The Schiavo circus created by America’s neo/theocons was, in part, responsible for Marine Major Paul Hackett’s decision to run for Congress from Ohio’s 2nd District. As Salon reports this morning, Hackett is the underdog, running in the conservative Cincinnati region, but the Marine Corps doesn’t let that bother them. Semper Fi.

I can just see the grandparents standing there in the Wal Mart parking lot gazing at the Steel Exhibit with their little grandson.

“See Johnny, that’s what grandpa used to do. He was a brawny, blue-collared union steel worker who gave an honest day’s work for honest pay.”

“Gee, grandpa. Can I be a brawny, blue-collared union steel worker too when I grow up?”

“No. I’m sorry, Johnny. We don’t make steel in Cleveland any more. But thanks to Mayor Jane Campbell, you’ll be able to sell cheap plastic crap as a Wal Mart associate when you turn 16.”

“That doesn’t sound very brawny to me, grandpa.”

“I know, Johnny. I know.”

So, it must be yet another slow news day for the Plain Dealer (with that second story gathering dust and all), for our paper of record to give space to a story about a 600 square foot Steel Exhibit as part of the plan for Steelyard Commons.

Envision it folks: a whole 600 square feet, that’s 20 feet by 30 feet. Most people have a garage bigger than that. Or to put it differently, the 126 acres of Steelyard Commons is equal to 5.5 million square feet. That means that the Steel Exhibit will comprise 0.011 percent of the project.

Won’t all the out-of-work steel workers be proud?

Maybe not.

My Soundtrack: Meantime by The Futureheads on WOXY.

At a convention where it expected to celebrate it’s 50th anniversary, the largest union organization in the United States is disinigrating. And a Phoenix may be rising from the ashes.

In Four Major Unions Plan to Boycott AFL-CIO Event, the New York Times’ Steven Greenhouse writes that:

Leaders of four of the country’s largest labor unions announced on Sunday that they would boycott this week’s A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention, and officials from two of those unions, the service employees and the Teamsters, said the action was a prelude to their full withdrawal from the federation on Monday.

The reason for the split, according to the unions boycotting is that:

…the federation, as structured, was not equipped to halt labor’s decline. They said they were looking to a group they formed, the Change to Win Coalition, to encourage union growth with, for instance, multiunion organizing drives against large companies, including Federal Express and Wal-Mart.

In mid-June, five labor leaders — Jim Hoffa, Teamsters; Bruce Raynor, Unite-Here; Terry O’Sullivan, Laborers;, Andy Stern, SEIU and Joe Hansen, UFCW — met in Washington, D.C. to announce the creation of The Change To Win Coalition .

Since that meeting, a sixth union — the United Farm Workers Of America — has joined the coalition.

What will this mean for the labor movement in the United States?

What will this mean for Wal Mart?

My Soundtrack: Bob’s Your Uncle by Happy Mondays on WOXY Vintage.

This morning Bill Callahan stomps all over the sloppy reporting by the Plain Dealer’s Olivera Perkins. Writes Callahan: she failed to present a coherent account, in or out of quotes, of even one of the reasons people gave her for opposing the Steelyards Wal-Mart.

I wish more Republicans were like Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Last week, in Spokane, Washington she said: The present climate is such that I worry about the future of the federal judiciary. In our country today, we’re seeing efforts to prevent an independent judiciary. A hat tip to I See Invisible People.

I meant to write this one more than a month ago. Karbon Kounty Moos, according to Blog Shares, owns 4,000 shares, or 80 percent of the outstanding stock, of Have Coffee Will Write. I’m really not clear what that means or why she decided to buy so much, and how come I didn’t get anything in return?

This is the stuff that makes liberals sputter lattes and kick Volvos. Their no way to know if you’re supposed to laugh or condemn these works of art or vile images of trash. It depends? Doesn’t it? On the color of the skin of the artist or repugnant piece of pond scum. Martin Luther King Jr. has been dead nearly 40 years.

OK, so Jimi Izrael is probably going ta have ta hunt me down n bizzle me like a red-heezeeed stepchild fo` this but I couldn”t resist. I found Gizoogle while reading The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival’s homepage. I’m not sure how offensive this really is, but it is funny, in an ebonics sort of way.

When I first moved to Cleveland in the mid-’80s, I really enjoyed Cleveland Public Theatre’s Shakespeare At The Zoo. Al, a Phoenix coffee house friend, just handed me a flyer for Free Outdoor Shakespeare. (Warning: this is the adult version, for those of you under 13, click on the PG version. Yeah, right.)

George and Tim get pushed to the jump, page B5 of today’s Plain Dealer. Bill Callahan gets dissed. And Plain Dealer reporter Olivera Perkins blows the lede.

Why did she chose to begin:

The two men searched until they found T-shirts in just the right shade of blue — Wal-Mart blue.

I wasn’t there, but I know that Tim Russo was. And the version I heard had more than two men showing up in Wal Mart blue for the opening of Mayor Jane Campbell’s campaign office in the cavernous Galleria. So why the mystery in the lede?

(Gee, you don’t think it has anything to do with the whole Chickenshit thing do you?)

Here’s the real problem. Perkin’s story doesn’t mention Bill Callahan who is perhaps the best informed and articulate authority on Steelyard Commons among Cleveland bloggers.

This is a perfect example of why we need bloggers. Without bloggers people might think that Perkins tells the story and not just a story.

Check out No Cleveland Walmart, Callahan’s Cleveland Diary, Brewed Fresh Daily and Democracy Guy for a broader perspective on the story.

My Soundtrack: Summertime by Galaxie 500 on WOXY Vintage.

That’s the question that troubles me at the moment. Why did the man who emerged from a block of flats in the Stockwell area that were under police surveillance as part of the investigation into the incidents on Thursday flee officers of London’s Metropolitan Police Service? It didn’t bother me when police put five bullets into his head.

Then I believed that he was part of the gang of thugs murdering people. I believd that under his heavy coat he might have been wearing explosives. I believed that he might have been prepared to murder scores more of innocents.

I was wrong. So were the police.

This morning the London Times reports:

The man shot dead by police at Stockwell Underground station yesterday morning had nothing to do with Thursday”s abortive London bomb attacks, Scotland Yard said tonight.

It is unclear what happened after the, still unidentified, man left the apartment complex. According to reporter Phillippe Naughton in Stockwell shooting was mistake, says Met:

He was then followed by surveillance officers to the Underground station. His clothing and behaviour added to their suspicions.

[snip]

The shooting had been graphically described by a series of witnesses. One passenger on the train, Mark Whitby, said shortly afterwards: “As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified.

So far I’ve read conflicting reports as to how many police officers pursued the man and whether they were in plain clothes or in uniform.

Here are my questions:

Did the man know that he was being chased by police?

Did he look absolutely petrified because he feared that the men chasing him had mistakenly identified him as one of the bombers and intended to beat him to death?

Did he run because he was different?

Why did he get back off the train after boarding it?

Did he jump back off the train because of what he saw on the faces of the other passengers?

Did he run because he feared the mob?

In the weeks and month after 11 September 01, people of color, particularly young men who fit some stereotype of Arabness, lived in real fear of mob violence as Americans flailed about seeking some sense of revenge for the attack on our soil. Here in Northern Ohio, no less than three attackes occured, one a firebombing of a Sikh Temple by criminals who stupidly associated turban-wearing Sikhs with Isalmic terrorists.

When terrorists manipulate reasonable humans into living in fear, they have accomplished their goal.

My Soundtrack: The Sensual World by Kate Bush on WOXY Vintage.

Police have another use for abandoned Wal Marts. According to a media release from the Shelby County, Tennessee, sheriff:

This Friday, February 25, the two SWAT teams will gather at the now closed Wal-Mart Store at 1251 Germantown Road near Wolf River Boulevard. Starting at 9 o’clock that morning, the SWAT teams will conduct various scenarios that involve incidents such as:

Treatment and assistance for mass casualties The teams will also be testing the skills of hostage negotiators, SWAT medics and specially trained members of the Metro Gang Unit who routinely respond to critical incidents.

Remember the book 101 Uses For A Dead Cat? Before long we’ll be able to write the Bentonville Behemoth version.

My Soundtrack: Uncle John’s Band by The Indigo Girls on WOXY Vintage.

Bloomberg reports this morning that Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Richard Chaney, may be looking at perjury charges. In Rove, Libby Accounts in CIA Case Differ With Those of Reporters Bloomberg writes: Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.

These discrepancies may be important because Fitzgerald is investigating whether Libby, Rove or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation.

Despite the attempt of creating a prime-time distraction with the nomination of John Roberts to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the Rove case continues to grow.

My Soundtrack: Shame On You by Hot Hot Heat on WOXY Vintage.

Jeff Jarvis, one of the bloggers I respect and admire the most, wrote this morning: And what precisely is the privacy problem? If the cops catch you carrying something illegal, well, you shouldn’t be carrying anything illegal. This terrifies me more than any al Qaeda bomb. This is what we’re fighting against. I am a privacy advocate, Jeff.

Just as the shear number of users for Microsoft’s Windows makes it the target of choice for scum writing viruses, so too does the Bentonville Behemoth’s No. 1 spot in retailing make it easy prey for those generating urban legends. The retail chain’s name comes up in no less than 28 urban legends at Snopes. Last month it was a $200 shopping spree, this month there’s a horrifying tale of Mother-Child murder for points.

According to the urban-legend clearing house, there is an undetermined claim in Tennessee that:

Gang initiates in the Memphis and DeSoto areas must kill a woman and small child in a Wal-Mart.

The ubiquitous email exhorts:

Please pass this on to everyone you know….

You can never be too cautious.

Specially when reading emails that begin: please pass this on…

The story does have enough legs that the Memphis police department, according to Snopes’ Barbara Mikkelson, issued a press release stating that:

While the Memphis police department takes such threats seriously, our investigation has not yet identified any specific gang or any specific victims.

Kind of like finding a rat tail in your KFC order.

My Soundtrack: To Hell With Poverty! by The Gang Of Four on WOXY Vintage.

With one of Plain Dealer editor Doug Clifton’s two profound stories now on the front page of Cleveland’s Scene and Plain Dealer, Clifton said last night: Once another medium identified us as a holder of the documents in question, holding back the story became moot. And we think that it was a public service to be done in reporting the contents of the affidavit.

Last night at the blogger meet-up everyone left with the assignment to list the blogs that they must read at least every other day if not more often. Since I regularly change my blog roll to reflect whom I’m reading on a regular basis, everyone there gets my attention (exception: Wal Not links) at least once every 48-hours.

My Soundtrack: God Tonight by Real Life on WOXY Vintage.

[Update — George heard a different question than I recall from last evening’s blogger meet-up. He poses the question this way:

The original assignment was to post the ones you mentioned, but a variation of that was to post the blogs that you couldn”t go two days without reading.

To that question I have to reply that there are no blogs that I couldn’t go two days without reading. Part of my meditative practice includes three-day mini-retreats where I don’t read, listen to or watch anything not directly involved in my practice.

Because I regularly prune my blogroll and subtract blogs when I add new ones — case in point, after last night’s discussion I swapped out Powerline for Book Slut — I keep my blogroll in a manageable state that allows me to scan all of them at least once (and often much more often than that) every other day.

So to the charge of copping out by pointing to my blogroll I plead an enthusiastic Not Guilty.]

The day after the Cleveland Scene breaks the story of former Cleveland mayor Mike White’s invovlement in the Nate Gray investigation, Doug Clifton’s Plain Dealer prints the banner headline: White Was Target Of Federal Probe. While the Scene trumpeted that this was one of Clifton’s stories of profound interest, there is no mention of a connection between Clifton’s 30 June editorial and this story in either Mike Tobin’s reporting nor in today’s editorials.

What is really missing, in both the Scene and Plain Dealer stories, is the profoundness of it all.

In a size-does-matter moment, Tobin claims to have based his story on a 115-page affidavit. Peter Kotz’s source was only a 64-page, albeit secret (but not double), affidavit.

Hah! Take that Kotz! Eat page count loser! Sheesh.

Did Doug Clifton really put himself through the last two weeks for this?

My Soundtrack: Well Did You Evah by Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop on WOXY Vintage.

Jonathan Rees asks the question: How Dumb Is Wal Mart? In Part I and Part II, Rees explores how the Bentonville Behemoth, in an effort to tar whistle-blower Jared Bowen, published his college transcripts. Writes Rees:

Bowen, if you don’t remember, is a Wal-Mart mid-level executive who fingered Board of Directors member Tom Coughlin and is currently seeking whistle-blower protection under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Former company officer and director Coughlin, Wal Mart revealed in the document dump that included Bowen’s university grades, had for more than 10 years:

…misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate assets to pay for personal expenditures ranging from the petty to the extravagant-food, clothing, alcohol, electronic equipment, vacations, gifts for family members, an $8,500 all-terrain vehicle, a $10,000 customized hunting vehicle, and a hunting lease for which Coughlin improperly diverted a total of more than $30,000 in company funds over several years.

Coughlin executed this scheme through illegal devices that included forgery, misrepresentation, and fraud, and through the misuse of company funds, property, and purchasing authority available to him as an officer of the Company. The scheme depended on subordinates who were willing to follow Coughlin’s instructions even when their conduct violated Wal-Mart policies and controls and, in many cases, federal and state law.

Transparency or stupidity? I don’t know.

My Soundtrack: Get Up! by The Datsuns on WOXY Vintage.

… there goes a Supreme Court nominee! No. This post isn’t about John Roberts, at least not directly. I’ll get to him later. This is about Mark Fiore’s latest animation: Double Super-Secret Background. I seriously hope that a prime-time circus to announce Robert’s nomination doesn’t cause the press corps’ backbone to revert to limp pasta.

My Soundtrack: Free by Cartel on WOXY Vintage.