The famous architect I.M. Pei has died at the age of 102.

I'm reading "Six of I.M. Pei’s Most Important Buildings/The architect’s legacy includes some of the world’s most recognizable buildings, including the Louvre Pyramid" (NYT).

First on the list is National Center for Atmospheric Research, which we walked around just a few weeks ago. Here's a photograph of it that I took in 2014.



The NYT has a close up photo of the building, but I liked the distant view, which showed how it fit with the rocks in the landscape in Boulder, Colorado.

Fifth on the list is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here's my photograph of that, taken in 2009. Again the NYT photo is more close up, and I like to show the setting to see how the object fits the place. In this case, it's Cleveland, right on the shore of Lake Erie:



The other buildings on the NYT list are the Everson Museum of Art (in Syracuse, NY), the East Building of the National Gallery of Art (in Washington, D.C.), the Museum of Islamic Art (in Doha, Qatar), and, of course, that glass pyramid that's part of the Louvre in Paris and about which Pei said — presumably because of all the criticism — "If there’s one thing I know I didn’t do wrong, it’s the Louvre."

And here's the NYT obituary. Excerpt:

At long last, the Cleveland Indians give up on their "Chief Wahoo" logo.

The NYT reports:

Citing a goal of diversity and inclusion, [the commissioner of baseball, Rob] Manfred said in a statement provided to The New York Times that the Indians organization “ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and I appreciate [the acknowledgment by Cleveland’s chairman and chief executive, Paul Dolan] that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course.”...

Although the Indians will stop using the logo on their uniforms, they will not relinquish the trademark and still will be able to profit off sales of merchandise bearing the logo at the stadium and in the Cleveland area. But by maintaining the trademark, the team, with the supervision of M.L.B., retains control of the proliferation of the logo. If it relinquished the trademark, or announced an intention never to claim its protections, another party could legally assume control of it and use the logo in other ways.

"No, we’re not going to wrap this up — I’m going to wrap you up. You go sit down over there and learn something."

Said Steve Miller at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony last night.

"This is how close this whole show came to not happening because of the way the artists are being treated...."

What was his problem?

“The whole process is unpleasant.... They need to respect the artists they say they’re honoring, which they don’t.”

It seems to be about money. He didn't like the licensing agreements for the TV show of the ceremony, and he didn't like the way the tickets were distributed:

“When they told me I was inducted they said, ‘You have two tickets — one for your wife and one for yourself. Want another one? It’s $10,000. Sorry, that’s the way it goes.... What about my band? What about their wives?”

Who benefits from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? When an artist gets in, is he mostly giving or mostly getting?  I guess it depends on the artist. Steve Miller was lucky to get in at all, wasn't he? Maybe they told him that — or suggested as much — when they drove the bargain. They have to put on a show every year, and I wonder if some people — like Miller — are brought in to fill out the concert and maybe they realize that they're second tier and treated as such. I mean, what is the process for getting in?

Janet Morrissey of The New York Times wrote, "With fame and money at stake, it's no surprise that a lot of backstage lobbying goes on. Why any particular act is chosen in any particular year is a mystery to performers as well as outsiders – and committee members say they want to keep it that way." Jon Landau, the chairman of the nominating committee, says they prefer it that way. "We've done a good job of keeping the proceedings nontransparent. It all dies in the room."...

Here's some opinion on the Hall of Fame by Mike Nesmith (in the context of responding to the controversy over whether The Monkees, who are not in, should be):

I can see the HOF is a private enterprise. It seems to operate as a business, and the inductees are there by some action of the owners of the Enterprise. The inductees appear to be chosen at the owner’s pleasure.

This seems proper to me.

It is their business in any case. It does not seem to me that the HOF carries a public mandate, nor should it be compelled to conform to one.

And that may be the rub.

The main argument afoot is that popularity and the history and the work should somehow provide the HOF not only a mandate but also validation that should compel and convince them/it, and also be enforceable.

That doesn’t seem like a good argument, but as I say – I don’t know. I rode out the hurricane in the mobile home that is all that is left standing while all about it are vacant concrete pads and stubbs of power lines.

Yes, I know. He misspelled "stubs." He misspelled "stubs" and his mother invented Liquid Paper. If you look up Mike Nesmith in the modern "Dictionary of Received Ideas," you'll read one thing: His mother invented Liquid Paper. Liquid Paper, not Wite-Out. "Wite" isn't the right way to spell "white," you know. All the errors can be corrected later, so maybe you shouldn't worry about errors anymore. Mike Nesmith moved on after the metaphorical hurricane. He was living in a metaphorical mobile home, not the metaphorical record player designed by I.M. Pei — which is not a misspelling of I Am Pay — which was bankrolled — in part — by the needy people of Cleveland.

"No charges for Cleveland police officers in shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice."

WaPo reports. 

“The outcome will not cheer anyone, nor should it,” [Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty] said. “Simply put, given this perfect storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police.... The death of Tamir Rice was an absolute tragedy but it was not, by the law that binds us, a crime...”

"All I know is that I don't trust police no more. No police. None. I can't recover from this. ...This verdict isn't real. This verdict is fake."

Cleveland cop acquitted of manslaughter.

"What's up with Cleveland?"

"Why so many high-profile crimes in such a short span? Why such violence against the metro area's women?"

Cleveland's police department declined a CNN request to talk about the recent crimes. But to those who study the city, some patterns do emerge: crushing poverty, dehumanizing unemployment and thousands of tumbledown vacant homes -- ideal places to rape and kill in the shadows.

"I hate to say this, but in a sense, to a large degree, we have an underclass in the city of Cleveland of those that truly are disconnected from the social fabric, from the mainstream economy and society," said Ronnie Dunn, an urban studies professor at Cleveland State University. "They're left without anything to grasp onto."

Who are "they"? The murder rate in Cleveland is lower than in Baltimore and Detroit, but the rape rate is more than double that of Baltimore or Detroit.

"The Cleveland police should be ashamed of themselves.... These girls were five minutes away."

"They were looking for years and years. They were right under their nose."

One neighbor remembered occasional late-night deliveries of groceries to the boarded-up shoe box of a house in a rough-edged West Side neighborhood here.

Another remarked on a porch light that burned at night, even though many of the windows were covered.

“Why would an abandoned house have a porch light on?” he recalled thinking.

Still another said his sister had once seen a figure in an upstairs window, pounding on the glass.

ADDED: The quotes above are from the NYT. The Daily News puts it more bluntly: "Cleveland kidnapping house of horrors: Neighbors reported seeing naked women crawling on leashes, a woman with a baby pounding on a window for help... but cops walked away 3 times."

“They didn’t take it seriously,” said Elsie Cintron, who lived three doors down from the ramshackle residence where the three victims finally broke free Monday evening....

On one occasion in the spring of 2012, four local senior citizens called police — and waited two hours in vain for authorities to appear....

AND: The 911 transcript is evidence of the depth of the problem.

"Cleveland Sues Ohio to Keep Its Trans Fat Ban."

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson says:

"The health and well-being of Cleveland is the responsibility of the City of Cleveland, and we are taking proactive steps to help make everyone in Cleveland healthier...

"The state's subsequent amendment to the Ohio Revised Code taking away our ability to enforce this important health regulation is yet another attempt by the state to erode the Home Rule Authority that we have a constitutional right to"...

Is this an issue for decentralized decisionmaking or not? Whatever you think of this kind of nanny-state — nanny city? — law, the issue here is what level of government should make the decision. Why can't Cleveland be a laboratory of democracy? Why shouldn't "a single courageous state city... if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country state?"

You may think it's a stupid idea, but the effect of the stupidity is visited on the people of the city who have voted for the elected officials who chose it. If you oppose paternalism, shouldn't you oppose the paternalism of Ohio officials telling the locals what stupid ideas they can impose on themselves? And what if we're wrong about the stupidity of the law? We may learn from the experiment Cleveland has chosen to perform on itself.

Beautiful Cleveland.

After yesterday's Cleveland picture -- the view from my hotel room -- I feel I owe the city this:



A war monument and a gleaming skyscraper.

A crisply angled skyline:



A sculpture in the park, to cheer up office workers:



And the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Greetings from Cleveland.

The view from the window of my lovely hotel room: