Hidden jewels under blankets throughout the City? Professional sports in cahoots with alcohol and tobacco companies? Creating a region that includes Akron, Canton, and Youngstown? Each week you're given a snapshot of what Cool Clevelanders—the movers, shakers, and otherwise interested and engaged citizens—are thinking and feeling about our City and our region. This week, Cleveland Mayor Jane L. Campbell switches seats with Cool Cleveland editor Thomas Mulready as the old man celebrates his birthday and contemplates his existence.

Mayor Jane Campbell: What is the most rewarding thing about being an e-journalist?

Thomas Mulready: It's very empowering. You know how they say "never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel." I don't have to build a printing press. The other thing they say is "freedom of press is free for those who can afford to buy a press." All that's gone now, all that has changed. It is fundamentally different now, the way information gets out. The Internet is so critically important. You see what it is doing to the Howard Dean campaign. You saw it in the Clinton presidency where online information was being distributed and picked by the newswires [The Drudge Report by Matt Drudge]. We are in an era now where access to the Internet is not just being able to surf and find stuff, but also being able to post stuff and express your opinions to view the world or structure the world the way you see it.

Campbell: Do you worry about disinformation coming out on the Internet?

Mulready: Absolutely. It's the downside. It's the same thing as what we said about democracy: aren't we worried about these uneducated people who are going to vote? We have a responsibility to educate people. That's the same fear that we have. You have to filter, you have to educate yourself, you have to understand what your sources are. It does not just mean to go to the big sources; you have to understand that the big sources have money behind them, that they have advertisers. In a way it almost equalizes some things. For example: I love the Cleveland Orchestra; I go to the to the Cleveland Orchestra; I write a review of the Cleveland Orchestra; and I put it online. It is my own personal hand up. Donald Rosenberg goes to the Cleveland Orchestra and he shows up in the Plain Dealer. Who is right? They are both opinions, but one carries more weight because he's got the ink and the printing press behind him. But nowadays, I am one of many people who have season tickets to the Cleveland Orchestra, who are also writers and are articulate enough to write a review. Otherwise we just get only one person's opinion. So it depends on the credibility of the source.

What is the most memorable interview you have done in the past?

We have not done that many interviews. We have just recently started doing them. I like what we did with the three Commissioners these past couple of weeks. Each of them is very outspoken and each of them have very different opinions, and I think they are more willing to share their opinions than they have been in the past. I really like the ability to go out and get those. I am also proud that we have Cool Cleveland People. It is a section in the newsletter where we usually interview an artist or somebody who is cool that you may not have heard of. They're not the Mayor, or the Commissioner or somebody. But we'll have one of our volunteer writers from our Hard Corps group interview someone that they think is cool. This way, we learn about somebody living in our community that we don't normally focus on. So the big thing Cool Cleveland does is uncover the cool stuff that is already there. I don't you know if you saw a few weeks ago we did a thing on someone who was from London and moved to Cleveland. When asked his perception of Cleveland, he said, "Cleveland to me is like someone scattered a bunch of diamonds and covered them with a blanket." That was his explanation for what Cleveland is. It is true that if you lift off this blanket, and the blanket is ignorance and a bad attitude about ourselves, but if you lift that off you will discover that there are beautiful gems— neighborhoods, architecture, culture, and people. It's really the people of this town who are beautiful. Cool Cleveland aims to focus on that, we are trying to dig through and find those people.

What is your favorite hangout?

Right now it's the third floor loft of my home, which is kind of sad in a way. But that is where I spend almost all of my time — 20 hours a day. We've got a wireless network there; people come over and work, we've got a bunch of computers, and I can play whatever music I want.

What would you change about Cleveland if you were to wave a magic wand?

I would tear down all the borders. I would make it one big municipality. I would take this idea of regionalism seriously. I would go as far as Akron, Canton, and Youngstown and make this one region that would work together, because they would be forced to. One tax system, one school system, one economic base. Everybody then would be all for one and one for all. I think it is what has caused the east-west split that we have, the black-white split that we have, the rich-poor dichotomy that we have in this town. I think all those things are reinforced by people's ability to move farther and farther out seemingly trying to escape these problems. So now, we have a donut hole of a region. I think that groups like Team NEO and a lot of the talk we are hearing from the suburban mayors and managers, from the Commissioners... there is a lot of talk about us re-thinking our political structure and allowing ourselves to work together. I think people want to work together but find themselves really stymied about these artificial political boundaries of little communities of 20,000 people that have a Mayor and a Dog Catcher and a Law Director. The Law Director of Broadview Heights, where I grew up, last year he earned $400,000. And the Law Director of Strongsville and Solon and Bay Village, too. Do the math. This is a jobs program for politicians with all these different municipalities. How many dog catchers do we need? How many fire departments do we need? You talked about that last week that there are five [fire departments] within one square mile in this region. That is just pure political waste, and I don't think we can afford to do anything else but regionalize.

What you believe that Cleveland cannot do without?

I think it cannot do without its arts and cultural community. And I think that is very much at risk right now. I don't we think we realize how much it is at risk and how much is at stake. "Beryl Rothschild, Mayor of University Heights, came to our Cultural Leadership Task Force last week and she was asking about the Cleveland Ballet. She asked if this is what's going to happen to a lot of these other groups. Will this arts levy help save groups like that? The fact is, yes, this is what is going to happen to large and small groups. I was just meeting with Margaret Lynch of the Cleveland Theatre Collective, everyone from the Cleveland Playhouse down to Charenton Theatre and they don't have a space. Last summer they did all their plays in the cemeteries around Cleveland. They are all banding together because they are in a very desperate situation. It's not just that we are going to lose our arts, it's that we are losing those diamonds. Those are the diamonds that people come to this town for. If we loose them, I truly don't think that this will be a community that is worth living in. It is that desperate. We could lose our steel mills; we will get along fine. We can lose our auto plants in this region; in fact we are going to lose them, it's just a matter of time. We could lose half of our manufacturing base. We already have, but we are so mentally tied into that, we think we have to save that stuff. We don't. Let it go, let's focus on what is important. We are moving toward [a time] where people can live anywhere, they can do their work anywhere and they are going to choose locations that are great places to live, raise a family, get education. They want the cultural amenities and we do [have them] right now, we have an overwhelming abundance for our size. These are the hidden riches of this region, and we are putting them at risk by not focusing on them and trying to save them.

What do you think is a misperception about Cleveland?

Almost everything. I have been trying to think of only one. The weather is not as bad as what people think. The town is much more family-friendly than people think. They think it is an industrial hell-hole, and it is not. It is much more pleasant. It is arts and rivers and boating. Also, the culture when I ran an arts festival here...people came and they could not believe this town. They came from New York City and Berlin and were blown away by the arts and culture in this town. I think people have wrong ideas about this town, and I think we are to blame. I don't think we have done much to change that perception. I think we need to embrace our past; we need to embrace the fact that the river caught on fire, and do something with it, turn it into a positive. Like they did in Memphis where [Dr. Martin Luther] King was shot—they did not pretend that it did not happen. That was a seminal event of the Civil Rights Movement. They could have left it as a black eye forever, but instead they turned it into a National Civil Rights Museum, and the very hotel [where he was shot] is now the museum. When you walk through, your last exhibit is the actual room and it's a movement. It is a very moving, touching exhibit and memorial to the Civil Rights Movement, and they have allowed them to tell a story about how King fits into the history of it. We have the same story to tell, but it's environmental. Six months after the river caught on fire— for the third time, by the way, the time before it happened was 10 times more expensive— six months later the EPA was formed by Nixon and the first Earth Day happened. There has been a tremendous increase in positive stories to tell about the clean-up of Lake Erie and the clean-up of the Cuyahoga River. We are not telling this story because we are still embarrassed, and we have let this become a black eye.

If you would not be you, who would you be?

I would be one of my kids because they have the best life.

How old are your kids?

Eight and five and they just love it. They just love Cleveland, they love all the activities, and I think they have a very high quality of life here. The rest of our family lives in Brooklyn [NY]. Every place else I looked has nowhere near the quality of life that we live and enjoy. If I was not me, I would not know all the things that I know, I would not have to deal with all of these issues. I try to see the world through my kids' eyes and understand that way. When it snows they wake up so excited. When it snows around Christmas Eve it's like magic— the kids love it. I am sick of going to meetings where people are cranky and complaining about the snow. If people were just enjoying themselves, we would love it here and we would love the snow and we would enjoy the weather here. There is such a negative attitude, to be unaware of all that, and to just be a kid, that would be the best thing.

What is the one thing that people don't understand about you?

'Since I am very outspoken, I think there are some suspicions around why I say what I say, and what is behind all this. When people get to know me they realize that I am an engaged citizen and that's really all it is. But we have so few engaged citizens that when somebody comes along and is not afraid to open their mouth, and is knowledgeable on the subject, people want to know who is paying him? Is he a lobbyist? Is he a PR flack, and for whom? There are a lot of those kinds of suspicions, I think. I'm not sure where that comes from.''

Have you ever thought about running for office?

"It gets suggested to me 10 times a week these days. Yes, you have to think about it. I think politicians are in a very difficult position these days. I don't know whether they have the power they once had. They basically have to go and raise enough money to live, which we as individuals do. How many millions of dollars does it takes now? If I have to raise those millions of dollars, I could not be a good public servant. I just think you are crippled to be a politician. You are tied having to raise this money in special interests, alliances. I don't know that I could be as effective. I am being very effective now. I am getting the word out. I can say things that politicians cannot say. I can get people upset— politicians cannot do that. I can speak my mind in every situation and get respected for it. Politicians have to appear that they are speaking their mind. Howard Dean gets up and is so adamant about... what? They are really not saying anything — except for Kucinich. As an individual citizen, a writer, and plugged into the Internet, I am in the best position of all. Seriously this is a very blessed and powerful position to be in."

How do you see your work affecting public opinion?

People who read Cool Cleveland forward it on to their friends. It's the movers and shakers in town, it's the decision-making class. I hear from your [Mayor's] office when the Cool Cleveland hits the computer, I hear from the Commissioners and corporate leaders and foundation leaders and public policy experts, as well as people at Case Western Reserve working on regional economic issues. I realize that we have a lot of influence at this point, and I take it very seriously. I try not to be too radical in our thoughts; I try to listen to all sides. I also try to maintain a personality and an opinion and an attitude that comes from an individual as opposed to coming from an institution. Everything is institutionalized these days. Big corporations have bought each other off. All our media has been bought by big corporations— mainly from out of town. We have no real strong voice regionally or locally. Everything you watch on television is paid for by Nike or Coke that have no interest in your community except as a consumer, so I have to be careful to focus and pay attention to that. That's what gives me hope for the future because, without that, we are just being turned into cattle. A town like Cleveland... we are not going to be the headquarters anymore. So, are we just going to be the chain outlet for corporations headquartered in some tax haven offshore, to which they are all heading now? That is a sad state. Rather than implementing that, I am taking positive actions and empowering myself.

How do you feel about the Cleveland schools?

Anybody who knows anything about this region knows that it is the number-one top priority they should have on their mind. I don't care whether you live in Solon, Fairview Park, Strongsville, Brunswick, Akron, or Youngstown. We will live or die by the Cleveland Schools. If they go down, we will all go down, and we will not be able to get back up. I am so glad that Barbara Byrd Bennett had a bad interview in New York City when she went for a job interview a few months back because, if they had hired her, we would have lost her, and I think we have made tremendous progress with her being here. They need more help; they need more support in a fundamental way. Things like the One Cleveland? Project that links up all of the Cleveland Schools and Case with the Cleveland Clinic and the City, and all of our non-profits and museums — that's going to be a tremendous educational asset if we can figure out how to turn it on. Lev Gonick [CIO of CWRU] has figured how to connect the pipes. That's almost the easy part. Now we have to get this community together to turn it on with compelling content. Just like my e-mail... it's just an e-mail that is compelling, it's what we write that makes it so exciting. You get hundreds of e-mails. Why is it that they are focusing on this one that they get every week? It is because we've got artists in this town who create compelling concepts. They do it for a living; they studied their whole life. We need art and business because artists have a lot to teach business people on how to make compelling content, and a compelling message delivered through these pipes Lev built for us. Let's light these kids up. They need to be excited and they need to know people care. We don't have to do a lot for them, but we have to pay attention to them and empower them to learn on their own and give them something to reach out for, and connect them to all this great stuff and they will jump for it. Kids are reaching all the time; you don't have to tell them to reach, they are reaching, they are learning, they are thinking. We either give them something to reach for or they are going to reach for drugs or a pimp lifestyle— whatever is outside their door. We just haven't figured this out. You don't have to light a fire under these kids, you just have to give them the right opportunity. We are doing that. We are building these highways now with Lev and One Cleveland?, and we are getting this nice collaboration going. But as I say, that is the easy part and now we have to fill those pipes and connect those people in a fundamentally true way.

What about sports, how do you see sports playing a role in any way?

Well, I think sports are way overvalued in our society. It is almost like the Roman colossus, the stupid reality shows, the stupid professional sports— Super Bowls that we try to get everybody all excited about. Think of all the money that we wasted on the Cleveland Stadium that was only used only eight times last year, with one or two other events there. We cannot afford that $350 million or whatever it was that should have gone to the schools instead. How come they are not giving back? How come all these multi-millionaire sports figures that don't live in this community but make their money off this community, and the developers that built these huge things, why won't they pay their rent? This is a crime, and I think professional athletes have allowed themselves to be aligned with beer and misogynous treatment of women. We have distorted values and have passed it down to our own children. I believe in sports at the amateur level and I think it is the greatest thing to teach teamwork. Teamwork and working for a team is something we know how to do, but sports at the professional level does not teach teamwork. It is all about the individual and how much money they make and how they can make a touchdown and spike the football in the end zone. "Look at me, I did this!" That is the wrong message that we are sending to everyone. I think we need to tax it out of business almost, because they are getting away with murder. When they advertise alcohol and cigarettes like they are doing, I can't let my kids watch sports because the advertising is so detrimental to their health. I can't speak strongly enough about this.

What do you think about the president talking about steroids in the State of the Union?

'I think it is total politics and a total distraction, then maybe no one will notice that we have inflated the size of the deficit that's doubled since Clinton was in office. We are going to spend $100 billion dollars in Iraq — it is a total distraction. The Democratic Party needs to do more than just sit on their hands. They really need to get together and get some courage to change this.'

What do you think about the new concerns the Surgeon General has that we are so fat?

t is true, I have studied business and I have a marketing degree and I understand why. We are being treated as consumers. Look at the food we eat, this whole meat thing with mad cow disease. When you really look at how they feed these animals and the chemicals they put in there... the thing with Alzheimer's been traced back to meat. We do not even know what these chemicals are doing to us and they've been pumping it into us for years. Mad cow takes six years to develop, we do not know how many people have gotten sick this last time around, and we will not know until these people are out of a job or the politicians have moved on. Watch the Sunday [morning] news programs and see who advertises... these chemical companies, ADM, Dow, Pfizer, they are making so much money. These are also the real criminals. They are making so much money pushing us to eat more and take pills so you can eat more or lose weight, take pills for you to sleep, to keep awake. This is a vicious cycle that we have allowed ourselves to get into.

Talk to me about what you think is the role of faith in your life and in the lives of our community?

I think this town has to have faith in itself, I think we have to have a belief in the faith and that is what we have lost. We have lost faith that we can really fix these problems, we have lost faith in the Cleveland Schools, we have lost faith in the Cuyahoga River, we have lost faith in Lake Erie, we have lost faith in the City of Cleveland. As I said before, it's a donut hole. We have moved out to the suburbs— that's a losing of faith in this City. It's not just Cleveland, it's every town that is experiencing this very same thing. When people leave this part of the country and move to California, that is a loss of faith in where their home is, and they place their bets on another region of the world. I think the loss of faith can turn around and make a positive change, it's one of the things that I think that we could address with Cool Cleveland. It is an act of faith doing Cool Cleveland' every week. It is an act of faith in this region. It is put out there every week: we are good, we have great things going on, we can do it, we can help ourselves, we can help improve our city. I don't believe in faith in other people or other beings. I think it is up to us. There is too much of this outside faith going on. If I put the 10 commandments up in front of my school, will it solve all my problems? If I read a scripture and interpret it however I want, is it going to solve all my problems? The problems go on until we decide to have faith in ourselves to take them on and fix them. So, when I think of faith I internalize it within myself.

Do you think that religion plays a role in the community?

I do, but I also see a lot of our wars caused by religion. I see a lot of deaths on a mass scale caused by religion. So I think you have to balance the two out. It is very effective in some communities. In Cleveland, we have some great pastors who really keep their community together. Without them the poor would not get fed and the children would not be clothed. But I think it's absolutely sinful what Bush is trying to do to make everyone believe in the same God that he believes in. I think the whole environment can be traced back to a religious argument: our God is better than your God, and that is dangerous on a big scale.

Interview by Mayor Jane L. Campbell (:divend:)