WEDNESDAY SEPT. 4
Sometimes in life people have to do things they don’t want to do, like when Peter Parker’s boss used to make him take fake pictures of Spiderman for the newspaper even though Parker was never seen anywhere near Spiderman BECAUSE HE IS SPIDERMAN (sounds like something that’s going to eventually end up involving an awkward, spandex-clad talk with the human resources department). City Council today was put in the opposite position — instead of getting grief for doing the right thing and nobody knowing about it, council members had to do something that sucked — formally allow a controversial pension privatization amendment to be placed on the November ballot even though all nine members oppose it — and say, “Welp, don’t be mad at us.” No one really blamed them because council only passed the amendment because petitioners — hired by shady out-of-town tea party groups — gathered the requisite amount of voter signatures for the City Charter to allow it. The amendment would privatize Cincinnati’s pension system via a 401k-style plan and likely cost more while leaving retirees susceptible to mad ponzi schemes.
THURSDAY SEPT. 5
For being a really old daily newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer is not known for being great at many things (although its recent plan to do a better job covering Northern Kentucky by having zero reporters stationed there is a pretty good idea and should pay off in the long run). Last week this city’s sole surviving daily published two stories that we at WWE! intended to satirize (OK, there were many more deserving ones but these are the two we chose), only to have our team of THOUGHTFUL AND SOBER re-reporters point and click our way into something that wasn’t really about what we expected (thanks a lot, headline!). The first was also a story that none of the other two or three news organizations in this town had yet covered (EXCLUSIVE!!! HOLY SHIT!), reporting that the county sheriff and prosecutor have warned of “lawlessness” if the county budget is cut. The corresponding story, however, never mentioned the word lawlessness, only detailing the sheriff and prosecutor’s dramatic accounts of how they won’t be able to do their jobs if their budgets are cut, thereby turning Cincinnati into a scene from Game of Thrones, which takes place during a time when there were laws but it was difficult to enforce them because the Seven Kingdoms had a similarly underfunded coroner’s office. Then, to make matters worse, a different headline, “Attorney: Michael Moore killed father in self-defense,” made us think the famous activist Michael Moore had been arrested for being a total bastard liberal but it turned out we wasted one of our 30 free cincinnati.com stories per month learning about a random guy in Warren County with the same name who is alleged to have done stuff so bad it made us want to watch Bowling for Columbine after decreasing our antidepressant dosage enough that we could cry again.
SATURDAY SEPT. 7
Dozens of white people today
rode the Metro bus to Washington Park dressed entirely in white, causing many poor black people who ride the bus in real life to wonder what they were doing
rode charter buses downtown wearing only white as part of a pop-up dinner involving a secret-location rich people picnic. The event, which likely accounted for the most white people wearing all white in downtown Cincinnati since the Ku Klux Klan got kicked off of Fountain Square, was actually not at all intended to confuse local black people but actually an event called Diner en Blanc, one of dozens of such themed culinary events worldwide that have been taking place since some guy in France organized the first one 25 years ago. This year marked Cincinnati’s second annual Diner en Blanc and organizers expect to continue the tradition as long as they can find additional police officers to patrol Indian Hill when half its residents leave their homes unoccupied at the same time.
SUNDAY SEPT. 8
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has already made a name for himself — he’s the dude who tried to crush all union workers in Wisconsin only to see his capitol building filled with people who CLEARLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT WORK OR AT HOME READING THE BIBLE. Walker and Wisconsin Republicans have gotten the backing of those same labor unions to help fast track legislation easing environmental regulations to allow a billion dollar ore mine near Native American lands. Members of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians last month sent President Barack Obama a letter asking the Department of the Interior to protect the 70 miles of rivers and streams from industries trying to dig them up to get iron ore out, since their people eat and drink stuff out of those same wetlands and fisheries. Walker says open pit ore mines — which involve “wide swaths of earth removed to extract minerals” — are no big deal and won’t make the air, land and water any dirtier. In a statement released to USA Today, Walker’s office said the governor believes the plan will continue to protect the environment while providing workers with great opportunities for “family-supporting jobs” under an “only mildly less starry night” and still produce water that “only kind of tastes like nickels.”
MONDAY SEPT. 9
Cincinnati police will soon begin enforcing a downtown business district ordinance banning excessive idling in response to people complaining about Megabus drivers chillin in front of their condos on Fourth Street. Megabuses are low-fare coaches that run regular routes to Chicago and other nearby cities Cincinnatians often visit to see an actual big city and to get away from people who complain about car noise in downtown areas. A Cincinnati city ordinance limits automobile idling to three minutes, according to The Enquirer, which believes its coverage of the buses sitting in front of TJ Maxx for too long helped facilitate police intervention. A Cincinnati Police captain reportedly emailed residents outlining the department’s plan to serve warnings and eventually ticket the buses but also noted that it’s important for bus drivers to have adequate access to caffeinated beverages before hitting the road and since the closest coffee shop is Starbucks they’ll sometimes need about 45 minutes to get a drink.
CONTACT DANNY CROSS:
[email protected]
