With All Able-bodied Men at the Front French Women Have Had to Raise the Crops for Their Homes and Their Armies as Well

Yep, just like we suspected... the Opportunity Corridor never was planned as a corridor and neither was the boulevard along the lakefront on the west side. This is soooooo stupid. Take some of those tax dollars and pay for a few interns to do fact checking for ya ODOT!

I am nonplussed that after all the BS about West Shoreway slowing, medianing, tree planting, access providing and boulevarding someone finally checked the book and discovered that this never should have been proposed in the first place!!!

Viktor Schreckengost

Read story here

Brenda Angiel Aerial Dance from Buenos Aires.

I am reading the PD this morning and came across this article which points up two basic issues regarding our elected officials here in Cleveland. We all seem to know that the Cleveland schools have had a tough time educating students -- it's  a complex problem to solve, but modeling the behavior can go a long way toward giving students something to which they can aspire. Remember the "3 Rs"?

drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci -- (the first?) Biomimetic Designer

 

Stream polluted by mountaintop removal

Friday Jan 18, NYTimes writes "The nation’s fourth-largest coal producer, the Massey Energy Company, was hit Thursday with a $20 million fine, the largest civil penalty ever levied by the federal government for a pollution violation of this type under the Clean Water Act.

The fine was part of a $30 million settlement with the government over accusations that the company violated water pollution permit limits more than 4,500 times from January 2000 to December 2006. The government said Massey had polluted and clogged hundreds of streams and rivers in Kentucky and West Virginia by releasing millions of pounds of metals, sediments and acid mine drainage into their waterways.

Here's the article U.S. Fines Mine Owner $20 Million for Pollution

And we want to do what; buy power for the next 50 years from a new coal fired power plant? Did we lose our thinking caps!!!!????

Read this PD article from October to see what Matt Zone thinks and plans and then click here to read about other villages and download what Bill Callahan thinks. Somehow Bill's argument strikes me as more well considered than Matt's. How about you?

Here's another perspective on coal from John Bolton, MD via Hillbilly Savants (I love the description of this blog -- "This blog is about our Appalachia - the real one, not the Hollywood-stereotype nor the third-world nation-esque stereotype being sold by do-gooders, or even the neo-Romantic sylvan stereotype that Rousseau would probably buy into. It should be interesting."

Here's what John had to say:
"If you think that having a coal fired power plant next door to your town will be an asset, drive up to what is left of the community of South Clinchfield,VA, in the shadow of AEP's Clinch River (Carbo) plant. Talk to the residents as I have. Listen to their stories of fumes from the smokestack flooding down to ground level when a cool night brings a temperature inversion. Hear how dust from the trucks coats the skin of their infants and blackens their bath water as if they had been working in the mines. Does it also fill their lungs? Sadly, only time will tell. I do not think that "black lung" benefits will be available to neighborhood children or adults who will be forced breathe rock and coal dust from the waste coal trucks. Add to this the fumes from a coal fired power plant and confine them in the small bowl that contains the town of St Paul. This could be a true witch's brew."

We want to saddle Southern Ohio (and the rest of the watershed which by the way includes the land west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River and all the way to the Gulf of Mexico) with this??!! Really? Isn't there an alternative? The streams will look a funny color and it won't be someone's greywater system dye.

From Article 19 and Neil Nisbet on camera: The Self and Bitter Ripples

The work: clips from 'The Self' by Fin Walker, a duet performed by Kajza Ekberg (pictured above) and Phil Sanger. 'Bitter Ripples' choreographed by Hofesh Shechter and performed by the whole company

Read about it here.

Sense 8 is another beautiful film by Katrina McPherson and Simon Fildes.

If you are interested in Contact Improvisation, send me an email via realneo, and I will help you contact (excuse the pun) the folks in Northeast Ohio who do this every Sunday in University Circle.

The big picture... I am still trying to get back far enough to see it.

It has been a trying couple of months for me – needing things I had no idea how to find and all of these issues fraught with stress. But I have two success stories to relay of two Cleveland companies that really came through with flying colors.

Got this email from Julia Barton at OSU Extension. Just what I have been hoping for!

Hort and Ag Educators in Northeast Ohio,

Burten, Bell, Carr ,a local community development corporation in Cleveland, has issued a Request for Qualifications for an arborist or horticulturalist to submit a feasibility study, business plan, and design for an urban tree farm on Cleveland's east side.  Some of you may remember an article over the summer in the Plain Dealer about the Kinsman neighborhood which has lost a considerable percentage of it's population over the years.  Burten, Bell, Carr has plans to consolidate 20 acres in one part of the neighborhood to start an urban tree farm as a sustainable, economic development project.  See attached parcel map.

Ed Morrison posted this today at BFD; it is an article about green industries and regionalism in the East Bay area. Here's my response (posted here so as to not be accused of veering "off topic").

 "exchange between local mayors led to putting aside "our cities' chauvinism" in the belief that together they can be stronger that "the sum of the parts…"

Shortly after the screening of Black Gold last year at Cleveland Cinematheque, I turned to purchasing only fairly traded coffee from Phoenix Coffee in my neighborhood. There are increasing choices there perhaps driven by the awareness raised by the film.

I also found this video called White Gold: the true cost of cotton. Though much of what I wear is found in secondhand stores and I can't remember the last time I purchased something "new", I found it informative and apparently asked to be kept in the loop.

So this morning, here's what the loop sent to me:

PAN will visit next month several schools of fashion and textile design across Europe, and inform students about the benefits of organic cotton, and how they can adopt sustainable practices when sourcing raw materials. Barnabas Paul, an organic cotton farmer from Benin, West Africa, will join our panel of experts in the UK and France and explain, in his own words, to the designers of tomorrow how organic cotton has transformed the lives of his family and community. Check out all the dates here.

Greening the modern preservation movement: Bauhaus at the brink

Didn't we just try to put something else on the ballot?

Ohio Supreme Court says voters can decide lead-paint issue

8/31/2007, 5:31 p.m. ET By JOHN McCARTHY The Associated Press

Its a taxing situation in Ohio these days. Here's a break for some of our friends and neighbors who qualify...

Expanded Homestead Exemption

Who qualifies for the new Homestead Exemption?
Any Ohio resident homeowner who:

Unbelievable! Though our government has launched a plan to rip down a cultural icon, local firms now announce plans for a high-rise building boom in "Our Town"!

What does it look like on the inside? Here's your chance to see...

Today this article was published in the PeeDee.
"Maritime should be central to what we do," Wasserman told the board, which seemed pleased with the draft plan.
(Here's the title of the article if you're reading this in 25 years to see what actually happened and need to use libray archives: Cleveland's port looks to grow, boost projects 25-year goal: 'premier' status Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Tom Breckenridge Plain Dealer Reporter)

The public can comment on the draft plan from 5 to 7 p.m. Aug. 29 at the United Technologies Center at Cuyahoga Community College, Room 229, 2415 Woodland Ave.

Bone on up Great Lakes isues with this glossy overview and here's the latest (unless you can trump this) on Modern Tonnage.

I found this at a Canadian site:

Private role in med mart negotiations to be tricky

Thank god we have Roldo Bartimole in our region writing about the inequity and the corruption here. If not for Roldo, we might never know such tantalizing tidbits as we learn here in his CoolCleveland article this week: Should Hagan Have Recused Himself from Vote? (I link it here because I know that unlike the PD articles that disappear after a couple of weeks, this CC article will remain online in perpetuity.)

For example, did you know, we pay sales taxes on the sin taxes? "

Many don’t know this but the county sales tax is charged on the “sin” taxes, adding another $16 million to the $238 million." When does that tax end?

I hope someone in Columbus or in the federal government is reading this -- oh, yeah, we have a corrupt judicial system, too.

Oh and there's this, "Among the gift-givers was Robert DiGeronimo of Independence Excavating. Precision Environmental Co., which won a contract last week to demolish the Breuer Building with a bid $915,000 above the low bid, is part of the DiGeronimo/Independence Excavating Co. family."

Does that mean that Madden's "eye on Carbone" saw that he may indeed be convicted in the Lorain trial and decided to let him go from the job? According to the docket in Lorain County Court, Carbone has relinquished his right to a speedy trial since one of his attorneys is in a federal murder trial, so the new court date is set for 8/20/07.

Government in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County is indeed a sucking swirling eddy of despair, corruption and backdoor dealing. Should Hagan have recused himself? Absolutely! Does he have an ethical bone in his body? Apparently not. Will voters stand by and let this continue? Hopefully not. Here's another example of Hagan's doublespeak: "