I have a feeling I know who wrote this post at Cleveland Public Library, but I won't out that person. It's so true. If you are feeling out of sorts at this time of year, try POETRY.

Apparently out of time and ideas (did she ever have one?), DebFEE Sutherland has lost all sense of good taste and decorum in dragging out the race baiting card during the final debate yesterday at the City Club.

Our region's greatest champion of promoting immigration - high-skills immigration - Richard Herman has sent me many progress reports on successes in some areas - most recently Detroit - referenced below. I've been meaning to post these notices from Richard but haven't found the moment (Richard, I believe you have an account). Today, I received the unsurprising update below on a local study discouraging the Fund For Our Economic Future from focusing on this objective in economic development for the region - discouraging attracting high skills workers and entrepreneurs from afar. This seems a seems a good way to introduce the subject... "This Summer, the Plain Dealer editorial board wrote a piece asking why the Fund for Our Economic Future was not involved in efforts to welcome immigrant talent, immigrant entrepreneurs and international capital into the region."

How happy will they be when they find out DebFEE raised fees and cut public safety forces while sitting on an illegal $15 MILLION SLUSH FUND(now down to about $12.6M)?!?!?!

http://www.westlifenews.com/2008/10-22/pickets.jpg

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and all but one Cleveland City Council member (Mike Polensek) thoughtlessly voted to give $1 million cash to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for its induction dinner.

Now that’s what I call absolutely disgusting. The poor feed the rich.

The Plain Dealer's Phillip Morris writes, in his column today, "I'm trying to play it cool, but in the wake of National City Bank's collapse, I'm frantically looking for silver linings"... "scanning the horizon for that man, woman, or committee that can pull rabbits out of hats"... "still listening for someone to convince me that there is continued reason to believe that Cleveland is reinventing itself and will emerge stronger and more efficient". Phillip is obviously looking for all the wrong answers, inspiration and leadership in all the wrong places, from all the wrong people who put NEO and America in this disastrous situation, and are still are in charge of our local and national economies... although not for much longer. And, Phillip is obviously hearing from his chosen "leaders" the same old lame-o, last-ditch Cleve-O establishment vision of salvation, highlighted in his column... "I'm just glad we still have good hospitals."

Sorry to tell you, Phillip, but our "hospital" leadership isn't any better to or for Cleveland, America and the world than NCC leadership, and is in fact the same people, and is answerable to the same few "Power Brokers" as NCC, and is failing. The leadership and owners of our bloated, inefficient healthcare system and health industry companies have sucked the unhealthy tit of America dry. Their prescription... "buy viagra, and go f**k yourself, America."

"Ticket booths closed and cobwebs covering the doors, the Pyramid sits ghostly quiet." Photo: Ángel Franco/The New York Times

I'M AWAY FROM HOME BUT I NOTICE OVER THE WEEKEND THAT BOTH THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH AND THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER HAVE BOTH ENDORSED JOHN MCCAIN FOR PRESIDENT.

HOW STUPID CAN THE EDITORS OF THESE TWO RETROGRADE NEWSPAPERS BE? DO THEY UNDERSTAND WHAT TROUBLE OHIO IS IN ECONOMICALLY?

ARE THEY JUST CATERING TO RIGHT WING REPUBLICAN INTERESTS AND NOT TO THE NEEDS OF THE STATE OF OHIO.

Blowing Smoke: Joe Camel And King Coal

There is a highly depressing quote by National City Corporation CEO Peter Raskind, at the end of a Cleveland Plain Dealer "editors" interview clearing him of being more than a poor, SUPER RICH executive, where Raskind says "It's a remarkable period and it would be intellectually interesting if we didn't happen to be living in the middle of it." I don't recall ever seeing more moronic words in my life.

I don't find a time when poor people around the world and in Northeast Ohio starve and suffer, while highly incompetent, over-compensated "career" bankers and advisers have made millions for themselves, remotely "intellectually interesting".

Perhaps the suffering of the poor is interesting to the rich? Perhaps that is how the rich intellectualize being rich, while most people in the world suffer greatly.

To others, the term is horrific...

David S. Hirschman October 8, 2008

Prepare to hit the beach…in Iceland

Got this message from a neighbor/longtime colleague, David Budin:

"Last week I sent a message jokingly suggesting that we all change our middle names to Hussein until November 4. I mean, I thought I was joking. Then a lot of people e-mailed back and said they were actually doing that -- and they were forwarding my message to their friends, etc.

Did anyone expect anything less? Cuyahoga County Commissioners waived the $500,000 fee on the East 9th Street and Euclid Avenue property originally bought for a new County Administration Building.

The $500,000 check was made to the County to tie up the property for the developer. The developer should have eaten the fee and the County should be $500,000 richer.

Evidently, we need a little socialism here in NEO.
Am I the only person outraged by this news?

I have given myself to watching videos to educate myself about todays concerns. Here is my recent recommended play list.

Power Shift, Energy + Sustainability, hosted by Cameron Diaz

An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore

Big Ideas for a Small Planet, by Sundance Channel

Received via E-mail from a friend.......

You may have noticed a group of golden brown rectangular stones swelling out of the ground in the Euclid Avenue median across from Severance Hall. I don't have a good photo yet, but I will post one soon. The work is by Murase Associates http://www.murase.com/flash/index.html founded by Robert Murase (1938-2005) a Japanese American landscape architect.

I am taking a point of personal privilege by linking to my daughter's presentation of how she does her art work. She has been suffering from acute back pain and this afternoon she will undergo her third back operation. I think it is a testimony to her courage and creativity that she spent the day before putting together this short film of how she works. I want to share it.

I've been waiting to see how the Cleveland Plain Dealer is going to attempt to escape the shame of having endorsed for Cuyahoga County commissioner the highly unqualified and now under fire Bay Village mayor Debbie Sutherland, before she even debated the highly qualified and well respected incumbent, Peter Lawson Jones. Sutherland lost her first debate... and she lost her second debate... and, I understand, she lost four debates against Jones organized by the League of Women Voters for high school children... and she will lose the City Club debate (for Sutherland, losing has meant being obviously unprepared, unqualified, flustered, angry, embarrassed and even booed, in past cases). There was no excuse for the PD endorsing Sutherland, and now they must report 32 Cuyahoga County mayors endorse Peter Lawson Jones for commissioner. The PD editors are surely embarrassed over Sutherland, by now, so they are certainly looking for excuses, including attempting to make the race about race. I expect we'll see lots of this racist behavior in the coming months, years, and decades, in various death spirals, as the last generations of real American racists die away.