Columbia Gas of Ohio will upgrade approximately 20,000 feet of natural gas main line in Toledo’s Hamilton Street area.
The $1.5 million upgrade will begin on June 27 and is scheduled to finish next fall. The project plans to upgrade the existing steel pipe with plastic pipe and will temporarily stop natural gas service for those in the area.
Those impacted will included both residential and commercial customers near Brown, Nebraska and Hawley avenues as well as Campbell Street. Customers whose service could be stopped will be contacted before the work begins.
Columbia has a $2 billion plan to upgrade its pipeline system over the next 25 years. Serving approximately 1.4 million customers in 61 Ohio counties, it is the largest natural gas utility in the state.

Fat Fish Blue and Griffin’s Hines Farm Blues Club will be hosting a pair of events showcasing the arts on June 25.
Vocal INKorporated is presenting Poets/Artists SPEAK from 11-3 p.m. before the evening showcase CROSSROADS from 6-11 p.m. Both events will benefit NoKidHungry, a national organization fighting  childhood hunger in the U.S., as well as Any Kid Can, a youth intervention program part of Alternative Directions teen outreach.
Poets/Artists SPEAK will take place at Fat Fish Blue in Perrysburg which will feature poets, musicians and visual artists from around the nation.
CROSSROADS, held at Griffin’s Hines Farm Blues Club in Swanton, will include appearances by Maximus Parthas and Tribal Raine of Maximum Impact as well as blues artist Billy Branch in his band Sons of the Blues. There will also be performances and poetry by local artists.
Admission is $5 for Poets/Artists SPEAK and can be purchased online at www.FatFishFunnyBoneToledo.com. CROSSROADS has a $15 admission price and can be purchased by contacting Michelle Williams at wmikki@gmail.com.

In the summer of 2010, the independent wrestling company named CHIKARA ran several shows in the Midwest, including its first appearance in Michigan. Speaking then with Toledo Free Press Star, the company’s co-founder and owner, Mike Quackenbush, said expanding to new areas was always a gamble for a small promotion like his own.

But the gamble paid off, and now CHIKARA will return to the Midwest starting on June 24 with a show in Chicago, followed by stops in Taylor, Mich., on June 25 and the greater Cleveland area June 26.
“I don’t know that the Midwest would humor us more than once a year, but an annual visit doesn’t seem to hurt,” said Quackenbush in a recent interview.
Last year’s shows had the added benefit of appearances by former-and-future WWE star Bryan Danielson, who had been controversially released just days before. But Quackenbush said that he felt CHIKARA’s brand of wrestling was more than capable of bringing in audiences even without Danielson on this year’s cards.
“I think people come to see our brand because they like what we do. I don’t doubt that many people gave us a look thanks to the fortunate timing of that, but people come back to see us again and again because they grow attached to our overall aesthetic, more than to a single performer,” he said.
With gleefully over-the-top characters, an emphasis on being family-friendly and more, CHIKARA’s unique product indeed sets it apart from much of modern wrestling, and has led to the company drawing an increasingly devoted base of fans. Major events like this April’s “King of Trios” have been some of the company’s most successful to date, with “KOT” becoming CHIKARA’s best-selling DVD ever.
“It’s a great vote of confidence from the fans out there,” Quackenbush said of “Trio’s” success. “This is their stamp of approval. Those numbers don’t lie. People really, truly enjoyed this event, maybe more than anything else we’ve done in 10 seasons.”
But for all the highs CHIKARA has seen in the past 12 months, there has been one tragic low. Alex Whybrow, who trained with the company and performed as “Larry Sweeney,” tragically passed away in April. Whybrow had appeared for CHIKARA as recently as last November.
“We’ve never weathered something quite like this. But the CHIKARA family is stronger for having to face this down together,” Quackenbush said of Whybrow’s passing. “We’ve lost a brother. And we all wrestle with the sadness, the guilt, the anger, all those crazy emotions that come with it

, and we face it down together. We cherish each other a little more these days, because we all see how fragile our existence is. And we all hope to never suffer something like this again.”
The company’s major storyline event of 2011 — a months-long tournament to determine the first CHIKARA champion — has been dedicated to Whybrow’s memory. The company has existed for nearly a decade, which seems like a long delay before finally crowning its first champion, but Quackenbush said the wait was by design.
“For me personally, I always find it laughable when a wrestling company crowns a champion on its first card. What are you the champion of then? An organization that is three hours old? Show some longevity. Evince some tenure first. This is our 10th season. We’ve built a global bra

nd with an identity and vision uniquely ours. It’s time for one person to emerge as the champion of what we’ve grown into.”
That identity is often at odds with the expectations of “mainstream” wrestling, which suits Quackenbush and his company’s fans just fine. “I tried to watch some WWE a few weeks back, to see if Mistico would be on, and I wanted to claw my eyes out before the first commercial break,” Quackenbush said.
CHIKARA definitely does not present the same product as WWE — nor does it want to. “We are a lot like college radio,” Quackenbush said. “There are ideas out there, maybe just outside the mainstream, worthy of attention. Worthy of experimentation. Not everyone listens to Top 40 FM radio. Not everyone listens to the same band, over and over and over.
“That’s like watching WWE and nothing else. It’s bland, it’s middle of the road, and maybe, it’s a little played out. But there’s something fresh waiting just down the dial, if you dare to turn it. There is more than one approach to the pro-wrestling performance genre. If we can open people’s minds to that, then we are doing something of real value.”

Email Jeff at PopGoesJeff@gmail.com.

Batman seems to be faring better than some of his comic compatriots in the upcoming relaunch of DC Comics’ entire line of publications. Perhaps the only true sad note comes with the announcement that Scottish-born writer Grant Morrison, who has taken the Dark Knight to new heights in the past five years, will be flitting to other DC projects.
Ed Katschke, comics guru of Monarch Cards and Comics and avowed Morrison fanboy, wasn’t too thrilled by the news.
“One of the few trepidations I initially had concerning the upcoming DC relaunch was the disposition of the Batman family of titles,” he said. “Grant Morrison has been the driving creative force behind Batman since 2006’s ‘Batman & Son’ storyline and I didn’t want to see all of the effort he had put into the character arbitrarily wiped away because the rest of the DC line wasn’t faring as well. Thankfully, Morrison’s take on Batman is, by all accounts, remaining mostly intact and while he’s not set to write any Bat-related titles we have the sweet promise of the return of his recent hit, ‘Batman Incorporated,’ to look forward to in 2012.”
Katschke also applauds the news of the prominent place the ladies in Batman’s life will hold in the new DC universe. “The two Bat-related titles that I am most looking forward to are ‘Batgirl’ and ‘Batwoman’,” he said. “Batgirl has always been one of my favorite characters, whether as the crime-fighting Dominoed Dare-doll or as the information/computer guru to the super-heroes known as Oracle. I’m excited to see how noted Barbara Gordon writer Gail Simone not only gets Babs back on her feet — she’s been in a wheelchair for years following an unfortunate altercation with The Joker — but how she will fit in with this daring new continuity and the villains she’ll be facing.
“Batwoman is one of the best new/revamped characters to come out of DC during the last couple of years. She’s a fascinating and multifaceted addition to the Batman family. I’ve been champing at the bit to find out more about her and her supporting cast, and finally seeing the debut of her solo series after months of delays is exciting indeed. Of course, the fact that it is writer-artist J.H. Williams III bringing his amazingly distinctive illustrative style to the character makes the wait even harder to bear.”

Learning a new instrument is always challenging, but holding Skype lessons with the world’s best player never hurts.
Shayan Parsai is learning to play the kamancheh from internationally acclaimed master Kayhan Kalhor.
“That’s your idol,” Parsai said. “It’s Michael Jordan teaching you basketball. It’s a thrill for me.”
Parsai, a senior majoring in pre-law at the University of Toledo, has played Western classical violin since the age of four. A couple years ago his father brought a kamancheh home from a trip to Iran, and he was hooked.
“It gave me a feeling that the violin couldn’t,” Parsai said. “When you’re playing an ancient instrument like this, it’s almost like time travel. It’s a sense of home. It’s a sense of going back to your roots. For a Persian playing a Persian instrument, it’s gratifying to know you have such a rich historical background.”
The kamancheh is a Persian bowed string instrument often referred to as a spiked fiddle. While Parsai still enjoys playing the violin, he prefers the loose nature of the kamancheh.

Shayan Parsai

“It’s a free-form instrument and is very expressive,” he said. “Unlike the violin, it becomes more of a vessel and a part of your body. With the violin, you’re more worried about making a shift or a note. The kamancheh is not as strict. There is more room for creativity.”
When he first took up the kamancheh, Parsai developed an intense interest in Kalhor’s music.
“His sound was appealing because he studied music in the West and brought everything he learned to Iran and meshed it together,” he said. “It’s a new genre. It’s very Persian, but it uses several accents, trills and glissandos that are very Western in that they’re skillful, fast and intricate.”
Parsai learned almost exclusively by watching YouTube videos of performances by Kalhor.
“I’ve listened closely to all of his work,” he said. “I just watched. It helped me a lot to the point where I was exponentially better. I could see my progress from week to week.”
His father suggested getting into contact with a master to further his learning, so Parsai sent a message to Kalhor on Facebook. He was surprised to receive not only a response but an offer to hold lessons via Skype.
“‘It’s very humbling, and it makes you realize how much work he’s put into his career,” Parsai said. “It’s a unique experience for someone to work with an idol and accept them as a teacher. You put someone on a high pedestal, and you have to rise to the occasion to be able to be on their level. You have to put aside being starstruck and the awe and shock of being with a legend. He really is a legend among instrumentalists.”
To spread his love of Persian music, Parsai requested Kalhor stop in Toledo for a performance during his tour of the United States. Kalhor accepted and will perform at UT on June 24.
“We tried letting him know Toledo is a young population that is willing to grow musically,” Parsai said. “We have many people from different ethnic backgrounds. This region is vast with a large variety of people. I’ve met many that are knowledgeable about Persian and Middle Eastern music in general. We told him the Midwest area is an untapped resource. He really wants to spread the culture and the music.”
Parsai is preparing for law school, but he’s also determined to spread his culture.
“My passion is definitely in music, especially Persian music,” he said. “I want to be a front-runner in spreading its culture, language and history. I have other dreams and aspirations academically, but as far as music I don’t think I’ll ever stop. Regardless of what career I pursue, I will always be trying to perform.”
He is spreading word of the concert with performances at college campuses such as the University of Michigan and The Ohio State University.
“Kayhan is a virtuoso by every meaning,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone with his abilities on any instrument. He has a vast love and a crazy knowledge for music. He is culturally and historically aware. He’s not a political performer, but politics is always mixed into the music. Through his music he hopes to move on the idea of peace, harmony and a new era of freedom.”
The concert will take place at UT’s Doermann Theater at 8 p.m. Premium tickets are $40 for guests and $30 for students. Standard seating tickets are $25 and $20 for students.
“There’s something about the kamancheh that really hits home,” Parsai said. “The deep, warm tones of the lower strings and the cry of the upper strings captivate me. It’s almost like a vocal performance. It will always be my favorite instrument.”

Guerilla warfare in the USA becomes a reality due to a reunited-Korean invasion in 2013 in this warfare-action video game, which also has a newly reduced price. Kim-Jong-un leads the Greater Korean Republic occupation as electronic warfare, scattered U.S. military and the overall political atmosphere weakens our defenses. This cinematic, character-driven experience aims for more emotion with taut war scenarios on our home turf.

The first-person shooter game, developed by Kaos Studios (“Frontlines: Fuel of War”) and published by THQ, centers on a poignant invasion story written by screenwriter John Milius (“Red Dawn,” “Apocalypse Now”). This military action shooter begins in Colorado, where the protagonist Robert Jacobs, a former Marine helicopter pilot, immediately finds himself in a survival situation. Even though Jacobs is recruited by a local resistance group, he quickly becomes a leader among Boone, Connor, Rianna, and Hopper, a Korean-American technical expert who creates an intriguing dynamic because his teammates discriminates against him because of his Asian heritage. Players might also find an extra emotional element similar to the Allies during World War II.
Betrayal, sacrifice and bravery all factor into the plot as characters mainly fight for survival while providing some support and completing secondary missions. Jacobs cannot take many hits, even on easier difficulty levels, but his team takes a lot of punishment, similar to the “Battlefield: Bad Company” games. Consequently, many players might adopt a “let your guys do the fighting” strategy, which does not always work. If others are yelling a lot, then it is not safe to go out into battle unless you have a specific plan.
Some violent content is overly manipulative, like a passing scene where a child sees his parents murdered. The visual textures blend well into the environment, but the character animation is still a bit rubbery. The Golden Gate Bridge action sequence represents a great graphic highlight.
This mode takes place before the U.S. military scattered. The mission-based gameplay offers 32 total players (16 on a team). Each version features seven maps with an extra “suburbs” map in the Xbox 360 version. The online pass is not required, but is definitely recommended for a noticeably expanded multiplayer gameplay. This recommended game is currently banned in South Korea and censored in Japan (***, rated M for blood, strong language and violence, also available on OnLive (North America), PC, and Xbox 360).

The group assembled in the Canadian Club Lounge at Caesars Windsor in late May was a mix of male and female, dressed up and dressed down, young and old, but they were all buzzing, enthusiastically accepting canapés as they kept one eye on the door.
They might have been waiting for a political activist, guru or rock star, but the actual object of their anticipation was a combination of all three: Guy Fieri, the rock star chef who advocates feeding children “real food” and is a culinary guru to millions. Windsor was the third stop on Fieri’s 14-city roadshow, a mix of comedy and cooking with a rock ‘n’ roll attitude.
At the pre-show reception in the Club Lounge, the Fieri faithful weren’t shy about their devotion. Tami Whittington came to Caesars from the Toronto area and was elated at the prospect of meeting the chef. Whittington runs the restaurant for the UPS logistics campus in Burlington, Ont., and said Fieri is a staff favorite.

Guy Fieri

“This is a dream,” Whittington said. “My friend at work will never believe this. We talk about him all day long.”
Fieri didn’t disappoint when he arrived a few minutes later in the California casual T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops that have become a trademark. He charmed the crowd, moving from table to table making easy small talk. To a woman wearing sequins he stopped and said, “Did you get dressed up for my show? Look how cute you are!” Before leaving the party, Fieri autographed copies of his latest cookbook, “Guy Fieri Food,” and posed for photos with fans.
Fieri’s culinary career started in 1978 when the enterprising sixth-grader started selling soft pretzels out of a cart he and his father built; 20 years of restaurant experience and a trip to France later, he was a successful restaurateur in Santa Rosa, Calif.
But the road to the Guy Fieri Road Show began in earnest when he won Food Network’s “Next Food Network Star” in 2005, launching his first Food Network show, “Guy’s Big Bite,” followed soon after by “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.” In 2010, he made the crossover to network television as the host of NBC’s “Minute to Win It.”
The Guy Fieri Road Show takes the personality TV viewers have come to love, backs it up with DJ Cobra providing music and sound effects from a booth onstage, and gives some cooking tips in the process.
After an opening video promising, “This ain’t your mama’s cooking show,” Fieri came onstage with a squeeze bottle in each hand, squirting water high into the air before pointing out to one of his “krew” which sections should be fired on with a T-shirt cannon. Then he told his Canadian audience they were the first.
“After the first tour, we knew if we were going to do another one we wanted it to be international. And Windsor, we’ve done it here tonight!” he said, ramping up the considerable energy in the room.
The rest of the show was a runaway train of cooking and comedy, with the Caesars audience 100 percent onboard. Wearing a yellow and black chef’s coat featuring a skull and crossbones topped with a chef’s hat, Fieri delivered accounts of his childhood and his early restaurant experiences with the nuance and timing of a seasoned comedian. Recounting his first attempt at deep-frying a turkey, Fieri soon had the audience repeatedly inserting the phrase “ice cold beverage” with gusto, right on cue.
Between his onstage stories and video clips of the “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” appearances of his sous chefs, Panini Pete, Gorilla and Stretch, Fieri gave short, sometimes interactive cooking demonstrations. Pouring olive oil into a skillet, he asked audience members what they noticed about the oil as he swirled it in the pan.
“It’s slow!” one called back.
“That’s right — that means it’s not hot enough,” he said, noting that the viscosity of the oil should be more like that of water. “It should be fast in the pan,” he said, putting the skillet back on the stove. “There will be a test on this later.”
Loosely related to food was Fieri’s nod to his “Minute to Win It” fans, for which he pulled volunteers from the audience to participate in the show’s “Face the Cookie” challenge. Fieri narrated the action and the rest of the audience roared as eight fans used only their facial muscles to move two Oreos from their foreheads to their mouths.
In addition to cooking tips, Fieri gave eating tips: Eat with your children and cook with your children to teach them healthy eating habits. In 2009, Fieri helped draft California legislation establishing the second Saturday in May as “Cook With Your Kids Day,” and earlier this year established the Cooking With Kids Foundation (www.cwkfoundation.org) to encourage healthy eating habits and strengthen family relationships by working together in the kitchen.
“We’ve got to cook with our kids,” he told the Windsor audience. “We’ve got to show them where their food comes from.”
Fieri’s 2011 Road Show coincides with the release of “Guy Fieri Food,” a 400-plus-page, hardcover cookbook peppered with stories — some of them stories he tells in the show — of Fieri’s culinary adventures and antics, from pretzel cart to roadshow. But sous chef Stretch, aka Jeff Rumaner, is happy to tell one story the book humbly doesn’t: the impact Fieri and his “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” has had on the restaurant business.
“He’s done a lot for the mom-and-pop places,” Rumaner said. “He’s opened a lot of doors for a lot of people.”

Umphrey's McGee

Like many of today’s bands, Umphrey’s McGee has found itself debating the question of how to best release new music into the market.
The band, which will play at Sylvania’s Centennial Terrace at 8 p.m. July 7, is rethinking how it will release a new batch of songs that will arrive this year. At the start of the year, the band had announced its intention to release its new songs in a series of three EPs over the course of 2011. According to keyboardist/singer Joel Cummins, that thinking has since changed.
“This is something that has yet to be finalized, but we’ve really been searching for the right format to put out some new music,” he said in a recent phone interview. “As the music business and the way people digest music change, it’s something that we want to adapt to as well and really make it easy and fun for our fans.”
Now, Cummins said, the band is leaning toward releasing an EP followed by a full-length CD, perhaps this summer. Releasing three EPs initially made sense, Cummins said, in that the new songs seemed to fall into three groups in terms of its style. But as the band continued to consider what the EP release plan involved, other factors seemed to suggest that grouping some songs onto an EP and then putting the others on a full-length CD made more sense.
One issue that will influence how Umphrey’s McGee will ultimately release its new material will be whether the group signs a record deal.
“We’re kind of shopping this stuff around right now to a few different indy labels that are interested in putting this stuff out,” Cummins said. “So once that gets determined, I think we’ll have a little more kind of vision with the direction.”
This is not the first time Umphrey’s McGee — which includes Cummins guitarist/singer Jake Cinninger, singer/guitarist Brendan Bayliss, percussionist Andy Farag, drummer Kris Myers and bassist Ryan Stasik — has gotten creative in how it gets new music into the hands of its fans.
The group’s 2009 CD, “Mantis,” represented an experiment on two fronts. In general, in the years since the band formed in Chicago in 1997, it had road tested new songs on tour before they were released for any of the group’s first eight albums (two of which were live recordings). But for “Mantis,” the group decided not to play any of the new songs before the CD was released.
“That was kind of a conscious effort for the first time for the band ever really to just drop an entire new batch of material on our fans and give them that experience, and let us try that out and see how that feels,” Cummins said.
In addition to the CD itself, the group also put together a bonus program for fans who pre-ordered “Mantis,” in which over the next year, they received access to a wide range of bonus material that included unreleased songs, live recordings, photos and video clips showing how band members developed certain “Mantis” songs.
“I think we were all really happy with how that went,” Cummins said.
However the band chooses to release its new music, one thing that appears certain is that the songs will be varied and reflect the fact that Umphrey’s McGee has not been sitting still musically since finishing the “Mantis” project.
Cummins hinted that a good chunk of the new material takes the band back toward the funkier, more groove-oriented sound that characterized the group’s early albums, as opposed to the heavier, more progressive rock sound the group explored on “Mantis.”
“There are a couple of tunes that we’ve recorded that are in that heavier vein,” Cummins said. “That was going to be one of the EPs, some tracks that I think would probably fit in with the ‘Mantis’ material well. Then some of the other stuff is a little more dance-friendly, a little more women-friendly, one of those things that never hurts. We like to make music for dudes, but we like to keep the ladies happy, too.”
Cummins said the new material, compared to the songs on “Mantis,” sounds a bit more spontaneous, free-wheeling and more like a live band performances.
“The arrangements in general are a lot more open-ended with some of the newer stuff that we have,” he said. “The ‘Mantis’ stuff, there was a lot of lyrical focus as well. But there were a lot of little things that were going on and there was a lot of texture and a lot of depth to every track.”
Fans can expect to get a sampling of the band’s yet-to-be-released new material on this summer’s tour, as Umphrey’s McGee began changing up its set lists at the start of the year.
“We’re very fortunate to be in the situation of having a really nice large chunk of original music from which to choose whatever we want to play that night,” Cummins said. “So we always kind of take the end of the year and the beginning of the year as well to work in some new original music and some new covers, too.”
The band continues to evolve its visual production, working closely with its lighting director.
“It’s evolved in a way that the band is really excited about,” Cummins said. “Jefferson Waful has been our LD now since late 2008. So 2009 was really a year of him learning a lot of the material and getting comfortable with it.
“With all of the improvisation we do live on a nightly basis, we really need to have somebody who gets those subtleties of communication and what’s going on onstage, and can be right on top of it in the moment,” he said. “It’s not the kind of thing where the show is programmed and that’s how it’s played. So it really is a huge opportunity for creativity with the visual end, and Jefferson has stepped up and has been everything we hoped he would be. I know it’s a huge aspect of our show for the fans. They really dig the visual element of it, too.”

It’s only appropriate, one supposes, that a game that had been so controversial for the years it was never released should remain controversial now that it has actually hit the shelves.

On June 14, the long, long, LONG awaited video game “Duke Nukem Forever” was released by publisher 2K Games. The title, first announced in 1997, had been delayed by its developers for over a decade. Its tumultuous history, documented by sources including this column, had made it one of the most infamous games in the history of the business.

In 2009, when 3D Realms, the company which had been developing “Duke” from the beginning, finally gave up and cancelled the project. Publisher 2K Games sued, eventually settled for the rights to the game, and hired developers Gearbox Software to finish it. The result is what is in stores right now.

The big question left unanswered by all of these events was simple: Would it be any good? The answer, sadly, is no. “Forever” is not a horrible game, really, but between its paper-thin story, lackluster controls, intolerable loading times and — it must be said — annoying lead character, it certainly doesn’t live up to 14 years of hype. It feels like what it is — a game about a decade out of date.

Most critics said the same, giving “Duke” middling reviews at best. And then, once more, “Duke Nukem Forever” found itself at the center of controversy spurred on by one of the least likely candidates: Press Relations.

The Redner Group is a third-party PR agency which boasted 2K Games as one of its biggest clients. The firm states on its website that they offer “strategic navigation through an ever-evolving media environment.” Well, one wonders how “strategic” the choice was to post this comment on the company’s Twitter account, aimed at the poor reviews “Duke” was receiving:

“Too many went too far with their reviews…we r (sic) reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.”

Not surprisingly, the comment was deleted from Twitter not long after it was posted. Also not surprisingly, it had already been captured in a screenshot by sources such as the magazine “Wired” and immediately became the talk of the industry. And least surprising of all, 2K Games denounced the Redner Group’s comments and officially dumped them as their PR firm.

Owner Jim Redner has since publicly apologized and claimed the tweet was in response to the tone of certain reviews, not to the fact that they gave “Duke” poor scores. The damage was long since done, of course. But no matter what was or was not meant, the events of this week do shine a light on a disquieting aspect of pop culture journalism.

There has long been an uneasy tension between many of the companies which produce content and many of those who report on and analyze it. It makes sense — the company’s job is to make money with their wares, and weak reviews and press may hinder the cause. But any press helps to bolster visibility. So companies keep critics and journalists in the loop, to a degree.

There have been several examples over the years of companies pulling press privileges over negative critiques. 20th Century Fox famously banned Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert from press screenings for a time. Recently, Kevin Smith took to complaining about negative reviews of his “Cop Out.” And now, Redner and “Duke Nukem” have brought the practice back into the light again.

The angry responses aimed at critics are horribly misplaced, however. Reviews are thoroughly subjective, of course. Every person will have their own response to a work of art. I’ve always felt that the critic has a few basic responsibilities — to give their reader a good understanding of a piece, so they will be better informed about its contents. To be entertaining, because if the critique isn’t interesting, what would inspire the audience to read it anyway?

And above all, a critic needs to be honest. Because opinions are so subjective, a critic is of no real use to their audience if they aren’t forthright with how a work made them feel. That’s what the creators and publishers of art often fail to understand. As has been observed in the past, if a critic never gave out a bad review, what would the good ones mean?

Companies can disagree with negative reviews all they want. But taking issue with honest criticism is a line that companies — and the public — should be wary of crossing. “Duke Nukem Forever” has been badly reviewed because, most agree, it is a bad game. The proper response is not to lash out at those who reviewed it, but to make the next “Duke” game one worthy of praise.

We always have something to complain about. It rains for three weeks and we think it’s ridiculous. When the clouds finally break and the sun blesses us with its glorious heat, we’re annoyed because it’s so hot. And so the story goes. We love summer, but those damn mosquitoes will make us grind our teeth, slap ourselves silly, itch our skin to shreds and curse to the high heavens. We hate them so much that we have decided to poison ourselves. Trucks cruise down the streets of Lucas County from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. and spray our yards, gardens, animals, and us with toxins that damage four of our major body systems, poison our food, and threaten our ecosystem.

After more than 60 years of mosquito spray in our neighborhoods, this method of mosquito reduction proves to be ineffective and unsafe. The spray is a contact poison, meaning it must come in contact with the mosquito to kill it, leaving many untouched including the larvae that are waiting in still water to add new mosquitoes to your yard. It lingers for up to a week in the yard (beware pets and children) and much of it can end up inside your home from carriers. Spraying is counterproductive as it also kills mosquitoes’ natural predators, including birds, bats, frogs and dragonflies, allowing mosquitoes to multiply faster than before.
Many people hope that the mosquito spray is preventing mosquito-borne illnesses, however, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) states that 80 percent of the people bitten by West Nile Virus (WNV)-infected mosquitoes experience no symptoms at all and 20 percent get only mild to moderate flu symptoms. There were only four cases of WNV in Ohio in 2010 (no deaths) and only one in 150 people contracts a serious illness from mosquitoes if they are immune-deficient to start. According to the World Resources Institute, spraying might actually make us more susceptible to WNV since the chemicals in the spray attack our immune system (in addition to our respiratory, nervous and reproductive systems).
In a 2003 WNV study, the CDC stated that spraying from a plane or a truck was the least effective form of mosquito control. Mosquitoes breed in stagnant water, which can collect in buckets, tires, bird baths, bowls, low places, under hose leaks, etc. in your yard. They will live one to two weeks in the water before they hatch. Larvae will not survive if there is motion in the water, from a pump from filter, for example, or if the water is emptied in intervals of less than one week. Fish, ducks, amphibians and bats will also feed on mosquitoes and their larvae. Moving water and adding predators are much more effective and healthier options of mosquito reduction!
Even if spraying was effective, the associated health and environmental risks would not be worth it. Chlorpyrifos is the active ingredient in night-fogging spray and was banned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2000 from use in household products, but ironically is still used in the spray in our neighborhoods. The CDC found chlorpyrifos in 95 percent of tested Americans as of 2006. Sprayed toxins enter our bodies as we breathe it in from residues on our food in the farmers’ fields and our home and community gardens. Diseases linked to pesticides like chlorpyrifos include: ADHD, Alzheimer’s, asthma, autism, birth defects, cancer, diabetes and more. Additionally, mosquito spray is contributing to colony collapse disorder, responsible for the disappearance of one-third of our honeybee colonies, on which we depend for all of our food.
Section 921.24 of Page’s Ohio Revised Code states, “No person shall transport, store, dispose of, display or distribute any pesticide … in such a manner as to have unreasonable adverse effects on the environment (land, air, humans …)” Baldwin’s Ohio Revised Code states in Chapter 3719.30 that “no person shall leave or deposit … poisons in a common street, alley, lane … or a yard or enclosure occupied by another.” If the chemicals in mosquito spray are known to cause damage to our bodies, our ecosystem, children, are regulated against in the state code and are not proven to be effective in reducing mosquito count, why do we use them?
Choose to opt out of having mosquito spray spread across your yard and into your home. Many homes and community gardens have already chosen to be chemical free. Since this is a spray carried through the air, encourage your neighbors to opt out and create a “spray-free” street and neighborhood in order to have the greatest effect. You can “say nay to spray” by calling Toledo Area Sanitary District (TASD) at (419) 726-7891. For more information visit sites.google.com/site/saynaytospray.