blogger interrupted

Martin Luther King Blvd. from I-90 to University Circle in Cleveland is a historic place.  Used to be John D. Rockefeller’s back yard.  It is now a tree-shaded parkway lined with “cultural gardens“, little patches of green and statues dedicated to Cleveland’s many ethnic communities.  Polish, Italian, Irish, Ukrainian, Estonian, you name it, if there’s an ethnic community in Cleveland, they’ve got a patch along the route.  That’s Ghandi’s statue in the India garden above.

Azerbaijan hasn’t sent many immigrants to Cleveland.  I’m gonna guess about a dozen, but the PD says about 100 (you’ll see why the PD says that in a sec) Azerbaijan is a post soviet shithole dictatorship which oppresses its people, steals elections with a combination of guns and corruption, and has engaged in ethnic cleansing of Armenians since 1994.  

There used to be no Azeri cultural garden.  Why would there be?

Because one day, some Azeri big shot who was in town for heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic (so familiar) caught a glimpse of the cultural gardens.  And like every post-soviet thug, who can’t stand to be left off of whatever bandwagon everyone else is on, said Azeri thug wondered, gee.  Why isn’t there an Azerbaijan garden?  We could use this good PR!

Before dying at the Cleveland Clinic in 2003, Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev was a frequent visitor to Cleveland for surgeries and checkups. His top aides discovered the cultural gardens and urged local Azerbaijanis to join the chain.

There really are no local Azerbaijanis.  But like Cleveland so often does, and as Azerbaijan sniffed out, beggars for good PR can’t be choosers, so Cleveland bent over backwards to put a monument to this repugnant dictatorship on some of our most hallowed ground.  And since Frank Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, and Stephanie Tubbs Jones didn’t do their homework on this country, which has fewer immigrants in Cleveland than Lichtenstein does, the PD didn’t do their homework either.  Just gulped down the Kool Aid like the dutiful stool pigeons that they are.  Phillip Morris practically weeps.

 ”Let’s take pictures.”

The boys, seventh-graders from University School, were more than happy to comply. They huddled around Aliyev and preened. They smiled at him. He smiled back. It made for great photos. 

Yes, such good photos.  Of cute private school kids!  And how convenient, Azeri state TV was there for the proud moment!

Two Azerbaijan television news crews – one based in Toronto and the other from Washington, D.C. – covered the scene for viewers back in Azerbaijan, an oil-rich nation of 8 million people on the Caspian Sea.

And of course, there’s a Clevelander there to parrot this militaristic regime’s talking points for them.

Dr. George Parras, former president of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Federation, welcomed the Azerbaijanis to Cleveland’s ethnic mosaic and to a garden chain designed to promote peace and tolerance.

And Phillip Morris was so moved by the giant bowl sculpture (which I’m sure the Azeris created out of sheer lack of ideas for anything else), Morris again quivers with humanity.

 The “Hearth” was deliberately chosen for the garden because in Azerbaijan, the hearth is a symbol of love and a gathering place for family.

Watching Aliyev interact with the schoolboys, one could only hope that the message of the hearth will once again resonate throughout the Cultural Gardens and Cleveland. 

Love.  Except for Armenians, who Azeris would like to kill by the thousands, have killed by the thousands since 1994, and who are now making Cleveland’s cultural gardens the latest flash point in this geo-political game because Armenians, shock horror, now demand their own spot in the garden.

Ah, Cleveland.  You never fail to live up to my expectations.