Monday, March 12, 2012

Dimora Things Change: Covering Corruption panel Tuesday at Happy Dog

Chairs probably won't be thrown. Drunken heckling will likely be sporadic. An enormous Jimmy Dimora piñata will probably not be burned in effigy.

But you never know.

I'm a panelist tomorrow night in the Ohio City Writers' latest Write to Assemble discussion, "Dimora Things Change: Covering Corruption in Cleveland," at 7 pm at the Happy Dog. And I'm excited about it, because the Write to Assemble series has, so far, been just as eventful and rowdy as a public forum held in a bar ought to be.

Esquire writer Scott Raab's debate with Jimi Izrael about his LeBron book, The Whore of Akron, included some entertainingly angry exchanges among Raab and writers in the crowd, including playwright Michael Oatman. January's panel sparked a blogosphere rumble between Cleveland-booster bloggers and Cleveland-critic bloggers.

Tuesday's panel includes Cleveland Magazine columnist Mike Roberts, who has a special talent for throwing a rhetorical grenade or two at local politicians, and Rachel Dissell, who covered the Dimora trial and corruption scandal for the Plain Dealer and wrote a withering critique of the misogyny that bound Dimora's A-Team together.

The discussion will be moderated by Dan Moulthrop of The Civic Commons, who will do his best to keep things relatively civil. Hope to see you there.

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