Holiday Down Time Cleveland Uber Alles will resume regular, at least weekly posting, after the holidays. Until then, here's hoping all who arrive here by accident or by choice have the human thing of joy.

Yes, Renita, There is a Santa Clause This morning's 90.3 at 9 on WCPN featured some particularly flaccid gasbagging about the fact that a small circulation, corporate real estate trade publication, Site Selection Magazine, rated our great state #4 in "Business Climate"--a phrase, in this case, that should be read in terms of the definition of corporatism as practiced by Mussolini. The show's host, the usually thoughtful and well-prepared Renita Jablonski, did what she could to put Site Selection's article into context, asking the magazine's rather poorly prepared representative about how the rankings were compiled and asking her panelists and callers what this apparent kudo might say about the economic prospects of Northeast Ohio; soon, however, the conversation devolved into a recitiation of the usual shibboleths regarding economic developmetn in Cleveland and the region's struggle to maintain, if not national status, then simply middle class jobs, here in the post-industrial era: brain drain and the various fetters of unions, taxes, and regulations--all of those things that keep our poor, poor businesspeople shackled, prohibiting them from leading us onward into prosperity. Somewhere after the first half-hour, the very intellectual poverty of our region ought to have became glaringly apparent to concerned listeners, who really are rooting for some kind of resurgence in Cleveladn. Here was one of the city's best radio journalists and a professor from its best university and both of them were incapable of either critiquing the very wisdom of the idea of business climate as Site Selection Magazine would define it (i.e. as a kind of bootlicking sychopantism) or asking a single question as to why Northeast Ohio or any other geographic region would accept, as a criteria for evaluating its quality as a place, measures of how obsequious it is to those who do business there. To his credit, the Case proffessor was overtly enough of a "pro-business conservative" to have the nerve to ask if Northeast Ohio in fact was a drag on the state's overall business climate ranking (i.e. to ask if our city's sound Democratic majority and its roots in organized labor didn't in fact stop the rest of the state from being a proper corporate playground, like Texas, say, where the Bushies have already deregulated and privatized everything to the detriment of the people), but Jablonski, whose job it should have been to ask some tougher questions, simply let this brand of freemarketeering foolishness run its course uninterrogated--as it always does in all our media. The fact is, if you listen carefully to any conversation about the economic wellbeing of our area, the problem is always framed in terms of what we the people owe businesses, of what we, like school girls putting on rouge, need to do to be worthy of their worldly ways. We need to invest in education; we need to cut out red tape; to provide a flexible labor market; to give companies property tax abatements; and so on. Never once does anyone say how these companies ought to be responsible to our region and to us--how they ought to protect our natural resources, pay their fair share of the costs of maintaining our infrastructure, and contribute a portion of their revenues to paying for public services. This, of course, is because we need to promote a pro-business image, and our media, even our publicly funded and publicly supported media, like WCPN, is determined to keep giving business a podium to promote its interests over own, free of charge. If only you'd have jingled some bells and said Ho, ho, ho, Renita.

Open Source Projects for Cleveland Artists The Open Source Movement has already generated a decent amount of attention in tech circles, via the Windows/Linux conflict. Meanwhile, former Clevelander Trent Reznor polished his cred among musicians (most of whom traditionally disdain copyright law, until it affects their own bottom line) by releasing an Open Source GarageBand version of a track from his latest album. The basic idea is this: technology (and art) can innovate and progress more rapidly in an environment of free sharing of ideas and lack of legal constraints. Linux is more stable because its had a large team of people actively helping debug its code; Reznor's music will become more sophisticated (and more "fan interactive") if anyone interested can remix his songs or turn them into songs of their own. While it is hardly such a high tech or sophisticated undertaking, Cleveland Uber Alles would like to contribute to the free distribution of ideas for creative types and cranks here in our fair city. So: Attention Cleveland Institute of Art students! Attention suburban kids ready to bankrupt their parents via the cost of of educational travel and art supplies! Attention Tremont hipsters who long for something to do when they're not dreaming up stickers for their next band or hanging around drunk, looking all arty-like! You know who you are. Occasionally, Cleveland Uber Alles will be your unreliable source for real ideas that work, for the gauzy, post-sturcturalist thinking stuff that belongs in the language of an Ohio Arts Council grant proposal or in a senior thesis. Link to it on your MySpace page and check back often, because you never know when you'll see a project that you might execute yourself as you do your part to make our city creative capital of the rustbelt. Grab your cameras and consider this one: The Rise and Fall of Rust Belt Retail Recently, the prefabricated arty interior of a Starbucks was erected in a long vacant University Circle retail space? Was their anyone to document the "This I believe" cups being pulled from their plastic sleeves? Anyone to capture the workers putting in the Ikea styled lamps and the mermaid sign? Of course not. While the real (and therefore secret) history of our city's occupation by outside powers went on, its artists were, well, drawing cubes and what-not in classrooms. A good photographer or a painter could capture the very process of building these places, thereby demystifing them, and revealing them as the constructs that they are--i.e. as the marketing ideas that add at least a dollar to a cup of coffee. Apparently, too, Starbucks has so saturated other markets that it is finally bothering to put one in next to our major research university (where surely the kids need their caffeine); so no doubt we can expect there to be other NEO locations to photograph. And think of the irony you can generate, capturing how the locals react to the big national brands' arrival here in the provinces! Meanwhile, as if to play counter point to the development at U-Circle, up the hill, the Medic Drug on Coventry closed. Was anyone there to document the "Everything Must Go" sale? Did anyone chronicle for posterity the flush faces of our suburban girls piling skin products and shampoos into their arms, like fat little christ-children? Sadly, no. But businesses go bust here in NEO every day, and a skills visual artist might capture this, too, and therefore make this economy of ours a little more concrete to us. Think of how less baffling the idle smokestacks of the flats might be if someone had bothered to capture, for all time, the very process of that old way of life ending. Then again, maybe the stores should sit silent, empty, our sad little post-modern versions of the Sphinx.

Abe Lincoln, Plagiarist Nathan Newman's essential Labor Blog carries the most reliable account of how Ohio Senatorial candidate Sherrod Brown made a criticism of Mike DeWine's ready support for the nomination of Judge Alito to the the Supreme Court and how ultimately Brown came to suffer unfair accusations of plagiarism at the hands of the Plain Dealer, which was only too happy to regurgitate for its readers the DeWine campaign's talking points. Other blogs, including Brewed Fresh Daily and the scurrilous, in this case, Right Angle Blog have picked up on this story as well. But before Cleveland Uber Alles piles on with its own examination of how these accusations further sully the integrity of our sole city daily, please take a moment to consider these words from the final line of Gettysburg Address:

". . . that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

The speaker, of course, was the legendarily honest sixteenth president of the United States, and the speech itself was given at the cite of one of the Civil War's bloodiest battles, on November 19, 1863. The source of the language, however, was none other than Lajos Kossuth, the Hungarian revolutionary who arrived in America under the sponsorship of Congress in 1852 and whose struggle to usurp Hapsburg rule over Hungry became a cause celebre for patriotic Americans everywhere. Speaking to the Ohio State Legislature on February 6, 1852, Kossuth said:

"The spirit of our age is Democracy. All for the people and all by the people. Nothing about the people without the people. That is Democracy, and that is the ruling tendency of the spirit of our age."

Obviously, Lincoln either failed to acknowledge the source of this idea and the language he used to convey it, or he simply stole the idea and the language. It's worth noting, too, that he of the beard and hat also stole a line from the Bible's Matthew when he said "A house divided cannot stand." Well, where is history's outrage? Is Lincoln spared because he had the good sense to change a couple of words from the original? I doubt it. Sticklers of the sort the PD seem to be in the Sherrod Brown affair (caring not that the language Brown used was posted on a site that pre-authorized reuse, and not that Brown himself had readily acknowledged that the facts he cited about Judge Alito's career came from Newman's Blog), would no doubt hold Lincoln accountable, just as a college teacher might, since failing to acknowledge the source of a paraphrase, as Lincoln did with the Kossuth quote, is also considered plagiarism in academic circles. The "house divided" quote is easier to defend: it's the Bible and therefore in the public domain. But wasn't Newman's post, which Brown supposedly "pinched," also in the public doman? It doesn't matter to the PD, which editorializes thusly:

". . . blogger Newman is incensed that The Plain Dealer even cares where the language came from. "But we do -- and voters should, too. Here's why: We need to know who is speaking. Is it a responsible, elected public official, or an Internet dilettante? Or is theirs a seamless relationship that makes a vote for Brown a vote for nathannewman.org or the Daily Kos? In their minds, does it make a difference? "In ours, it does. "Brown, a bright, energetic liberal who has gone almost 15 years with this page's endorsements and without a serious challenge, has let his campaign skills get out of shape. This transgression shows a staff that's already intellectually gassed -- and the race has yet to begin. What will happen once the gun sounds?"

Ach! I don't even know where to start. First, Newman, a published author who holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and a JD from Yale, is hardly an internet dilettante, and were the Plain Dealer's editorial writers not so "intellectually gassed" themselves they'd do a little research and properly inform their readers of the credentials of their source. The PD doesn't want readers to know that Newman is a legal scholar of a rather fine caliber, since that would call into question their claim that Newman's dismissal of the plagiarism charge is light and insubstantial. Moreover, by reading Newman--who has a true lawyer's gift for putting complex positions into clear succinct language --Brown and his staffers are showing that in fact they are indeed sharp enough and studied enough to run a well-armed campaign against DeWine, who will, as this whole plagiarism affair reveals, play the all too usual role of ad hominem attacking Republican. What's sad, as Newman himself has said, is that the PD's readers aren't getting anything about the substance of what his post revealed about Alito's judicial record--rather what they get instead is the PD pinching a story of talking points that were no doubt supplied by the DeWine campaign itself. To plagiarize the old saying: it's the pot calling the kettle--well, no it's not, since in this case neither Brown nor Newman come off as dark and obfuscatory but the PD does.

The Candidates We Deserve . . . Are the ones we get. Thus, Jane Campbell and Frank Jackson; thus, the current mayoral race reduced to a bloviating debate about which candidate is a "real Clevelander." Cleveland Uber Alles sympathizes with the six voters who would give a damn posting in the comment section over at Brewed Fresh Daily. Despite his apparently lopsided lead, Frank Jackson remains uninspiring, with a narrowness of vision that suits life in a village, rather than live in city. Jackson may be "true the code" of Ward 5 (see post below for relevant links and commentary), but throughout this campaign, he's proven himself unable to articulate or demonstrate any compelling reasons to believe that he'll actually do anything for the "real Clevelanders" he's supposed to personify. And it's Jackson's lack of public speaking skills that worries this blog. It's ridiculous to hold a Cleveland politician's rhetorical skills up against the standard of, say, a Harold Washington, but Jackson's gaffing speaking style and his apparent inability to go beyond his talking points recall our current president's troubled way with words in a way that's quite uncomfortable. One who can't speak well is all too easily the tool of others, and with rumors circulating that Jackson is Forrest City Enterprises' candidate, Cleveland Uber Alles worries that he will, like so many mayors before him, merely become an implement of the city's "Developers" (ach, how their title belongs in quotes, with how they've developed poverty and illiteracy here). Campbell, on the other hand, well, doesn't promise to do much for the "real Cleveland" either, and so voters are left only with a choice of who will get to decide which developers will get their share of the loot from the latest public money boondoggles. This won't change either, until Clevelanders do. Like the rest of the nation, they need to become more literate in the decisions that affect them; they need an activist base and strong, involved community organizations; and, yes, they need jobs and schools--all that stuff the candidates are supposed to promise. Hopefully, when the election's over, and in the quiet about it, since we won't even notice much difference no matter who wins, the city will be able to start talking about what needs to be done and how it can be accomplished.