valentine...

i love how everyone suddenly discovers ohio when it's election season. the rest of the time it's flyover territory and punchlines but then suddenly anyone who's anyone CARES.

when you get phone calls on your answering machine from jimmy hoffa, hillary clinton, token conservative talking head, and the union you're part of because suddenly your voice "matters" when someone's got an agenda.

and it honestly feels a bit patronizing.

especially when all these people fly in and stay at the renaissance hotel to "dialogue" about poverty, or attend some conference about whatever trendy topic of the day. we're a photo-op and backdrop town, good for generic street scenes of hollywood blockbusters, or for candidates to talk about the desperate straits of "america's families."

i guess i shouldn't complain because it generates money for the economy. but still.

i don't get as angry about politics as some of the people i know do. i don't expect too much so i'm not let down too badly. as cynical as it is, i believe that most people who get to the level of power to run the country aren't the best ones to do the job.

i get more frustrated on the local level when i see how people who contribute lots of campaign cash to advance their own interests and monetary gain. when i see how much the payday lending check cashing people contributed to political campaigns, the way that funding for post-secondary programs that me and many of the people i knew benefited from is being cut off from students who aren't in the public school systems because our governor gets a lot of support from the teachers unions. i love how our governor decides that screwing over people who shouldn't probably be drinking and gambling in the first place is a good idea because it'll help the state as a whole.

if it wasn't for the fact that i love where i live so much, and love the people i'm around, i'd leave like everybody else. but for some reason i'm crazy and i'm going to stay and try to keep some hope alive.

i want to buy a home within the cleveland city limits. i'm going to take advantage of the free schooling that my employment allows me and take classes in urban studies. i'm going to get more involved in my place of worship and the neighborhood around it by working from the ground up, taking care of these seeds that God has sown in the most unlikely places.

after all, he chose to come from a place where people said "can anything good come out of there?"