… the local newspaper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, has a reporter like this:
Yes, sad but true, her only beat is reporting about the scourge of heroin. Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky have been hit hard. According to the CDC: In 2015, the five states with the highest rates of death due to drug overdose were West Virginia (41.5 per 100,000), New Hampshire (34.3 per 100,000), Kentucky (29.9 per 100,000), Ohio (29.9 per 100,000), and Rhode Island (28.2 per 100,000).
Cincinnati is in Hamilton County, and the ‘burbs are Butler and Warren counties. All of those counties make this chart from a June NY Times article.
Where’s the miracle solution? There isn’t one. But this article has some good suggestions about stopping the cycle. And this one has some for reducing overdose deaths. Gotta start somewhere.
My daughter Leah wants to be a farmer – she thinks it’ll be fun. I could probably find dozens of local farmers who could disabuse her of that notion faster than you can say “sunk costs and unpredictable weather.” Actually, I could only find a handful of local farmers these days – there aren’t nearly as many of them as they used to be. To rework the old joke about the music business:
Q. How do you make a million dollars in farming?
A. It’s easy – just start with two million dollars.
But no, in this case, Dear Old Dad (emphasis on the “Old”) isn’t going to be the dreamcrusher.
After all, she already has her plans drawn up:
Looks a whole lot better than an office cubicle, doesn’t it? Perhaps I can join Leah on her farm… be the Eb to her Mr. Douglas.
… but you can judge a LinkedIn request by looking at the profile summary. Here’s an easy “accept” one:
Executive recruiter from Columbus? Sure, why not? I’ve never met him, don’t know him from Adam, but my LinkedIn bar is very low (it’s like Facebook “friends” but without the cute baby pictures). Maybe he can help me land my dream job (replacing Alex Trebek as host of Jeopardy. Buy American!)
Whereas this one is a no-go:
I appreciate the e.e. cummings lowercase style of the name. Thanks to my company’s Diversity & Inclusion training, I have a much better understanding of — and appreciation for — the fact that different cultures and backgrounds have different societal norms. Perhaps in Brazil it is customary for professors to wear clothes that in the U.S. would be considered “sleazy nightclub” outfits. But my gut is telling me no, unless I want to wind up becoming the plot of a Lifetime movie (working title: Extra Credit: The Abduction and Kidney Harvesting of Dubbatrubba) or a Van Halen video.
We had 23 solar panels installed on our roof this past week.
I’ve always been a tree-hugger, but I’m also a cheapskate. Thanks to a federal tax credit, I can deduct 30% of the cost from this year’s tax bill. Thanks to the state of Ohio’s ECO-Link program, I was able to knock 3% off the loan rate, so my loan percentage is lower than most 12-month CD rates. And the way our house is positioned, the panels are on the back part of our roof and can barely been seen from our backyard, so the missus is OK with the lack of aesthetic appeal. Besides, Elon Musk’s solar shingles are several years away from getting to the Midwest.
My electric bills will go down immediately. Conservative estimates show the system paying for itself within eight years. After that, it’s all gravy.
23 panels aren’t going to clean up all the dirty air that coal-loving Duke Energy is spewing into the Cincinnati area… but you gotta start somewhere.
Saw this poor critter while waiting for the bus last week:
Looks like his prayers went unanswered, unless his request was to die on the streets of downtown Cincinnati.
Naturally I immediately thought of Don Dixon’s song “Praying Mantis.” You’ve likely never heard the song, and perhaps you’ve never even heard of Don Dixon. All he did was co-produce Murmur and Reckoning by R.E.M., as well as albums by The Smithereens, Marshall Crenshaw and Guadalcanal Diary. Jangle pop wouldn’t exist without him.
Please look beyond the bad hairstyle and appreciate the tune.
Since 1988, Don has been married to the equally talented and equally underappreciated Marti Jones. They live in Canton, Ohio and still tour occasionally. Here’s a nice interview with them.
I know I run the risk of sounding like Grandpa Simpson or SNL’s “Grumpy Old Man”….
… but when did every pop song become a clown car, where you cram in as many artists as you can? “Back in my day” there were solo artists (we miss you John Denver), bands (hello Pablo Cruise) and the occasional duet (Kenny/Dolly or Kenny/Sheena or Kenny/Kim, whichever you prefer). But now it seems like there is some sort of rule (actually “formula” might be more apropos) that a single can’t be released unless it has at least three of the following:
A DJ
A rapper
a pop singer known more for their looks than their pipes
A Disney/Nickelodeon kid show star
Rihanna
Ryan Seacrest must get laryngitis every week just announcing the names of the Top 40. It’s like a music version of The Love Boat.
I think Rihanna just lives in some giant recording studio complex – she steps into Studio A, sings a hook, moves on to Studio B, then C, D, and E… and by the time she gets back to Studio A there’s another disposable band in place working on a song that she can “feature” on. (And I’m using the term “band” very loosely. Most times it’s probably a 22-year old with a laptop.)
More doesn’t always equal better, and the sum is not always greater than the parts. I don’t know how bands and artists can establish any sort of staying power when their identity is based mostly on a Lazy Susan of condiment guest stars. (DJ Khaled, you’re the spicy mustard. Lil’ Wayne, you’re the Dave’s Insanity hot sauce. Biebs, you’re the fat-free mayo.)
Maybe instead of breaking up, the Beatles could’ve just become Lennon & McCartney with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, featuring Yoko Ono and Billy Preston. And they could’ve done the theme song for Matlock. That’s music to my ears.
I never officially lived in Houston, but I spent roughly two years residing there, one summer at a time. When I was a wee lad (back in the Stone Age), our widowed dad used to ship us down from Arkansas to stay with our aunt, uncle and cousins just about every summer. Back then, a heavy rainstorm would leave a few inches of water on the street for a couple of hours, and my brother, sister and cousin would have a blast riding Schwinns through it.
But this is serious business. Looks like my aunt and uncle’s former home is in one of the flooded areas:
Ten days before Hurricane Harvey descended upon Texas on Friday, wreaking havoc and causing widespread flooding, President Donald Trump signed an executive order revoking a set of regulations that would have made federally funded infrastructure less vulnerable to flooding.
The Obama-era rules, which had not yet gone into effect, would have required the federal government to take into account the risk of flooding and sea-level rise as a result of climate change when constructing new infrastructure and rebuilding after disasters….
“This executive order is not fiscally conservative,” Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican, said in a statement. “It’s irresponsible, and it will lead to taxpayer dollars being wasted on projects that may not be built to endure the flooding we are already seeing and know is only going to get worse.”
The Obama administration estimated the regulations would increase building costs by 0.25% to 1.25% but save taxpayers significant money in the future. Studies have found that for every $1 spent on disaster mitigation, the government will save $4 on post-disaster aid.
50 inches of rain from an “unusually warm” Gulf of Mexico yet there’s no such thing as climate change? That’s a bit hard to fathom.
Not-so-breaking news from the solar eclipse department: My daughter Leah was one of several kids interviewed at school on Monday by a local TV station. Actually, “interviewed” isn’t the right description – the reporter just asked the kids to use a single word to describe the eclipse. (And clearly some kids need a refresher course in math, because they use more than one word.)
In case you don’t know what Leah looks like, I’ll give you a couple of hints to help you spot her in the video below:
A. When she is interviewed, she lifts up her protective eyewear… much like football players who take off their helmet after they score, she knows that you have to show off your face if you want to get more endorsement deals.
B. She uses teen slang to describe the eclipse.
Yes, that’s my daughter… she’s so sick – in the Urban Dictionary sense of the word.
As Casey Kasem liked to say, “keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for those stars.”
Our oldest child started his final year of high school yesterday.
If you look closely, you can almost see a Mona Lisa smile…
Seems like only yesterday we were putting the “McNicholas High School Class of 2018” sign in our yard when he was halfway through 8th grade, and 2018 seemed light years away. Now it’s just around the corner. College applications await… so do financial aid forms, which I hear are a real treat to fill out.
Gabriel is a great student (no, we don’t have the bumper stickers on our cars but we could). He’s a hard worker (he held down two jobs this summer and will keep one throughout the school year). He’s a safe driver (my insurance premiums are thankful for that). He’s gone from never having played a single second of organized football as a freshman to the starting right tackle on the Rockets team (see “hard worker” above). He’s come so far, so fast… yet the adventure is just beginning.
Kevin Sullivan on Life advice from a man who lived it: “A good one Damian. Bring our lens into focus after the long weekend or our long life journey.” Jul 7, 09:38
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