WEDNESDAY MAY 22
The Cincinnati streetcar project hit its latest snag today, if by snag you mean politicians asking a jurisdiction to spend money on something that’s the opposite of what the funding was intended for. Republican Hamilton County Commissioners Chris Monzel and Greg Hartmann are the fearless leaders behind today’s letter to the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments asking OKI to take $4 million in streetcar funding it secured from the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program and move it on over to local highway projects. Monzel and Hartmann both serve on the board that would theoretically consider their request (if it were possible), as are several pro-streetcar Democrats who in the past have spent their time doing more productive things like securing federal money from the statewide fund the $4 million would go back to for a brief pit stop on its way to Columbus or Cleveland if Monzel and Hartmann get their way.
THURSDAY MAY 23
Most people wouldn’t feel that great about taking a job when one of the tasks at hand is to find your own replacement, but that just goes to show you how disconnected average people are from the world of corporate executives (they get $1.6 million signing bonuses, you dumbass!). The Enquirer today went into “in-depth” mode with news of former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley returning to the company to take over for ousted CEO Bob McDonald (Enquirer business editor: “Red alert everyone! A. G. Lafley is back up in the mix!”), reporting on both Lafley’s plan to not really do anything differently and McDonald’s class during his own shit-canning. McDonald leaves after 33 years with the company, noting in his going-away letter to employees that he’ll never be too far from P&G to smell the fresh scent of Tide Clean Breeze and think of them.
FRIDAY MAY 24
Did you know that there are thousands of file formats in modern-day computing, and that among all the BMPs, RIPs and MIFFs there are actually ones that you probably give a shit about? One such format is the GIF, which today is commonly used to show chopped up videos of animals doing funny things and people falling down unexpectedly. The inventor of the GIF, Steve Wilhite was scheduled to receive a lifetime achievement Webby Award this week for his part in the humorous file format, although he’s reportedly mad that everyone pronounces the word “gif” instead of “jif” as he intended when he invented it between watching episodes of Cheers and trying to make his Rollerblades faster back in 1987.
SATURDAY MAY 25
We at WWE! don’t like to sugar-coat things, so when we bring up U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, we’re not trying to act like we think he looks, acts or sounds cool in pretty much any situation (unless someone draws him with a beach bod — funny). But today the Westsider-who-only-got-his-seat-back-because-of-redistricting made a move we can all get behind: trying to get the Cincinnati Zoo a rhinoceros. Chabot reportedly had to ask John Kerry, now U.S. Secretary of State despite how many times George W. Bush called him a coward for actually fighting in a war, to help get Indonesia to give us one since they’re critically endangered. The request is being considered because of our zoo’s prestige, though Chabot reportedly went the extra mile by including a drawing of a rhino running through space with bullets bouncing off its metal skin.
SUNDAY MAY 26
Everyone loves getting props from people in New York — even friends who move there are able to come back home for holidays and point out the stuff we have that’s actually cool (“Woah, Findlay Market is neat — I should have come down here more while I was in DAAP…”). That’s why local media re-reported the heck out of Esquire’s latest list of cool stuff, this one touting downtown bar Arnold’s as one of the best 16 bars in the country. The story stated that if Arnold’s were in a bigger city — “somewhere, in short, where people actually visited” — that it would be world famous, a compliment we understand the same way we appreciate seeing the list reported by local media because nobody actually reads Esquire.
MONDAY MAY 27
Most Americans enjoy being ranked against other countries — we’ve been the biggest, richest, most successful country for a really long time and we’re way more attractive than any other nation, plus super strong (at least that’s what our Texas-written textbooks say). The AP today had bad news for everyone who thinks their underwater mortgage and Chevy Cruz are evidence that the American Dream is real — this country doesn’t give a shit if you ever get a vacation. According to a new study, the U.S. ranks last out of 21 advanced economies in offering vacation days, which is partially because we’re the only country with a comparable standard of living that doesn’t require employers to offer them. The report also noted that there’s a major gap in paid vacation between America’s highest and lowest earners, but the U.S. middle class already decided it doesn’t care about that because our president is black and they want that fixed first.
CONTACT DANNY CROSS: [email protected]
