Let's check out our little part of the world via the blogsphere today, folks.We start with the more political side of the 'Nati blogsphere and drop in on
First up is Drinking Liberally which describes itself as "We are liberal and we love to drink! Come join us every Tuesday, 7:30 PM at The Comet, 4579 Hamilton Ave, Northside." It's a thoroughly one-sided blog that focuses largely on national politics but does spend enough time on local politics that it might be worth skimming through from time to time to keep abreast of the goings-on 'round here.
The Cincinnati Beacon leans left just as our previous blog (it's surprisingly tough to find a conservative Cincy blog - especially considering that we're a pretty conservative town all in all). The Beacon presents itself as if it were a newspaper - setting things up as editorials, lettst to the editor, and recent headlines. Not surprisingly for a blog, it's far less professional than an actual newspaper would be - offering opinions and writing very much in a first-person POV. That doesn't mean that the viewpoints aren't valid, just that they aren't exactly balanced.
Third up in today's lineup is the Cincinnati Black Blog, a blog focusing on local politics and how they affect the African-American community in and around the 'Nati. (Seriously, does anybody say the 'Nati without sarcasm in their voice?) They're on top of Cecil Thomas all the time and checking in with John Pepper, police shootings, and the Charter Committee. While the blog is a little slanted, they do a great job exploring and thoroughly analyzing the issues on which they choose to focus, quoting (and citing) numerous local mainstream media outlets liberally.
I don't want to short the across-the-river neighbors as they've got the Northern KY Politics blog. I'm certainly not down with the NKY politics, so I'm gonna assume that they're doing a decent enough job of covering NKY politics, but I do know that they've blogging on the Enquirer website so I'm guessing that the blog leans a little right.
The next few blogs aren't entirely political as they take time here and there to just point out neat events in and around town, too. The eponymous blog Cincinnati Blog was the first outlet to notify me of the sadness that the Purple Bridge Climb has folded their tent and headed home. Brian Griffin does a nice job pointing out local stories of his interest - some political, some social events - with not too much commentary. It's a blog to keep on the RSS feed for me just to see what I've missed that's happening 'round town.
A similar blog to that one is also called The Nati blog, and they're the ones who pointed out the recent attempt at the Mentos & Diet Coke world record on Fountain Square - something that the Cincinnati Beacon didn't quite approve of. I didn't make it downtown 'cause of general tiredness, but the Nati didn't let me down. They're on my RSS feed list as well.
The Cincinnati Dealer
isn't purely a blog as they also present themselves as though they were a full newspaper, but I'm thinking that any newspaper that includes a front page story on finding a local non-compact Caddy parked in a compact car spot isn't a real newspaper. At least they do include a bit of sports news from time to time. If you're looking for a seriously tongue in cheek look at the local news, the Cincinnati Dealer might be the blog for you.And now we get to the Cincinnati blogs that have darn near nothing to do with politics. Let's start with Make Cincinnati Weird which searches for the freakiest entertaining things 'round our Queen City. The frontpage currently lists stories of the beardless Abe Lincoln statue in Lytle Park, the Burnett Woods Meditation labyrinth, a barnyard burlesque show, the Mt Adams Hillovator, and a bunch more weird things 'round town. I'm thinking that this site might precipitate a number of summer field trips 'round our fair city.
Plus it gives me more reasons to apparently write 'round. Who knew?
Live Green Cincinnati isn't all that weird as they just want the peoples of Cincinnati to become a little mor eenvironmental. They're reporting big on a supposedly major annoucnement about mass transit linking the 'burbs to downtown. Their charge is, in their own words, "Live Green Cincinnati embodies the drive to improve our hometown by inspiring sustainable and environmental lifestyles and building a greener Cincinnati." Sounds like a good thing to me.
Building Cincnnati looks to "celebrate the Queen City's built environment in words and pictures" primarily by taking photos of the various neighborhoods of Cincinnati and posting those pictures in galleries with some accompanying wording. The photos are far from professional, but they give views of town that I've never seen. It'll be interesting a a few decades to see how much of the documentation of our world via the interweb still exists and how much it'll be used for real research purposes. If people want to see what Porkopolis (I'm starting to run out of nicknames here, ladies and gents) looked like at the turn of the century.
Then there's the Cincinnati Geeksta 5chw4r7z's blog which documents (in occasional bits and blurbs) the life of the rarest of species: somebody who actually lives downtown in Cincinnati. He and Ms. 5chw4r7z (as he lovingly refers to his version of The Girl) walk across to Newport on the Levy, eat breakfast on Fountain Square, and do crazy things like look at the graffiti around them. It's a life that I wonder if I should've taken - and one that I know that girl would love to have.
I don't know that I get the Cincinnati Real Estate Blog, but that could be because I've bought two houses in sold one without the help of a blog, and I'm thinking that the real estate agents I've worked with (awesome - Fletcher Zobeck - and pleasant but poorly coiffed - Terry Hartke) probably wouldn't read it. But if you're curious as to how the real estate market in Cincy is going, check it.
And finally, the pièce de résistance is the Cincinnati D&D blog. Seriously, I hope that the people involved in this D&D group are the ones reading it, because the reading of somebody else's campaign may be the worst possible reading I've yet found. I'm a former (and very amateur) D&D kid so i get a lot of the jokes and stories about D&D, but this is almost interminably boring.
Check it out if you're in need of a nap.
And if anybody knows of any good Cincy (non-sports, that's for another day) blogs, feel free to drop a comment or post a hullabaloo (as the Duke would say)
Thanks to Technorati for helping me throw together today's post.
