CINCINNATI - Cincinnati journalists got all self-conscious and shit this week, about everything from saying "Happy Easter" to shopping at Ikea.

In today's Enquirer, Carolyn Pione wondered aloud about the supposed lack of Easter coverage in today's Enquirer, despite the Enquirer's own pointless "Easter coverage".   Did Pione really need to get all self-conscious about it, or was this editorial merely an attempt to increase the number of times "Easter" is mentioned in today's issue?

If, as she proposed, Pione wants to go further and start including "coverage" of her own religious beliefs, maybe Pione should start with less personal stuff like publishing news articles about her teeth-brushing techniques.

In this week's CityBeat, Joe Wessels bemoaned that people aren't shopping at Ikea, since he is feeling self-conscious about shopping at Ikea himself.  I would like to assuage Joe Wessels's insecurity about shopping at Ikea.   In fact, I recommend that he purchase a Mongstad mirror (pictured right) the next time he wants to get all reflective and crap.   (After all, it goes without saying that Ikea will need Wessels's business to stay afloat since he is apparently the only one who shops there.)

Wessels's feelings of self-consciousness continued as he extrapolated one woman's Facebook blog into a theory that everyone else in Cincinnati has the same streetcar agenda.  He was obviously feeling self-conscious and shit about having a different opinion from someone else.

I do agree with Wessels that all of the differing opinions in Cincinnati on everything from streetcars to Ikea do somehow constitute "groupthink".  (And although I love groupthink, it is just killing us)   And Cincinnati really needs someone like Joe Wessels to "think outside the box" for us.   Actually, I lied. 

I would say that readers might think my rant in that last paragraph wasn't an example of Joe Wessels being "self-conscious", but I don't want to get all self-conscious and shit too.