Ain't Nothing Going To Change
Roldo Hits the Trifecta

What bothers me about all the media’s lamenting over a young man shooting a young boy is that hand wringing doesn’t get at the problem at all.

We’re just repeating our bewailing of these mean events.

The media responses aren’t much more effective than the actions they decry – that of the community marking the death place with what they describe as unseemly signs of grief. Some may call the markings for the 15-year-old boy’s death an inappropriate memorial. However, it is a shrine of some sorrow and represents human feeling – not to be mocked.

It had always bothered me that where young black boys have been killed there appear balloons, flowers and other markings to signify the tragedy.

What concerned me, I guess, was the indication of fated acceptance of the tragedy by those who left items. It is truly sad that such is the expectation.

However, when I think about it, the markings take on a meaning beyond mere acceptance of these unthinkable misfortunes. They are at least recognition of the heartbreaking situation so many people in poverty face.

Looking to blame the rawness of hip-hop, the indiscriminate use of the N word, the lack of role models, the pants slipping off the butt, the thuggish behavior, the culture of nastiness, or even the irresponsibility of damaged parents misses the problem.

We’re setting all the blame on one side because it’s so easy. And it seems so apparent.

No one examines the Society that produces this deviant behavior. It’s OUR society. We make it.

We ask much of these deluded and damaged young people. We, who insist on responsibility, can’t even control our appetite for gasoline. Even when we know, as Iraq teach us daily, that the cost isn’t only financial but wretchedly life-consuming. Who are we to be on a high horse?

We also may want to escape the decisions of the past but they have a way of catching up to us.

Most people look to the disadvantaged population to change and reform.

They are looking in the wrong direction.

It’s the larger society that must reform before there can be any real expectation that those suffering severe human pressures make significant changes on their own.

It just isn’t going to happen that way.

It’s very discouraging because there is no sign that the larger society has any inclination to make any meaningful changes to curtail its desires as it tells others to clean up their behavior.

The President, for example, tells us to “go shopping” instead of asking for sacrifices.

America underwent an incredible eruption in the 1960s, which led to the civil rights movement and momentous changes for many

However, we have left behind a large community with fewer and fewer resources.

Meanwhile, we spent heavily in Vietnam and then, under Ronald Reagan, we increased war spending to force the Soviet Union into a Cold War bankruptcy. What an achievement.

We are spending our treasury similarly in Iraq, still ignoring domestic problems. Ironically, we may be doing in our Middle East ventures exactly what the Soviets did and spending ourselves into a surrender of our solvency.

We also cut what was an attempt to deal with poverty problems – the Great Society.

Those on the lower end here have endured severe cutbacks. Sen. George Voinovich, for example, when Governor cut general assistance 100 percent. It meant money – a pittance – for younger people who then had to rely on family members, already in poverty, for sustenance. Then, in a slimy gratuitous decision, Voinovich ruled that Ohio welfare client could receive payments for three years in a lifetime rather than the five years federal law allowed.

How these decisions damaged lower income people here, no one really knows. They did cost this community literally hundreds of millions of dollars, however. We do know that Cleveland has been assessed the most impoverished city in two of the last three years. We do know that too many of its children are severely handicapped by poverty.

Those who call for “talk, discussion or debate” should just as well forget it. The time for talking is well past.

Only real acts can cure our disease.

I see no desire on the part of the society for any such actions.

So accept that the poverty community will become more desperate, coarser and reactive, a reflection of the larger society.

Most amusing are the calls for city leaders to lead.

They have been! That’s why we are where we are.

DEMS HIRE REPUBLICAN PETRO, CINCINNATI FIRM

When you are a Democratic County Commissioner, you are part of an exclusive club. It’s a post of privilege, not responsibility.

The three commissioners can – and usually do - almost anything they want.

Price is no problem. They decide. You pay.

Rewarding friends always rates high on the list.

One imagines that is why the entirely Democratic County Commission tossed a sizeable financial contract to a former County Commissioner, who happens also to be a former Republican Gubernatorial candidate.

The Commissioners voted to pay $125,000 to the law firm of Waite, Schneider, Bayless and Chesley.

A Cincinnati law firm, no less. For Cleveland business.

The Cincy firm became the home to an out-of-office Republican politician, Jim Petro. He was defeated in the GOP gubernatorial primary by former Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.

The money will go to Petro “to facilitate conversation on a medical mart and convention center,” according to a County official.

I could do that. You could do that.

The official slipped when asked why Petro got this lucrative contract, and said that the decision was for “nonpartisan” purposes. Before the question could be asked of how Petro the Republican can be “non-partisan,” he injected that he meant, “bipartisan.”

This has all the earmarks of another Tim Hagan favor.

Petro, along with Hagan, and former County Commissioner Mary Boyle, gave the public a 30-second decision when voting hundreds of millions of EXTRA dollars for Gateway.

He was a leading proponent and pusher of the vast spending for the wealthy team owners.

Therefore, wouldn’t you figure that Petro would be just the right choice for slipping it to the public again on a convention center?

Sam, the deed is done.

A CAMPAIGN PLAN GONE AWRY

“You are a brisk 10 minute jaunt from fulfilling your every sushi craving,” say the signs along St. Clair between E. 12 and 13.

Can you imagine!

“You are in a warm and inviting neighborhood in the heart of the city you love,” says the other. Hmmm.

Nevertheless, all I see is a very large empty and unclean lot, E. 12th to E. 13th, St. Clair to Hamilton.

It used to be a revenue-supplying parking lot for the City of Cleveland. Actually, it had produce income a couple of times.

Dick Jacobs got the property telling the city he would build two office skyscrapers – one 17 and another 18 floors. Both were to be constructed by 1989 and 1991 respectively. Instead, he held onto the land, using it for parking, for more than 10 years. It was clear that Dick had no desire to build anything more in Cleveland.

Before that, the St. Clair site had been urban renewal land.

It remains undeveloped since the early 1960s.

“Warm and inviting?” Not.

It’s called The Avenue, a development promised by Zaremba Builders.

It was part of former Mayor Jane Campbell’s twin development dream, along with the Wolstein Flats project, announced for re-election purposes before the last mayoral election.

Looks as if once again it’s the site of a developer holding land until it might become of some value. Say, the year 2030, or somewhere around there. Seventy years isn’t too long to wait for a development. At least, not in Cleveland.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole roldoATadelphia.net
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