it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it

So I've kind of been following the 'Occupy Wall Street' thing and then the 'Occupy Cleveland' thing, and of course the whole 'Arab Spring' along with my preferred mix of geopolitical ephemerals and the local machinations.

Given that we haven't darkthroned through the city in a little while and the weather was favorable, we decided to amble down to the Free Stamp (which is an ugly piece of public art by the way) and observe the protestations against the Man in the park with the Free Stamp across from the federal building.

I saw protests every other week when I lived in Kent during the Bush years and this was more or less the same thing. Abstract slogans directed against big abstract entities, acoustic guitars, bongos, signs, people just kind of hanging around, people that I know but not really well. Slogans about coming together and changing things and people cheering and instead of feeling thrilled about the possibility of a better world, I realize once again that I just can't believe in it, much in the way I'm sure that my friends are bemused by my embrace of so-called "organized religion."

Having been immersed in reading history among other things recently, I really don't feel like anyone has solutions. Every revolution begins idealistically with flowers and hugs and celebrations, but there are the inevitable power struggles that follow, the old guard and structures of corruption find ways to assimilate within a new framework, and things get ugly and violent because ultimately the same structures that cause suffering will continue to exist. We say we won't get fooled again, but meet the new boss same as the old boss.

I feel old too, and I feel like I look like an undercover cop or something because I'm in my work clothes and so is Randal, even if we're not corporatistas. I wonder if I'm defanged because of my working-stiff-ness but I was just as cynical about this stuff as an equally naive college kid even then, before I really had to deal with unions and overlords and feel like a pawn in the class wars of the boomers.

It's hard for me to take people with an anticapitalist/anticorporate stance seriously when they're texting on their iPhones made with metals from war-torn countries by a big corporation and posting updates to Facebook. Adbusters had some degree of subcultural cool when I was 16 before I realized that they're just marketing a whole other meaningless brand, not to mention that they make their non-brand shoes in China too. I don't want Kalle Lasn running my country any more than I want Barack Obama or Random Republican or whoever. There's a lust for power and control over minds I see there that I find disturbing as well, the kind of thing that draws in disaffected youth and makes them feel enlightened and part of something.

Last time I checked, the drug war was still going on, a whole lot of countries are getting predator droned and we're still in Afghanistan and shady CIA business is still going on. But money talks and those without the scratch are ultimately voiceless until the lives of those in power are threatened. I fear the angry mob just as much as the powers that be. People who think too much are screwed either way.


And I'm looking at the Key Tower, at the Cleveland School District Headquarters, the Municipal Courthouse to the north, and thinking about how if we were really going to raise hell about something, it shouldn't be this abstract raging against the corporate machine, but against the bureaucracy and the unofficial power structure that have screwed over this city with blatant chutzpah for the last forty years. Start local and work your way out. There's plenty of bad to go around in this city within the party machine alone.

Raise some hell about the RTA or the corporate welfare to sports team owners or the Cleveland Clinic not treating the people who live across the street or the slum landlords or the corrupt bureaucracy that keeps anything from getting done or the schools that disenfranchise generations of kids or the gouging by the Water Department.

But wait, that would involve actually having to do something instead of caring a lot.

best of the blotter: those darn kids and the end of the world

ARMAGEDDON, SYCAMORE TREE: In the wake of Harold Camping’s prediction that the Christian rapture would occur on May 21 and the end of the world would begin, the world and media was abuzz last week while following the peculiar story. Apparently, the affects of Camping’s prediction stretched into Medina. A Sycamore Tree Dr. resident stopped an officer on May 17 and desired to speak with him about Armageddon. No action was taken.

BB OR NOT TO BE, ORCHARD LANE: Police responded to Orchard Lane upon report of a boy allegedly using a BB gun in the neighborhood. An officer arrived around 2 p.m. on May 18 and observed the boy shooting what appeared to be a BB gun. Upon closer inspection, the officer determined that the gun was an air-soft gun, and the boy was shooting at mushrooms in the yard of his home.

Someone called Georgio's, 15037 Pearl Rd., May 21 with a tasty order -- 100 calzones and 100 salads. And they'd even pay extra for it and have the restaurant send back the overage. An alert employee recognized it as a scam. She called police to make them aware the con, which was also reported earlier this year, is going around again.

DISORDERLY CONDUCT, BRIDGE STREET: Sparks flew before a police officer had a chance to officially start his workday.

The officer stopped at Caf Ah-Roma at 11:40 a.m. May 21 prior to starting his work day.

He saw a teen, whom the officer knew, toss some type of fireworks into the mulch by the Parkway Shops sign on Bridge Street. The item gave off quite a few sparks before extinguishing itself.

The teen has been warned by police and Giant Eagle personnel to stay away from that area.

The officer stopped the teen and found two lighters, two boxes of smoke balls, rolling papers and a box of cigarettes on him.

When asked why he ignited the fireworks, the teen told the officer, “You guys tell us to be kids, then you arrest us when we try.”

The officer said there was a big difference between being a kid and throwing lighted fireworks into mulch and at a place he had been told not to visit.

The teen was cited for disorderly conduct, trespassing and possessing tobacco.

THEFT, WEST BAGLEY ROAD: Someone from Colony Roofing, 951 W. Bagley Road, contacted police May 16 after seeing a person taking scrap metal. The person got into a car and left.

Police found him with a woman on Kaskey Drive. The teen said he needed the scrap metal to help pay for the prom.

The 17-year-old Brook Park resident was released to his father. His 18-year-old accomplice, a woman from Brook Park, was released on personal bond. Both were cited for theft.

PROPERTY DAMAGE, BROOKPARK ROAD: A 20-year-old Brook Park man rammed a shopping cart into the glass windows and doors of the B & E Dollar Tree May 21 and made entry to the store.

When police arrived, the man was inside the store wearing Hawaiian leis and other necklaces found in the store. He was cooperative, handcuffed and placed under arrest. The intoxicated man told police that he was at a wedding next door and wanted some necklaces for the party. Estimated damage to the glass is $1,000.