First Person Reporting. ZOMG!

There is(are?) still thirty minutes left to file your taxes as of my typing this. However here in Cleveland it may be more difficult to file your taxes than in previous years since the post office will not be staying open till midnight. At least not all of them. Only the main branch of the post office will be open till midnight tonight because of budget cutbacks stemming from the recession. Someone saw this coming and positioned an advertising blimp over the city for all the people lining the streets waiting to get into the post office. Unfortunately my camera sucks and this is all I got.

UPDATE:

There also may have been a basket ball game. But this is the level of reporting you get from a blog.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or the Worst American City?

It has been such a long time since a Cleveland article that the city must have thought it had to do better. Yesterday a 42 inch, 111 year old, water main ruptured in an industrial neighborhood of downtown Cleveland cutting off water to half the city. Schools and commercial buildings were closed due to unsanitary conditions and the risk of fire. This being Cleveland the Federal building promptly caught fire. Today there was a boil water alert because of the microbes and toxic industrial chemicals that contaminated the cities water supply as a result of the breach. This happened on a day where the low temperature was 23F in a City that gets as cold as -10F yearly. Tonight there is a massive ice storm bearing down on the Mistake by the Lake and attempts to flee the flaming wreckage of the city by air have been eliminated as the barely operational airports in the region cancel flights. Sure there is a lot about Cleveland to cause a resident to complain, but apparently Clevelanders even do a good job of exporting reasons for people in other regions of the country to take note of Cleveland when they leave the city. What a wondrous place.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or the Worst American City?

A dead body was discovered in the Cleveland impound lot on Monday. This was two days after the car was impounded. A little background; there was an ice storm last Friday night in the area causing a large multi-car accident. One of the cars towed away from the scene contained the person who was not discovered. The question I have not heard any local media raise is whether the person was already dead at the time the car was towed. And if not, whether it was the negligence of the police in leaving him in the car for two days that caused his death

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City, or the Worst American City?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Cleveland is the second poorest city after only Detroit Michigan. The downfall of both cities is linked and ongoing but at least Cleveland doesn't have a mayor under indictment for perjury. Local news outlets are trying to cut the sting of the numbers by pointing out that the same report states the average household income in Cleveland grew over the same period. What they either don't realize or are deliberately not saying is that this means the gap between the rich and the poor is widening at the expense of middle income families.

This is the kind of thing one would expect to see in a major urban center that is still experiencing flight of the middle class out of the city into the suburbs. It is also an increased threat to the American Dream. In a city where poverty is increasing and which has been hard hit by the collapse of the housing market it seems increasingly unlikely that this is a place where a working family can get a leg up and advance their financial standing. Which would explain why people are leaving the area.

All of these things combined cut down the tax base while increasing the demand on government services. This isn't just more people becoming a drain on the welfare state. It's vacant buildings becoming bastions of criminal behavior causing a drain on the under staffed police force. Those same vacant buildings are also a drain on the fire department due to arson, which increases response to emergencies and costs of investigation. Lastly, the city has to buy those buildings and demolish them creating costly legal work on top of paying out settlements to the banks that have foreclosed on these houses. The roads are in bad need of repair, and communities region wide have to replace their sewage systems because they violate clean water standards, spewing human waste into lake Erie. The steel industry is dead, but its rotting corpse is lying unburied across the rust belt of America.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City, Or The Worst American City?

Remember five years ago when there was a massive blackout that left over 50,000 people in the North East United States without power for three days? There was the widespread fear that it was the result of another terrorist attack in the wake of 9/11. Afterward there was some news coverage about our vulnerable electric infrastructure and that this accident should never have gotten to this scale. That was all quickly forgotten and last week there was a power outage at the same electrical substation that caused the massive blackout right on the five year anniversary. The public response to the outage by the company was terse and full of self admiration. It was also devoid of any reference to the massive outage of five years ago and it appears the the MSM has failed the public again by refusing to ask any pointed questions.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or the Worst American City

It seems like Forbes has its finger on the pulse of reality through just a few simple statistics. They looked at population change and some simple economics and come to the simple realization that there are city's that people are moving away from for good reasons. The mayor of Canton got all upset by his city being identified as one of those facing a rapid death. Its an attitude that I have encountered in Cleveland frequently. The residents of this terrible city have constructed their lives to avoid the worst parts of town and allow themselves to believe that it isn't that bad and act upset or surprised when they are told how awful the city is. As long as people are not only willing to accept how bad things are and get so upset when they are told how bad it really is, nothing will improve. Its like trying to convince an alcoholic friend they have a problem.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or The Worst American City?

Cleveland is such a terrible cesspool that the suburbs long ago seperated themselves from it politically and financially as much as possible. This amounts to dozens of tax districts in one county. Each of them jealously guarding their hoard like the poison spewing worms they are. They also tax you both in the city you work and in the city you live. So if you commute from a residential suburb to a commercial or industrial town for work then at tax time you get double teamed up the asshole by fat government dicks.

As you can probably tell this is rather personal for me since this double-dick ass fucking I am getting from these cities amounts to a bill for $100 a month. These are cities in the rust belt. The industry left decades ago. The sewers overflow when it rains. The roads have huge and frequent holes which make them worse than most gravel roads I have driven on. These cities don't plow the snow all winter. There are packs of wild dogs roaming the streets at night. Arson is on the rise. What is that money going for?

More golden pig idols?

Cleveland Ohio; Terrible American City, Or The Worst American CIty?

The Cuyahoga county Board of Elections is debating what to do about people who voted in the primary. They think that many Republicans "crossed over" and voted for a Democratic candidate in the primary election without swearing a "loyalty oath" to the party. You see, the Democrats believe that these Republicans may have done so with the intention of throwing the election by voting for the candidate they believed could not win against McCain. That claim has a lot to do with what people knew and when they knew it. Hillary may have won in Ohio but it only became apparent recently that she has no legitimate chance of winning the Democratic nomination. They have decided not to issue subpoenas.

To me, this seems like sour grapes. The Democrats in power locally are upset that the candidate they favor was not selected by the voters. I don't see what they hope to accomplish by this. Even if they do take some of these people to trial, it wont change the election.

The real issue here is freedom, specifically Freedom of Speech. Fortunately the Secretary of State understands this. The questions I don't hear anyone asking assume there are only two party's. Fuck that noise.

Section 3513.19 of the Ohio Revised Code demands that each voter be affiliated with one political party and vote only in that party's primary election. One's affiliation is determined by examining what party the voter voted for in the prior two years. Silly me, I thought these were supposed to be secret elections to prevent persecution by zealous political party members from hunting down and disenfranchising opponents. Section 3513.05 has been interpreted by Bouse v. Cickelli 97 Ohio App. 43 (1954) as meaning that a voter is automatically affiliated with a political party by voting in that party's primary election until that voter takes some affirmative act to change that status. The real kicker is that if you are subpoenaed by the election gestapo, under section 3513.19 (B), you must swear an oath to the effect that you wish to be affiliated with and support the principles of the political party whose primary ballot you wish to vote on.

What if you are independent and don't ever want to be affiliated with any party? What if the previous statement is true and you genuinely want to vote for the candidate in the primary that you feel would be the best president? In Ohio, apparently they are like McCain in that they value party loyalty over principle and freedom.

Here is the bottom line, failing to make this required oath or making it and then if it is somehow found to be false by the freedom haters that enforce this law, is a felony and carries with it a huge fine. In most states, felons cannot vote or own weapons, making this a really good way to disenfranchise voters. You just look at the records, pick out some cross over voters from the other party and stamp them as felons, thereby ensuring the purity of your party and the inability of any other party from getting votes in the future. This also discourages people from switching party's. However, not showing up to your hearing to make this insane oath is a misdemeanor. See sections 3599.36-.37

You can take the following as my affirmative act and public deceleration. I hereby refuse any affiliation with any political party that I do not expressly request. I further reject the principles of any political party that would accept my forced or assumed allegance.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or the Worst American City?

I have often focused on how government failures contribute to Cleveland being a horrible place to live but I have overlooked how the awful people that live here do their own part every day to contribute to the horrid torments of this city.

Yesterday I saw two things that I never expected to see in my life, let alone in America. In the middle of the afternoon on a Monday I saw two school buses traveling down the road, packed full of kids, on fire. The kids weren't on fire the busses were. Well, now that I think of it the kids could have been on fire. I could not see inside the buses through the heavy, ten story tall, cloud of smoke shrouding the busses. I was stuck behind these busses for some time and they made no effor to pull over and remove the chidren from danger, or to put the fires out.

The second horrendus thing I saw yesterday: A person, I could not tell what gender, tossed a cat off an overpass into rush hour traffic on I-71.

In Cleveland, the housing market crash has mixed with joblessness to get the recession started off soon. This economic catastrophy has turned the desperation of poverty into a criminal desperation. In a city like Cleveland where the criminal population is a demographic measured by the census this increase once again causes Cleveland to win the trophy, the catastrophy. Copper pipe theft is a trade in Cleveland, one that a young boy can apprentice in with some of the more enterprizing members of the community. In the county which has been hardest hit by foreclosures there are many vacant houses lying about. Within hours of a house becoming unoccupied it is stripped of its metal siding, copper piping, appliances, and even the wire is ripped out of the house. Next, vagrants and drug dealers move in using these vacant buildings as their office so they don't have to ply their dangerous trade door to door. Eventually all the windows are broken out and ultimately the house will either be burned down or will become someone's urban tomb.

Cleveland, Ohio: Terrible American City Or The Worst American City?

These posts usually start out in the same way. There was weather and the poor quality of Cleveland's infrastructure turned a windy day into a catastrophe. Residents of north east Ohio faced the usual 18 hour power outages after any kind of weather comes through. More significantly a train was thrown from a bridge into lake Erie.

That was last week. While in China they have been experiencing crippling winter weather for two weeks bringing the country to a standstill. The poor infrastructure and inability to deal with this much snow has caused massive transportation interruptions which in turn has caused price of produce to double in some places and has caused many people to go without power since they cant get the fuel to the power plants. At least Hu Jintao acts like a leader in this kind of situation by responding immediately, going to the places affected, and activating emergency response so that a disaster does not get worse.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK261760.htm

This week in Cleveland the temperature has been 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit and there have been scattered showers. Which in Cleveland is weather of catastrophic proportions accompanied by flash flooding, and power outages.

http://www.wunderground.com/US/OH/Cleveland.html#WAT

More Wild Dogs and Police Brutality

Cops beat up an old man in a wheelchair. And Yes that is a wild dog roaming the streets of Cleveland.

Cleveland Ohio; Terrible American CIty, Or The Worst American City?

According to the FBI violent cirime in Cleveland, and the US as a whole is down. However, Cleveland compensated for that by having an increase in murder this year. Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson has decided that the way to react to this is to crack down on drug dealers with guns. Its a reasonable reaction where stories like this, and this are an almost daily occorence. With each new national finincial crisis hitting Cleveland like its the red-headed-step-child of the nation the average Clevelander's life choices are limited to becoming a crackhead, becoming a crack dealer, or leaving the city and burning your bridges behind you because you don't want to be drawn back into this. If I didn't have to go into Cleveland every day I would be interisted in seeing how this would play out. Now my interest is akin to the Iraqi citizen forced to wonder how the surge will affect his life. The city council and the Mayor both agree that there will be a backlash from the city's criminal element as a result of this program.

>Which leads me to wonder how this will affect Ohio's concealed carry. We referred earlier to an article from Detroit where it was found in the same statistics submitted to the FBI that after six years of having concealed carry Detroit has seen a decline in violent crime every year. Showing that putting guns in the hands of law abiding citizens reduces crime rather than increasing it like certain people fear. Ohio's concealed carry is entering its fourth year and this report from the Ohio AG seems to show that the market is reaching saturation for these permits. I have a couple of objections to these permits. First, they still seem like an unconstitutional regulation of a natural right granted to us by our creator and thus, not to be interfered with by men or governments. However, I must admit this is a nice and neet situation to put guns in the hands of decent, average citizens and ensure they are not criminals. The background check shows one is not a criminal, and the licence shows police this person is not dangerous even though they are in possession of a weapon. My second objection is that the licencing requirement amounts to a undue burden of cost and time comittment that prevents otherwise eligible citizens from getting the proper training and licence. This is analogous to the REAL ID act and local statutes that prevent voting if one does not have a government ID, which disenfranchises the poor and old. It is analogous because being armed is a right, not a privilege like the Ohio attorny general states. Again, I have to admit I don't see an easy alternative. Training and background checks are still necessary for the government to know it can trust you to roam the streets with a gun, and its also a good idea for a number of other obvious practical and legal reasons. Also, its not up to the government to subsidise the exercise of its citizens rights. In alot of cases its a good idea to support them with infrastructure, tax benefits, and with legal recognition. Again, contradicting myself, I can't for the life of me think of a good reason why the government should not conduct the training itself. Sure there are issues of cost but I don't know thats enough. For practical reasons it would be the best situation since the law in Ohio has changed in the past and one has to be careful that the private trainer one goes to will actually provide the minimum required by statute. That all being said, my larger point is one of enforcement and similar to one I have made in the past with regard to tasers. The police have difficulty differintiating between people who pose a clear and immidiate threat and persons going about their daily business but it is the police we have to rely on during this crack down on guns. Inevitibly people who were doing nothing wrong will be swept up and have their rights violated in this latest attempt to keep Cleveland from being a cruel joke of a city.

Cleveland, Clinton, and Capitalism, That's a Twisted Trifecta

The courts are now being called in to help arbitrate the ramifications of the subprime crisis. Cleveland, one of the worst cities, or was it the worst, is now suing 21 different lenders that "knowingly created a public nuisance by exploiting the city of Cleveland." The city is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars "at least" to help cover the cost of demolishing thousands of abandoned homes. The plummeting population of Cleveland is putting the city in a budgetary squeeze to maintain services. Baltimore, on Thursday, beat them to the punch, though, and filed suit against Wells Fargo Bank NA, subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Co. Of these two suits, it's easier to see the Baltimore suit going farther because of its limited scope, but I'm not a lawyer. The Cleveland suit seems more like a shot in the dark, but may get much more interesting if the suburbs become involved in a class action type action.

Washington is all abuzz with talk of an economic stimulus package to help offset the downside pressures in the market. Bipartisanship is a word that's hardly mentioned without a curse, but congressional leaders are falling over themselves trying to say it the most. As well they should, because any deal will have to accord with the wishes of our King, I mean, President. Treasury Secretary Paulson says that Bush has yet to decide, but stresses that any stimulus package should be temporary at best. It should make Bush's State of the Union Address more interesting.

The Democrats, for their part, are now faced with breaking their "pay as you go" promise, and could potentially borrow billions more to help finance their version of an economic stimulus package. In a bipartisan fashion, everyone agrees that the measure should be permanent and it needs to be felt by the general population very quickly. With the coming Presidential election, the stakes are much higher, and Hillary Clinton is trying to be one of the first in the field to offer a plan to offset the downside risks. Ben Bernanke is going to pow wow with the Democrats at a policy retreat later this month, to consult with them as they try to find a way out of this fiscal nightmare. The Fed Chairman's words are being parsed for hints at the January board meeting and what moves the Fed will take. Most economists are betting on a rate decrease of at least half a percentage point, down to 3.75%. Ben will meet with Nancy Pelosi on Monday for what will amount to little more than a photo opportunity and a chance for the Speaker of the House to appear as though she's doing something in the midst of growing signs that the economy might be in real trouble.

Among these signs are the rising price of gold, which is expected to hit $900 per troy ounce, as investors seek reliable shelters in the face of market uncertainty. Another sign of troubled times in the economy are the anemic holiday sales at all of the major retailers, with the notable exception of Wal-Mart. Considering Tiffany's was also subject to the slow down, the upper echelons of earners no longer appear immune to these downward risk pressures. Another interesting note is that the Treasury Department's last issuance of inflation protected securities fell to 1.65%, down from October's rate of 2.36%.

The difference in response between the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank couldn't be more stark. Whether the glass is half full of half empty, it would appear that the philosophical difference lies in whom the stimulus package and the results are directed at. The Federal Reserve, in lowering rates, makes it more appealing for businesses to earn money and to help money move through the economy, hopefully in the form of capital investment. The European Central Bank, on the other hand, appears to be betting that keeping rates up will encourage people to save money in depository institutions, which will then be on a much sounder footing to issue new loans and securities. The question remains to be seen whether investors will respond to this strategy, but so far it would appear not.

Among the companies named in the city of Cleveland's law suit are some of the most troubled financial institutions in the U.S. Countrywide Financial, the biggest mortgage dealer which helped spur the growth in subprime mortgages is being purchased by the Bank of America. Citigroup is turning towards Kuwait and China to seek billions more in capital infusions to stay afloat. Merrill Lynch is looking at a much larger loss in the fourth fiscal quarter in attempting to move stock options issued to its employees off of its balance sheet.

All of this talk of moving the economy out of recession through a temporary spending measure, as Ron Paul said in the debate on Thursday night, would be productive in that it would inject capital into the economy in a way that the Fed cannot, but would be counter productive in that the United States government has no money to pay for anything that it would want to.

Cleveland Ohio; Terrible American City, Or The Worst American City

Have I mentioned the wild dogs? Dog fighting is common in cities like Cleveland and when the dogs are no longer profitable but the owners don't kill them, the dogs might be released into the city. It is common to see these maladjusted, violent pit bulls roaming the streets at night.

Cleveland, OH; Terrible American City, Or The Worst American City?

More Infrastructure problems:
In Cleveland when it rains more than an inch every 3 hours, the water drainage runs over into the sewer pipes which back up. In some places this means other peoples shit in your bathtub. In other neighborhoods, giant shit-eating cockroaches come up into your house, squeezing from the pipes.

Inconvienent:
The desperate economic situation has devistated entrepreneurialism throughout the city, and even most major corporations don't risk setting up shop in large sections of town. For those that live here it means one will have to drive a half hour to satisfy any comercial needs. If one wishes to go grocery shopping, to buy a replacement headlight because hooligans had smashed it in, or if one needs to go to the hardware store to purchase roach traps for the giant shit-roaches that regularly infest ones home, one must commit to at least an hour of driving for each of those needs.

For a visual example of what I am talking about, do a Google Maps search for a number of basic needs or corporate name brand stores you recognise and you will notice a huge section of town that is always devoid of virtual push-pins.

Cleveland, OH; Terrible American City, or The Worst American City?

http://www.channel3000.com/news/14965868/detail.html

Other cities that got lots of snow plan ahead for the thaw. In Cleveland and the surronding area a standard winter storm (24 degrees, 4 inches of snow) knocked out power, and the roads are still not plowed a full day after the snow has stopped. In some places through the city, eastbound Interstate 90 has un-useable lanes because of snow. The inner-city streets are even worse. The sidewalks are completely buried so people just walk in the street. With infrastructure problems like Cleveland has, I am not suprised that people die here in the winter. I have been in Atlanta when they have gotten this much snow and it didn't disrupt life this much.