“Yes, We Still Can.” by Northcoast Zeitgeist

Northcoast Zeitgeist — 2011 Calendar

Purchased one for Chez Kleon just now.

More than 10 million Americans moved from one county to another during 2008. The map below visualizes those moves. Click on any county to see comings and goings: black lines indicate net inward movement, red lines net outward movement.

Three maps, three stories.

The top map is Cleveland, where I used to live. Everybody’s leaving. It looks like an explosion.

The middle map is Austin, where I live now. Everybody’s moving here. It looks like a black hole.

The bottom map is Pickaway County, Ohio, where I grew up. Hardly anyone leaves. Hardly anyone moves in. It looks like a puddle.

“Hell is real” sign off Interstate 71 in Southern Ohio

Drew from Toothpaste For Dinner:

Lest you believe that all of Ohio is this crazy, it’s not. It’s just the rural parts that are this way. And Cincinnati.

6-story Jesus statue in Ohio struck by lightning

MONROE, Ohio – A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown.

“It sent goosebumps through my whole body because I am a believer,” said Levi Walsh, 29. “Of all the things that could have been struck, I just think that that would be protected. … It’s something that’s not supposed to happen, Jesus burning,” he said. “I had to see it with my own eyes.”

“I can’t believe Jesus was struck,” said his brother, who noted the giant Hustler Hollywood sign for the adult store across the street was untouched. “It’s the last thing I expected to happen.”

Video.

People from Ohio are common-sense, no-bullshit types. They are creatures of logic and the most direct route.

This is the last piece of Tony’s I’m going to post. You should really read his blog.

“Tiny Ohio” By Tony Fitzpatrick

In literature, Ohio seems a place of suffocating ordinariness, a place so much the middle of America as to be almost erased by this definition. James Wright’s poems, Sherwood Anderson’s little town, even Chrissie Hynde’s songs underline pervasive, whistling miles of emptiness.

“The Cleveland Songbird,” By Tony Fitzpatrick

There is a longing about the city of Cleveland.

Filed under: Ohio.