US – Friday, July 30

Arlington graves may be mixed up
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has just gotten quite a bit of company: As many as 6,600 graves at the country’s hallowed Arlington National Cemetery for fallen U.S. service members may be mislabeled, one lawmaker said on Thursday.COLLEGE DROPOUTS
Political movements are becoming ever more like a match tossed into a room full of dynamite: No matter which stick you are aiming for, chances are a lot of others will fire off, too.Talking about the ‘C’ word
A drama about a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer doesn’t exactly sound like the most entertaining new series on the fall prime-time slate. But there is more buzz surrounding Showtime’s “The Big C” than perhaps any other series premiering this season, and the incomparable Laura Linney is a major reason why the series is high on critics’ must-see lists.Rabbis, controversy, and jail time at Chelsea’s wedding
Although facts on the famed Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding, which is rumored to happen this weekend, are tighter than Hillary Clinton’s smile, some details have leaked out. Sources report that groom Marc Mezvinsky  has “hurt” his father’s family by not inviting them to the wedding (Ed Mezvinsky pleaded guilty in 2002 to swindling investors out of $10 million.Table for two
For Paul Rudd, the decision to star in Jay Roach’s new comedy, “Dinner for Schmucks,” was an easy one. “I thought the script was really funny,” he says. “That was it. It was kind of a no-brainer.” Of course Rudd, who’s built an impressive resume of smart comedies, was just as enamored of the man behind the camera.  Short-term living in Jersey City
Subletting in NYC typically involves some kind of covert transaction. Try to find a budget traveler who hasn’t enjoyed the risk of Craigslist’s lease-free rentals. But thanks to a bill Gov. David Paterson signed into law last Friday, renting an apartment for less than 30 days isn’t kosher. Fortunately, there’s a saving grace for those in search of short-term living: Jersey City.Jobless claims fall, still high
New claims for unemployment benefits slipped last week, but stayed at a stubbornly high level that underscored the labor market recovery was having trouble gaining traction.So long, Snuggies. Hello, Acushakti
Could nail mats like the Acushakti be the next Snuggies?

It’s possible, according to a top consumer survey.Taking a joy ride through Italy
Unless the locals covered you in meatballs and sang “Nessun Dorma” upon arrival, this vacation could hardly be more Italian. For this is a “Vespa vacation” — a two-wheeled tour of the nooks and crannies, the winding back roads and the off-the-beaten-track hidden gems of breathtaking Umbria, a beautiful region located in Central Italy.It’s so hard to say goodbye
For many job-hopping careerists, smuggling a resignation letter in their bag like a guilty secret, there are few workplace rituals so hard as saying so long.

Neil deMause 

Shuttered stores need rent help

Now that tent cities are out of fashion — or at least consigned to unfashionable places like Sacramento — the surest sign of hard times is shuttered stores. There are the glaring examples, like the Union Square building that chose as its anchor tenants Virgin Megastore and Circuit City (whoops!), but the rows of rolled-down gates are visible in every neighborhood: Entire blogs are now devoted to chronicling the devastation, and wondering where to turn for their free-WiFi fix.

Free-market economics tells us this sort of thing should work itself out: Landlords lower the rents they jacked up during the boom years, stores get out of the red and everybody can go back to drinking their lattes in peace. Of course, if free-market capitalism worked the way it’s supposed to, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

“Commercial rents may not be rising at the same rate, but they certainly aren’t falling,” says Catherine Bohne, owner of Brooklyn’s Community Bookstore and VP of the Park Slope Civic Council. Just last week, she says, she spoke to the owner of a local restaurant she thought of as “wildly successful” and was told if the owner can’t renegotiate her rent, she’ll have to move or close.

So what to do? The city council is considering a bill to limit commercial rent hikes and force landlords to go to arbitration, but that would mostly be useful for when the boom times return.

Bohne would also like to see laws allowing shopkeepers to buy their storefronts as co-ops without having to scrape together millions for an entire building: “At this point you’re sort of an idiot for opening a small business, unless you own property. Small stores invest $50,000 in renovating, and if you lose your lease, that’s gone.”

Until then, we have the commercial parallel to empty condo towers with homeless camped outside: acres of empty storefronts, and nowhere to work or shop. If the economy’s ever going to recover with the help of those “green shoots” we keep hearing about, it’d be nice if landlords demanded less green.
Neil deMause writes alternate Mondays in this space. He can be contacted at demause.net and fieldofschemes.com.

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