilton County Commission candidate Chris Monzel apparently doesn't understand such a premise, as his idea for solving the county's stadium financing problems is to sell both the Reds and Bengals stadiums to a private entity along with the $560.9 million debt the county owes on them. Democratic candidate Jim Tarbell, whose plan is to raise $17 million a year by capping a property tax rollback and then keep watching sports in the stadiums, said he'll support Monzel if he wants to put them on Craigslist but warned him not to trust any African princes offering to buy the county's police and fire services.
THURSDAY SEPT. 16
Apartment developers do a lot of research to determine what type of lifestyle their potential residents wish to be living, and they design accordingly — Covington's "The Ascent" is at maximum capacity thanks to a successful appeal to rich young Christians and aspiring super villains. That's why developers of the first apartment community at The Banks took their time, did the necessary research and came up with this name: Current @ The Banks. Developers said in a release today that they chose the name because it sounds hip, references the Ohio river and shows appreciation for a development project that has been currently underway for more than a decade.
FRIDAY SEPT. 17
Sometimes a TV event is so big that local newspapers have no choice but to go the extra distance — good luck finding anyone at The Enquirer who thought the Chad Ochocinco/Terrell Owens Batman photo shoot was a bad idea. Other times the finale of a show after a 54-year run merits only an AP blurb with a local slant, run online with no photos. Such was the case for today's final episode of As the World Turns, a program created for Procter & Gamble in 1956 in order to help sell personal care products to bored ladies. The localized version included comments from a 38-year-old suburban woman who said she started watching the show while pregnant, hasn't missed an episode in 18 years and looks forward to meeting her adult daughter for the first time on Saturday.
SATURDAY SEPT. 18
If you had to guess what type of product would be ideal for testing in the Cincinnati market, you'd probably choose (in no particular order) chili, hot dogs and cheese. That guess would be wrong, however, as companies prefer to test products in markets with average interest rather than unhealthy obsessions with making out-of-towners poop their pants via strange combinations of strange foods. That's why a national organization of carrot growers chose Mason High School to be one of two test schools for a new all-carrot vending machine. Assistant Principal George Coates said students have already begun purchasing the vending machine carrots, which cost 50 cents per 3-once bag, and that many students are actually eating them rather than throwing handfuls at the buses after school.
SUNDAY SEPT. 19
Most people who read CityBeat are either liberals or independents who lean slightly to the left (if you're neither then you should probably set this article down because it doesn't respect your intelligence). It stands to assume, then, that you, dear reader, know of someone, probably a good friend, who voted for Ralph Nader in 2004, helping George W. Bush win a second term, disastrously. (Hey, Republican, how'd you like all those commas?) It turns out that Republicans this year are facing a similar dilemma after a number of Tea Party victories in Republican primaries, which could have a Nader-like effect on the party's ability to gain control of the Senate in November. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine today told CNN that the Republican Party is now controlled by Tea Party candidates and then laughed for the first time in nearly two years.
MONDAY SEPT. 20
Every generation of Americans has certain things that it finds unacceptable: Generation X hated conformity, Baby Boomers weren't into homosexuality and the people before them didn't like the way alcohol made them feel. A Bloomberg News report today detailed an interesting trend regarding contemporary thoughts on another previously shameful concept: abandoning mortgages. According to a new poll, more than one-third of Americans say it's OK for people to default on a home mortgage even if they have the ability to pay it. The poll determined that although 59 percent of those surveyed said abandoning a loan is “unacceptable,” 19 percent said it was “acceptable” and another 17 percent said it was “fun,” an answer that wasn't even on the survey.
TUESDAY SEPT. 21
It's important for lawmakers to understand the types of technology at their disposal when making important decisions about how to run the government and society. That's why it was good to learn today that Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich, if elected, will utilize a high-tech method for receiving feedback from citizens. During an interview with Enquirer editors on Monday, Kasich described his idea for a Web site that collects citizen feedback that he "could see on a screen." The interview lasted more than an hour and was reportedly cut short when Kasich tried to described a dream he had that involved watching TV on a cell phone that could also tell time.
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