the 3¢ fare

 The Cleveland Railway Co. on Harvard in Newburgh/Cleveland, O.

Tom Johnson †1911 was Cleveland's great mayor. Part of his campaign was municipal ownership and the three cent fare. Johnson was a successful businessman, amongst his holdings were street car lines. He also invented the glass collection box for them. Prior to his mayoralty there had been several independent lines in the city. They eventually consolidated to two in 1893 (called popularly, Big Con, and Little Con), and one in 1903.


Now in this, Johnson battled national Republican kingmakers. His opponents were intimates of Presidents Garfield and McKinley: Marcus Hanna †1904 who bought McKinley's 1896 election, and was an Ohio Senator (appointed 1897); and banker Sylvester Everett who Garfield appointed government director of the Union Pacific Railroad. Everett in the Streetcar Strike of 1899 hired scabs and had the mayor send in the state militia (Cleveland's Troop A cavalrymen of the Ohio National Guard) to augment police in cracking heads. Everett broke the strike.

Johnson was elected mayor in 1901. He, himself, was a successful business man, and he knew with what sort of creatures he was dealing with. Tom Johnson also read Henry George. Henry George (Progress and Poverty 1879) wrote on political economy, and figured out the concentration of wealth  (increased profits) by control of land and monopolies created poverty. Johnson created, in 1906, the Municipal Traction Company to operate the streetcars with a 3¢ fare (as opposed to a nickel).  A franchise agreement produced the Cleveland Railway Company which operated from 1910 to 1942 and began under the 3¢ fare. 

Later buses would be added. General Motors was involved in eliminating the street car lines across the country, including Cleveland. Politicians were easy to bribe, and GM had many cars. Cleveland Railway became Cleveland Transit System. The last streetcar stopped behind St. Colman on West 65th in January 1954. Several Cleveland streetcars ran in Toronto, Ontario until 1982.

lawn decoration christmas venue

 Charlie Brown and Christmas pig. Parma without flamingos.

Some days ago, a friend that i had not seen for over a year had a desperate need to ride out to Willoughby of Lake county to have some chili, and cheese sandwiches. Then he wanted to laugh at overly decorated lawns in Parma of Cuyahoga, south of Cleveland. He enjoys laughing, and he does so like Barney Rubble. He loves ridiculing absurdity to the extreme. We neared becoming Statler and Waldorf the Muppets. I remember, some years back, we were driving through Brooklyn, and he was frantic, "Look how much s*** they got spread on the lawn; they actually think [giggling guffaw] that looks good?". It would have took effort for a snowflake to find the ground.

Maybe, nine years ago, these brightly colored inflatable balloons took over lawns. They are powered by little fans, no electric and they are plastic throw rugs for the grass. They are relatively cheap, and on some streets they are like mylar dandelions, or canadian thistle. Well, he said he found the ugliest one possible, Santa exiting an outhouse. It was daytime, and only a brown plastic puddle was to be found.

 

 secular

These were up to-day in North Collinwood, in the area that was called Beachland. I remember these there from forty years ago, and they were not new then. It looks like the same family is there. The house is on a corner. The paint shows weathering, and fading. It still looks good.

Catholic

cat don't care

I have taken and lost a lot of photographs. For those that know camera stuff, this was taken with a Kodak Z950, as most of my fotos have been since about Thanksgiving 2009, before that a Canon A400. That will impress nobody. I used a simple programme to alter the license plate. No one needs to look up the registration.  Driving a Toyota is best done incognito. The foto was taken 21 December 2010.

This was not something i was planning to shoot. Serendipity got in the way. This was taken near St. Procop on the near west side, just south of the old Ohio City.  Now, Procop was Bohemian, and in western Europe 'Bohemian' could often refer to a non-respectable lifestyle. It could mean risqué, carefree, gypsy-like, certainly not bourgeois. We in the U.S., use other terms; and they are not used politely. Here, growing up, the term was often 'hillbilly', although, other unfavored groups were, and are, easily substituted.  Look at the car. It is not left for junk. The trunk keyhole has had the layer of grime disturbed. The plate sticker was good for six months more. The rear window is gone, and so is most of the plastic that replaced it.

Some Gus

Photographer Gus Chan of the Cleveland Plain Dealer has two slide shows of fotos, and one video tape of fotos that he has taken of the Catholic Church in Cleveland over the last four years.

http://photos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2012/12/cleveland_catholic_diocese_chu_31.html

http://photos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2012/12/cleveland_catholic_diocese_chu_70.html

http://www.cleveland.com/religion/index.ssf/2012/12/cleveland_catholic_diocese_chu.html

I spoke (some time ago) to Gus Chan, he believes this continuing story is important to the entire Greater Cleveland community. He saw the closings diminishing the cultural life of the area, and sad moments for people. He would often be one of the very first people to show up to an event. He recorded history.  Some of the photographs made the daily paper, some only on-line. Many, many fotos have still not been seen at all.

No Scruples

No Scruples

A scruple was a very small weight amongst the Romans, equivalent to 1 part of 24 of an ounce. From this it passed to the apothecary's scale as the same, about 20 grains. A scrupulus was a very small, sharp stone. It was a difficulty, a bother and it passed allegorically into philosophical discourse as an ethical, or moral hindrance.

Some people, some groups, have no such scruples. We have one political party with no moral difficulties—the Republicans. They are at one in hypocrisy. Of course, there are other groups and individuals that fit the symbol: the NRA, the Koch Brothers, Mitt Romney, Grover Norquist, Bernie Madoff, Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove, Fox News, Wall Street financiers, British Petroleum, and others.

I present this supra as a graffito, a symbol for such people and organisations.

cigarette lawyers

cigarette lawyer nathan thurm

In November 1984 Martin Short impersonated a lying, slithering, corporate lawyer. He would mug for the camera to suggest to the audience that something was not right with his interlocutor. He, himself, could not hide his nervousness. 

I remember that guy. I can't remember his name, but some years before the cigarette companies would have a spokesman to defend them to the public, and to deny any accusations against tobacco, and the cigarette companies. The brilliant stratagem was the constant cigarette, and its ash. He would advertise smoking, while smoking was attacked by 60 Minutes or some other journalist agency. "Hey, see I'm smoking, and I am a high paid lawyer. It is perfectly fine.", his puffing presence propositioned. If the cameraman was fool enough to linger on the cigarette, which ash would only grow, it would distract from the interview, and the interviewer. Look at that ash. Will it fall? A cheap trick of mesmerism.

The cigarette companies were lying, anyone with a little sense knew that. They were protecting their incomes. If they ultimately knew their ruses would fail, they enjoyed all those years there was a debate. Now, that bullshit delay is still used by economic interests. Those that attack climate science, the petroleum and coal companies, are puffing away at their lies. They as the tobacco companies are free with giving money to politicians, and attacking opponents. Every year they delay regulations, they win.

Cigarette lawyers work for other clients too. The NRA and the gun industry has Wayne LaPierre to serve the purpose. The Republican Party has Reince Priebus, and a dung barrow of others.

Guns across America

What happens when a gunman goes on a killing spree in the United States? Gun sales increase. People die, others make money. From 1994 to 2004 there was an assault gun ban in effect in the US. The Republicans came into full power, under gwbjr, and that was gone. President Kennedy was killed by a mail order gun. In 1984, 21 were killed in a San Ysidro McDonald's by a man who told his wife he was going "hunting humans". His main weapon was a 9mm Uzi. At the time, it was the highest one man, one day body count in the country. It has been surpassed more than once since.

We have also seen the killings at Columbine High 1999, Virginia Tech 2007, and too many others to remember. Locally this year, three were killed at Chardon High. Elsewhere in the country, we saw killings at a picture show in Aurora Colorado during the presidential campaign. It was not spoken of in political campaigns. Gun nuts have spent much money against Obama. When he became president there were shortages of ammunition. His re-election sold more guns again. What has he done to limit gun availability? Nothing. But something has finally gotten the country's attention.

I waited to write this, so that, i do not make remarks on incorrect suppositions of emerging public details. I did not need to be so cautious. This killing of twenty first grade children, and six women that were their teachers and staff was, is, nationally traumatic.

Last night, a public interfaith service was held in Newtown's High School. President Barack Obama was there and spoke. On local television, in northeast Ohio, Fox national was locally broadcast on WJW8. The other local stations did not locally broadcast, at least, so much of the service. I do not know if the other networks offered a national feed to local stations (now i read some did, and some football fanatics were displeased). We know that it is odd Fox ran this event without attacking Obama, or defending the gun lobby/industry; after all, their payroll Baptist preacher, Mike Huckabee*, gave vent to noxious air through his mouth. It is not fair to paint all White Baptists as loathsome nuts, but publicly all other clergy, and religious figures spoke sadly and with grief. Professional Baptists—Huckabee, Westboro Baptist of Kansas that revels in the deaths of people and continually play to outrage in front of cameras, and a previously nationally unknown Sam Morris, who spat some bile at a microphone, were eager to display their vulgarly stupid vile views.

The gun nuts, NRA and their politicians have always known they were wrong, so when time comes to pay the bill, they absent themselves from table.  Every time a shooting tragedy makes the news, the gun lobby wants silence. When a tragedy is not in the news, the gun lobby (and their supporters) will not shut up. That is why the standard response is to be silent until the event fades from broadcast, and the front page—for active collective memory in America is short.

This weekend past, the networks only got Louie Gohmert (Rep.Texas R [of course]) to speak inanity in favor, and he (now with Walsh and West about to be gone) is reclaiming number 3 outhouse rat crazy status in the House. As the days pass, second, or third, and fourth tier nuts will be easily found to speak on camera. They fetish their objects, love their monetary promise, and are too ignorant to see how heinously stupid they appear to the general public.

These mass murders, often, by automatic fire occur from time to time. Each time these events occur, the NRA (the semi-official national gun nut lobby) becomes silent. They say it is not the time for the conversation. All other times they are aggressive in attacking all those that try to suggest a lessening of the gun nut absolutist position. No limitation will be considered. Bob Costas on 2 December spoke, on the gun culture of violence in this country, after a footballer killed his girlfriend and himself. He was castigated by many (including the NRA) for his sermonising intrusion during time usually spent only on sports fluff.

The tendency for the press and others to squelch the talk of gun responsibility is automatic. It becomes a 'security' question. If the gun is absent, there is no need for security measures to protect individuals from their use. It is also interesting that early reports did not want the assault rifle identified as the killing stick. It seems now that Adam Lanza shot out a window to enter the building. Comments questioned how he accessed the building, as if the school was deficient. No, he came prepared to kill many, with the proper tools to kill, and nothing other than himself could stop him after he was armed and determined. The gun operated precisely as it was designed.
 
Here in this Sandy Hook School of Newtown Connecticut the killer is said to have had psycho-social difficulties, perhaps Asperger's syndrome. He took three guns from his mother. It is not autism per se, that is the factor; it is encouraging anyone with any mental problems to play with guns, or to have access to them. Something was wrong with the mother. The woman had a machine gun (assault rifle), what kind a nut was she? Such 'defense' fantasies fail: hole yourself up with one, and the police will send an implacable army after you. and always people insist that guns are to protect them and their loved ones. Such a weapon will never save one outside military usage. Both mother and son were identified as responsible with guns. No, they were gun nuts.

The United States exports (and imports) all sorts of munitions. One of the guns, the gun wielding murderer had, was a Sig Sauer pistol. This is a Swiss and German combine that cannot manufacture enough guns in Europe for the American market. So their cheap labor source is an American factory.

Guns are the perfect 'sacramentals' in the United States, they combine the worship of two gods—Mammon and Mars. The merchants of death grow fat in America. Every such gun usage sells more guns than ever did Dinah Shore sell Chevrolets.

 8 January 2011. Nineteen people were shot by one gunman, six died.
_______________________________________ 

* Huckabee was keynote speaker 2011 NRA national convention

Postscriptum. 18 December 2012: Ah, yes, there are other Republicans. Remember, the chief attribute of a Republican is unbridled hypocrisy. Jack Kingston (R. Georgia R.) has shown himself a selfish pig before. He has come up with more duplicitous nonsense. click.

Beethoven on the street

Der Name Beethoven ist heilig in der Kunst

The name Beethoven is sacred in art

If you do not realise what day it is click here. Schroeder is not the only aficionado of our brother Ludwig. On the west side of Cleveland, not distant from a statue of Wagner*, on a side residential street someone put a pediment to the small portico over their front door. You can see the first two measures of the Vth Symphony...tit tit tit daah [a little lower and longer on the fourth note] tit tit tit daaaah.

I remembered photographing there before, and this was lost in the computer crash. Last Saturday, i drove trying to find that house. I did remember the street, but looked on the wrong side of the avenue and couldn't find it. I spoke to a postman, and he immediately knew. Rarely, do i find people who can successfully answer questions. Found and fotoed subject.

I am slightly disappointed of the absence of a Christmas garland of lights. The tribute to Beethoven is splendid. The house has been modernly remodeled, with probably energy efficiency insulation, and ease of maintenance in mind: vinyl, yuk. The message is the highlight, but a little framing trim is asked for.

I wonder how many people know of this existence. When we were kids, and walked the neighborhood, or drove bikes we knew each house. If there were wonders on a block we knew, now we don't. In the city neighborhoods, some shabby, there is some variety and freedom of expression; not so much in bland suburbia.

People snickered at pink, plastic flamingos. I like flamingos. The colored glass spheres on birdbath pedestals was bizarre to me. The little jockeys, gnomes, and wooden bent over butts are in a race for tacky.
________________________________
* Prior to 1914 Wagner was very popular in America, and local Germans were quite proud. That statue was erected in 1911.
I am not a Wagnerian. Looney Tunes cartoon 'Kill the Wabbit' is very enjoyable. Once on my route, coasting downhill on the only stretch where there was not a stop, came on the radio 'Ride of the Valkyries'; that was fun.

Cleveland Tiffany

Art Nouveau was the French and English term for an international decorative style that flourished for the generation before World War I. The Germans called it Jugendstil (Youth style), the Russians Modern, other nations had similar names for this popular current. The French initially referred to this after the first great artist of the movement, Alfons Mucha, Style Mucha. The American most celebrated was Louis Tiffany.

The grandson of Jeptha Wade, chief of Western Union Telegraph and a founder of Lake View Cemetery, paid for a chapel to honor his grandfather. The interior of Wade's chapel was all Tiffany, including two large allegorical murals. Jeptha Wade II bought this window ,'The Flight of Souls', for Wade Memorial Chapel at Lake View.  Before it was installed, Louis Tiffany won the gold medal at 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris for it. This exposition was a successful display of Art Nouveau.

   “The Recording Angel”. 1885.

Cleveland's oldest congregation is First Presbyterian, which is called Old Stone Church, and is on the Public Square. It has four tall Tiffany windows.

 “The Sower”. 1930.

“The Good Shepherd”. 1915.

 

“I am the resurrection, and the life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live.” from John xi. 25.
1930.

 from the Good Shepherd window

Not every window has a maker's mark. Now, Tiffany and his chemists invented a process of chemical addition to molten glass that made finished glass opalescent, shining with a creamy iridescense, and became quite popular. He called this 'favrile'. This pearl like lustre, as does other stained glass, changes with the quality of light. The color is dynamic. As the seasons change, the windows change. The weather and the time of day change the hue and intensity.

One outside nave wall in this church is a man's width to a fourteen storey building; the other nave wall has Ontario Avenue next to it, and opposite it is a ten storey building. There are electric lamps behind the first nave wall's windows. The full effect of these windows are denied, as are for some other windows.

Not every Tiffany window was quite in the Art Nouveau style, or of opalescent glass. The studio was a business, if a customer was paying for some thing, and wanted a certain design, the goods were produced. A set of eight windows were installed in the new Euclid Avenue Temple in 1912. Many Jewish congregations left the city for the eastern suburbs. Anshe Chesed did so in 1957, and Liberty Hill Baptist came in. Several synagogues became Black churches.

Trinity Anglican/Episcopal Cathedral on Euclid has many windows. Some made for that building, and some from earlier Cleveland Anglican churches, and a few mediæval. Grace Church was a daughter church of the parish, and was demolished. Its Tiffany window is in a side room, not visited by many of the public.

 Jesus, the Good Shepherd. 1892.

In University Circle is the Church of the Covenant. Euclid Street United Presbyterian Church merged with Beckwith Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1906, and built a new church in 1909, Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church. The present name came in 1920 when it absorbed Second Presbyterian Church (congregation from 1837). This window was from the Beckwith Church. Windows from 2nd Presbyterian did not come to the Covenant. Across the street is Case Western Reserve U., its Florence Harkness Chapel has several Tiffany windows. My fotos of it and them are lost [previous computer crash].

Pilgrim Congregational (UCC) has two windows flanking their organ. Their new building opened in 1894. Saint Cecelia is the patron saint of music. She is portrayed with pipes.

In nearby Elyria, the First Congregational Church has four pictorial Tiffany windows after Heinrich Hoffman paintings. Two of the windows are flanked by ornamental companion windows. 

A closed church (former Millionaire's Row), a few feet away from the Anshe Chesed synagogue has a possible Tiffany window; originally, Church of the Epiphany Reformed Episcopal 1899, closed as Euclid Avenue Church of God. The town limits used to be, what is now E. 55th, and then E.79th and had several new churches immediately past 79th. Now much of Euclid Avenue beyond E. 79th is Cleveland Clinic, and they want more property.

The First Unitarian Church [again, on Euclid Avenue] nearby used to have eight Tiffany windows. One is at the Western Reserve Historical Society, others were also sold or lost.

I have recently read, that, St. Paul's on Euclid and E.40 when it was an Anglican church, before it moved to the Heights had Tiffany windows that are lost. I have been there and it has 19th century American painted glass, and some newer Catholic windows. 

Euclid Avenue Baptist Church was built in 1871 and demolished in 1961. It had a couple of Tiffany windows, considered lost. Now, sometimes lost means stolen, sometimes forgotten to look or find someone who knows, or some paper that has it described.

 

The Cleveland Art Museum has several Tiffany objects, including this window (c. 1900) from a

private house that was razed. It is exhibited in a narrow space. The resultant foto caused by curvature from my camera lens causes an aberration in the two dimensional image.

_________________

postscriptum: Mausoleum at Knollwood Cemetery in Mayfield Heights has many Tiffany windows

Stupid is as stupid does

 “I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.” — John Stuart Mill to John Pakington in Parliament 31 May 1866.

 “Some fellows get credit for being conservative when they are only stupid.” —  in Abe Martin of Brown County, a newspaper cartoon from 1904 to 1930, written by Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard *1868, 1930 †

“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.” — 26 October 1939. President Franklin Roosevelt

  Carlo M. Cipolla's Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

I.) Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

II.) The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

III.) A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

IV.) Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

V.) A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
_______________________________
An hundred and fifty years ago there were radicals in the Republican party, an hundred years ago there were progressives in the Republican party, fifty years ago there were liberals in the Republican party, twenty-five years ago there were moderates in the Republican party, now Republicans fear if they are not considered conservative enough.

One ridiculous phrasing of a story has four 'conservatives' bounced by Boehner. How? They are all conservative. The press chooses wrongly not to call them extremists, or teabaggers. The press fears to use a word beyond 'conservative'. On an old chart the term was 'reactionary'; on another it is 'fascist'.