Two weeks ago, City Fresh's Maurice Small met with friends in East Cleveland to discuss City Fresh, urban farming, and how we may convert a typical urban convenient store, Brown's Market, into a pilot City Fresh local foods market. During our discussions, Maurice mentioned that a dedicated urban farmer may earn more than $30,000 per year from sales of food grown on one typical urban lot (say 1/10th an acre). That being the case, and considering our ever-growing need and realigning demand for locally grown food, and the fact food may be grown locally as cost effectively as elsewhere in the world, it occurred to me that the highest and best use for most of the land now cleared, abandoned, blighted and wasted in our urban neighborhoods is for urban farming. So that is a use we are now planning to be core to redevelopment of the Star Neighborhood. Intrigued? Discuss and plan for this reality with Maurice and friends this Tuesday, from 6-7 PM, at that house on Roxbury, in East Cleveland. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.

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Maurice Small is the most economically and ecologically sensible planner I know.

Joe Stanley, Sudhir Kade and I have been brainstorming with City Fresh's Maurice Small about "I GRO EC" - Independent Green Republic Of East Cleveland. City Fresh already operates a Fresh Stop at Huron Road Hospital - which Maurice reports is doing great - and is active in community farming in East Cleveland. Recently, we've been discussing City Fresh having an involvement converting Brown's Convenient store into a pilot City Fresh Market, which could offer a paradigm-shifting model for bringing local food, farming and their economies into very needy urban neighborhoods, in very innovative and important ways.

Dress of Chiefs of the Village of Atonkwa near Elmina, Ghana - Nana Kodwo Eduakwa V and Nana Kra Kwamina II - at a reception at the Ashe Cultural Center in Cleveland

Chiefs meeting in Cleveland

Kids like to tell stories.  You hear them every day and, sometimes, we call them lies.  Why not tap into that energy and make an artist?  Here is a shout out to Bobby Norfolk. I would call him a genius.

Join your neighborhood community ARTS center for costume-making, dance & music that will be presented for thousands at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Parade the Circle Celebration! Special guest artist, Trinidad Carnaval artist, Michael Guy James, leads the group, and is joined by artists from around the world and around the corner--including the Passport Project Global Dance & Music Collective.

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Ten days ago I noticed a robin's next with three new-born chicks, and protective parents, living early Spring to the fullest. Already, the chicks are fledglings, having jumped yesterday from the safety of the nest to thrive or die on the ground, until their wings are strong enough to fly. I watched this fledgling hop and flap around for a while, as mom and dad protested from above. Certainly a critical time in the life of the robin, and I wonder how our three chicks did - are they still alive the next day - are they now part of the chorus of nature making NEO a great theater. Do we humans fledge our children as well, and make the theater of life better or worse for all living?.

If these are average Clevelanders, living in older urban neighborhoods like around University Circle their entire lives, they have been lead poisoned, perhaps severely. Thursday morning, May 22nd, join 100s of NEOs leaders concerned with our community's health, intelligence, safety and economy meeting at the Cleveland Natural History Museum for a free breakfast, keynote discussion and breakout sessions about lead poisoning and urban redevelopment. I guarantee you will leave this brief event with a completely realigned understanding of the core barriers to the success of our urban neighborhoods, leading to better planning for a healthy, effective region in the future.

Welcome to The Star Market and Cafe! What would make you walk, ride and drive out of your way and stop here? When? Why? Now is the time for Star Neighborhood Development to reinvent a blighted urban convenient store into a community asset. But how? That depends on you. What will you support here?

When Evelyn and I learned we were expecting Claes, three years ago, we started exploring local natural childbirth and child support resources, and have most enjoyed the getting to know the people with the Cleveland BirthNetwork, which is part of a national organization has a mailing list and holds regular local meet-ups and casual events... I strongly recommend expecting families to attend one of their activities, like the following...  An afternoon of discussion and meeting advocates for change, with Judy Norsigian, executive director and co-founder of Our Bodies Ourselves, and Ourselves, co-contributing editor of Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth.

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The Intergenerational School is holding a Wine & Cheese Open House (with Student‐Led Tours!), this Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 5:30 pm until 7:00 pm - and I strongly encourage those interested in innovation in education and aging to attend. Read through the whole invitation to learn more about the school - it is astounding, as are the founders... Cathy and Peter Whitehouse. This is the school that I hope to expand in the former Hough Bakeries complex, as the anchor for redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood, so if you are interested in that project then you are interested in TIS.... I hope to see you there Thursday... be sure to RSVP!

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Who:

Moebius Nature Center & Buckeye Sustainability Institute

What:

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Max Xavier Bayard Roulet Day 1

The day Ohioans and others around America failed the world and allowed Bush and his clan 4 more years was the saddest of my life, and I was depressed by life after that until I posted the following...

I am at home now, so I am allowed to say this:  If you live in the City of Cleveland,
please don't forget to Pass Issue 2.

Meet the Bloggers produced an insightful interview with Holly Carroll and Pam Eyerdam of Cleveland Public Library.  Please give it a listen.  Please also visit your local library.  If you haven't been able to visit lately, you will be surprised by the breadth and depth of our services. 

Splashing up such colorful and lusty images has to be therapeutic for the artist.  Right on the edge of an urban dumping ground, full of scrap tires and trash, here's this little fellow sitting comfortably with his leg on the ledge (complete with scrap tire and vines) waving at the buxom gal below.

A page 1 article in the February 2, 2008, Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Dogged security guard caused quite the stir", makes light of international concern over a dog photographed sitting alone in the window of an abandoned, boarded-up house in Cleveland, with the caption "Dog Days: Left behind as foreclosure crisis pounds U.S.", which was published in the Toronto Star, leading to local action in Cleveland to rescue the distressed animal, which turned out to be imprisoned by real estate speculators to protect their shit. They don't even own the dog... the article doesn't care who owns the dog... the article is pointless, yet surfaces pathetic flaws in the character of so many in our region.

Kenny Ward told me about  how he maintains Toronto skating rinks.

Global warming will bring an end to white Christmas and winter as we've always known in, here in NEO, so during the first real snowstorm of this season, December 16, 2007, I went in search of a visual symbol of NEO, in my neighborhood, strong enough to stand out in white-out conditions, and I came to the Breuer! Not the Breuer Tower, of global controversy, but the Breuer Museum wing of global celebration, design elements of which are featured in the latest additions to the Cleveland Museum of Art, shown on the left here, now evolving form in the hands of Vinoly.

In My Colombian War*, Silvana Paternostro reports that the average Colombian reads less than 2 books a year.  Does the average northeast Ohioan top that number?

Here's how some of your federal dollars were divvied up.  A bit of good news for Ohio and for the environment. Click on the photo of West Creek for more good news:

As part of the Star Neighborhood Development planning for the Star Complex and surrounding one mile radius, I have been planning the redevelopment of the current Cleveland Institute of Art Gund Building and land, on East Boulevard in Cleveland, shown below (full size image here).

Chef Jonathon Sawyer's blog says "!!!Due to the Overwhelming Response!!!"... and I saw that first hand, last week...  COOK CHEFIN' w/ Kids @ Bar Cento is now a weekly occassion for families to get together at the very cool Bar Centro, being the left side of the Bier Market, 1948 W. 25th Street, from 4.30pm-8.pm, for the kids (and adults) to make their own gourmet pizzas... Bar Cento provides a great spread of organic, fresh toppings and has fresh dough spread out to go. We took our son Claes last week and we all had such fun, and made the best pizza in town, so we're going back tonight and will be regulars... scene is today's header of the day, full size here).

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