How Do You Raise Lead Poisoned Children In A Community That Doesn't Care About Lead Poisoning? Best You Don't!

I have the misfortune of having begun doing that - raising children here in Northeast Ohio, where leadership refuses to do the right things about lead poisoning - and I have children who are lead poisoned, and there is not adequate help for them here, and we are moving them away. That they are lead poisoned and there is not adequate help for them here puts them at a disadvantage for life, globally, as most children around the world are now protected from the harm of this industrial poison spewed and spread across our land by evil industrialists for over a century - and still found in household products sold by evil industrialists in America today. Most communities have had better leaders - less polluted leaders - over time, than we have had here in Northeast Ohio. Most communities are far better, safer places to live, than Northeast Ohio.

I know and will not lose arguments on the subject. I will continue to educate people here and worldwide about the subject - I will write extensively about the subject.

I challenge President Obama, here in the most lead poisoned community in America today, surrounded by the worst leadership in America today, to do something about our lead poisoning crisis today.

I'm exploring where to base ICEarth brightest greenest development in Ohio, going forward, and am open to suggestions. I already know I will co-locate in Austin, Texas, and in Colorado and California... but where shall we operate from in Ohio?

The Medical Center Company provides dirty, polluting coal-powered heat to many of Northeast Ohio's most "cherished" organizations, including the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), seriously compromising the value of the CMA to citizens of the region and world - this is being opposed by the real leaders of this community. As the Cleveland Museum of Art has just hired a new Director, David Franklin, from Canada, I must wonder if the Board and Trustees who hired him advised him on these issues surrounding the heating of his new home. Immediately, before worrying about exhibition schedules and completion of the museum expansion, Mr. Franklin must plan to move his museum away from coal, meaning move CMA away from heat from MCCO.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer posted a welcoming opinion editorial championing the Cleveland Museum of Art and its new director to the public, and I was pleased to add to that opinion the fact Mr. Franklin must have very different priorities than the other leadership in University Circle ever has - he must oppose using coal to heat his museum, polluting his community, and he must lead other organizations in University Circle away from coal. How he does that will in fact be his greatest challenge ever. I wish him success, as I always wish the CMA success. I am a sincere supporter of the Museum - the right kind of supporter, without compromise.

According to the American Lung Association, 24,000 people a year die prematurely because of pollution from coal-fired power plants. And every year 38,000 heart attacks, 12,000 hospital admissions and an additional 550,000 asthma attacks result from power plant pollution. It is therefore not surprising to read, in The Place My Father Didn't Want Me to See, an article by Plain Dealer Columnist Connie Schultz, published in Parade Magazine this Labor Day weekend, that Ms. Schultz' father died of a heart attack after having worked as a mechanic in a coal fired power plant for 34 years.

As Ms. Schultz writes: "I never knew what Dad did at the plant, but I saw the toll that 34 years of hard physical labor took on him. He had surgery on his shoulder, his hand, his spine. At 48, he had his first heart attack and bypass. He retired in 1993, right after the last kid graduated from college. But the damage was done. A few years later, another surgeon shoved stents into his arteries. The next heart attack killed him. He was 69." She further observed, from once having visited her father at his plant: "I stared at my father, covered in sweat and coal ash, and for the first time had to consider why he was so often angry for no apparent reason."

What is surprising is that Ms. Schultz does not offer her readers of this story the learning opportunity to understand that industrial pollution from burning coal kills 10,000s of fathers, mothers and babies in America each year - I don't know of studies proving "hard physical labor" does the equivalent. There is clear evidence that working with coal causes heart attacks, among a long list of health impacts... including mental illness. From a recent study in Korea: "When particulate matter (a common form of air pollution) spiked, the risk of suicide increased by 9 percent over the next two days, the researchers found. Among people with heart disease, the increased risk was even greater, about 19 percent." Beyond the physiological impacts of pollution, knowing you are being killed by pollution makes you angry... I certainly know that for a fact, as my family is being killed by a coal power plant in my neighborhood, and I have grandparents who died of industrial poisoning, and I am angry about all that. Angry at Connie Schultz' family.

Connie Schultz is married to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and his family is in the coal burning business, as his brother is Robert Brown... Chairman of the Board of Medical Center Company (MCCO), a coal burning power plant located next to University Hospitals, in University Circle, Cleveland, Ohio, which burns over 44,000 TONS of coal a year, emitting over 4,000 TONS of air pollution into surrounding neighborhoods.... killing people in my neighborhood unnecessarily.

I'm starting my deep research into the corruption that is Medical Center Company (MCCO) - Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown's family coal fired pollution factory in University Circle, Cleveland Ohio - and as I search the web for articles about Senator Brown's energy policy, I find good opportunities to educate the world about the harm his family pollution does here.

For example, the Breakthrough Institute has a posting about Senator Brown - The Sherrod Brown Test: Finding Consensus on Climate Policy... If we want to pass policies that will truly catapult the United States into a clean and prosperous energy economy, slash global warming pollution, and make clean energy cheap and abundant, we need to pass the "Sherrod Brown Test." - to which I posted the following clarification for the world:

You should disclose Senator Sherrod Brown's brother Robert Brown is Chairman of the Board of Medical Center Company (MCCO), which is a coal fired steam plant in a poor urban disadvantaged Cleveland neighborhood... burns 44,000 tons of coal a year... pumps over 4,000 tons of pollution into our air (since the 1930s) - all to heat private institutions like Case Western Reserve University (where Robert Brown is Treasurer), University Hospitals, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art - and they want a license to burn coal for 5 more years... and want to build an additional coal plant in the same neighborhood... Sherrod is the King of Coal in Ohio.

Figure 1 shows projected Ohio prison inmate population growth through July 2012 (Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, July 2009)

I noticed an interesting link from a few Facebook friends to the Marijuana Policy Project website at "Netherlands to Close Prisons: Not Enough Criminals", which reports "The Dutch government is getting ready to close eight prisons because they don’t have enough criminals to fill them. Officials attribute the shortage of prisoners to a declining crime rate." MPP points out, with glee... "For years prohibitionists, including our own Drug Enforcement Administration, have claimed — falsely — that the tolerant marijuana policies of the Netherlands have made that nation a nest of crime and drug abuse."

Based on a quick illustrative analysis of data provided by MPP of the prison populations of the Netherlands and California... I calculated the imprisonment rate for Ohio, with a baseline population of 11.5 million people, if we had the incarceration rates of the Netherlands. Ohio would have a prison population of about 8,000 people.

In fact, in mid 2008, Ohio's incarceration (or imprisonment) rate, which is calculated from counts of incarcerated persons per 100,000 total residents, was 445 (Bureau of Justice Statistics) - representing a prison population of over 51,000 - more than 6x the incarceration rate in the Netherlands - costing Ohio over $1.6 BILLION per year.

Worse, as posted April 27, 2010, on Crime Reporter - "Ohio prison crowding at crisis stage" - "the Ohio General Assembly allowed the state prison budget to grow this year, despite looming multi-billion-dollar budget deficits. Ohio’s statewide inmate population climbed within 128 inmates of the all-time record of 51,273 this month, prompting state lawmakers and Gov. Ted Strickland to blame one another for inaction."

Susan Miller just sent me County Executive Green Party Candidate David Ellison's written statement to the Federal EPA protesting the burning of coal by Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown's brother (Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz' Brother-in-Law) Robert Brown's Medical Center Company (MCCO), which harms the health of my family and the millions of citizens of Northeast Ohio... spreading death and destruction worldwide.

Is David Ellison the only candidate for County Executive who formally protested the burning of coal at MCCO? That should be easy to determine.

I challenge the other candidates for County Executive... and ALL standing local politicians... to put forth their written positions submitted to the Federal EPA regarding burning coal at the politically-corrupt MCCO plant, in politically-corrupt University Circle, or withdraw from offices and races to represent citizens in government anywhere in the world, for cause (being murder).

real NEOans - did you notice difficulty breathing today... all week... especially near downtown?

NOACA has an explanation. The air in urban Cleveland is highly polluted and causing you harm.

Location

Case Study: Modus Operandi of Illuminati... Fabricate Crisis and Fear... Switch Idols on Braindead Citizens... Leverage Racism.

Witness!

If you ever come to question the intent and modus operandi of the Illuminati, just witness how they fabricated a crisis in the trading of LeBron James... creating instability and fear among millions of loyal Ohioans and Americans... and then witness how they just switched idols on hate-programmed braindead zombie Citizens of Northeast Ohio, fabricating broad public outrage against a talented, young black man to stir racial hatred against an entire class of new leaders, in an important swing election year.

Northeast Ohio clearly has some ot the worst air pollution in America, exposing residents to 100,000,000s of pounds of severe toxic point source and fugitive emissions from the Arcelor/Mittal combination steel-mill, coal powerplants, landfills and recycling facilities, refineries and 100s of other hazardous pollution point sources located throughout this 2 million+ person community - I'd like to know where in America more people are harmed more significantly by particulate pollution, on a daily basis, than in the neighborhoods surrounding Mittal and the industrial Flats... by no means our only toxic war-zone in the region.

And, our region has had defective air quality monitoring and so lax pollution control for the better part of the 21st Century.

Environmentalism here is "greenwashed" with "a pretense of concern about climate but policies dictated by fossil fuel special interests", as renowned climatologist Dr. James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, describes the global state of inaction in response to global warming worldwide.

Hansen prescribes action: "To the young people I say: stand up for your rights – demand that the government be honest and address the consequences of their policies. To the old people I say: let us gird up our loins and fight on the side of young people for protection of the world they will inherit."

But, he cautions: "It becomes clear that needed actions will happen only if the public, somehow, becomes forcefully involved. One way that citizens can help is by blocking coal plants, tar sands, and mining the last drops of fossil fuels from public and pristine lands and the deep ocean."

We have many horrific polluters here - where to get citizens forcefully involved to stop excessive pollution... where to block a coal plant? How?

I'll preface any praise of "Tremont West Development Corp. development director charged with assault" - coverage in the Plain Dealer of the assault of Guy Templeton Black, by Sammy Catania - by posting reporter Mark Gillespie's comment on his own blog about his own work - Mark Gillispie, The Plain Dealer - August 27, 2010 at 1:13PM - "xxoo: Thanks for commenting. I understand your concern, but this is not a news article that will appear in the print edition of The Plain Dealer. It is an item that has been posted solely to my Inside Cleveland Hall blog. Reporters who have blogs use them to post items that might not hold much interest to our broader readership but might have relevance to some Cleveland.com readers. That's the beauty of the digital age. Thanks again for reading and commenting".

Mark is responding to a TROLL on Cleveland.com that set up an account to post "xxoo August 27, 2010 at 1:01PM - So much ado about nothing. Is this really worthy of a news article - or is this just a gossip column?"

That is what is pathetic about poor use of technology in the digital age... it allows corporations and special interests to use TROLL accounts places like Cleveland.com to post anonymous diversions of public knowledge from fact to fiction, and to temper public response to news that is in fact deserving of outrage.

A kitten would get eaten-alive, at my house... but a tough alley cat, from the streets... like Hill Billy, featured here... would stand a chance on Roxbury. I'm thinking about it, as we have mice, my wife loves cats (I can tolerate a cool one), and there are 100s of homeless cats at the APL (AKA Dog Pound) that need good homes. Even i can offer a better life for a cool cat than the pound - for a dog-smart, fast cat, that is.

Location

Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter Headquarters, on the fringe of the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas

A few days after attending the EPA public hearing regarding the renewal of the license for Medical Center Company to continue burning coal in University Circle - which was OPPOSED by representatives of the Sierra Club, Environmental Health Watch, Earth Day Coalition, Women Speak Out For Peace and Justice, and all citizens who testified - I met with Neil Carman, Ph.D., the Clean Air Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, in Austin, Texas, to discuss real NEO air pollution issues, the MCCO licensing situation, and next steps for improving the environment in Northeast Ohio.

Dr. James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, considered by many to be foremost climatologist in the world

As Northeast Ohio leadership MUST forcefully involve citizens as activists against the harm caused in our community and worldwide by pollution here, and address the resulting economic and public health damage here, it is important to reflect on what is an environmental activist, and how people may become actively engaged in community redevelopment through environmentalism.

Facts prove it is unsafe to live near the Arcelor/Mittal Cleveland Works steel mill, and citizens of Northeast Ohio have reasons to be concerned about 100s of other major toxic pollution point sources in the greater Cleveland area, yet our regional pollution monitoring has been broken since 2003, and is broken today, and citizens and the media do not care at all. How is it possible the people living in one of them most polluted places in America do not care about public health - about their own health? How did citizens here become such nihilists?

Northeast Ohioans must rise up from metal and soot ashes still being spewed upon us by excessively polluting toxic industrial forces that have corrupted local politics and destroyed the region and the lives of those living here... yet leaders and citizens here do not care.

Scene writer Michael Roberts provides the world a great service with his August 25, 2010, summary overview of the corruption and evil that has defined the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, Cleveland city hall, the Cuyahoga county commissioners, and "failed leaders in almost every quarter of the community", including at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Foundation, throughout the 21st Century - anyone interested in real NEO must READ "Port in a Storm - How years of bungling and self-interest robbed Cleveland of its future".

If you have ever doubted the most extreme claims of the failure, incompetency and corruption of our Mayor, County commissioners, and their appointees and co-conspirators in crimes, as expressed throughout the decade by Citizen Hauser and so many other honest real Northeast Ohio visionaries, on realNEO and elsewhere in the free-speech world...  read Roberts' excellent article on the Port in a Storm and realize the following observations are direct reflections on all leaders and citizens of the region, and we are pathetic:

"The real tale of the waterfront is one of conflict, greed, wasted public money, and sheer incompetence on the part of the port board, city hall, and the county commissioners."

It is such a sensitive situation that many sources with ties to it have requested anonymity for this story. Cleveland, it seems, is populated not by outspoken visionaries, but by many who suffer in silence, fearing ostracism or political and civic retribution.

In a way, it is a sad tale of a city adrift with failed leaders in almost every quarter of the community, people who have squandered the dream of a world-class waterfront and a better place to live.

Without Jackson's thoughtless indulgence, the fiasco would not have flowered. The Greater Cleveland Partnership stubbornly supported the plan and in doing so demonstrated its lack of business acumen; the venerable Cleveland Foundation funded a portion of the effort, displaying its lack of common sense.