In his editorial Bad News and the Media (issue of March 18), John Fox wrote about a frustration my wife and I have experienced since moving to the city almost two years ago: a lack of positive news from local media. Where we used to live, watching the news was part of our morning ritual before work.  

Call it a bad omen. As I traveled along I-71, I saw it, creeping out of the horizon in a butterscotch mass of grizzled fur: a cocker spaniel in its final resting place along the side of the highway. The family dog probably. Surrounded by medians, he must have fallen out of a car. That doesn’t happen in normal times, I thought, eyes wide. In normal times, you watch him just a little bit closer.  

Life isn’t fair. That’s one of the reasons humanity, in all of its cultures and variations, has always created a system of justice — to help even the scales and encourage certain behaviors while discouraging others. Sometimes, though, the system is so skewed and distorted by special interests and power that it just doesn’t function properly. Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi TV news reporter, was sentenced earlier this month to three years in prison for throwing his shoe at then-President Bush during a visit to Baghdad in December.   

After two years of Kentucky trying to F Ohio in the B with its various Northern Kentucky casino proposals — seriously, isn’t taking away our dance clubs enough for you, Newport? — a group of Ohio casino-backers is responding in full-force.  

Just like when she was alive and performing, the love for late local singer/songwriter Katie Reider has been strongly evident since her death from a rare tumor last summer. The Web site 500kin365.org — which allows music lovers the chance to download a compilation of Katie’s music for a $1 donation — has helped keep Katie’s spirit and music alive, with 80,000 people participating.  

Although there’s still a lot of winter chill in the air, my thoughts are already turning to the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, our annual theatrical treat that I think of as the kick-off for summer. It usually happens in late May and early June, just before the solstice, so it’s a reminder of good things to come. The sixth annual Cincinnati Fringe is set to open on May 26; performances will continue through June 6. Organized by Know Theatre of Cincinnati, the Fringe has become a much-anticipated annual component of our performing arts scene.  

Steven Sebring spent 11 years working on this film about Rock icon/poet/activist Patti Smith, as worthy a subject for a documentary as anyone in Pop music. But his project at some point overwhelmed him.  

Housed in a former Frisch’s Big Boy, Parkside Cafe (1024 E. McMillan St., Walnut Hills, 513-221-2026) keeps it real with its own drive-thru window, soup and salad bar and what seems to be the original Frisch’s furniture. They must still have the same ice machine, too, because the ice was Frisch’s ice.   

Cincinnati might have finally broken ground on The Banks project, but by the time people get to live, work and play in the riverfront neighborhood it could be called something completely different. The Enquirer reported today that the possibility of changing the name arose when developers Carter and the Dawson Co. realized that Cincinnati had planned its new neighborhood between two sports stadiums and a highway and then named it after one of America’s stupidest industries.   

The older one gets, the more college sports make the head shake. It’s not the money or the corruption. It’s not the academic compromises involved in putting on athletic shows. All of that’s been around forever, and it’s part of the guilty pleasure involved with following college sports. But the kids. You just don’t know what you’re going to get from the kids, because they don’t know what they’re up against.