natininja

^ Unless GABP's position were switched with PBS's. Now it's on NKY to make the view cooler. It seems to me, though, that opening the stadium towards the city could be asking for the ball to be hit into the street with some frequency. Potentially a liability. Maybe I'm off base (bad pun).

I always designate people by the size of their genitalia.

^ Agreed. It's similar to how every single article on the Enquirer site, regardless of its topic, gets twisted in the comment section to somehow be related to Obama/Obamacare. It's the new Godwin's Law.

Ok, cool. I hope more people "get it".

It's a bit like the Cincinnati flag, so why not go ahead and make the blue lines on the side wavy, like in the flag:

Ask and you shall receive. :wink2:

Embracing and celebrating the city's history and culture, rather than denying it exists, and leveraging it and its historic urban fabric for national and international recognition. Many people I meet outside Cincinnati (and many inside!) don't realize that the city is so much older than other inland cities. Cincinnati was the first boomtown -- it was a bustling city when Chicago was a remote trading post. Cincinnati's architecture is wholly unique and resembles east coast cities more than those which are geographically closer. (Note the similarities between OTR and Hoboken.)

Agreed, I think the similarities end with the hills. Portland would be a more appropriate (and tangible) aspiration. This baffles me. Other than transit, what does Portland have that Cincinnati might aspire to? Cincinnati is a city with a prominent role in American history (complete with a built environment which goes along with this) and a strong local culture borne of history and tradition. Portland could only wish it had these things. If you want to set the bar lower than San Francisco, try New Orleans.

Cincy has architecture on par with SF, with its own unique brand of old school east coast urban buildings that run the gamut from tenement to mansion to synagogue. The arts scene (like Cleveland's) is truly beyond what it "should have". The hills give it a similarity to SF. If Cincy restored its architecture, built a nice transit network, brought back its brewing culture, and did just a couple more things to add spice (like do some planning around the public steps), Cincy would be impossibly more relevant than anything off the coasts outside Chicago. It wouldn't have the might of NYC, LA, or Chicago, but it would have the knock-your-socks-off charm of San Francisco.

Cincinnati has always had a fairly diverse economy. That's why it never took the big hit the rust belt cities have taken. I know manufacturing has historically played a big part, but the city was never a one-trick pony. This, in my opinion, makes the "rust belt" tag inappropriate. I hope you're right with your prediction, and I hope the article's author is right. Cincinnati has, by far, more unrealized potential than any city I've ever known. I've heard comparisons to Savannah and New Orleans, but I think a complete Cincinnati would better be compared to San Francisco. Chicago could play LA to Cincinnati's San Francisco.

Sir2gees: Thanks for sharing your stories and perspective. Is there a coastal elitism thread? If not, there should be. It's one of the most overlooked, annoying things I've had to deal with, and we probably all have experience with it.

I find it odd when people call Cincy "rust belt".

^ That doesn't rule out that the recession was "oil-induced", in some strict sense of the word 'induced'.

There were billboards! Yeah, I guess I should have said "anti-litter campaign" rather than "anti-litter commercial". (The phrase even appears on trash cans.) Do we all agree that the litter campaign made the nickname mainstream? Pretty powerful marketing! LOL

That or the Nasti. It's shorter, no? Truthfully, it's a bit toungue-in-cheek, but by no means unheard of. I think it started in the hip-hop community, but went mainstream with an anti-litter commercial: "Don't trash the Nati!"

How are you enjoying life back in the Nati? Honestly? Is it what you were hoping for, so far, or were you romanticizing the city from afar? Perhaps it's too early to tell.

Pardon me if I was pulling the gay card, I was just trying to say that I'm not speaking completely abstractly. You can take that as you will, whether or not you feel it adds to the content of what I said. I agree that it doesn't add to the general point. But when you come out with the "you don't know what it's like not to be white" (I don't), I can at least say I know what it's like to be in some partially analogous situation. I'm not trying to say how someone should feel, or whether or not they are justified in feeling a certain way. I only analyze how they should react when placed in whatever position. The former would be out of line for someone who cannot put themselves in another's shoes. The latter holds as a standard moral or sociological/psychological claim. "Self-restraint and analysis is more productive than counterattack," was basically my claim, especially when the initial attack was unintentional. I don't see how your department store story was relevant to what I had said. If your niece had smacked the b!tch, then it would have been.

I think it played a role. Perhaps as the straw that broke the camel's back, or the pin that popped the real estate bubble. Just before the recession, gas prices were causing food and everything else to go up in price. If this led to a couple months where more people than usual were unable to make their mortgage payments, for example, you could somewhat legitimately call the recession "oil-induced", although that's of course not the whole story.

After what your bro did, the boss man probably completely ignored your mom's complaint. A reasonable person's sympathy quickly shifts in such a situation. "Furthering the hot-blooded latin stereotype" can be debated (I tend to think that's not a reasonable contention). But nullifying the perceived moral failure on behalf of the worker? Absolutely.

No one has explained why this is invalid. It seems to me that reacting with physical violence is the most extreme, wrong thing to do. You're not teaching anyone tolerance or understanding. You're just making the world a worse, more inhospitable place to live in. Period. No excuses. Just correcting the man could have made him feel embarrassed, and perhaps made him think twice about jumping to prejudicial conclusions. Reporting the incident to his supervisor certainly would have done so. Simply explaining to him why he was being offensive, without getting all heated about it, would also have got him thinking. Talk about being "in a third world kinda way," you need look no further than your brother (and from the way you talk, yourself), MTS. You're both going to wind up in jail and there you will realize just how civilized the idiot who called your mom a maid in fact was.

Mmm, streetcars.

Greater fuel efficiency, of course, increases the amount of subsidies needed for road/highway building and maintenance. So while making driving cheaper immediately for the individual, it increases the collective burden. Which then increases deficit spending and, instead of paying for more things up front through gas taxes, we're left paying more in the long haul with interest. Higher gas taxes and per mile taxes (and perhaps toll roads) are about the only solution. If drivers were absorbing more of the actual costs of driving, there probably would in fact be fewer drivers. It's not inevitable that this will happen, but in any economically sustainable future, it will. It's funny how, when there is no real news, everyone just recycles tired arguments and talking points.

One thing I don't understand is why, when people make ignorant statements, some people react so angrily. If someone makes a statement to be malicious, it's one thing. But when someone is just expressing their lack of understanding, I don't think they should be treated like a monster. As a gay man, I get it all the time. For example, I often come across people (even friends) who try to figure out "who's the man/woman in the relationship" when they come across a gay relationship. That's pretty offensive, but it's just them being stupid. These are often people who have no discomfort being around gay people, fully support gay marriage, etc. They just don't understand the gay experience, and they don't realize they are being offensive. In these types of situations, it doesn't make any sense to flip your lid, or to make that person into an enemy. You can try to educate them (which may work to varying degrees, or not at all), but when you get really defensive toward someone who means no harm, you either make them defensive (thereby reinforcing their ignorance) or you make them feel like they are walking on eggshells whenever interacting with person of X identity. Making someone afraid to interact with people of X identity is very counterproductive to the ideal of embracing each other as equals. Picking your battles, being charitable, and educating seems like the only way to further the goal of living together comfortably and happily.

Well, I hope they keep comments disabled for the homicide stories. It's bad enough, the kinds of things people say, but to have it attached to someone's death is just way beyond inappropriate.

The main problem was how often such hatred was extended to the entire race of the criminals (unless they were white), as well as being extended to the victims. It's not right to use a tragic event like someone's untimely death as a springboard for some nasty, venomous diatribe.