Either way, LeBron's decision won't be slam-dunk for city

WE WILL ALL know LeBron James' momentous decision soon enough after weeks of speculation, rumors and, quite frankly at times, gasping nonsense. Certainly his presence in Cleveland is of some temporary economic benefit to the city; how much, who really knows?. Still, a larger question for the once-great city: Is the live-or-die economic future of Cleveland now fully dependent on a decision by a young super-star athlete? Some of the hand-wringing would have you believe that. If true, even if LeBron decides to stay - and I hope he does - the city will still have a long way to go to balance its books and regain its stature as a thriving city. Whatever happens, LeBron will be nothing more than a bit player in resolving the city's entrenched social, economic and political problems that won't respond to a slam-dunk.

Thurgood Marshall on trial by Senate overdogs

FOR A BRIEF MOMENT, may we consider the work of those overdogs on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are looking for various desperate ways to embarrass Elena Kagan? Overdogs? Well, what other antonym is there for committee member Sen. Jon Kyl, the Republican whip from Arizona, who linked Kagan to former Justice Thurgood Marshall's sympathy for "underdogs".

I had fully expected the confirmation hearings to be another fruitless witch hunt - but the minority overdogs have actually turned it into a warlock hunt. They have not hesitated to attack Marshall, the nation's first African-American justice, as a "well-known liberal activist judge", to quote Alabama's Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is always around to add southern-style scholarly charm for any debate.

Kyl, an ascendent masculine overdog, complained that Kagan was much too friendly to underdogs because she was a disciple of Marshall, complaining that she "wrote a tribute to Justice Marshall in which she said in his view it was the role of the courts and interpreting the Constitution to protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government".

Marshall, a civil rights icon, died more than 17 years ago but there are some things that overdogs, like their symbolic elephants, are inclined never to forget.

A new study from Down Under : Grumpiness is good!

IT WAS WITH a fleeting smirk that I read an article sent to me by a former newspaper colleague which, I assume, was in good faith. In a scant four-word headline, the article declared:

"Grumpy People Work Best"

Before the twitters and snickers begin, I should tell you that the report has a smidgeon of authority behind it, inasmuch as it tells of a new study by Australian psychology professor, Joe Forgas, described as a "behavioral expert" at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. If it didn't require a long-distance overseas call, I would let him know personally that I fully agree with his assessment of grumps.

There's more. According to the writer, Lisa Johnson Mandell, the study reveals that "grumpy people think more clearly, are better at decision-making and are less gullible."

On the other hand, the report did not offer much cheer for cheerful people. Mandell says Forgas' breakthrough for long-maligned grumps could also "explain why the most cheerful and optimistic among us sometimes appear air-headed, unrealistic and naive. Their penchant for 'putting on a happy face' might be hindering their ability to do more clear, concise and objective work, according to Forgas research." (I won't mention her name, but there was a lot of that in the last presidential campaign! Unfortunately, there still is.)

So, yes, I am happy to learn that we grumps of the world have positive behavioral ability . Unsurprisingly, it was my only grin of the day. Herrumph!!!!!...

Do you suggest that they only eat cake, George?

SEN. GEORGE VOINOVICH, who will be retiring this year with handsome federal and state pensions, was among the back-40 Republican senators who voted against extending unemployment benefits. That will leave more than 180,000 Ohioans without income. Tee-hee. While there will be defenders of his action in these times of budgetary stress, the problem that he and his colleagues continue to avoid is obvious: What does he recommend as immediate options to help these folks survive? I might suggest that without a clear remedy, he might declare as a symbolic gesture for his less fortunate Ohioans that he give up some of his own tax-supported perks in his soon-to-be comfortable retirement.

Bobby Jindal: Do as I rant, not as I do

SO THERE WAS Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal , his arms outstretched in a cruciform moment, on the front page of Saturday's New York Times. The governor is again letting it be known that he doesn't think much of the feds' response to the oil spill. He says so every day , perhaps with a lingering memory of how he flopped in a TV response to President Obama in what seems like eons ago. If so, it's a quirky way of rehabbing your political image outside of Louisiana when a lot of folks doubtless remember walking away from the TV set from his unwashed voyage into la-la politics.

Problem is, he seems to have nobody to blame except his own hyperventilating response to the spill. As CBS news has pointed out, Jindal asked for federal (ich!) help and received word from the Oval Office that the state would receive a helluva lot of support paid by BP. He was authorized to deploy 6,000 National Guardsmen two months ago. So far, he's only come through with 1,053 of the 6,000 available.

The Republican governors in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi are doing even worse. There's a certain amount of speculation in those states that the sight of guardsmen on the beaches and elsewhere would scare off tourists. Alas, it used to be only worrisome hurricanes and alligators.

Three is not a crowd in Tim Ryan's Youngstown district

IT DIDN'T TAKE the gay-bashers more than a second or two to befoul the internet with their ugliest comments after Mahoning County Democratic Chairman David Betras announced that Rep. Barney Frank will be the keynote speaker at a party fundraiser in mid-August. Homophobia and racism will always be with us and a blog's "open mike" is only a modern convenience for the haters who used to spend more of their time scribbling on bathroom walls. .

Meantime, Betras, who impresses you as an unflinching free spirit, says he couldn't care less about what the off-the-page critics are saying about his choice. It is a sort of Youngstown gift of self-styled political immunity that has been around for a long time.

"This is big for the Mahoning Valley," Betras told the Youngstown Vindicator. "Anytime I can get powerful people to the Valley, I'll do it. We'll have him in a room with Valley people to discuss our issues and concerns. It can only help the area having him here," Frank says of the visit by Frank (Clue: Frank, a Democrat, is chairman of the House Financial services Committee, through whom many blessings can flow.)

There's also a congressional campaign going on in Betras' 17th district involving Tim Ryan, the popular Democratic congressman , and a once-widely popular ex-congressman, Jim Traficant, the 69-year-old convicted felon who completed a seven- year prison term ( bribery and corruption) in time to file as an independent candidate. There's also a Republican candidate, Jim Graham, a Cortland pharmacist, that Betras refuses to discuss, saying only: "I don't like Republicans!"

Need I mention that it is a heavily Democratic district? Betras and some other observers believe Ryan is heading for victory, but concede that Traficant still maintains a die-hard corps or loyalists. And there may be complications. David Skolnick, the Vindicator's political writer, says that although Traficant hasn't been on the ballot for eight years , "he certainly has his followers" but hasn't made anypersonal appearances in the District lately.

There may be a name ID for Graham, Skolnick says, that could have confusion value. Graham's cousin, also named Jim Graham, is the UAW president in the district who is supporting Ryan.

Over at Youngstown State University political science Prof . Keith Lepak enthusiastically says he's a great fan of Traficant and would easily vote for him - but can't. "I live in Sharon, Pennsylvania," he says.

Traficant, Lepak says, is an "archetypical representative of the district. He's fantastic!" Lepak says he admires Traficant's "great political skills" and his ability to shake things up. On the other hand, Lepak describes Ryan as a "nice young man but a stuffed shirt."

Even if that were true - and I haven't found it so in my few meetings with Ryan - I don't think it will cost him the election against a convicted felon running on nothing more than nostalgia for his good old days and a what's-his-name Republican - even for the Youngstown district where there are occasionally a few surprises.

Whirlpool: Sorry Indiana, we're off to Mexico

WHILE ARIZONA IS engaged in a zealous full-court press against illegal Mexican immigrants, Whirlpool will close its refrigerator plant in Evansville, Ind., tomorrow (Friday) and move the operation to a new plant in....Mexico. Meantime, the move will cost 1,100 Whirpool workers their jobs in Evansville, where the plant had been operating since 1956. The company said it was " uncompetitive from a cost standpoint." Critics of the move have pointed out that Whirlpool had received $19.3 million in stimulus money to strengthen its, eh... resources. A thought: If enough U.S. companies follow Whirlpool to Mexico, will we have found a solution to the immigration problem, if not the U.S. unemployment problem?

Bonehead-of-the week is Rob Nichols, GOP gubernatorial candidate John Kasich's press secretary, Rob Nichols, who said this of Gov. Strickland in a press release:

"Not until Ted Strickland feared needing their votes did he give urban Ohioans a second thought. Having grown up in a chicken shack on Duck Run, he has all but ignored our cities economies and their workers."

Yes, the governor did spend some of his childhood living in a chicken coop because of family poverty. But even though Nichols' perspective is the view from Wall Street via Kasich, he's still worth a Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) Award. Or should it have gone to Kasich, himself, who said he was "not part of the chorus" in northern Ohio who wants James to stay in Cleveland.

A WEEK TO GO and LeBron is keeping the sports media and fandom on edge about his plans. Heavens. (I think he should remain here.) The tension seems to be increasing as free agency day nears. What will the hitherto mentioned sports media do for news in July other than another Browns training camp filled with optimism? Back to LeBron: It's like the countdown moments when the Russian ships were heading to Cuba against President Kennedy's blockade. Will the story end happily? Or will the Cavaliers be doomed?

President Obama appears to have gained a few points (some grudgingly) as a man of action in firing Gen. McCrystal, following in the footsteps of Lincoln (Gen. McClellan) and Truman (Gen. MacArthur). The same can't be said about Congress, where Republicans and half-hearted Democrats have yet to find a substantive issue that they can't butcher to death. And these guys and gals are paid well to be dysfunctional, including plenty of cash from lobbyists.

Walter Shapiro: Where have all of the reporters gone?

NATIONAL POLITICAL writer Walter Shapiro recently added another gloomy chapter to the fading world of newspapers and it tells of local reporters who are no longer there. Shapiro, who has covered eight presidential campaigns, found himself in Hartsville, S. Car., a town 70 miles northeast of the state capital of Columbia a few days after a wild GOP gubernatorial primary that led to a runoff election. It was won by Nikki Haley, an Indian-American woman that one Republican state legislator had brutishly called a "raghead". She would be there, along with 100 or so Tea Partyers and some national media.

What's wrong with this picture with strong post-election elements? Well, there were notable absentees, Shapiro observed. Not a single South Carolina newspaper, wire service, TV or radio reporter showed up.

"What we are witnessing in this election cycle," he wrote, " is the slow death of traditional statewide campaign journalism. I noticed the same pattern (and the same nearly reporter-free campaign trail) in Kentucky last month as I covered libertarian Rand Paul's decisive defeat of the state Republican establishment in the GOP Senate primary. Aside from an occasional AP reporter, virtually the only print journalists whom I encountered a campaign events were my national press-pack colleagues from the NewYork Times, the Washington Post, Politico and the Atlantic Monthly."

The reason for the disappearing act? Shapiro reports the sad numbers in staff size:

"Newspapers like the Louisiville Courier-Journal and The State, South Carolina's largest paper, have dramatically de-emphasized in-depth candidate coverage because they are too short-handed to spare reporters. A survey by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) found that newsroom staffs across the country have declined by 25 percent since 2001."

I would add that in some newsrooms, it's a lot worse than that

The newspaper-bashers, including politicians whose oxen were being gored, would find nothing troubling about a digest version of a newspaper - or nothing at all - arriving at their doorstep every day.

But the cutback in political coverage is creating a serious vacuum on the home front in accountability for local and state politicians. Neither the New York Times nor office-bound Rush Limbaugh covers your suburbs. In these spots, the pols have a free hand in most instances short of mayhem. This is not to suggest that all small- town officials are on the take. Not at all. But even in non-criminal matters, attention by the local newspaper can keep everyone on the alert that there may be a more effective way of governing than what you might find in self-congratulatory press releases.

Unfortunately, the decline is beyond the point of no return. In another decade or so - maybe sooner - a lively aggressive local media will be part of the folklore like Hildy Johnson and The Front Page.

BP: UA's $500,000 partner

THE SPRING ISSUE (now that it's summer!) of AKRON, the University of Akron's alumni magazine, has a piece lauding "energy industry giant BP" for its $500,000 grant to the school's college of engineering for a corrosion engineering program. Awful timing, I'd say, for the announcement by UA, the magazine and, of course, the giant. According to the article, the gift is from BP Exploration's Inherently Reliable Facilities (IRF) Flagship Technology Program. (Emphasis mine.)

UA President Luis Proenza says he's proud of partnering with industry to create the materials of the future..."

And Simon Webster, vice president for BP's IRF program says, "As BP's operations move into more severe environments - deeper reservoirs, higher pressures, higher temperatures, higher fluid velocities - it needs materials and corrosion technologies to perform in these increasingly harsh environments."

That inherently explains everything.

Tony Hayward, yachtsman and company PR headache

FROM THE PEN OF THE BARD OF AVON CALLING:

Tony Hayward took off for a day with his yacht

He said it was an escape that he needed a lot.

As the BP oil was spreading

Up our coast it was heading

He blithely shrugged, "What hath God wrought?"