Times are tough in Cleveland. How tough? Today a story gave us some sense of the distress felt by many people.
The times in Cleveland are so challenging that, when the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland announced that it was accepting applications for table game and poker dealer jobs that pay between $17 and $22 per hour, 11,800 people applied for 500 openings. Some applicants even took special coaching classes at a nearby community college to try to improve their interviewing skills and show the dazzling personality that casinos apparently are looking for in table game dealers.
In 2009, when Ohio voters approved the constitutional amendment allowing casino gambling in our state, it was sold as a way to create jobs — and at least that promise is being kept. Two years later, the economy still stinks, and former construction workers, machinists, and medical billing technicians who have been out of work for months are so desperate that they have flooded a not-yet-open casino with applications and even taken classes in hopes of improving their slim chances of landing a job dealing blackjack. In my view, that painful reality says a lot more about the true extent of our economic problems than cold statistics ever could.
The incident is part of a broader trend of concern about the credibility of law school admissions statistics 
Fittingly, Nebraska’s first game is also a big game, and one that should give them a proper Big Ten welcome. The undefeated, eighth-ranked Huskers travel to Camp Randall Stadium to take on the unbeaten Wisconsin Badgers, who sit at number 7 in the polls. For a visiting team, Camp Randall is one of the toughest venues in the Big Ten, with the distinctive traditions found in many Big Ten stadiums. Nebraska will have to endure the taunts of the Wisconsin faithful and then, when the third quarter ends, feel the field shake when the stadium rocks and the student section hops to House of Pain’s Jump Around.
It’s silly to be voting in January, 10 months before the actual election. No rational person would want to front-load the process because it increases the risk that a flukey candidate might get on a roll and knock everyone out of the race, only to be exposed months later as a hapless lightweight who isn’t ready for prime time. Rick Perry’s recent bumbling, fumbling, stumbling performance at a Florida debate aptly demonstrates why it makes sense to draw out the process, to give the candidates the chance to mature and to give the public a reasonable amount of time to get to know who they’re voting for.
The problem is that, once you get beyond a solid colored sweater, there is no sure way of distinguishing an “attractive” sweater from a repulsive one. This isn’t an issue for men’s attire; few guys have a taste for sweaters as vivid and outlandish as those worn by Dr. Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show. Women are another story, however. You may see sweaters with hanging fuzzballs or swaying threads of yarn, scattered sequins, ribbons, or spangles, large Brutus Buckeye figures, bright orange pumpkins, or fake fall leaves sewn on, or blinding abstract designs that could have been ripped from the walls of the Guggenheim. And there appears to be no rule of thumb that allows you to safely place one sweater versus another in the humorous, isn’t-this-a-razz,”ugly” category.
Both sides to a lawsuit — the Department of Justice in favor of the law, and 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Businesses in opposition — have asked the Court to accept an appeal and decide whether the law should be upheld or struck down as unconstitutional
The Utica Shale lies far below the surface under parts of eight states. Geologists 
In some ways, our presidential selection process is like that awkward 8th-grade “sock hop” that your Mom made you attend. As your classmates arrived, you spent much of the time looking at the gymnasium door. A guy might wonder if that cute girl from algebra class was going to come, and a girl might hope that the dreamy guy who sat two rows behind her in home room would show up. At some point, though, the gym doors would close, the music would start, and the assembled crowd would focus on who was actually there and ready to dance.
Christie 
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Wait a second . . . the KKK? I didn’t think I could be shocked watching TV anymore — particularly on HBO — but seeing white-sheeted KKK members in full uniform shocked me. I was shocked when I saw KKK members using a machine gun to mow down members of Chalky White’s bootleg operation in cold blood, and I was shocked again when Klansmen, in their hoods and robes, were shown chatting without embarrassment in full public view on the porch of a funeral home. The Klan made a brief appearance last year — when Chalky White, played with seething magnificence by Michael Kenneth Williams, memorably used his father’s tools to interrogate a Klansman — but it looks like they will have a more prominent role this season.
After three games, the Browns are 2-1, and will be, at worst, tied for first in their division. They won today because their defense played a good game against a pretty mediocre team and their offense — which was wretched for most of the game — cobbled together a good last-second drive for a touchdown. The drive gave the Browns a 17-16 lead, and the defense forced a Miami turnover to seal the win.
