TUESDAY OCT. 23: Like Galileo, Christina Aguilera’s recent bomb of an album, Bionic, was “ahead of its time” ... at least according Aguilera.   

Ann Coulter says the darndest things. The Republican pundit tweeted this gem to her more than 200,000 Twitter followers, referencing President Obama: “I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard.” WORLD -2   

 
THURSDAY OCT. 11: The Reds today became the first team in National League history to blow a 2-0 lead in a five-game Division Series. This latest painful postseason exit for a Cincinnati sports team caused more chafing than others because of how well the Reds played during the regular season, and for the first time in like 20 years local sports fans thought their team had a legitimate shot at winning a title.  

President of the Central Mississippi Tea Party Janis Lane told the Jackson Free Press that women are too emotionally unstable and “diabolical” to be able to vote rationally, like men: “Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting,” she mused. WORLD -2    

Miami University is a sick, sick campus in desperate need of the largest group therapy session ever recorded, top-rung leadership more palpably concerned with student safety and a less corporate approach to media relations.  

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wished I had been alive in a different era. The fantasy to experience my life in another time period ignited with my obsession with American Girl books, historical fiction “chapter books” about young women of different eras.   

I was a ripe, sitting target for a bully when I entered the fourth grade at Heritage Hill Elementary School in Springdale: I was a shy 9-year-old; my single mother was settling her three kids after abruptly leaving our father and bouncing about in a station wagon.
  

I first developed a problem with alcohol when I was 16 and received a DUI. It’s a problem that I’ve had to live with ever since. I’ve had long, happy periods of sobriety and I’ve had long, gut-wrenching stretches when I’ve been a textbook alcoholic.   

MONDAY OCT. 8: Pizza Hut will give an audience member at next week’s presidential debate at Hofstra University free pizza for life if they exploit the town hall format of it and ask one of the candidates if they prefer sausage or pepperoni as a topping during the debate.  

This is not just my response to the first presidential debate, which truth be told wasn’t a debate at all since one of the guys behind the podium was decidedly not in the mood to debate or discuss much of anything that voters might have been concerned about.   

The nurse who was the famous receiver of the lip-locking depicted in the iconic 1945 “Kissing Sailor” photo from Times Square symbolically marking the end of WWII attests she was actually manhandled against her will by the sailor, who was a complete stranger; by modern standards, that’s an instance of sexual assault that’s been glorified. WORLD -2    

I’ve heard things happen for a reason. I’m not sure I buy that. All I know for sure, in the case of Joy and Randy, is I wish things could have worked out very, very differently.
  

What now passes for Black Entertainment Television (BET) gives me a headache, makes me woozy and embarrassed. Didn’t always.  

And yet, there are some corners of relationship Hannah to which that ’tude hasn’t yet stretched, and I’m trying to figure out if that makes me a little bit of a hypocrite. 
  

The Ohio Democratic Party sent Ohio Treasurer/Senate candidate Josh Mandel a new pair of pants on his birthday, poking fun at Mandel’s PolitiFact Ohio record for most “Pants on Fire” ratings, which evaluate the honesty of politicians’ public statements. CINCINNATI +2