Older, Wiser (Maybe), I'm Back
1 month ago
- Community Council request to add pool and basketball or similar recreation.
- Cincinnati Recreation Commission is finalizing their city-wide plan for pools in the city. When this is ready for public consumption, it may address the deepwater pool issue in OTR. However all indications are that CRC is proposing to remove all deepwater pools that are not part of a Community Center, and OTR's Community Center is landlocked and probably cannot fit an outdoor pool.
- Controversy over the proposed temporary parking lot to serve as staging for the SCPA and for temporary parking for Music Hall until an additional garage is built.
The Cincinnati Park Board is in the process of redesigning Washington Park. We appreciate improvements to the park but the new design lacks play spaces for older children and teenagers. For the park design to be a successful family oriented park, it must accommodate diverse ages and interests. The current draft design removes the deep-water pool and basketball court.
With our design, we hope to illustrate how a deep-water pool and basketball court could fit into the future Washington Park plan.
B. Drapac, S. Palmer, M. Kirby, and L. Mettler
Miami University Center for Community Engagement
1300 Vine Street
Saturday, October 27, 2007 from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM
Our summer movie nights were so popular, we decided to do it again for Halloween. Enjoy three family-friendly movies with a Halloween theme: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966, G); The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, PG); and Beetlejuice (1988, PG).
It's the drive-in without the cars! Bring your chairs, blankets, sleeping bags, and pillows. Movie snacks, soft drinks, and adult beverages will be available.
...The sea was galloping grey and white;
Christopher clutched his sixpence tight;
We clambered over the humping sand-
And Christopher held my hand.
We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair and sand-between the toes.
Whenever a good nor' wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between the toes.
...
My husband and I are determined to make downtown living work once we have children. I think a lot of my friends and family are very skeptical. If you haven't already discussed it on your blog, It would be great to hear more about your living situation with kids. Do you live in a house, condo apartment? We are in a condo, so at times I'm concerned that a newborn baby crying would disturb the neighbors. One thing I always ask my friends with kids is: how much of that baby stuff do you really need? the bouncy seat, the changing table, the diaper genie, etc... Right now, we have a one-bedroom condo, so we're thinking we'll need a 2-bedroom condo sooner rather than later...
Wee Wednesdays
10–11:30 a.m. at Cincinnati Art Museum
Preschooler and parent open-house the last Wednesday of the month September through May offering story times, scavenger hunts, touchable objects, and snacks available for sale. Free, no reservations required, unable to accommodate school groups.
November 1, 2007, 6:30 pm
Peaslee Neighborhood Center, 215 E. 14th St.
All candidates have confirmed their attendance
Sponsored by: Contact Center & Peaslee Neighborhood Center,
Co-sponsored by: Over-the-Rhine Community Council, Sarah Center, A Small Group, Over-the-Rhine Community Housing, Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce
For more information call William Wallace, Voter Project Coordinator at the Contact Center, 381-4242.
If ends justified means, and if the important thing in building a project was to get it started, then any means that got it started were justified. Furnishing misleading information about it was justfied; so was underestimating its costs.
Misleading and underestimating, in fact, might be the only way to get a project started...But what if you didn't tell the officials how much the projects would cost? What if you let the legislators know about only a fraction of what you knew would be the projects' ultimate expense?
Once they had authorized that small initial expenditure and you had spent it, they would not be able to avoid giving you the rest when you asked for it. How could they? If they refused to give you the rest of the money, what they had given you would be wasted, and that would make them look bad in the eyes of the public. And if they said you had misled them, well, they were not supposed to be misled. If they had been misled, that would mean that they hadn't investigated the projects thoroughly, and had therefore been derelict in their own duty...Once a Legislature gave you money to start a project, it would be virtually forced to give you the money to finish it.
.. Less than 2 percent of the 300,000 athletes registered with USA Swimming are black.
Slowly but surely, racial barriers in the other “country club” sports have fallen. .... no African American athlete has become a national face for minorities in swimming. And until that happens, the swimming pool remains the final frontier for minority athletes.
... Lack of exposure to swimming leads to drowning rates that are three times higher for minority children than for whites.
...
With the question of exposure comes the question of economics. Fees for private swimming clubs average between $50 and $100 per month. With nearly one-third of black children in the United States living below the poverty line — more than double that of white children — the cost of joining a private pool is not always a possibility.
Programs like Make a Splash and Swim for Life! are free to members of the Boys and Girls Club. Fees for City of Atlanta Dolphins, which is funded by the city of Atlanta, are $250 a year.
But Swim for Life! struggled ... Staffing — and retaining — qualified swimming instructors for the program was difficult, and coordinating lessons between pools has been a logistical nightmare.
...many of the pools were dilapidated and should have been shut down. Renovating and maintaining them was expensive. ...
Next Tuesday, October 23rd, please join Ed Moss and I (Pam Ross) at the Jackson Street Underground (aka The Know Theater) for our "From Mercer to Mancini" show. Ed and I will be joined by Mike Sharfe on bass and Jim Leslie on drums, one of the finest rhythm sections in or outside of town!
For those of you who haven't been to this new venue for us, we know you'll enjoy it... It's been described as having a hip, urban, vibe, and there are a variety of interesting shows offered at the Know Theater that you should check out as well. Here is a link to their site
So please join us next Tuesday! Your continued support is very much appreciated and needed to help us keep Jazz Alive.
Notes: The show starts around 8 pm and ends around 11. There is a $5 cover charge to cover cost of the band. And the drinks are extremely reasonably priced. Some of the best prices I've seen in town - without sacrificing quality.
MFM is more than just a movie event, it is a "mom and baby" activity created to entertain moms in an environment where their babies can feel comfortable. It's a program that moms can call their own, but it's still baby friendly. Though we call it Movies for Mommies, we want to stress that Dads, Grandparents and Caregivers with babies are welcome as well. Before every movie screening, adults will have the opportunity to socialize with friends, old and new alike, and sample the best the city has to offer in terms of relevant products and services.
MFM shows movies that moms can enjoy; we do not show movies meant to entertain the kids. Please read our FAQ page for more information.
Last night each of the presidential campaigns reported their third-quarter fundraising numbers.
The results are clear. We continue to build the largest grassroots movement in history, but Washington lobbyists and special interests rallied to help Hillary Clinton out-raise us for the first time.
If we want real change in this country, then we need to prove that together we are stronger than the lobbyist-driven money machine that has dominated Washington for too long.
The situation here is simple. We are $2.1 million behind. We must close that gap right now. I need you to make a donation of $250.
Hillary Clinton aggressively seeks money from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. She's even said that these lobbyists represent real Americans.
She's wrong.
I think it's time to turn the page on that kind of politics, and that's why I have not accepted a dime from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs in this race. We rely on a network of more than 350,000 ordinary people to make us competitive -- more supporters than all the other Democratic candidates combined.
Washington lobbyists have chosen their candidate and are determined to provide her with an overwhelming advantage. But you can even up this contest.
In the face of the most entrenched political machine in Democratic politics, I believe a movement of ordinary Americans can change our country. And you can prove that right now.
I need you to make a donation to close the gap:
Barack
Slow Urbanism encourages people to create whole neighborhoods; to celebrate local community building traditions; and to take time—this is the important (and fun part) -to enjoy community life with family and friends.”
In the 1990s, I wrote a history of the Children's Home of Cincinnati published as "One Child at a Time," which I still consider one of the most important projects that I have done as a historian. In an age when photography was not much older than the Internet is today, the Children's Home used its power to help place children in good homes.
...
After taking responsibility for a child, the Home's managers consciously contrasted their approach with the Cincinnati Orphan Asylum, founded in 1832. That institution tended to hold the children so long that the children began to regard the asylum as "home." Because the Children's Home believed that the "Divine plan is to set mankind in families not in institutions," the managers sought to "scatter them abroad in good homes" as rapidly as possible.
In the late 1880s and 1890s, the average stay in the headquarters at Ninth and Plum streets was just 41 days. The ideal was placement in a Christian home in the countryside. Reflecting Jeffersonian prejudices, the Home's leaders believed that in city streets and alleys poor children learned idleness and vice, whereas on farms operated by good Christian families, the "wheels were kept moving by the oil of industry and love."
Very early, the Home recognized the power of photography in furthering its work. Its agents traveled with stacks of photos of children available for placement and its publications were filled with photographs of vulnerable, but hopeful, children, each accompanied by a paragraph describing the child's personality.
Perhaps the most dramatic use of photography occurred in 1901 when workers took a photograph of a desperate mother surrounded by her five children on the day she decided to turn over the four older children to the Home. The children are shoeless and dressed in filthy clothes. Their hair is matted and their expressions are blank, barely masking a sense of sadness and fear. A second photo taken 20 days later shows the same children well fed, spotlessly clean and wearing new shoes. The girls are dressed in beautiful striped dresses and the boys sport bows under starched lace collars.
The goal of employing photographs of specific children was the same in 1880 as it is in 2007. Those responsible for finding children a stable home are trying to move beyond tables of statistics that appeal to the mind and touch the hearts of prospective parents.
...
Sensitive to potential abuses, the Home insisted that the children had to be fed, clothed and educated as if they were biological members of the family. During his travels, Green repeatedly visited homes where he had placed children to observe the dynamics, and while he placed 1,244 children between 1888 and 1897, he also removed and re-placed 316 children.
In 2007, the adoption and foster-care systems have been strengthened to protect the interests of all involved, but the words of Meigs Crouse, superintendent of the Children's Home of Cincinnati in 1893, remain surprisingly fresh: "In saving 'your child,' 'our children,' we are saving ourselves also."
...
Internet Café Art Exhibit: October Artist –
Maya Mix – Decorative Motifs from MesoAmerican Ceramics
The Show: Although these paintings are derived from ancient Mexican pottery images, they are not historically accurate, nor do they legitimately represent the archaeological record. Rather, this show is a fanciful blend of indigenous iconography and third millennium weirdness. Designs were taken from the Olmec, Maya, Toltec and Aztec cultures and mixed with my own unique concepts. I have an Anthropology degree from the University of Cincinnati, so multi-culturalism has always been a natural focus of my art. My intention for this show is to create a pleasing and stimulating visual atmosphere for Findlay Market this fall season. I have more Mayan-based work showing currently at Pathways Gallery on Ludlow Ave. in Clifton.
..the big urbans have gained 19 percentage points since 2000-2001. Schools overall in Ohio have gained 13.4 percentage points over that same period.
During the 1999-2000 school year, Ohio's eight big-city districts -- Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Youngstown, Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton -- were all foundering in academic emergency, the lowest of five state ratings. Today, none has that dubious distinction.
... the number of students in the eight districts has dropped from 280,000 in 2001 to 230,000 today.
Families and Urbanism in Cincinnati