It has been announced that Cleveland area Congressman Dennis Kucinich will be awarded the 37th annual Thomas Merton Award for work in social justice. He will be presented with the award on Sunday, November 1st at The Merton Center's annual banquet at the Churchill Valley Country Club.

Kucinich has a long history of promoting justice throughout his lengthy career in politics, spanning from his stint as Cleveland's mayor through his career in Congress and runs for the presidency in 2004 and 2008. He has bills for national health care, calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and strongly opposes the North American Free Trade Act.

“Today, Atlantic City, in the eyes of one gambling executive, Tim Wilmott, is in a ‘death spiral,’” that’s the tone of a Sunday New York Times piece on the financial troubles of the city’s casinos.

“Rows of slot machines stand eerily empty,” says the story while hotel rooms are empty. Many casinos have experienced double digit revenue drops, the report said.

The article is far from a hatchet job. However, it does have a cautionary message to Cleveland and other Ohio cities where casinos would go if Issue 3 is passed.

Cleveland will be rolling the dice next Tuesday when voters go into the booths to cast a vote that would give a billionaire a monopoly board contract for a Cleveland casino.

“The economic slowdown has shown that the gambling industry is not quite as recession-proof as was so long believed,” it said of Atlantic City.

And you might like to remember as you go into that booth the promise of Atlantic City’s gambling sales people:

“Billed as a ‘great experiment’ in urban redevelopment, legalized gambling was pitched to voters as an effort to reverse Atlantic City’s long decline…”

Sound familiar?

The office of Governor Ted Strickland announced today that that Ohio energy research projects have received more than $17.3 in stimulus money. One of the recipients was right here in Cuyahoga County as Momentive Performance Materials of Strongsville was awarded $4.5 Million. Here is the full release from the Governors office:

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland today congratulated four Ohio projects that received more than $17.3 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for advanced energy research. These projects were among $151 million in federal funding awarded to 37 major research projects nationwide from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“We are grateful to Secretary Chu and the U.S. Department of Energy for providing these funds, which will allow us to enhance our state’s advanced energy capacity, and to the Ohio congressional delegation for supporting the Recovery Act and Ohio’s applications,” Strickland said. “Being among awardees such as MIT and Stanford University is a testament to Ohio’s competitive position in the advanced energy field.”

Case Western Reserve University announced today that their Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing will receive $3.7 Million in federal stimulus money. CWRU said on their website:

The Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing (FPB) at Case Western Reserve University was recently awarded $3.7 million in six stimulus grants from various federal offices to fund innovative research and academic programs.

Funded projects include establishing a new center of excellence on end-of-life science; expanding the Self-Management Advancement through Research and Translation (SMART) Center with a program to involve more disabled persons in the subject side of research activities; developing new electronic tools to reduce health disparities; testing the effects of early therapeutic mobility among hospital patients; combating the nursing faculty shortage through a forgivable loan program for graduate students; and providing opportunities to disadvantaged students.

"The stimulus awards represent that the hard work of our dynamic faculty and staff is unique, relevant, and, most of all, needed," says May L. Wykle, the Marvin E. and Ruth Durr Denekas Professor and Dean of the nursing school.

Damian Guevara in the Scene last week had a take on the Issue 3 that has been neglected by most, including me, but touches on a damaging game among Cleveland developers. They vie among themselves for advantage no matter what the cost to community.

It has cost us plenty over the years.

Guevara points out that Forest City Enterprises would be a winner if the measure passes. And that its rival, Jeff Jacobs, wants to stop it, making him the winner.

The battle between the two families – Jacobs & Ratner – has been going on in Cleveland for years. Neither cares much about the damage they cause the city.

“The question for Greater Clevelanders,” writes, Guevara, a former Plain Dealer reporter, “Do you trust wealthy pro-casino interests – in this case, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert – to deliver on the latest promise of blue-collar and hospitality jobs, multi-million-dollar tax payments and yet another facelift of downtown Cleveland?”

I’d say no.

He calls the manipulation of the constitution inherent in a “yes” vote for Issue 3, a “deal-breaker” for many.

But the beneficiaries are clear, he notices.

Newspapers across the country take another smack from readers. They are buying fewer and fewer newspapers, including the Plain Dealer.

Six month circulation figures for newspapers showed steep declines. The Plain Dealer’s daily circulation was down 11.2 percent and Sunday circulation dropped 4.9 percent.

The report was published in Editor & Publisher magazine. The figures come from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

E&P said that newspapers are unable to “shake the dramatic declines in circulation.”

The PD’s daily circulation is 271,180 as of Sept. 2009 and Sunday circulation was 390,636 in the same six month period.

That’s still a lot of newspaper readers.

The PD daily circulation for the period ending March 31 this year was 291,730. The drop was nearly 20,000 a day for the six month period.

The general election is fast approaching and everyone seems to have an opinion on Issue 3 which would bring in casinos to the Buckeye State if it were to pass next Tuesday. The Downtown Cleveland Alliance came in with a late endorsement today writing in a press release:

Downtown Cleveland: The Downtown Cleveland Alliance (DCA) formally announced its support for State Issue 3 today. The Alliance joins the Greater Cleveland Partnership in its backing of the constitutional amendment that would legalize casino gambling in Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati and Columbus.

“Our number one mission is the continual progress of Downtown into a thriving, urban core for our entire region,” says John Carney, Chairman of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance Board. “Issue 3 has the potential to be a major benefit to our local economy, if it is done right. We feel strongly that Dan Gilbert’s downtown proposal will ensure the maximum benefit to Downtown and the surrounding region by building on the investments the private and public sectors have already made.”

Former Congressman Dennis Eckart has joined the party. He’s backing Issue 3. That makes it almost unanimous – every shyster in town is backing a monopoly casino for a billionaire.

What a wonderful town this is.

Eckart, a former Greater Cleveland Growth Association (now Greater Cleveland Partnership) top boss, played a liberal politician for years. It’s has been a money-maker as Eckart has become a corporate shill here.

WKYC-TV allows this lobbyist free air access many Sunday mornings on Tom Beres’s Between the Lines. A lobbyist as a political commentator. Do you go any lower?

WKYC reports that Eckart will fill-in for billionaire mortgage man and Cavalier owner Dan Gilbert He is supposedly ill. Gilbert will be one of the owners of a monopoly casino, if voters approve Issue 3, a constitutional change on Election Day.

Eckart will argue for Gilbert’s casino deal in a debate at Kent State University. He is a trustee at KSU.

Once a Golden Boy liberal politician, Eckart has bounced around after leaving Congress. He has been with law firms Baker & Hostetler and the now bankrupt Arter & Hadden. He served in Congress from 1981 to 1993, leaving to pursue business interests as the Republicans took ownership of the U. S. Congress.

On Monday morning the Audit Bureau of Circulations released the latest figures for the six months ending in September 2009, and they're not pretty. Circulation at many of the country's largest newspapers continued a downward slide. In Cleveland, The Plain Dealer experienced a 11.2 percent reduction in daily circulation and was down 4.9 percent for Sunday circulation.

Nationwide, of the 379 newspapers that file with the organization, the average daily circulation was down 10.6 percent at 30,395,652 and Sunday circulation for 562 reporting papers was down 7.4 percent at 40,012,253. This marks one of the most severe drops in overall circulation.

At the PD, daily circulation now stands at 217,180 daily and Sunday circulation is now at 390,636. According to Editor & Publisher, the PD is now No. 16 on the list of the country's top 25 newspapers according to daily circulation, just barely inching ahead of No. 17's Detroit Free Press.

It sounds like additional job cuts are more inevitable than ever.

1. St. Ignatius 9-0. A crowd of 13,000 will witness the Holy War Saturday afternoon at Lakewood Stadium.

2. Glenville 8-1. A crowd of 130 will witness the Tarblooders against East High Friday afternoon at Rhodes field.

3. Solon 9-0.

4. Mayfield 8-1.

5. Lake Catholic 8-1.

6. Shaw 6-1-1.

7. Chagrin Falls 9-0.

8. Maple Hts. 6-3.

9. Wadsworth 8-1.

10. North Royalton 8-1.

11. West Geauga 8-1.

12. Twinsburg 8-1.

13. Parma 6-3.

14. Ravenna 7-2.

15. Mentor 5-3.

16. Cleveland Hts. 4-5 (includes 3 forfeits).

17. St. Vincent-St. Mary 6-3.

18. St. Edward 4-5.

19. Brunswick 6-3.

20. Hudson 7-2.

21. Aurora 6-3.

22. Hoban 6-3.

23. Walsh 5-3.

24. Euclid 5-4

25. Padua 6-3.

26. Amherst 7-2.

27. Willoughby South 7-2.

28. Highland 6-3.

29. Olmsted Falls 6-3.

30. Kenston 6-3.

31. Rocky River 7-2.

32. Avon Lake 6-3.

33. Akron Garfield 6-3.

34. Copley 6-3.

35. North Ridgeville 7-2.

36. Trinity 7-2.

37. NDCL 6-3.

38. North Olmsted 6-3.

39. University School 5-4.

40. Bay Village 7-2.

(That's all for now. High school football playoffs next week. My overpriced book spanning 45 years in this racket next spring. Start saving up.)