As the financial world churns and tosses, you might hear someone offer a warning against businesses becoming too complacent. "What the railroads failed to understand," this person will say, "is that they weren't in the railroad business." The moral: The railroad companies mistook their medium (trains) for their core product (transportation). The newspaper business is now being put through the railroad analogy grinder, and the comparisons are apt.   

Returning to work after Thanksgiving I had more than a dozen e-mails with "Cincinnati Zoo and Creation Museum" in the subject line. Apparently last week the zoo started marketing a promotional tie-in with the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky, offering discounted admission at each facility. Zoo officials reportedly were barraged by local media and citizen complaints  

CityBeat is supporting a holiday promotional program put together by alternative newsweeklies across the country in which we're challenging readers to pledge to "shop local" during this holiday season.  

A few weeks ago I read about a group of Cincinnati business executives and Chamber of Commerce types visiting Minneapolis to learn how that city markets itself to the world. These people made a similar trip last year to Charlotte, N.C. The idea is that Cincinnati needs to identify a unique characteristic, a selling point that sets us apart from other cities and regions, in order to attract visitors, conventioneers, new residents, new businesses and all the money they bring along.  

You know the old saying about dogs that chase cars: What are they going to do with the car if they ever catch it? Last week Barack Obama caught a car. Hell, he caught every car in the country at the same time. By extension, all of us who supported Obama in his presidential bid caught a piece of the car, too.  

Today is the dawn of a new day, the beginning of a new age, the start of something big. And, as always, when new doors open others close. Of course I’m referring to the start of CityBeat’s 15th year of publishing. This issue of CityBeat in print is Volume 15, Issue 1, a momentous turning of the calendar. Oh yeah, the United States has a new president-elect today. I guess that’s pretty big news as well. I write this column on Election Day not knowing the results of the presidential contest, but I have a good feeling that Barack Obama will prevail. You’ll know by time you read these words; if you don’t and we’re headed to a repeat of the Florida fiasco in 2000, God help us all.  

At CityBeat, we’re fired up and ready to go. We’ve worked for months to explain the candidates and issues on Tuesday’s ballot, and this is our third (and final) week of endorsements. Are you ready? Let's go!  

Whom do you trust to fix the problems facing the federal government: the Republican members of Congress who, backing President Bush’s every hair-brained move, led the U.S. into the dead end in which he find ourselves? It’s difficult to imagine how intelligent people could decide to re-elect incumbents who caused the very problems we need to fix.   

As Election Day creeps ever closer, it's time for CityBeat to start publishing election endorsements and help those remaining undecided voters get their act together. Given our niche in Greater Cincinnati as a voice for progressive causes, we've recommended candidates and ballot issue positions since our founding in 1994 and take that role seriously.  

Nov. 4 can't get here soon enough. I'm writing this column before the second McCain-Obama presidential debate, exactly four weeks until Election Day. I can't wait for it all to be over and for Barack Obama officially to be president-elect.