The June issue of The Last Word is pub, and it's going to gobble you up when you least expect it!
This ish talks about our town installing Flock cameras to retaliate against dissidents, memories of carnival fights, people stupidly ruining records, a university's dumb rules on how to throw pies at people, a 21-and-up McDonald's, and more!
So poop your pointer here...
https://www.scribd.com/document/868675526/The-Last-Word-6-2025
If that doesn't work, glide on over here...
Today, I braved the rain to go to Kroger. While I was there, some woman was in such a Krogery mood that she bubbled.
This morning, I went to the parade down the street, and some kid kept bubbling in elders' faces and making a big deal out of it.
Earlier today, I went to Taste of Cincinnati - or as I call it, Baste of Cincinnati - and was it ever booorrrrring!
But there's lots of poologgery going on that must be confronted. There were ploppings too, but I'll get to those.
The main issue there was that most of the food stands that I patronized only accepted credit cards. No cash was accepted. You could wave George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in their face, and they wouldn't take it.
In my day, this was unthinkable. It was unthinkable even the last time I went to Baste of Cincinnati, not to mention the most recent Ploptoberfest, which was only 8 months ago. But the far-right World Economic Forum agenda is rapidly encroaching.
When I used the portable restroom, I did notice that several items had been plopped into the dumper. They included one of those plastic rings that holds together 6-packs of soda, small plastic bottle lids, and a pair of underpants someone wiped their ass with. So at least Baste of Cincinnati isn't a total loss.
But I'm not likely to ever return to Baste of Cincinnati unless their food stands start accepting cash again. There ought to be a law. Every currency note is printed with a notice that it's legal tender. I'm old enough to remember when that meant what it said (because I'm older than 5).
The big story here isn't that a state planned to allow public funding of religious schools. This happens all the time through voucher schemes, even though it's unconstitutional. The real story is that the U.S. Supreme Court split 4-4 on this case when it shouldn't have even been close.
Not long ago, Oklahoma planned to allow a religious charter school run by the state's Catholic dioceses. The constitutional problem with this was obvious: The school would have received public funding to sponsor religion. But even Oklahoma's Republican Attorney General didn't support this affront to separation of church and state, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled 6-2 against the dioceses.
Now the U.S. Supreme Court - with only 8 of its Justices on the case - has split 4-4 on the matter. This means that the lower court ruling stands, and that you can't have religious charter schools. The real shocker is that it was 4-4 instead of 8-0. Because of this deadlock, similar cases could be tried later.
In brief, religious charter schools are unlawful, as they constitute taxpayer sponsorship of religion. This is basic constitutional law. There is no wiggle room on this. Sometimes you can see how courts can disagree on how to interpret constitutional law - after all, that's a main reason we have courts - but this is a case where there is absolutely no ambiguity. Yet the Supreme Court has drifted so far from even the most basic legal principles that they ruled 4-4 instead of 8-0.
This has been backlogged on our hard drive for 19 years, and the culprit is a newspaper that's been out of business almost as long. But we can't let this go unanswered. (That's how The Last Word got its name.) I was attacked by the familiar suspects we all know and love for 35 years, and 19 pales in comparison.
Back in 2006, the right-wing Cincinnati Post ran a right-wing editorial demanding draconian sweeps against homeless encampments so nobody would have to see them during the Tall Stacks festival. This nonsense put out by the Post sounds like it's straight out of the Tea Party or the People's CDC...
"City officials, with ample notice, should clean out the camps, particularly those along the downtown riverfront. They need not feel guilty about it. If there's any guilt to assign, it involves the shortage of institutional housing alternatives for the mentally ill who constitute such a large portion of the homeless population."
In other words, the Post not only wanted to conduct brutal sweeps of encampments but also lock up the homeless in psychiatric "hospitals."
This frenzied screed from 19 years ago is still relevant now, because this right-wing mentality encouraged the increasingly violent responses that cities unleash against the homeless today.
One of the most widely ignored stories is the likelihood of planes crashing into homes. It's been a national epidemic for decades, yet nothing is ever done about it.
Many years ago, a jet airliner struck a North Carolina neighborhood. Newspapers carried photos of debris strewn up and down the street, but this wake-up call went unheeded. A commercial jet crashed in a residential area near Buffalo. Not long after 9/11, a plane crashed in a Queens neighborhood where many firefighters who served in 9/11 lived. Many people on the ground or in their homes have died from planes hitting.
Now a private business jet has crashed into a San Diego neighborhood, burning over a dozen homes.
As long as planes are as prone to crashes as they have been lately, flight paths should at least be modified to avoid going over heavily populated neighborhoods. Other folks have been warning about this danger for years, so the FAA had to have known about it. A Queens-based watchdog group many years ago called Sane Aviation For Everyone had warned about this very thing, and the aforementioned Queens crash proved the group's warnings should have been heeded. SAFE stepped up its warnings after this tragedy, and a bill was introduced in Congress to reroute New York area flight paths. It's unclear if these paths were ever changed, and threats remain all over the country.
This is a national scandal, and - maddeningly - it's getting no attention at all.
Last month, I went Roads Scholaring on Cincinnati's Wasson Way - or as I call it, Wozzfozz Way.
That event yielded 25 photos of a Scholaring sort.
As usual, peep and ye shall weep...
Criminal defendants have a right to a fair trial. That even includes those who we strongly suspect are guilty.
But some Ohio officials want to change all that. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, wants to make crowdfunding efforts for criminal suspects illegal. Remember, these are only suspects - not those who have actually been convicted.
Some of the crowdfunding campaigns that would be banned aren't just for legal costs but also the defendants' families.
A law against these crowdfunding campaigns would of course be unconstitutional. We've lamented the mollycoddling of known violent criminals, but a law like this shreds due process to unrecognizable scraps.
GoFundMe reportedly banned such campaigns for criminal defendants several years ago, following pressure by the media for stiff punishments for those who violated COVID lockdowns, but Ohio's new law would force all crowdfunding sites to have such a policy.
Ohio lawmakers are already working on a bill to do Yost's bidding.
Earlier this evening, I went to an important family gathering, and the scent of an SBD bunker blast was detected.
"I was Belvin' in Bellevue...Belvin' on that Covert Run Pike they built..."
I just posted 12 new Roads Scholaring photos from a recent outing in Newport and Bellevue!
It was a brief event, since I had my usual medical issues to take care of, but you're gonna bip through 'em nonetheless...
Highland Heights, Kentucky! My hometown!
Before a big glob of mucus gobbles you up, it would be cool if you pept and bept a batch of Roads Scholaring photos I got last month around Highland Heights and Cold Spring. There's 18 items, and they rule!
So point your pooper here...
This item has been largely covered up, but it explains a lot.
It has been revealed that the University of California, Berkeley, received $220 million from the Chinese government - that is to say the Chinese Communist Party. Federal officials turned a blind eye to it for several years.
This isn't surprising, and we're sure other American universities - maybe even local school systems - have also accepted CCP dough. The difference with UC Berkeley is that this school eventually got caught.
The Trump administration now says it is investigating the university, but I'll believe that when I see it. In other words, I won't believe it, because it's unlikely that Trump is actually doing much. Biden didn't go after the school either.
This story is important because it shows how hostile our education system is to the values of liberal democracy. It is not indifferent but outright adversarial.
All sorts of neet poo goes on down in the 'Nati!
That's why the No New Normal Cam has bubbled forth 20 new photos from a Roads Scholaring in downtown Cincinnati in March! There's some old signy goodness, some alleys, and other biperoony.
So point your pooper here...
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