Lately, I've been sensitized to the occurrence of sudden and unexpected heart attacks in relation to Cleveland communities and mythologies, and now here comes another one, my southeast-suburb homeboy Tommy Sinito's in 1997. Read the whole excerpt in MapTheMess; for me, it's a new perspective, perhaps a rewrite of actual events, but with oral histories, it's all up for grabs anyway. Enjoy, and make sure to go for your heart screening every year. There might be something in the water around here.

Tommy "The Chinaman" Sinito, a made man in the Cleveland Mafia Family, remains an enigma. The Full extent of his criminal career and influence is shrouded in mystery. He played a large part in the Cleveland Mafia. Tommy Sinito rose from being an errand boy to the rank of made man under Mafia Boss Big Ange Lonardo.

Tommy Sinito caught Big Ange Lonardo’s attention when he tended bar in the early 1970s at the Highlander Restaurant and Lounge on Northfield Road..

Sinito remained a major influence in the Cleveland Mafia until his death from a heart attack in the exercise yard at the Belmont Correctional Institute in 1997. His rapid raise in Mafia ranks from errand boy to made man has created a plethora of stories about him. Most of these are nothing more than fantastic tales.

Click on the Blogger label "heartbreak" below to view my growing collection of those who may have cared too much or felt too strongly.

Archive: AmricanMafia.com: Carmen Zagaria and Tommy Sinito [Map the Mess]

I missed this last month and thought it needed widespread sharing.  Sarah's constructs were remarkable, and Dick is in fine form here:

What will ambitious politicos learn from this? That frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences that ramble on long after thought has given out completely are a candidate’s valuable traits?

And how much more of all that lies in our future if God points her to those open-a-crack doors she refers to? The ones she resolves to splinter and bulldoze her way through upon glimpsing the opportunities, revealed from on high.

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

(A cynic might wonder if Wasilla High School’s English and geography departments are draped in black.)

Read the whole thing.

The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla - Dick Cavett Blog - NYTimes.com

This post from the sartorial expert Will, and the comments following,  are a needed antidote to the behavioral slippage many of us allowed to happen, or even gleefully pursued, in the societal change of the '60s and '70s.  On a personal note, my crusade to eliminate expletives and crudities from my everyday parlance has been about 90% successful this past year; there are indeed other words that work as well or better, my vocabulary is improving, and I am thinking a little more before I make strong or negative statements. Tourette's is a motherfucker. There! My 10% allowance!

In the first half of the twentieth century, the influential American etiquette author Emily Post considered the term "gentleman" to mean a man with a superior standard of behavior. The word "gentle", originally meaning that a man came from a good family if not outright nobility, came to be associated with the standard of manners expected from that elevated origin. Later, the term was extended to include any man of good, courteous conduct.

Unfortunately, in recent years the term gentleman has been diluted further, so that it now is used to refer to males who are members of certain drinking clubs that offer lap dances by minimally clothed females but altogether lack manners. And a man's poor manners can be a serious impediment in his life, for, like appropriate dress, good manners serve as a social lubricant

A Suitable Wardrobe: Manners: Be a Gentleman

This is the same sort of thing Gloria had on November 17th. See my December 4th post, below.

Since that post, Roldo Bartimole has informed me that Norm Krumholz' heart went down for the count at about the same time Gloria had her incident. (Norm, by the way, has had surgery and is recovered.) Here's the lead-in from the PD yesterday:

Cuyahoga County employee Rosemary Vinci died of a blocked coronary artery, according to a preliminary autopsy report released this afternoon by the county coroner's office.

There was no foul play or trauma involved, the report stated.

Coroner blames blocked artery for Rosemary Vinci's death - Metro - cleveland.com

Already, going back to this BFD post from November 14th, we find the link to the PD story coming up as "story not found" and the website  http://www.savencb.com/ taken down. The vote does not occur until Friday, the day after Christmas.  The newly coined term "premature capitulation" comes to mind as a descriptor of the way a lot of things seem to go around here. Cookies spilled, everybody's already gone home.

Thanks to Carla Rautenberg for the link to the WaPo article. I'd missed it, and I'd imagine I'm not alone.

Carla Rautenberg adds this background from the Washington Post.

Dan Moore blows a whistle on a bad deal | Brewed Fresh Daily

This bears watching, perhaps scrutiny:

Rules adopted by the Ohio Supreme Court on Monday could restrict the public's access to court records, a leading open-government advocate says.

Cleveland lawyer David Marburger, of the Ohio Coalition for Open Government, said the rules shift the burden to the public to prove why it needs access to court records if someone involved in a case wants sealed.

Before Monday, people involved in court cases had to prove they would be harmed if records remained open in individual cases.

"This is a dangerous precedent," said Marburger, who has represented several newspapers, including The Plain Dealer. "This is a dramatic change. The future of these rules can only be negative."

The court adopted the amendments from the Commission on the Rules of Superintendence for the Courts of Ohio. Six of the high court's justices voted for the changes, and Justice Paul Pfeifer dissented.

Ohio Supreme Court rules could make it harder for you to search court records - Metro - cleveland.com

This site isn't what it once was, and isn't ever going to become what I want it to be. My thanks go out to all of those who, for a brief time, made this little spot of the web a good place to be. Peace.

If any of you knew Ms. Laura - she was the very sweet lady that lived in the back apartment of the house next to the gas station. One would often see her on her way to catch a bus downtown to the library, with her library bag, her bright smile, and every hair in place. Ms. Laura passed away Tuesday. There will be services, but in California at her sister's - who she often spoke of.
Ms. Laura worked as a "book keeper" most all her life at Central Cadillac. She never married. She and her neighbor Doris faithfully tended the stray "kitties" outside her apartment. She would so very sweetly ask her young neighbors to change the batteries in her smoke detectors every fall and each spring.
Ms. Laura could muster up her cutest smile, her bright eyes sparkling for the hippest oddball among us. Even the guy with a big bone through his nose, multiple piercings and tattoos across his face, she would say something like - "Now tell me, wHy do you have that lovely picture on your face?" and at his response, she would smile, glance down nodding her head a few times slightly to the side. Her chin would perk back up to the sky and with a big smile on her face, kind words would come out of her lips. She accepted everyone. And she always had happiness and love to share.

Maybe those who knew her from the neighborhood could post some kind words here?

UPDATE: It looks like the upgrade destroyed the Events portion of the site, which is a shame. The old design is also apparently unusable with the new version of Drupal. I'd forgotten why I never upgraded in the past, but now I remember. We'll just have to work with this non-green theme until I have a chance to properly sit down and fix things over the holiday.

I tried to upgrade the Drupal installation and it (obviously) broke the site. I'm trying to figure out the extent of the issue. Hopefully I can get the basic design cobbled back together in the next day.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN TREMONT

BY: JERLEEN JUSTUS

Twas the night before Christmas in Tremont

When right across the sky

I caught a glimpse of Santa Clause

As he went whizzin' by

He seemed in such a hurry

I strained my eyes to see

And boy was I suprised

When he glared right back at me

For sitting right behind the reins

And dressed in Santa's suit

Was a long legged old grinch

With Santa's sack packed full of loot

He had all of Santa's reindeers

Even old Rudolph with his nose so bright

Sailin' through the starry sky

On this cold and frosty night

It wasn't presents he was packin'

As the sleigh sailed through the air

His puny elf sat right beside him

As if they neither had a care

He wasn't dropping down the chimney

With a bag of children's toys

Nor was he making merry wishes

For all the little girls and boys

Yet on the doors he came a knockin'

With his little hammer and a nail

He tacked up violations

You comply or go to jail

And right before he tweaked his nose

Clicked his heels and flew away

He slapped old Roudolph on the rear

And said get up and pull this sleigh

The reindeer heed and hawed

Rudolph began to spew and spit

We gotta fix this old dude

I'm sick and tired of all his shit

As they soared into the sky

The reindeer blew some gastly smoke

That should hold him for a while

The aristocatic bloke

While santa caughed and held his nose

The team made one quick little turn

And as they picked up faster speed

The brighter Rudolph's nose did burn

Over the ballfield, out past the wall

They swung that sleigh around

As it left the atmosphere

They heard an awful screeching sound

The sleigh tipped - santa lost his grip

And all the reindeer began to cry

For As he floated into outer space

Old Rudolph let out a great big sigh

The sucker didn't say Merry Christmas

Or wish anyone Lots of Cheer

Nor did he say fix your run down house

Or pull your F....n' weeds next year.

the end.....