Round up the usual suspects

It is Monday morning and time to round up the usual suspects. You , over there. Yes you , the fatuous one located at East 18Th and Superior a.k.a . da p.d. , da pee dee , or whatever pathos in newsprint you fancy these days. Line up against that wall and shut up already. The Sunday April 6 ,2008 editorial Put It On The Map ,is another great reason why the publisher of a daily newspaper should not sit on the board of director's of a major local institution as in this case the Cleveland clinic. The plain dealer shilling for the Cleveland clinic may be considered business as usual by the slap happy editorial board gang at da p.d.. Others of us find it more to resemble business as unusual at the very least. This editorial makes yet another unashamed plug for a proposed three mile highway linking Interstate 480 with the Cleveland clinic. Dubbed the " opportunity corridor" , one begs to inquire ... Whose opportunity? Yes , the correct answer students is the very Cleveland clinic who da p.d. publisher Terrance Egger sits on the CC Board of Directors of. As we said here some months ago when da p.d. ran an earlier editorial begging for this same self serving road. We said just say no! Governor Ted . Keep saying no to this selfish little land grab. Governor Ted Strickland represents eighty seven other Counties in Ohio as well as Cuyahoga , and in all fairness , short of succeeding from the other eighty seven , the other counties need the public infrastructure funds as well as Cuyahoga does. Last time I looked the entire State of Ohio is looking seedy , aged , and way frayed at the cuff. So consider the rest of the State of Ohio's political opinion concerning the proposed future of basically a private road in Cuyahoga County Ohio? Not very much interest I would guess , and da p.d. should at least be bright enough to admit to this fact. The plain dealer boast in this skewed editorial is " Cleveland can't and won't wait." Suggesting that da p.d. will go negative on Governor Strickland , and work against him politically . To quote this Superior Road gang's own words. " and if Ted Strickland can't promise results ,, it may be tough for Northeast Ohioans to promise votes for this bond plan." Scary kids , scary. OOOOH Scary OLD PAIN DEALER. A hollow threat from the weak and slack jawed jowls of da paper tiger that is da p.d. 2008. ............wcpn the yawning midget of public radio in our listening area should check it's sad self into a hospital to see if they possess a beating pulse much less a heart? Well , no news is old hat at wcpn so line up against the wall you phony " idea stream" cheerleaders. This morning 's nine to ten a.m . gambit was yet another public relations dog and pony show toutin' and shoutin' and placing a positive spin on the 200 million rta Euclid avenue corridor project. No subjective or critical examination needed of the corridor project and the adjoining land usage according to wcpn. Just a jolly good old public relations lovefest...Noted journalist Roldo Bartimole seems to believe differently in that a series of speculative real estate transactions featuring both public and private concerns , and the a list downtown players roles in real estate transactions along the downtown part of the Euclid avenue dedicated bus line is worthy of examination and critical reporting. Roldo's Point of View on this matter is a well described and documented read on the political and private business transactions occurring at the southeast corner of East Ninth and Euclid . Yes , that corner the one with the significant architectural truck in a International stature in the form of the Marcel Breuer Cleveland Trust Tower. This historic corner should be celebrated , as well the remaining buildings on the south side of Euclid Avenue eastward to the point at Huron street. These historic Euclid Avenue buildings are all worthy of rehabilitation . Comprising a nice slice of older commercial buildings perfect for apartment , loft , or condominiums . This building cluster should be included on any Cleveland citizen who is architectural preservation minded map and radar screen, concerning the pending $35 million Willoughby based development plan currently pending transaction with Cuyahoga County. History is at stake here. Short of building the second Breuer Tower on the site , saving these older structures gives a nice model window of what a handsome block of rehabilitated buildings with all the original interior trimmings can be...What is at stake here is a real crosstown intersection for any hospital workers who care to live or relocate to a residence downtown , as option to current suburban digs and the daily drag of an automotive commute. Calabrese of the RTA outfit promises a ten minute trip on the quick side of time between downtown and UC via the " silver line". As little as five or seven minutes in quickest imagined time spent in a simple commute. A new bus leaves the station every five minutes. That is an upside in any event , and only time will tell if any of the proposed developments will really have much impact in terms of retail growth , business start ups , and a critical mass of citizens living close enough to this bus line to fall out of bed and into a bus on the EAC. The true test of social justice will be East Cleveland's share of the project as it continues on to it's eastern point at the Windemere Rapid station. The happiness boys on hand at wcpn received only six telephone calls during the allotted hour , and the final call was from a man in East Cleveland who identified himself as Ojo , and claimed he was a constant caller always given short shrift by wcpn. Guess what? Ojo was once again given short shrift , and his critical comments concerning issues of poverty and employment on the rta silver line ledger were given a cursory kiss off by the wcpn gang. It is not just downtown and the University Circle neighborhoods that this Euclid Avenue corridor bus line should concern itself with. The neighborhoods that border this project have needs that need to be addressed as well. These neighborhoods are unfortunately all victims of terminal poverty ,and are as follows. Hough , Fairfax , and Central. It would be an original "idea stream" , if perhaps one of the Einstein invalids in the wcpn news department could see there way clear to have representatives from these three Cleveland neighborhoods plus East Cleveland , Ohio comment and discuss the impact that the " silver line" might have on their citizens lives. Stay tuned..... It is easy to see that spring is in the air , and perhaps the two news sources discussed above should open their stultified windows and air out some actual Cleveland citizens real time public interests. The proposed " opporotunity corridor ' , is merely a means yet another land grab for the Cleveland clinic , and would do more harm to any hopes of improving the current neighborhoods that it proposes to tear through than help. If the Cleveland clinic is serious about having their workforce closer to theie Euclid avenue campus , perhaps they should consider building housing along the Euclid Avenue corridor. Yet another highway is only a means for automotive futures , not feet on the pavement urban lifestyle futures. Da p.d. seems to only jump as high on their editorial page as the Cleveland clinic asks them to. That is tragedy , and should be addressed from an neutral ethical viewpoint before this matter of an "opportunity corridor " , receives even a lousy penny in Ohio tax funds. If this road is so damn important to the Cleveland clinic and the parasitical pee dee , let them build it.

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Of knives and other sharp items

Water in Lake Erie recedes. Giving away ground. As well the declining corporate music business , and it's bosom friend in the soft entertainment industry , your basic dead tree and typeset companions in the publishing fields of books , slick magazines , tabloids , and the doubtful American daily newspaper are going the way of the model t ford. And this is the dire news that is never really told by the twin industries that spin their fortunes from nickels , dimes , and bold faced lies. Fiscal bad news is perceived as not fit to print , lest it mess up the hair of it's financial agents and investors , or wake up further the smoldering public sentiment for fairness and honesty in reporting which is immediate , free , and far more interesting to consume today in the streaming on line sphere that many of our lives are lived within today.///////// Suffering double digit fiscal erosion every year the recorded music end of the entertainment industry is in a free fall. Technological savvy Internet users and a diminishing market are the one - two combination that stagger the kneecaps , causing audible knocking under it's hood and the dead timber bunch sent head over heals to oblivion and beyond. All right, I did not go for the obvious play on words , dead timbre , though I sneak it in 'hear' for my own amusement. As for the temporary reprieve granted the contemporary version of the daily newspaper , most will be but a printed dead tree memories in the scant space of a few years to come. It is an impossible task to read the local version of newspaper mediocrity , the plain dealer , and derive anything of intellectual value or stimulation . No candor , wit , or objectivity spring forth from the keypads of it's " writers" , these days. A dumbed down amateur air seems to be the flavor of it's style book , the lack of any in depth reporting is painfully obvious , daily, weekly , and monthly , year in year out. I do like the editorial cartoonist who works on the p.d. op-ed page , Egan the fishing and racetrack writer on the sports page as well, Photographer Lynne Ischaey , and some others employed are talented in the limited aesthetic fashion of news gathering and it's dissemination conspired by the business and political goals of the cleveland plain dealer and it's companion lower tier newspapers that dot the print journalism landscape of a USA today universe. Even if you posses meager artistic talents , as most of us do, you are apt never to have a means of using them to anywhere near potential while employed by a contemporary news or media concern such as the Cleveland plain dealer. Pathetic. The syndicated news efforts are far better than the locally gathered variety. I prefer to read quality 'stringers' such as Christopher Maag , write about Cleveland , Ohio news via the pages of The New York Times , than the Cleveland plain dealer version. In the New York Times a higher level of authentic news and opine appear in a news article , and a better " style book" demands better writing and reporting of news. On the positive side , today's online edition of the plain dealer featured a one minute streaming video news clip of chef Michael Symon's coronation as iron chef. A tip of the high white hat to Michael , and in the realm of Cleveland plain dealer front pages news for the past two days which I did not read , proved all I needed to view and understand of this culinary circus event. Perfect! This clip from the plain dealer online version is a good example of why modern streaming news is today's authentic news , and these clips will only get shorter and more pared down as the attention spans and demands upon future humans space available within their collective minds is an issue to chew upon. Minimal perfection of the light weight news of the passing hour , minute , second , fractional seconds. With the advent of the hand held video and photography devices , add stroke of a keypad , upload and bingo instant news. The textual efforts in the online plain dealer proved succinct but unreadable as news , so minute in content or news value as if to make television news appear to contain more viable content. A universal law should exist prohibiting the use of the words television and news in the same sentence . Yet the plain dealer online " breaking news" reads as if the news offered was compressed and composed for the eyes of a third grade child. Leaving the classified ads section as the only reason to purchase the plain dealer and I would have nothing to do with the p.d. at all if it were not for this advertising section . Far better to spend the extra .075 cents daily and buy the New York Times . Possessing a nose for news and a more discerning pall ate , the New York Times , International Herald Tribune , or any other well written and edited newspaper left standing in the world today printed in the English language is more to my taste . The New York Times , though not without many faults and biases , provides a more discerning and erudite printed news flavor , and is closer in aroma and strength to the coffee I imbibe every morning . Few and far between these days these newspapers of worthy note , and the p.d. is merely a near extinct old species fish , washing up on a dying lakes shore in a diminishing market of readers and consumers , and now is forced to compete a little leaner every year in terms of it's new hires , and looks to it's corpulent staff of writers for meat and is given cheap hamburger in it's printed place. The politics of this newspaper are well documented by my old Friend Roldo Bartimole in his well written , Point Of View columns over the past forty years , and it is due to Roldo's fine and dogged efforts to keep the politics and goals of the "pee dee " as actual news and under public scrutiny that I have an appreciation for the low aims and skulduggery that the current plain dealer represents in Cleveland , Ohio. ///////// File transfers and digital downloads are the death knoll for the recorded music business , or a return to it's budget origins . What once was a physical salable product in the form of a vinyl record album , compact disc , or magnetic tape of recorded music is now a .99 cent musical download and the equivalent of a Internet jukebox that allows the dollar to spit back to the user a metaphorical penny to be chalked up against the .098 cents due for the tune purchased and downloaded. The recorded music industry started over a century ago , selling single tune cylinder recordings and then .78 r.p.m. recorded discs for dimes to dollars, and this same music business in one hundred years time has returned to it's low rent origins in a modern 21st century market that demands custom designed immediate gratification via it's fickle custom blending digital consumers. ///////////////////// Factor in the effects of the hyperbole merchants employed by these industries in public relations , advertising , and the business of ballyhoo, vitriol , and blather created by the newspaper and entertainment industries . No wonder today's critical , picky youngsters will have nothing much to do with this coven of bad actors and professional liars. Witching hour approaches for these flawed and vulnerable industries and those employed by them. Heads are rolling wholesale , and add to this fray a National writer's strike , and let those left standing sort events out. The media ship is lilting in it's traditional safe harbor waters , and taking on water fast. The propaganda newspaper merchants and electrical entertainment peddlers will be moving in together on some low rent flop where their .99 cent and .50 cent products will die a lonely corporate death. Good riddance! BOOK SELLING TIME! Ernest Hemingway FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS . First American edition. Eleven eleven is the chosen day to celebrate Veteran's Day in the United States Of America. I am old enough to remember the hoards of street seller's with pin on red poppies for sale , to benefit the less than fortunate homeless or otherwise suffering veterans of previous American wars , and all news sources that disclose that a significant number of homeless men in these United States of America today are veterans of the Vietnam War. As a nation we treat our pets better than our less than fortunate veterans and homeless human beings. Many others homeless in America are either mentally ill , handicapped or crippled in some fashion. Find space in your life for these fallen fellow humans. The season is upon us to find space in our collective and individual hearts for others not as fortunate. Spend some of our most precious commodity , time , in your busy life to help provide some basic needs and attention to one who is less fortunate. Take a tip from my pal John , who sent me a pair of boat sized tennis shoes for my old baseball pal James to wear. A random act of kindness , that will be appreciated by this still worthy human life that deserves better than he receives , and does not complain . You will not have to look far these days. Poverty is a scourge upon this land , and the mounting fiscal woes that foreclosures and a society that chooses to live in great collective denial,debt , and fiscal peril occurs will certainly produce more casualties , not to mention the impending shake out in the entertainment and dead tree industries. We here at Old Erie Street Bookstore soldier on selling books the best we can in a world market where demand is far out stripped by supply , and the pressure price wise is downward not up. A second hand player in the entertainment and dead tree industry , I give book selling another decade or so prior to it's extinction, save some unique printed items that might appeal to antiquarians and art mavens. The Hemingway offered is without a dust jacket and not a top collector's grade edition , though I expect it has good value based on the prices of comparable new volumes of fiction or literature today. That we will sell this volume prior to the Year's impending calendar end is likely. Be the first on your block to take a Ernest Hemingway first edition as your office party or retirement gift for than newly unemployed person in the entertainment or news industry.////////// Culinary Bites! My old pal and original skillet man Slim , who burns porcine hash and slings root beverages at his public chowhouse and science project down Kentucky way , aptly named SLIM'S, and just a tad North of the queen city of the South and I both agreed , Michael Symon is the new iron chef. News only because we both figured it out well before it was filmed ,Slim and I both concurred at the announcement of the series some months back that Michael was to win.Results are in and no place to place a bet! Sounds like a new sports book with all the odds and evens factored in , should be established for the outcome of future culinary match ups for those who wish to wager on such competitions.Make note , I only mention this culinary crowning of the victor in the name of a sports championship coming to Cleveland. Cleveland beats New Orleans in the culinary world series . " Hey Rube!". " That's Entertainment".

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