image by Bryan Boyer courtesy of Archiplanet

Breuer-Designed Atlanta Central Library Endangered

Here's the news about Georgia's preservationist community's fight to save another modern icon. And what a beauty she is, too!

I scratch my head and wonder... what's wrong with these people?

If you dig into the links as I did, you might find a wonderful piece, but I will copy it here for safe keeping:

"Progress in preservation - Downtown library merits renovation

By Cynthia Rogers
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/18/08

My friend and neighbor, Jim Sollisch wrote this article last year about the cost of college text books - the cost to students and to forests: Save trees; put college textbooks on the Web.

Yesterday after I posted the bit on permeable alley paving, I sent the link off to Terry Schwarz, senior planner at the CUDC.

Here's our correspondence.

Susan: "Are we doing this in NEO? paving what we need to pave - sustainably Please offer examples.  Terry – good to read the beet farming idea out there in some press recently."

Are we doing this in NEO? If we aren't, why not? I have written before about permeable asphalt, but this is permeable alley paving - in Chicago, where else? Hi Sadhu. We sure miss you here in NEO.

Irven Lewis provides the movement score, performed by the lithe and punchy Natalie James to let us hear the poignant words of Bridget Gray.

It's good to be back in Cleveland. I rode in on the redline from the airport and got off the greenline at Southington to be welcomed by friends an easy walk away. Stories were told and beer, cheese, etc. shared. A couple days home and I have spoken to a few of you, corresponded with others and spent time with a handful of my Cleveland homeys. I have been trying to catch up on the news, but it is deep here. Lead awareness week, convention centers overshooting their budgets, bank stock prices plummeting, PBS in the hood with Bill Moyers' Journal... wow! All old news though…

I have been busy in the sleepy hamlet of Apalachicola with family mourning the loss of two immediate family members. My Cleveland family - please stay put. I have had enough...

It wasn’t what you might call “my summer vacation”, but it was a trip. Here’s what I saw.

Improvising Schema got photos of the destruction of a modern landmark this morning. I commented there, so if this "not identifiable" blogger posts the comment, you will be able to see my response.

So I was on the phone with an old aquaintance in LA just now, and we were talking about my brother who died at 58 of a heart attack and he said , "Tim Russert died today".

And here it is: A Personal Remembrance from the Detroit Free Press BY JOHN SMYNTEK • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • June 13, 2008

Get your schooling, get your job, get married and have a dog. If you plan any outings with your pooch, you'll need a vehicle, so Honda launched a dog car website: Honda Dog just for the occasion.

Share my lovely 1917 home in Cleveland Heights with me. I have a little mixed breed watchdog named Phoebe. I work at home for a small arts-nonprofit. My politics are on the left (waay left), and I prefer classical and jazz music, but more often than not, just the sounds of the great outdoors.

James Levin (seated) with the Brew Crew at Carnegie Hall - photo by Sandy Kish

Aerial dancing with a marvelous set.

Reading along in the Sustainable Industries Website I found this link for the earthnow EXPO.

The locavore movement is growing.

In case you missed these articles in the NYTimes lately, here they are:

Backyards, Beware: An Orchard Wants Your Spot

Urban Farmers’ Crops Go From Vacant Lot to Market

A Chicken on Every Plot, a Coop in Every Backyard

read up!

When was the last time you went inside the Cuyahoga County Courthouse? Did you visit to find Justice? If so, here are some directions: once past tangle of guards, pocket content checkers and metal detectors walk into the voluminous lobby area, up the stairs and into marble column heaven. Look to your right as you face north and Justice will reveal herself to you. You'll gasp.

I would not be alarmed. We may continue to get a break on the pie in the sky dreams of the "quick and dirty delivery system - Opportunity Corridor"  for University Circle, Inc. (UCI) and Cleveland Clinic as well as the "curbcuts for developer's - West Shoreway" due to this news:

I love my dog. In fact, I have loved all the dogs that have ever lived with me, snuggled me, defended me, kept me company, provided those wags and licks that once you've had 'em they're hard to live without. (How do those cat people do it anyway?) I love them even when they are wet (dontcha love the smell of wet dog?), when they are skunked, when they have accidents on the rug. I love them enough to pick up their crap. Somehow it is easier to pick up after the dog than it is a kid or a husband. I can hear myself now, "get down here and pick up your %#@t!!!" That would be me to a teenage son who thought the kitchen floor was the laundry chute. "Are you gonna move your %#@t or are we supposed to eat dinner around it?" to my husband who would reel into a panic attack if I touched his %#@t. But the dog, she just moves on and sniffs the next bit of news. Ah, my happy go lucky ferocious one! Everyday I read the news and think, Ohmigawd! "I can't take this %#@t" or "who writes this %#@t?" But picking up the dog's %#@t is OK with me. I can take it. How and where to take it is more complex.

First let's address why I dutifully pick up after the dog.

Remember those tacky signs that people with pools used to have?

Same concept. I used to think it was a pain in the butt (excuse the pun) to pick up dog poop. I'd grumble and say well, I'm not picking up your cat's poop or the squirrels' or the deer's or the bird's... Growing up in the country where dogs run free, it just hadn't been on my priority list of to-do items.

To me it was real pain; that is until I learned this:

"When animal waste is left on the ground, rainwater or melting snow washes the pet waste into our storm drains or directly into our local creeks. The disease-causing bacteria found in pet waste eventually flows from our local waterways into the Cuyahoga River, and to Lake Erie our drinking water source. In addition to contaminating waterways with disease-carrying bacteria, animal waste acts like a fertilizer in the water, just as it does on land. This promotes excessive aquatic plant growth that can choke waterways and promote algae blooms, robbing the water of vital oxygen.

National Geographic has a special on TV this evening called Human Footprint. But I don't get National Geographic with my rabbit ears/slim cable, so I cruised over to the website and voila - all the stuff is right there, interactive, readable and I can digest it all a bit at a time.

As you roll down the portage escarpment on Quincy Avenue, you pass a large brick structure with no windows; it is covered with Virginia Creeper. (ahem - I mean the windows are all busted out; they're long gone.) I love this building. I imagine it retrofitted as a place for indoor hydroponic gardens and a food market. Keep going and you’ll cross a new bridge with its requisite tall arching chainlink fence. I imagine planting vines on this so that as you cross the bridge you pass through a green tunnel in the warmer months.