Tidbits Day

No Minced Words. The incomparable Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo gets right to the point: "Let's not mince words: President Bush is a profound threat to the U.S. Constitution. His contempt for the rule of law needs to be ended."

Never Again. Cleveland's "tech czar," my old pal Michael DeAloia, has a new book of poetry out. Like the guy himself, it's soulful and never boring. But last night, at a tech event (you can download the webcast here) downtown, he turned his attention from verse to economic development. He even committed a bit of news, I thought. Speaking about one of downtown's agonizing near-misses--Peter B. Lewis's booming insurance company very nearly brought all of its giant Cleveland-area work force downtown a few years ago--he said this: "The rallying cry in the city is 'no more Progressives.' They basically built an entire city on the east side." Unfortunately, there aren't as many people to work at attracting business downtown as there once were. He noted that with budgets tight, the city's economic development staff has gone from 21 to 7 in recent years.

New Theory for Falling Newspaper Circulation. You've no doubt heard a hundred or more theories on why newspapers have been suffering steady circulation declines in recent years, from the ink rubbing off on readers' hands to the allure of getting one's news electronically. But Deep Cleveland's Mark Kuhar has his own novel theory on why fewer and fewer people are reading newspapers: because they lack poetry sections. Back in July he wrote: "only poetry can save the world, and these idiots don't even recognize it."

The Eagle Has Landed. We hear that Ken Kesegich, the former editor of the CWRU university magazine and later a speechwriter for then-Case president Ed Hundert, has found a new gig. Caught up in the regrettable university downsizing forced by budget deficits, he recently joined ad and p.r. agency Marcus Thomas as a copywriter. Congratulations, Ken, and a good choice, Marcus Thomas.

The Undiscovered Web. Remember back in the '90s when we were all still giddy over the Internet, discovering digital treasures one site at a time? Remember how seemingly every magazine published "bookmarks," lists of prominent people's favorite sites? We haven't seen much of that lately. But PC Magazine is back in the fray with this not uninteresting list of 99 "undiscovered" sites. I think it's worth at least a quick scan.

Finally, I was bummed to miss seeing the New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert speak this week. She appeared at Oberlin College last Wednesday, as part of its excellent ongoing convocation series. Last month, I missed an even more interesting speaker, the incendiary Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman. Perhaps next month I'll try to catch Andrew Sullivan, if I can stomach the idiocy of a conservative gay man who's shocked--shocked!--to learn that conservative Republicans are meanies when it comes to dealing with homosexual issues.