Best Bar in Cincinnati: Round 2 Voting

This post is your reminder that round 2 voting for the Best Bar in Cincinnati tournament ends at noon on Sunday.  We’ll have the results and matchups set shortly after that.  As with round 2, third round polls will be posted on Monday and you’ll be able to vote as many times as you wish throughout the week.

We’re looking at options for what to do with/for the winner.  Once a winner is determined, we’ll get in contact with them to work out more solid details. Here are links to each round two poll:

Poll 1
Poll 2
Poll3
Poll 4
Poll 5
Poll 6
Poll 7
Poll 8

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General Mills Sells Man Fuel

The New York Times is reporting that long-time breakfast staple Wheaties is releasing a new line of cereal – Wheaties Fuel – with marketing targeted directly at men.  Apparently, they involved actual athletes in the development of the cereal, but it still sounds like only so much bullshit, to me.  To further mix it in, samples are being sent to Men’s Health readers who volunteer to test to determine which recipe will actually be sold to consumers.

As the official site says, “The Breakfast of Champions Evolves.”  Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

Dear marketing weenies:  We don’t need condescending shit like “FUEL” tacked onto a product to make us thing it’s great for men.  Give us stuff that won’t make us fat, doesn’t taste like cardboard, and won’t destroy our budget. We’ll handle the rest.

As for what you should eat for breakfast, here’s a tip:  Skip the cold cereal.  If you want to eat a manly breakfast, eat a mix of complex carbs, protein, and fruits or vegetables.  You’ve been told your whole life that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so why would you pass up the opportunity to eat bacon?

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Front page thumbnail by http://www.flickr.com/photos/travisjohnson/

The Streetcar Proposal: Why Not Now?

Seattle's streetcar in 2007.

How does a concerned citizen of Greater Cincinnati approach the streetcar plan, an idea which is meant to generate tourist dollars in the chronically underdeveloped and less-than-entertaining downtown Cincinnati area?

Judging from the many of the comments attached to an Enquirer editorial from last week, the idea is not being received well partially due to the typical knee-jerk conservative Cincinnati style ingrained in our midwestern DNA:  Don’t spend money, we don’t need it, everything is fine, let’s stay 10 years behind the rest of city-dwelling America.

For example, diligent Enquirer reader phrank proclaims:

“I can’t help but wonder how much it will cost me to park my car downtown so I can ride the streetcar. On second thought, I’ll just drive my car to where I need to go in Clifton.”

Portland's Streetcar

Either phrank does not understand the concept of public transportation, or phrank’s car rides on rails and picks up passengers for a fee.  If this is the  case, phrank is far ahead of the curve and should be studied by Mayor Mallory’s crew, the same group who recently blazed a trail to Oregon in order to assess the Portland streetcar system as a model for our very own streetcar line.

Delhidad chimes in:

“What problem is this trying to solve? What gaps do we have with the existing metro line? What’s the ROI/NPV? Who will pay ongoing operational costs year over year. These are real tax payer dollars…and must be spent wisely and bring real financial benefit to the city. Building something to be like 200 other cities, doesn’t make sense. You build it because it brings financial benefit based on the City of Cincinnati demographics and layout.”

I will use the Cincinnati Streetcar Feasibility Study from May 30, 2007 to attempt to address some of phrank and delhidad’s deeply felt concerns.

“What problem is this trying to solve/What gaps do we have with the existing metro line?”  The study informs us that:

There are two key reasons why adding more buses will not work as well as the streetcar for circulation: 1 – The number of buses required to equal the capacity of one streetcar makes buses more expensive to operate and maintain, 2 -Examples show that streetcars attract new riders, people who otherwise would not ride a bus, because of the convenience, comfort, attractiveness and reliability of the streetcar – thus, the streetcar increases the number of people who will use transit.

New Orleans Streetcar

“What is the ROI/NPV?”  ROI (Return on Investment) is unknowable at this time, but according to the editorial $180 million is the cost estimate when the uptown (Clifton) routes are included, which they have been.  Wikipedia claims that at the time of its closing in 1948, the Mt. Adams Incline was the most popular tourist attraction in Cincinnati.  Wikipedia also states that around that time San Francisco’s streetcar system was threatened for many of the same reasons as ours, but that the people voted to keep the streetcars and the result has been a system which carries over 7 million passengers per year and generates $20 million in revenue over the same span.  Cincinnati’s line would clearly operate on a smaller scale, but the successes of other streetcar lines suggests decent-to-good potential for economic stimulation.  And that’s what it’s all about, right?  The Enquirer piece suggests that

…in the near term, the streetcar can’t be considered a major economic stimulus. It will add jobs for planning, architecture, construction of street cut-outs, environmental study and the like, but if it is to bring big benefits, they are down the road. Actual construction of the line wouldn’t begin until 2012, at which point an economic recovery likely will have taken place.

This suggestion ignores, at least partially, the Keynesian economic model which calls on the government to tax and spend in a countercyclical fashion in order to maintain growth.  So when the economy is down, the government spends money on projects which are meant to create jobs and invest in local infrastructure while increasing revenue.  The streetcar project is a prime example of a creative infrastructure project intended to spur intelligent investment and generate revenue by providing a desirable service.  In fact, the Enquirer editorial presents this as well:

Indeed, government works best when it encourages smart development that creates wealth and increases tax revenues.

Wouldn't it be nice?

But of course, the timing is off, as always in Cincinnati (The Banks project).  Wait until the economy recovers, which it surely(?) will.  But how, with no new projects to stimulate that recovery?  The nameless Enquirer writer presents nothing else to replace the streetcar project and seems to desire to wait out these dark economic times.  Not a proactive approach, when a proactive approach seems to be just what we need.  In other words, we probably need to do something instead of waiting for Uncle Sam to reach into his wallet, the one that used to contain too many credit cards whose balances are owed to China, but now carries a great deal of printed paper called money, which is worth much less when a goverment prints a great deal of it as our government has.

Cincinnati is dealing with a near $30 million dollar budget shortfall.  What hasn’t been accepted yet by the auto-objectors native to this area is that a) creative projects which spur economic growth and create new revenue streams alleviate stagnation, especially when federal government stimulus can be used for those projects (the availability of this money for the streetcar project is not guaranteed), and b) waiting for the economy to recover while doing nothing is not an answer, because waiting achieves nothing more than stagnation.  A stagnant economy can’t grow, generate new revenue, or put anyone to work.  Yes, deficits will increase in the short term, but so will the availability of jobs and in the long term the streetcar system could represent the redefinition of Cincinnati’s downtown that the city so desperately needs.

Here’s what we need to do: greenlight the streetcar project.  At worst, no one will want to come to Cincinnati no matter what we build or how we market ourselves, which means we’re doomed anyway.  At best, we can jumpstart our economy while laying the groundwork for Cincinnati to become the destination city that it deserves to be.

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Photo credits:http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalarchives/ / CC BY 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/functoruser/ / CC BY 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/infrogmation/ / CC BY 2.0

Yo Quiero las Perras: The Taco Bell Dog is Dead

Gidget, better known as the “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” dog, died a couple days ago at the age of fifteen.  Looks like she’ll be getting all the chilitos she wants in doggy taco heaven.

There’s a joke somewhere about ol’ Gidge showing up in the ground beef, but that would be totally classless of me.

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Dog burrito.

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Thumbnail credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/sis/ / CC BY 2.0

Things That Are Manly: Lawnmowers

Respite, regardless of how brief it may be, comes at a premium for most family men. Sometimes that break you’re looking for comes in the form of a little work–or at least something that looks like work. For many of us, myself included, that break happens to be mowing the yard.

When it comes to cutting the grass, its value is often less about the physical activity involved than it is about the fact that it’s a chance to get away while simultaneously accomplishing something of worth.  It’s something small that we do as men that serves our family, our homestead, our neighbors, and ourselves.  But it’s the getting away from everything else, to me, that holds the most value.

In thinking about the lawnmower itself, though, it’s got quite a history of manliness all its own.  With its beginnings as not much more than a glorified pair of scissors, Who can’t imagine their father’s father mowing the lawn in suit pants and black socks?  Who doesn’t remember their first time on a riding mower?

The growth of the lawnmower into bigger and bigger proportions serves its own purpose, of course, but in the end, the lawnmower is a multifaceted tool: it cuts grass, sure, but the larger the lawnmower, the deeper the solitude.  The thickness of steel really does affect this; I can see why my mother’s neighbors buy those giant fucking bush-hogs for their less-than-an-acre yards. They create something of a shield from the world, inside which they can actually relax.  It’s the same idea as that bath/book/wine thing that your lady does every once in a while.  Except for with sweat, maybe a beer or two, and the threat of severe injury. I’m failing to see what’s not manly about this.

More than anything, the relief created by the lawnmower lies in its noise.  Even an electric lawnmower, with its distinctive whirr instead of the decided scream of a gas-powered mover, provides some wall between what you’re doing and the rest of the world.  And that’s precisely what defines the lawnmower as an object to manliness: the Kal-el-esque fortress of solitude that it creates with its noise, with its objective.  Sometimes getting the job done can be a relaxing proposition all its own.

You can read more Things That Are Manly entries here.

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Photo credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robandstephanielevy/ / CC BY 2.0
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What Do You Think of Cincinnati? | Chris Duncan

What Do You Think of Cincinnati? is a TCM series wherein we ask folks who have no connection to Cincinnati whatsoever what they think of when they hear the word, “Cincinnati.” This is an exercise of study, to hopefully posit some idea of our standing in the world so that we can better define where we need to go. You can read other “What Do You Think of Cincinnati?” entries here. This week’s guest blogger is Chris Duncan.

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Living in the boondocks of southwest Virginia, I know Cincinnati only by my weirdo associations.

Weirdo association #1: I’ve got a loud-mouthed dumb hag of a neighbor that is Marge Schott incarnate. When my neighbour, Lou (female), says to me, smoking a Misty, “Wingnut is gonna bring this country down, I’m telling you. A nigger in the White House. What a load of shit,” in reference to President Obama, I can’t help but recall Marge saying, “Hitler was good in the beginning, but he went too far.”

Weirdo association #2: In 1993, a girl living on my dorm floor at Radford University (where us rejects who couldn’t get into Virginia Tech attended) said she was from Cincinnati. Oily, stringy hair with a big white or green bow, always wearing a denim dress and white Keds, Holy Roller regalia, Melanie was obsessed with sin. Toted around a bible all the time. I have no idea how she ended up at a party school like Radford. As a loser, whackjob, and emotionally-disturbed-person magnet, I got to know her fairly well. Lucky me.

“Have you been saved?” she asked me through tartar-caked teeth, looking at me with wide, light blue irises holding Jesus-filtered water. I sat on her dorm room floor watching Rescue 911. My irises were and are defecation brown, stagnant. I was everything she wasn’t. I slept in her room most nights, on the floor, right next to her bed.

“I’m a Methodist,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “We don’t use that ‘get saved’ lingo.”

She snapped and popped Fruit Stripe gum, sat on her legs on the floor next to me.

“I hate sin,” she said. Pop. Snap behind her front teeth. “But I love the sinner.” She la-la sang her stance on sin: “Hate th’ sin, love th’ sinnn-errrr! Hate th’ sin, love the sinnn-errrr!”

Cincinnati. Sin-cinnati. Weirdo association. Melanie had a nice ass and pure eyes. I have no idea what became of her. We both ditched Radford after a year. She moved back to Sin-cinati. I bolted for Virginia Intermont College, known for mediocre students and producing lesbian horse-back riders.

Weirdo association #3: My urologist is a black guy—to hell with you Lou/ Marge!—and he’s from Sin-cinnati. Dr. Davis. Eric Davis played for the Reds. Hitch in his swing. Could knock the shit out of the ball. Dr. Davis=Eric Davis=Sin-cinnati=another weirdo association. When he’s checking my left ball’s inflamed varicocele or shoving a lubricated finger up my rear, I think of Eric Davis impaling me with his baseball bat, and the sex act (if you can call get raped with a baseball bat a sex act) causes me to feel what I generally always feel: guilt and self-loathing. Thanks for the intrusion in my neural network, Melanie. I’m sinnn-errr. A montage attacks the movie screen behind my clenched shit-brown eyes: Eric Davis alternately impaling me and making a diving catch on a screaming liner, Melanie proselytizing her spiel, Lou and Marge putting down the niggers and Jews, and then Loni Anderson makes a Sin-cinnati WKRP appearance, which doesn’t mesh well with Dr. Davis’ largish index finger. I shake my head, clear the cobwebs, fling Sin-cinnati off my radar screen and back into the Rust Belt.

Finally, Dr. Davis hands me a Kleenex to clean my greasy sphincter and I do the Ickey Shuffle to my Ford Ranger, and I thank God I’m in Abingdon, Virginia.

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Chris Duncan lives in Abingdon, Virginia. He teaches English part-time at a local community college. He’s working on a novel about two brothers who work as funeral home technicians.

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