You would have to describe last night first public hearing on the medical mart & convention center issue in Cleveland Heights as at least amusing. It was hardly productive. The meeting, scheduled at 5 p.m., started nearly a half hour late and then after a nearly 10 minute introduction by sponsor Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones the podium was passed to Squire Sanders & Dempsey boss Fred Nance. He took another 40 minutes of time talking about the report.

History has been made. Surprisingly so. In a surprisingly short time.

It’s hard to imagine 45 years ago tonight I had a train ticket to Washington, D. C., for the historic March on Washington.

At the time I was working as the assistant to the editor of the Bridgeport Sunday Post, now the Connecticut Post. I was told by the editor that I could not take the day off and should not to go to Washington.

Is anyone as sick of weaseling Democrats as I am? That’s the category I put Gov. Ted Strickland and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher for their cave-in on the sick day ballot issue. A pair of ingrate weasels.

Organized Labor – not exactly vigorous – has been pushing a measure that would legislate seven days for sick leave for employees in businesses as large as 25 employees or more.

Have the news media dropped the “Cone of Silence” story too quickly? Was candidate John McCain cheating?

Did Fannie really whisper in their ears? Did she say, Stephanie Howse?

I find it hard to believe.

It took until the 34th paragraph in Sunday’s Plain Dealer expose of the deal for land where the new juvenile justice center is being constructed to get to Mayor Michael White and Sam Miller. The center is located away from all other court/jail facilities of the County at Quincy and E. 93rd where a broken-down brewery once stood.

Boy, the “Cleveland – a Dying City” rating by Forbes Magazine really cranked up the city’s cheerleaders last Sunday, as seen in the editorial page of the Plain Dealer (which years ago for some reason dropped the name Cleveland from its name).

What was most amusing was that it was written by a trio – two of them – Joe Roman of Greater Cleveland Partnership and Dennis Roche, president of Positively Cleveland – draw salaries totaling $703,627 a year (2006 IRS figures). Roman gets $426,271 and Roche gets $303,627, both including benefits. The salary of the third, Thomas Waltermire, CEO of TeamNEO, wasn’t available.

I believe I found out today at the supermarket just how nasty this Presidential campaign will be.

Pity the poor smokers.

The latest calculations out of County Auditor Frank Russo’s office show that cigarette smokers have contributed $28 million to the Arts & Culture Tax (at least this one was voted upon). That’s since February. And that's a lot of money.

Fannie Lewis didn’t have a degree from Harvard University but her common sense wisdom could often exceed the judgments of the Ivy League learned.

The medical mart/convention center deal is much worse than anyone knows.

Square Sanders & Dempsey’s managing partner Fred Nance gave a smooth, if shifty, accounting of what we can expect.

Maybe RTA should be a private business. It might get treated better by Democrats.

Squire & Sanders’ Fred Nance asked today for another public subsidy of $50 million for the Medical Mart. He wants an added 2 percent bed tax to go for the deal. He said Tim Hagan, Jimmy Dimora and Peter Lawson Jones could do that without a vote of taxpayers. Isn’t that convenient.

Back in April I wrote an item here about the necessity for newspapers.

As I wrote then, “Talk all you want about weekly alternatives, bloggers and citizen activists – and we need them badly as prods and sometimes even more – but newspapers have the heft, expertise and man/womanpower to go in depth on issues.”

Let’s not get carried away with the FBI & IRS raids on some politicians and a few business people who will likely get off for “cooperating.”

Vivian Goodman reported recently on the 40th anniversary of the Glenville Shoot-out on WKSU. She provides links to interviews with some people who gave remembrances of violent clash between Black Nationalists and Cleveland Police. For a look at a piece of Cleveland history, you can find her reports, including interviews, here: http://www.wksu.org/news/features/glenville/index.php

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Glenville shootout that devastated Cleveland. I see no reference in the Plain Dealer to this historic time in Cleveland.

It’s a time that should be remembered because it remains a significant part of our past, particularly our history of race relations and why Cleveland has had so many problems in the last 40 years.

We forget that we are what we were.

The mistakes of the past give birth to the errors of the future and even today as the city struggles with the horrors of shootings and killings that seem so senseless I see reflections of 1968.  Yet, the outcomes are predictable because we haven’t worked to cure the basic causes of poverty and ignorance.

I would ask you to look – even make a copy – of the review article about 1968 that I wrote a short time ago. Part of it deals with the Glenville shootout and that period of racial conflict.

My feeling is that we are headed into a period that may reflect 1968 but with somewhat different disturbing and violent behavior.

It can be found here.

Another article examining the 1968 Cleveland eruption is available in the Nation magazine at this link with ability to download article:

Maybe they can leave the roof off and forget about the foundation.

Then maybe Fred Nance, Tim Hagan and Sam Miller can bring that sucker in under a half billion tax dollars.

That, of course, doesn’t include interest in about the same amount, plus generous overruns for contractor friends. Oh, and don’t forget the little items they aren’t talking about subsidizing – parking garages and a new luxury hotel, built, of course, on Sam’s land.

Since American automakers are having a tough time would you accept a new auto with a couple of doors missing so the company could save some money?

Would an automaker dare ask a customer for such a concession?

Newspapers – having a financially tough time – are asking just about that – less newspaper, fewer stories, and light content and soon at a higher cost.

Phillip Morris is pretty cavalier about the shooting of a civilian. A thug by his record but an unarmed one when killed.

You have to laugh so you don’t cry.

I haven’t studied the report at all but the announcement in the morning paper quoting Dave Abbott, Joe Roman and Sam “Give Me More” Miller on big spending in Cuyahoga County is really amusing. Laughable. Absurd.

How ridiculous can our County officials get?

The PD Tipoff column reports that 19 employees of the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court submitted travel vouchers individually for a trip with a total bill of $2,536.50.

Cleveland, by no means, is the only city that bestows gift after gift upon corporate welfare chiselers.

Crain’s Cleveland Business this week linked to a Columbus Dispatch article that reveals the depravity of these business frauds and their grip on that city’s government.

I was watching an Indians game recently when the sports announcers went a bit agog about the stadium restaurant as the TV cameras panned the Terrace Club where people were happily enjoying food treats with a view of the baseball game.

Happy people enjoying The Good Life.

Too bad you had to pay for it.

Sometimes you have to wonder whether Plain Dealer editors read their newspaper. Now at times I can’t blame them for that, however, it might come in handy at times, too.

Sunday, the PD again helped Tim Hagan and his two buddy Cuyahoga County commissioners sound the “we’re out of money again” cry and offer as a solution another buyout. Just as the one Hagan took (retired & ran and re-elected) and now is back on the job pulling down a full salary.

UDAG HEAVEN FOR JACOBS, RATNERS

Will Cleveland Council members let Mayor Frank Jackson, Chris Warren and developers steal away UDAG repayments in the millions of dollars from depressed, declining and diminishing neighborhoods?