Bill Nye Vs. Crazy Guy
There are plenty of good reasons to visit the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky — maybe you like animatronic dinosaurs (most people do) or your home-schooled kid is acting like a real dick in class and needs to take a field trip. Whatever the case, you can strike Feb. 4 off the calendar of non-secular places to take your super bored kid or boring relatives because that’s when Bill Nye The Science Guy is set to visit this bastion of illogic for a debate on evolution with founder Ken Ham. The event is expected to attract considerable attention from those interested in seeing a well-known scientist argue with someone who thinks science isn’t real and that the creator of the universe looks like Santa Claus with big muscles.
Greenpeace Protesters Decry P&G Destruction, P&G Promises to Stop Next Year or Whenevz
P&G is the Mitt Romney of corporations, a baby-eating psychopath that no amount of coaxing or media manipulation can transform into something you’d want at your dinner table. A much-publicized break-in and protest (featuring someone in a tiger costume = +10 points) at P&G headquarters last week by a bunch of Greenpeace activists with wealthy parents and not a care in the world drew attention to how P&G destroys rainforests, Sumatran tigers and other things that everyone already assumes P&G destroys. Local media coverage focused more on the security breach at the building, as if members of the public give a sailing shit about who gets in and out of that dual-spired fortress of evil. It also divulged how P&G plans to find a sustainable source of palm oil sometime next year. In the meantime, Sumatran tigers and other endangered animals that are being pushed into extinction for the sake of beauty products are advised to start hibernating like bears do here in the good old U S of A so they won’t be so put out by the deforestation P&G will continue sponsoring until it figures out how to make money another way.
Local Authorities Score Awesome Weapons from Feds
American police can be pretty intimidating — they carry much better weapons, for instance, than cops in England who for some reason walk around armed only with one beating stick and a whistle (wouldn’t a pair of nunchuks fit on their toolbelt fairly easily as well?). Despite the general acceptance that Americans prefer police who can actually stop somebody from doing something bad, recent reports have detailed how several local police forces are scoring the type of weapons Obama used to kill Saddam Hussein and then using them against any locals who think about trying to rise up. Because the government is continually spending our tax dollars creating even more deadly shit, Greater Cincinnatians could one day find themselves staring at the wrong end of some of the country’s slightly used weapons, like an M 16 rifle (Butler County Sheriff’s Office; scary), Humvee (Newport Police; overkill kinda), an armored rescue vehicle (Covington; actually probably good), chemical light sticks (Oxford Police; not sure what those are) or men’s socks (Campbell and Kenton County agencies; seems weird). Campbell County also reportedly scored a copier and fax machine but said it didn’t think Obama would actually send them and only filled out the request as a joke.
“White Man March” Event in Florence Attracts Nearly a Dozen
Since the days in which Plato penned The Republic, the brightest minds of each generation have gathered on overpasses to show homemade signs with messages such as “diversity = white genocide.” It’s always been up to the smartest and most goal-oriented individuals of each society to stand out from his or her contemporaries by sharing such gems of life with passersby. Our generation is led by Robert Ransdell of Florence, who organized the local chapter of a racist-ass international event called the “White Man March” last week. Ransdell explained the premise to The Enquirer as such: “We are here promoting white interests and encouraging others to stand up for people advocating for the white majority just like the minorities are encouraged to do.” A protester next to him later explained that all the black guys on UK’s basketball team are fucking awesome, and it’s the ones with their pants sagged down low and their bass up high who are the real problem.
Archdiocese: Ice Bucket Challenge Can Sit on a Tack
The Internet is a wonderful place, full of important information and videos of people tripping over things in stores. It’s also a useful tool for starting viral trends, most of which don’t help anyone (selfies) but some that do (video of cops acting like dicks). The ongoing Ice Bucket Challenge falls into the latter category, a sort of video chain letter asking people to dump buckets of ice water on their heads to spread awareness of ALS, a neurodegenrative disease that leads to paralysis and death. But the rush to be a part of the cause (and the resulting funny videos of people getting hurt doing the challenge) isn’t sitting well with the Cincinnati Archdiocese, specifically the part where the ALS Association spends some of the funds raised on research that involves embryonic stem cells. The Archdiocese last week asked principals at Cincinnati Catholic schools not to encourage kids to give money to this particular organization because messing around with the stem cells is kind of like aborting a microscopic baby. The sinful things scientists are doing to try to cure ALS were reportedly first brought up by bloggers at Patheos.com, a website dedicated to “hosting the conversation on faith” that currently features thoughtful commentaries on modern life such as articles titled “How Racist Are You?,” “Progress Is a Myth: Where Will We Find Salvation?” and “Jesus Isn’t Going to Take My Zoloft.” **
** We at WWE! did not make these up. They are real. Seriously.
Grimes: McConnell Ain’t Even Got a Gun
It’s probably pretty tough being a woman in Kentucky (based on zero scientific or sociological data in a half-serious article written by a man). Just seems like a place where a lot of people are intolerant, many still acting and dressing like characters in the Dukes of Hazzard. (BTW: Thanks for smashing every ’69 Dodge Charger ever made, idiots.) If anyone knows what it’s really like to be a woman growing up in Kentucky ... well, it’s probably not actually Alison Lundergan Grimes, the daughter of a former Kentucky Democratic chairman and state representative and the current Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. But Grimes’ privileged upbringing didn’t stop her from going all country on Mitch McConnell in a new TV ad showing her shooting a clay pigeon with a rifle and slamming him for apparently holding his gun wrong during an earlier moment in time. The TV spot — which, to her credit as a Kentuckian states that she is nothing like Obama and doesn’t want to subject coal workers to the tyranny of a doctor’s office — is set to run in some parts of Ohio leading up to the election before Grimes levies a new collection of accusations Nov. 4 about how McConnell can’t even drive a stick shift.
‘Enquirer’ Editor Says Latest Round of Layoffs Will be Super Exciting for Readers
We at WWE! often read The Cincinnati Enquirer in order to acquire valuable insights about poor people getting arrested and the types of ways P&G tortures animals helps the world, and last week’s story, “Twitter war: Cincy or Bengal’s opponent Charlotte the real Queen City?,” didn’t disappoint. Although it is piss poor that Enquirer editors can’t be bothered to differentiate between the punctuation of Bengals’ and Bengal’s, top editor Carolyn Washburn’s nearby dispatch on the company’s plan to lay off editorial staff and make others reapply for their own jobs was delightfully upbeat. Washburn described the process as part of a “fun new world,” ignoring the fact that she isn’t one of the people who are about to take a huge pay cut and forfeiture of benefits to bring her Huxley-esque vision to life.
Minimum Wage Hike Threatens to Give Fast Food Workers Small Amount of Dignity
An editorial on Cincinnati.com last week made great cases for raising minimum wage at least enough that one hour of a fast food worker’s toil is enough to afford them any of the artery-clogging value meals on the menu. The flip side of the coin is that America can’t afford to raise minimum wage too high because the people who have bought mansions with moats and lake properties where they spend time with their soulless children don’t want anyone else to have a path to prosperity rather than basic sustenance and cheap beer and drugs here and there. The opposing forces in this equation are presently considering a compromise in which wages will be raised so that people can actually accrue a bit of savings, but not raise it so high that rich people will no longer be able to point and make snide remarks to their kids about why they must go to school to avoid working at said fast food job.
GOP County Commissioners: Only Renovate One Dumb Old Building
Local leaders seeking to renovate Music Hall and Union Terminal are running into predictable problems, principally that Republican Hamilton County commissioners believe in vetting massive historical renovation projects in their basements rather than relying on the expertise of area CEOs who kick it with Obama. There is hope, however, that the quarter-cent sales tax proposal to fix Union Terminal will make it to the November ballot despite Cincinnatians who think our city’s history should be neglected until it crumbles successfully booting Music Hall out of the original $321 milllion proposal. The original plan, created by a task force comprised of powerful area CEOs, developers and general rich people, would have fixed up Music Hall and Union Terminal simultaneously, but Republican commissioners Greg Hartmann and Chris Monzel felt like it made more sense to stick with the museum, arguing that Union Terminal has more long-term value because some of their friends’ home-schooled kids like seeing Omnimax movies but aren’t allowed to listen to music.
Atheists Debut Controversial Billboard that Doesn’t Make Sense, Piss off People in the Heartland
If there’s anything worse than religious people who try to act morally superior and tell other people who they can marry and where their soul will spend eternity after they kick the bucket, it’s atheists who think other people care what they do and do not believe in. A group called American Atheists has rankled the feathers of many with a billboard depicting a young girl writing Santa a letter asking for permission to skip church. It reads, “I’m too old for fairy tales.” This is kind of a jerk move, because young children will see the ad and probably ask their parents too many questions about what it means. Adults in the area are also upset about the ad, but that reaction has been blended with a deep sense of confusion because if the girl writing the letter is too old for fairy tales then why would she be writing to Santa Claus any damn way? The American Atheists contend that the billboard was meant to reach out to atheists and not to recruit religious people to their godless lifestyle choice. Additionally, they have offered to feature an adult in their next “be rad and edgy at the same time by skipping church” advertisement who is just too hungover from Saturday night to attend church on Sundays just to hear dramatic stories of yesteryear.
Genius Mayor Forced to Recognize Streetcar’s Effect on OTR Development
One of the worst parts about being wrong about something is that the world is driven by ego and the desire to be right. Long after you’ve been proven wrong, uninformed and guilty of supporting local eyebrow sculptors more than the streetcar project, people are going to keep bringing up how you were wrong until you say, “You know what guys, I had no clue what I was talking about. I was just doin’ hater stuff.” Mayor John Cranley’s recent statements fly in the face of everything poetically described thus far in this segment. When asked about the decline in street crime in Over-the-Rhine that has followed the neighborhood’s gentrification and development, Cranley attributed it to the renovation of old St. Paul’s Church on Race Street and the construction of more places for people to eat and drink more than they should. Cranley somehow sees the streetcar as an entirely separate entity than the neighborhood redevelopment, even though the backbone of said development is the construction of a mode of transportation that will allow consumers to quickly and drunkenly get around the city as a whole. Although our mayor is part of the sheltered, stiff-necked conservative culture that caused Cincinnati to start falling behind years ago, he’s still looking out for our best interests in his heart. In fact, Cranley has promised to launch a neighborhood redevelopment plan in Western Hills sometime in the next decade if people in city government ever start caring about what happens on the West Side of this city.
Kasich Passes Important College Football-Related Resolution
If there’s one thing that Buckeye State politicians are good at, it’s spending time being paid a lot of taxpayer money to putz around and craft important pieces of legislation like the one Gov. John Kasich passed this week right before the annual Ohio State vs. Michigan football game. Kasich released an official proclamation Nov. 28 asking Ohioans to “avoid using the letter ‘M’ when possible,” and making Saturday “Scarlet Letter Saturday.” Following sections of the proclamation explain that Scarlet Letter Saturday is a day for celebrating Ohio State University and the scarlet and gray uniforms worn by their athletic teams, noting that it will have absolutely nothing to do with Puritan role play, accusations of adultery or exploration of themes of legalism, sin and guilt. Kasich and other Ohio policy makers also disclosed that they’ll come up with some wacky promotions for the upcoming college basketball season and get around to crafting a resolution that addresses the absurd amount of money college costs at some point in the future after that.
Cincinnati Finally Decides to Remove Signage Pointing Visitors to Cinergy Field
Lots of people downtown over the years have wondered if and when the sign-updating branch of our local government would get around to changing signage directing visitors to Cinergy Field, which was exploded into dust back in the year of our lord 2002. With Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game coming to town next July, it would seem prudent to get rid of all the signs that give directions to places that are no longer standing. Fortunately for local citizens concerned by the outdated signs, city transportation director Michael Moore has stated that by the end of the year our fair city will only have signs pointing toward places that still exist. Moore says the only reason it took the city of Cincinnati a dozen years to fix this problem is that some leaders thought time travel might become widely available by now so keeping signs from multiple eras of sports stadiums wasn’t really a bad idea.
