The food we eat is one big area of each of our lives where we have opportunities to impact the “triple bottom line” of sustainability:  supporting healthy people, a healthy planet, and healthy profit to the local economy.

Bla Bla Bla
Hummm, This is just a sound I hear.
Nothing of importance being said
, so all I hear is Bla Bla Bla.
Then one day I hear it no more...

I had the great pleasure to attend the 7th Toronto International Art Fair:  “Art Toronto 2006”.  Over 80 galleries from all over the world  selling  20th and 21st century art were represented at the four day event held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The majority of the galleries were from Canada, but there were also many from the United States and Germany and others from Spain, England, the Netherlands, Columbia and Argentina. 

An organization in Toronto called New Mind Space hosts some very innovative public events I've been following online, and this week got to join in on - in this case, something called Night Lights. The point of the event was to bring lots of people together to increase awareness of light pollution... the light humans create that blocks the light the Creator creates. In NEO, you can look at the issue as the glare off Jacobs Field when they burn the lights even when there isn't a game, or the wasted electricity to do that (BTW, think of all the sick KWHs and coal/oil wasted and pollution created as you celebrate Christmas lights this season). - in every case... duh. I've never heard this subject raised in NEO at all, anywhere, but I've always been very disturbed to come into the city from the East and see the sky turn from black, with stars, to grey/blue/red with smoke and light pollution. Try it some time - drive from Chagrin Falls into downtown on a clear night and watch the sky turn to crap. Consider that, and then realize last week I was in one of the highrises downtown (where the Cleveland Foundation is housed, as a matter of fact) and in the elevator was a notice for tenants to "leave your lights on" that night because ESPN was in town covering the Cav's game and the city wants the world to think someone is home, downtown. So, in these times of a war in Iraq over fuel and high fuel costs and global warming some powers that be want everyone in downtown NEO to leave the lights on all night. How stupid are we? There are less stupid people in Toronto, and they do things like Night Lights, and twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder why environmentalism leaders in NEO don't think to do the same smart things...

I just caught Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the Kimmel Show and Jimmy mentioned to Julia that he heard she has a solar home, and she expanded to say it has solar power, heat and hot water, recycled fiber carpet, renewable wood, etc... also drives an electric car. Imagine if those in the media in NEO bothered to be socially conscious like this, and the media here promoted that. Imagine if the newscasters here bothered to live green. Louis-Dreyfus is politically active and otherwise socially conscious, yet seems very unassuming. Good for her - step up NEO media leaders... get green and then feel free to brag about it!

Only adding to the excitement surrounding the art auctions of the last few days, Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, a blue period painting by Picasso from 1903 was withdraw from Wednesday's auction, its provenance clouded claims that it  should be counted among the art looted by the Nazis. Andrew Lloyd Webber's charitable foundation is the current owner and consigner. The British composer bought the painting for the foundation in 1995. He had hoped  the funds from  the auction Wednesday would benefit the foundation. A Federal Judge in Manhattan, Jed Rakoff decided that the Federal court has no jurisdiction over the case and the auction could go on; however, the man who claims to be rightful owner, Julius Schoep, heir of a Jewish baker and art collector living in Berlin, plans to take his claims to the lower court. Andrew Lloyd Webber's foundation willingly withdrew the painting. Hopefully these claims, which sound spurious will not hurt the value of the work.

I can't think of an artist more deserving of this award! Please read on ...

President Bush Announces Viktor Schreckengost as 2006 Medal of Arts Recipient
Washington, D.C. – Cleveland resident Viktor Schreckengost has been named one of 10 National Medal of the Arts recipients for 2006. President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush will honor him in an Oval Office ceremony at the White House Nov. 9th.

Well, it is November 02... a glorious morning of Fall leaves, bicyclists, fleeces and sunshine. An afternoon of blustery wind from the north, and lake effect snow. Odds are we'll have more beautiful Fall days ahead, but Winter in Cleveland has arrived. I happened to hear Dick Gaddard's Fox 8 winter forecast tonight... in brief:

I thought those who are part of REALNEO would be interested in the latest from the development team. Phillip Williams and I are thrilled to have built and to host a site for the Cleveland Club of Washington, D.C. (feel free to attend their open events) and huge props to Phillip for lots of great work in East Cleveland - especially building a web-based data management system to track their speed camera data and payment processing (I bet you didn't even know they have speeding cameras ). We're working on other interesting projects, for future updates, but the one I'm most excited about is for the top contemporary glass art gallery in Canada, Material Matters, which has us working with scores of awesome artists and pushing Drupal much further than we were able to do with realneo, to date.

I just received the following from TrueMajority.Org and thought other realneo members would lke to add their choices:

It's less than a week before the election, and the candidates TrueMajorityAction have supported are looking strong to Take Back Congress in a photo finish. We don't want to hold anything back, so we're emptying out our campaign cash to the closest races -- but we want you to tell us which ones to send it to.

It was a beautiful Fall day today, so I wanted to take my little bugger out to enjoy nature... I reflected on where to go. I thought the Metroparks would be nice, or perhaps the park in the Flats with the sculpture by Gene Kangas, and then it occurred to me I live in one of the most interesting neighborhoods in America, Ohio City, and I can enjoy that without driving a mile. So off we toddled to see what was shaking in the 'hood, and wound up at the smaller of the two community gardens down the street.

Today on NPR's BBC news, there was a lead story about the latest findings about the cost of global warming to society ($7 trillion), and they had some sustainability wiseguy saying how we shouldn't worry so much - industry leaders like GE have recognized the crisis and are modeling their behavior and taking care of the problem - don't make a big deal about the fall of the global economy, as the corporate jets are aloft. Well, I'll point to a different story, on transfats, and dispute that claim.

Just want to go on the record for wishing Clevelanders would just start having an attitude.  This is a great liveable city.  Kudos to the Emerging Cleveland website, Jason Therrien/Thundertech and all the creative minds that just do it and get on with it.

Someone set up an account at realneo and posted 10 items in some language I couldn't identify - something character based like Chinese - and I deleted the account before deleting the items, so now they show up as N/A. Sorry for the postings to nowhere below. We'll clean this up in the database later. Sorry for the imperfection. I know better for the future. Why do people do these things?