Matt Bors earns an unprecedented distinctionCanton native Matt Bors is living the news-junky art-nerd dream, making a decent living as a political cartoonist. Now working out of Portland, Oregon, he’s enjoyed growing success with his syndicated strip Idiot Box (which appears on Scene’s letters page), draws a biweekly strip for the ACLU and recently added Free Inquiry magazine to his client roster. So he spends a lot of time sketching subversion.
Recently, he learned of an unexpected and strange honor: being named the favorite cartoonist of Osama bin Laden’s driver.

A recent installment of Idiot Box skewered the government’s prosecution of Salim Hamdan, whose alleged crimes are largely mysterious, “but appear to include checking the oil and the tire pressure” of the car of the most wanted man in the world, according to a New York Times article that Bors cited in the strip. Last month, he was cleared of terrorism-related charges but found guilty of providing material support to Al-Qaeda. Counting time served, he could complete his sentence in six months but may be held indefinitely as a so-called enemy combatant.
Shortly after the strip was published, Bors learned from his ACLU contacts that it had gotten to Hamdan’s lawyers, and they’d had it translated for him at the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, where he’s been held since his capture in Afghanistan in November 2001. Bors was told Hamdan “was quite amused.”

Hamdan’s lawyers have ordered a print of the strip, but Bors is not clear on whether it’s for them or for Hamdan’s cell. — Frank Lewis

OMG HE TOUCHED MY HAND!
Juxtapose the most recent town-hall meetings convened in Greater Cleveland by the two top presidential contenders and it becomes clear: Senator John McCain may be slogging his “Straight Talk Express” through the heart of America, but Barack Obama’s “Road to Change” has virtually stolen that heart and kept the panties as a souvenir.

Despite his outsider Western image, McCain’s policies smack of business-as-usual, and that’s because, on analysis, they are. But Obama’s user-friendly and hyperarticulate progressive platform gives Dems something for which they’ve been salivating ever since Clinton the First leaned right: a new New Deal. Couple that with worldwide celebrity sex appeal, and Obama been laden with lovin’.

Last Tuesday, Obama gathered supporters at Baldwin-Wallace College’s basketball stadium in Berea to talk about his plan to invest $15 billion annually to create renewable-energy jobs in places like Ohio, which he noted has stood by as 236,000 workers got pink slips in just the last eight years. And most of the audience, both old and young, man and woman, couldn’t wait to just get a glimpse, touch a hand, cop a feel. Almost everyone.

At the beginning, a freelance photographer  in the press pool, John Quinn of Parma, screamed out in unorthodox fashion for Obama to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, something his campaign says he usually does for such events. “We can do that,” Obama said, asking Quinn to kick it off. “My grandfather fought for this country,” Quinn said under his breath after the interruption. “My cousin died for it.” For the Pledge? Seriously?

The tension was short-lived, despite Secret Service maneuvering. Obama’s plan — with meaningful rebates for plug-in hybrids, to help with retooling old industries for the new market — won the audience back.

The crowd erupted time after time, fists pumping, eyelashes batting. You could see it in their adoring and ravenous stares: Love. Even new Senator Sherrod Brown and Governor Ted Strickland looked like they were aw-shucksing it backstage with the Beatles.
During Q&A, between pointed questions about his positions, more marveling ensued. A disabled single mother from an urban neighborhood, who just graduated her son to college, said to her man, “I just bought a gown and would like to wear it to your inauguration.” Everybody laughs. “What does the dress look like exactly?” he asked back, just sexy enough for a happily married man.

At the end, he circled the podium and greeted all well-wishers. “He’s so hot!” a college-ager said to her friends, who looked equally enamored, with their cameras poised above their heads and cleavage strategically maximized. I nudged past them and grabbed his hand, clammy with the sweat of hundreds of handshakes. And he squeezed back, smiled into my eyes. 
I couldn’t think of a single question to ask. Just go, I’m thinking. Go. I’ll be here when you get back. — Dan Harkins
 
WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?
During the July Coventry Street Fair, a mid-size truck with a giant TV screen embedded in its side prowled the perimeter, playing a National City ad. Over and over and over. Nice, huh? You go out for a fun summer evening, hear some music, see some friends, and every so often in the background, you can hear a frickin’ commercial. (Fair organizer Myra Orenstein says the driver had planned to park his ad-mobile right on the blocked-off portion of Coventry and seemed surprised when she told him to beat it.)

But at least that was merely annoying. Around the same time, someone started affixing green-and-white National City stickers, roughly the size of manhole covers, to sidewalks in Cleveland Heights, along Coventry and Lee roads. They seemed to be made of vinyl, and the adhesive on the back was some seriously sticky shit (I peeled one up, and it wasn’t easy). And once removed, they leave behind a perfectly round patch of goo that quickly becomes a perfectly round, dirty stain.

National City’s media relations office did not return Scene’s calls.

Richard Wong, Cleveland Heights’ planning director, informed Scene in an e-mail that a city official contacted Julie Ott of National City’s marketing department, who claimed not to know that advertising on sidewalks is illegal. Oops.

“These ‘ads’ are illegal under both the general offenses and zoning codes,” notes first assistant law director Laurie Wagner, also in an e-mail. “In addition to criminal penalties, the city can recover its costs for removal and any damage to public property.”

Damage to National City’s reputation as a result of its strange new ad strategy — noise pollution and defacement of public property — is its own problem. — Frank Lewis

A RIDE IN THE WAY-BACK MACHINE
From John Gorman, former WMMS program director and author of The Buzzard: “It was one of the greatest nights in the history of rock and roll in Cleveland.” Saturday, August 9, was the 30th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s legendary free WMMS 10th Anniversary concert at the Cleveland Agora on East 24th.

“We drew postcards from listeners to give away almost 1,200 tickets. We knew this was a major event for us, our listeners and the other stations simulcasting the concert in an ad hoc network set up with stations in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, Columbus and Cincinnati.
“The air was literally electric — muggy and rainy outside, with summer lightning crackling and fans jamming the Agora entrance almost two hours before showtime.  Because it was a general-admission show, some had slept on the sidewalk the night before in hopes of landing a front-row spot for the show.

“They whistled, they clapped and chanted in the background as Denny Sanders signed on the broadcast to welcome the radio listeners. Kid Leo did the onstage introduction: ‘I have the duty and the pleasure of welcoming, ladies and gentlemen, the main event. Round for round, pound for pound, there ain’t no finer band around — Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band!’”
More (including links to audio and video) at buzzardbook.wordpress.com.

LOCAL DIRT

The feds are still searching for a photograph of Jimmy Dimora and a scantily clad Rosemary Vinci, which they were told was kept in Auditor Frank Russo’s office. (Editor’s note: Eww.) But apparently someone hid the photo before the recent raid on the county admin building. Vinci is paid by the auditor and county commissioners as a liaison to City Hall. When questioned by Channel 3 last week, Vinci, a former strip-club manager, said, “When I hear of something [at City Hall], I get back to them.” That’s the most specific explanation offered so far for Vinci’s $48,000 a year gig: professional gossip.

Here’s something Vinci might want to make her bosses aware of: Last Thursday, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson invited the region’s top FBI man, Frank Figliuzzi, to his office to talk about employees of the city’s Building and Housing Department who may be linked to the ongoing investigation into Cuyahoga County corruption. A Jackson spokesman denied rumors that Figliuzzi needed a search warrant to find the notoriously reclusive mayor.

On Sunday, Councilman Zack Reed began serving his 10-day jail sentence for driving drunk. While he’s in the hoosegow, an assistant is handling his daily duties, which we assume include answering calls from constituents via cell phone from inside Blue Point during happy hour.

The cost of building the ballyhooed Medical Mart is now $536 million, county commissioners announced last week. But don’t worry: Turns out the tax increase (that we didn’t get to vote on) will generate $90 million more than expected, due to funny math involving the timing of bonds, which nobody really understands or should question, capisce? Forest City — run by Sam Miller and the Ratners, who fund the campaigns of everyone involved in drafting legislation for the Medical Mart — will nab at least $40 million in the deal. The site-selection committee chose Tower City, a decision that reminds us of Dick Cheney’s choosing himself to be George Bush’s running mate.

Turns out Garfield Heights Mayor Thomas Longo signed his city’s soul away. In a deal to build City View Center, he signed off on an agreement that makes the city liable for any environmental problems the shopping center experiences. City View Center sits atop two landfills and appears to be leaking explosive gas. Now the city could be fined $270 million. The initial comment from the mayor? He’s “formulating a response.” Yeah, just like my 10-year-old, when I ask why his little brother is holding his head and crying.