Sam Miller addresses county-ism

Video on Demand wkyc.com -- In the Mike Roberts MTB interview on March 29th, he suggested we talk with Sam Miller, and now, here comes Sam airing a few proposals with Tom Beres. Mike also recommended we talk to the Mark Rosentraub, and Miller mentions Rosentraub as somebody who should do a study. Perhaps we should take Roberts' advice.

desperately seeking wisdom

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: While we're talking about Mike Dovilla, here's a fairly balanced piece he sent me a few weeks back, from Joe Lieberman in the Opinion section of the Wall Street Journal on February 26th. Read the whole thing. It speaks to the political environment and the war environment under which Mike and everybody else we've required to serve over there must endure, and we must not jeopardize their safety or compromise the mission at this point based on knee-jerk reactions of the lightweights in the rear; most of them are not leaders, they're merely politicians; many of them don't serve our interests first. One of the worst feelings we all had during the RVN era was having our fate being decided by the politicians--thinking first of their safety, some of them, and then of ours--and by the irate public who weren't there, some of whom had opted not to serve. Here's Joe, who's beginning to show wisdom.

"I understand the frustration, anger and exhaustion so many Americans feel about Iraq, the desire to throw up our hands and simply say, 'Enough.' And I am painfully aware of the enormous toll of this war in human life, and of the infuriating mistakes that have been made in the war's conduct.

But we must not make another terrible mistake now. Many of the worst errors in Iraq arose precisely because the Bush administration best-cased what would happen after Saddam was overthrown. Now many opponents of the war are making the very same best-case mistake--assuming we can pull back in the midst of a critical battle with impunity, even arguing that our retreat will reduce the terrorism and sectarian violence in Iraq."

invitation to an exorcism

For a good many years here, we NEO natives have lived in the shadow of fear cast by that cheap shot known as the "Cleveland Joke." So that I don't have to give it further power by speaking its name, henceforth I will refer to this phenomenon merely as the "CJ." I've tried tracing back its origins on Google and failed. My feeling is that there must be some sort of long karmic tail attached to birthing and nurturing a form of humor that gets its sad, sneering little life from making fun of somebody else's origins or affiliations. There must be a name for this sort of lame humor in the comedy world, something like "the takeaway."

So, to exorcise the CJ, the pathetic little insecurity that seems to plague our community, I guess we have to call it out, and to call it out, we have to know its origins and all its sources. These are the things of which I am unsure.

Did it start with Bing Crosby's razzing Bob Hope about his Cleveland origins?

Was it perpetuated by Maynard G. Krebs character (Valdis, did your family have any part in this?) on the Dobie Gillis show, when they trotted out "The Monster That Devoured Cleveland" routines, and did "Cleveland" become a one-word punchline, much as the word "work" did?

Did Lenny Bruce add to the mix? What about the radio jocks of the '60s & 70s, things like Mad Daddy and Wild Child? MAD Magazine? Cracked?

How about Ghoulardi, Ernie Anderson--did he get the laugh-o-meter mileage out of "Cleveland" as he did out of "Dorothy [Fuldheim]" and "Parma" and "Oxnard"? What about Tim Conway? David Letterman? Johnny Carson?

What screenwriters from Cleveland used the CJ when they couldn't think of what else to do?

Who continues to use the CJ today? Do any of our elected officials still toss out an offhand CJ apologetically, to make up for a deficit of friends and well-wishers? Is there anybody at all out there who actually thinks the CJ is funny or even remotely useful?

Finally, are any of us responsible for letting this play on and on? Aren't we all getting sort of tired of hearing about it?

I think what perturbs me most about the CJ is that, from my perspective, it just isn't so, it's never been so, and it's never been fair or honest. I've tolerated it thinking it would go away, and for me, it has. The requisites for the CJ to be real humor were never there in the first place. I'm going to consign the CJ to that quite place, where lie other nerdily clever phrases like "yo' momma" and it's sibling "your mother wears combat boots," "I know you are but what am I," and "so funny I forgot to laugh."

So far as I'm concerned, it's exorcised. I'm done.

Drew Gilpin Faust: wisdom comes early

In Faust, early bold streak - The Boston Globe -- here's a good personal-interest article giving a good recounting of the background of a remarkable lady who's recently assumed leadership at Harvard. There are lots of life lessons here, and a glimpse into the study of character.

People who knew Faust as a down-to-earth young woman were amazed to hear that she would become the first female president of Harvard. Yet they are not surprised to see her embrace the challenge.

"She was always looking ahead and reaching as high as she could. She was an amazingly strong kid," said Mendenhall . "She was smart enough to see opportunities and brave enough to seize those opportunities in a quiet sort of way."