We are celebrating Marines Week in Cleveland. There are activities all week and Public Square, Voinovich Park, Burke Lakefront Airport, are all full of sights like this. Welcome to America, where ordnance in the streets is a celebration that brings out the day tourists.
June 14th, 2012 | 11:25 am
“We are celebrating Marines Week in Cleveland”
Awesome.
“Voinovich Park”
Awful.
High on the list of what ails us is that living politicians get so much stuff named after them. It’s quite a despicable practice.
June 14th, 2012 | 12:38 pm
A pomocon techno-breakthrough. Let’s starting having A LOT more visuals.
June 14th, 2012 | 1:21 pm
Truly? I have found at least two ways to upload pictures to the blog. If we play around with the interface, we should be able to post video, too.
June 14th, 2012 | 1:42 pm
Brian, agreed, mostly, but Cleveland owes a debt to Voinovich. As mayor, he revitalized the city, especially moribund after the Kucinich years. Still, as an act of gratitude, it would be like naming the Twin Towers area of Manhattan after Rudi Guiliani. Tacky.
June 14th, 2012 | 3:10 pm
Cleveland, soon to be Detroit!
Sorry Kate.
June 14th, 2012 | 4:15 pm
I like words.
Apparently, a lot.
June 14th, 2012 | 9:02 pm
Carl, could I have described that scene, the cannon, the tanks, the MRAPS, right on the public square and perfectly harmless. Look at Egypt. Look at Syria, Look, even, at Moscow during a military parade. It’s different when you see people, even kids, touching the equipment in an American city.
Where I should have taken more time for words was in describing the crowd. Marines were explaining everything. One young Marine was explaining a gun that is usually mounted on a tank and certainly cannot be shot without being sturdily mounted on something. “That gun changed my life!” he said. How, we asked? Words failed him, but the essence of the matter seemed to be that the gun made him understand the power and effectiveness of artillery. Right now, that is his life. I wish I had a picture of that kid’s face as he was explaining, but I didn’t want to embarrass him.
The people walking around were all sorts, but mostly were either veterans with their children or grandchildren or people who have to be recent immigrants, speaking other languages to each other or heavily accented English to us.
You missed those things in the pictures I took. You find some of it in Google images, under Marine Week Cleveland.
June 15th, 2012 | 5:44 am
Most likely brought to you by whiney reservists; *shudder* yuck.
June 15th, 2012 | 8:51 am
Kate: Whether Voinovich was a good mayor is irrelevant. Naming stuff after living politicians does nothing but grease the skids for corruption and cronyism.
June 15th, 2012 | 9:56 am
But Kate, but Kate! Wasn’t Voinovich’s brother involved in some nefarious dealings around the state of Ohio (WTI in East Liverpool), and didn’t he go to jail? And, didn’t the governor take a great deal of heat over that?
June 15th, 2012 | 9:57 am
Brian, yes, but in political terms Voinovich has been dead for a few years. I don’t remember when the park was named for him and if he was still in the Senate at that point. He may well have pushed federal money into reviving the waterfront area.
June 15th, 2012 | 10:13 am
Bob, none of his brothers went to jail that I can find, though both Paul and Victor declared bankruptcy in the early 2000′s. George Voinovich did take political heat for his brothers’ business dealings, but how much of it was real and how much politically motivated was heavily debated at the time. I remember that. I think it is a lot to ask of politicians that they give up all business for politics. It makes them too dependent on incumbency; we want them to have a way out, something to go back to. To ask politicians’ relatives to also give up all business is really going too far.
I’d rather get government out of business and, hence, business out of government.
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