Bipeds - the threatening kind - in our midst

A CALENDAR from the African Wildlife Foundation rose to the top of one of the stacks on my desk that told me we are in the midst of the "Year of the Gorilla." I'm not sure how it got there, although I am such a softy about animals that seldom does a day pass that I don't hear from one of the scores of wildlife outfits seeking a dollar or two. I do what I can.

Month after month, the calendar offers different photos of these menacing-looking but peaceful creatures of the wild and despite all else you might have been told about what are surely our ancestors, I've never seen a gorilla I didn't like. Well, sort of. In fact I was quite taken by Dian Fossey's book, Gorillas in the Mist, dealing with her unyielding efforts to protect the Rwandan mountain gorillas from poachers. So as editor of the Beacon Journal's Sunday News & Views Section years ago, I ran a long and beautifully written two part series about her work from the Washington Post that appeared on successive Sundays (to the astonishment and dismay of some insensitive hominids at the paper.)

I realize that I am treading on perilous ground. If this love story reaches a certain audience, I will have at least two dozen more wildlife calendars dispatched to me with promises of various tote bags or coffee mugs.

Unfortunately, there will be a notable absence among the new calendars. With full apologies to the gorilla population I wonder who will be the first to publish an annual calendar featuring some of the virulent apes who have been creating havoc in Congress with their incoherent mountaintop shrieks against health care reform.

Unfortunately the African Wildlife Foundation's well intentioned gorilla calendar has overlooked the possibilities of broadening its reach.

UA: Two out of three falls one short

THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON today shed two of its more prominent staff problems, but still faces a third challenge. First, the good news: UA's Board of Trustees accepted the resignations of John Case and Reno Ferri. Case was the vice president and chief financial officer who was arrested by Macedonia police in September and charged with drunk driving after other drivers spotted his car weaving in the road. It was his second encounter with the law. In February, 2006, he was found slumped over his wheel in traffic. He pleaded no contest when the charge was reduced to reckless operation. After his latest run-in with the law, he was placed on leave at full salary of $242, 625. The resignation will be effective in February.

Reno Ferri was UA's football running backs coach and recruiting coordinator who had been on administrative leave after the NCAA turned up some recruiting violations.

The still unresolved problem is Jack Morrison, the UA trustee who was convicted of two ethics violations in connection with the construction of UA's new football stadium. Although he has been asked to resign by state officials and the Akron Beacon Journal, Morrison has shown no interest in budging. And his lawyer insisted it will stay that way because his convictions are being appealed - a process that could take another six months.

As I've mentioned before, the Morrison issue is being played out along strictly partisan lines. If Morrison, a Republican insider and outsider, resigned, it would give the Democrats an extra opportunity to replace him with an appointee from their party . (The current split is 5-4 Republican, although that's a stretch. Although trustee Ann Amer Brennan is listed as a Democrat, it hardly identifies her true political tilt to the GOP). Actually, the Board is powerless to remove Morrison from its midst even though it would come as a relief to the other trustees if he voluntarily stepped down to remove himself as a major distraction.

Obviously, where political considerations are involved, the University's mission is of secondary importance. A trustee told me today that there was no doubt that Morrison and Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff have a common goal of holding on to the seat.

"I wish we could have had three resignations, but we didn't," the trustee sighed after today's meeting. "I know there are others who feel the same way."

And I'll bet you thought that universities operate for the sole benefit of advancing the knowledge of the students. Think again.

Taitz: A birther born in Moldova

DO YOU FIND find it ironic that one of the national leaders of the birther movement to disprove President Obama's birthplace is a California dentist/lawyer who was not born in the U.S. but is a native of Moldova, the former Soviet Republic? Her name is Orly Taitz and she is described as a rabid litigant among birthers. She earned a law degree from an online correspondence school. Her sidekick in this ridiculous mayhem is a lawyer named Charles Lincoln, who has been disbarred in three states for his way of doing legal work.

The four horsemen of the Brownies clips

Dirge for Edwards, Winslow, Jurevicius & Stallworth

All four of the Browns' honored receivers

were considered to be golden retrievers.

But now that Braylon's out

There's good reason to shout

They were no more than pathetic deceivers.

Limbaugh and Rams: Where's the upside?

WHAT'S THAT!?!?!!? Rush Limbaugh wants to buy the St. Louis Rams pro football franchise, loser of 14 games in a row? There goes the NFL neighborhood!

A moral compass won't lead you to Cleveland

AFTER PLEADING guilty to bribery last week, Santina Klimkowski, an upper-tier bureaucrat in Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo's office, told the Plain Dealer that her "moral compass" had failed her. That should explain everything.

There seem to be a lot of failed compasses going around in Cleveland these days as corrupt public employes and their enablers literally have been lining up to take a number to appear before the crowded court. There are enough people who have been either charged or convicted on the public payroll that a single indictment against the entire political culture would seem to be a modest beginning in cleaning up the mess.

Instead, there will be a couple of "reform" measures on the November ballot to change the structure of county government to make it more responsible for an honest day's work for a day's pay. But even those two issues bear the trademark of the city-county's eternal rivalries. One issue, supported by the mayor and county commissioners, is confusing enough in its wording that calls for a charter review commission to study the issue even more. In effect, it would give everybody on the cusp more time to find a good lawyer. The other ballot issue is supported by the "reformers" who figure you've got to start somewhere.

Taken together, the two measures represent how every political action causes a reaction by those who fear any change in the status quo would ill-serve their interests. Still, even if the second and most upheaving issue passes, where is the guarantee that a new cast of characters will bring new honor and light to Cleveland's political culture? Judging by tradition alone, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County politics (indistinguishable one from the other) have shown little willingness to subjugate individual interests to the public interest.

A bit of enlivening history:

Cleveland politics have long been battered by ethnic, racial, partisan, corporate and religious issues that have been passed down genetically from one generation to the next. Democrats have largely presided over this stricken scene, although they have often rivaled each other and crossed party lines to be joined by Republicans in sharing whatever largesse was available.

During Dennis Kucinich's mayor campaigns, it was not uncommon to hear Eastern Europeans complaining about the throngs of (x#&%*&!!) Irish in public office and running things "downtown." When Democrat Jack Gilligan was challenged by Republican Jim Rhodes in 1974, George Forbes, the powerful black Democratic councilman and Rhodes ally, was hardly seen in the campaign for Gilligan. Although the late Carl Stokes opposed Kucinich, his brother Lou, a congressman was at Kucinich's side.

Need more? Although Rhodes and pseudo Democrat Frank Lausche, had run one of the bloodiest campaigns against each other in the 1954 gubernatorial race, it was Lausche who was standing shoulder to shoulder with Rhodes in denouncing Gilligan in their match. And when I once reminded Ralph Perk that his mayoral campaign opponent, Kucinich, called himself the city's premiere ethnic candidate, Perk hastily offered the profound political insight for his city: "There are ethnics," he said sharply, "and there are ethnics!" Just to prove it, he allowed me to join him that evening to a Slavic event where he was hailed as The Ethnic Mayor.

The media's record has only served to emphasize the detente with powerful politicians and their corporate allies which, on one famous occasion, threw together a Forbes legal defense fund when he was charged with graft involving the church sponsors of street fairs. A nun then testified that Mr. Forbes was a wonderful person. On another occasion the Plain Dealer endorsed all three mayoral candidates, two in the primary without a single mention of the third and evenutal winning candidate in the general election, Kucinich. But after the primary, Publisher Tom Vail, who never saw a winner's circle that he didn't like, endorsed Kucinich, ushering him into the PD news room on election night with beaming compliments. Vail told me that the paper had learned more about Kucinich's street smarts after the primary and decided he was the one to lead the city into a progressive future.

We haven't even mentioned Art Modell's desertion to Baltimore by the light of the moon , later explaining that the city's movers and shakers hadn't been nice to him.

A little history can shed a bit more light on the horrendous corruption that has beset a slowly abandoned city that has long been at distrustful sixes and sevens with itself . I hope the reform issue on the ballot passes, but it is fair to wonder what would happen next to change a way of life that has dominated the city for many decades through a broadly defined political fraternity with so many moving parts that has enriched itself at public expense,

A headline in the Plain Dealer Monday reported: Cleveland seeing 14 pct. spike in home burglaries over '08. But with all of the failing moral compasses, that's only part of the story.

The jeering from Rat Wing's Mt Olympus

HAS THERE ever been anything more politically degenerate than the Rat Wing's (as it is pronounced in some Southern precincts) eruptions of glee that the Olympics are not going to Chicago? We can only wonder what the response would have been if Dallas or Phoenix had been in play. The White House should fear the season's first snow storm. It will be Barack Obama's fault!

AS I gathered up my Sunday newspapers, I noticed that the Beacon Journal and Plain Dealer had featured a major flu story on the front page. A closer look told me that the same stories had run under the byline of Plain Dealer Reporter Diane Suchetka. The papers are still breathing, but competition and the once important reporter's personal satisfaction of his/her exclusive work are gone forever. It is now cookie-cutter journalism, folks.

NOW THAT Greece has elected a bona fide socialist government, does it mean that those of us who belong to the Zorba fan club are traitors? I should add that a stuffed grape leaf under a socialist government is still tasty.

Mr. President, don't go there!

ANOTHER GRIM report from Afghanistan: Eight more GI's killed by militants. Just as Iraq was George Bush's war, Afghanistan has become your war as casualties continue to grow without the slightest prospect of success. Don't spend more time talking to your generals, President Obama. Talk to the Russians who suffered grave casualties in Afghanistan for 10 years before they got the message that a war in the tunnels, caves and mountains of Afghanistan cannot be won. Remember this: the same hawks who impelled us into Iraq are now circling the White House. If you want to change the course of history, draft the Neocons like William Kristol and Dick Cheney, who found reasons to stay out of harm's way when it was their turn to put up or shut up, wrap them in army fatigues and send them into battle over there. If you want to add a profile in courage to your own legacy, back away from the impossible dream that America can police the world. Now.

Ohio U.S. Senate race: A Ganley moment

WHAT CAN be said of Akron mega-auto dealer Tom Ganley's mini-senatorial campaign speech to a sparse Akron Press Club audience Thursday? I wonder. Well, it was different. With a teleprompted text of no more than 15 minutes, he may have set a Press Club record for the shortest offering in my several decades of listening to candidates at the Martin Center. And to his opponent in the Republican primary, Rob Portman, it may also have been the least threatening of oratory by a rookie political opponent. In short order, Ganley wanted us to know that (1)he was NOT a politician, (2)he was NOT beholden to a single lobbyist (that most certainly would come later if he ever was elected and worth a lobbyist's attention ) and (3) he was NOT a lawyer but was proud to be a conservative businessman. That point he emphasized so often that it is almost certain to show up on bumper stickers, to wit: . Ganley means business.

His approach to government was not unlike the sort of thing one might hear at Tea Parties, a modern phenomenon which his people say he has attended. He lamented the loss of jobs and said we need to create more opportunities for the unemployed. He was critical of deficit spending and insisted it would take a businessman to produce more jobs. Creating jobs has been political boilerplate for both parties, of course, since the colonials created the presidency for George Washington.

Referring to his campaign material that assigned socialist enterprises to the Obama Administration, I asked him whether he thought Medicare and Medicaid were the products of socialists. He didn't really say yes or no, merely declaring that they were programs that had been around for awhile. He also opposed taxes on "the rich" because they won't create jobs and "in fact, it worsens it by taking investment dollars out of the system." He also said he would have no problem with allowing General Motors and Chrysler to fail because they would be replaced by somebody else in the free enterprise system.

The most jarring note came after he skewered illegal aliens. Someone asked what he he would do about an illegal alien's sick child who needed medical attention. He would have deported them, he snapped. "They're illegal!"

It will be interesting to me to see whether Ganley's businessman-to-the-core rhetoric will carry all the way to Republican primary in May, considering that Portman is the bell cow for Republican operatives around the state.

My late Republican father once owned a Pontiac dealership in Pennsylvania. I'm glad he never ran for public office.

A nutjob who lives in glass houses...

MICHAEL STEELE is now the tarnished hood ornament of a desperate, aimless and ranting Republican Party. As an African-American cynically chosen to represent the GOP as the head of Republican National Committee to flaunt its (hollow) commitment to minorities, he has instead unwittingly served to brand the party's failure to rationally reach beyond its white masses. Seldom a day passes that he doesn't offer his critics a silly comment or two to support their case. I can't be sure how much his political fraternity brothers in the GOP quietly suffer his antics, although in their silence you could suppose, at least, that they are willing to allow him to be their fall guy to advance whatever their cause despite his negative impact on what's left of the party. In that sense, he's being used.

Steele's latest venture into quicksand was his demonic assault on New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who had written that fire-breathing right-wingers care creating a climate of potential violence against President Obama. Anyone of sound mind who has followed the inflammatory elements of the anti-Obama crowd on the Internet and at rallies could easily agree with Friedman, who is quite the centrist. But Steele called the columnist a "nutjob", asking "where do these nutjobs come from?" Maybe the RNC that installed Steele could provide us with the answer.