Norman Solomon for TruthOut - Eloquence in Oslo cannot change the realities of war.

As President Obama neared the close of his Nobel address, he called for "the continued expansion of our moral imagination." Yet, his speech was tightly circumscribed by the policies that his oratory labored to justify.

Max Eternity - Bowing to pressure from the Chinese government earlier this year, President Barack Obama snubbed the Dalai Lama by refusing to meet with him while he was in town, visiting Washington D.C.  Now in a second show of indignance toward those who espouse peace, sources have learned that Obama will not be attending the traditional ceremonies of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee when he arrives in Oslo this month to pick up his Nobel Award.

Naomi Klein @ Mother Jones - The highlight of my first day at COP15 was a conversation with the extraordinary Nigerian poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International. We talked about the fact that some of the toughest activists here still pull their punches when it comes to Obama, even as his climate team works tirelessly to do away with the Kyoto Protocol, replacing it with much weaker piecemeal targets.

Robert Scheer - Barack Obama’s faux populism is beginning to grate, and when yet another one of those “we the people” e-mails from the president landed on my screen as I was fishing around for a column subject, I came unglued. It is one thing to rob us blind by rewarding the power elite that created our problems but quite another to sugarcoat it in the rhetoric of a David taking on those Goliaths. 

Max Eternity - Following in the footsteps of civil rights icons, Coretta Scott King and Julian Bond, both of whom affirmed that "gay rights are civil rights", rock and roll legend Bruce Springteen has joined in the call for equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Quoting the words of Springsteen from the official Bruce Springsteen website, he says:

Yes Magazine! - This June, the doors will open at the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, a state-of-the-art, nearly $6 million facility in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cuyahoga River fire, 1952 - Jefferson St. and W. 3rd. (http://www.clevelandmemory.org/)

Resident Advocacy Group - Tremont
RAG - Resident Advocacy Group
http://rag14.weebly.com/index.html
http://twitter.com/RAG14Tremont

Cleveland lost another one of its great historic institutions, Sunday morning, as the Lancer Steakhouse burned beyond salvage, and was demolished. Established in the mid-1950's, making it one the first restaurant’s in Cleveland owned and operated by an African American, the Lancer was for five decades at the heart of more political action, and home to more important moments and memories, than any other restautant in this region - a truly historic place in the evolution of Northeast Ohio, for the past 50 years.

And, free wifi.

Now it is gone.

Max Eternity - Using language like "finish the job" and claiming that he intends to pull out of Afghanistan in 2011, Obama adds 30,000 new troops.  In his escalation explanation of the Afghan war and occupation, Obama has attempted to offer a silver lining of hope by  essentially promising definitive pull-out dates--ending the conflict.  Yet simultaneously his State and Defense Departments are contradicting his "Exit Strategy" rhetoric, back-walking much of what The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and others have reported th

The Huffington Post - Did Sarah Palin leave Hawaii because there were too many Asians?

The front page story on the government taking of Frank Giglio's home and land should provide a compelling enough reason for our mainstream media outlet--the Plain Dealer--to investigate how government tyranny using CDC harrassment, code enforcement, demolition and the corrupt cycle of $$$ foreclosure and lien transactions has been used by the advantaged to take property from disadvantaged residents in Northeast Ohio.

Resident Advocacy Group - Tremont

Clark Avenue Bridge, Longest Span in the Country, Cleveland, Ohio ca. 1917

A couple of concrete supports are still around. There are 2 at the bottom of Clark hill and Quigley. I 've heard that no one is sure who owns them. That seems odd. I think that they should be preserved in any case.

For more photos follow this link.

Look closely. Washington Crossing the Delaware.

What is this painting saying to you?

Common Dreams - American attitudes to protecting civilians in wartime and other requirements of international humanitarian law differ sharply from those of people in other countries.

Max Eternity - Of Obama's Afghan decision Congressman Kucinich asks "“What are we going to learn in 18 months that we haven’t already learned in the last eight years?”

Listen to podcast and watch video here.

Obama: "We Did Not Ask for This Fight"
Bush: "We Did Not Seek This Conflict"
Obama: "New Attacks are Being Plotted as I Speak"

Max Eternity - Glenn Beck's attempt to pimp Blacks for his sweet malfeasance, message of hate, has backfired.   Beck, the current FOX News extremist-of-choice, had culled the Harlem Cospel Choir to sing for his upcoming Christmas TV Special--using that opportunity as a way to rebrand himself as mainstream--a friend to all, including the disenfranchised and black America.

Common Dreams - If the Republicans had created and inserted into the Democratic Party a secret candidate designed to trick Democrats into electing him, so that he could then enact Republican policies of robbing from the poor to enrich the rich, expanding the military budget to a level not seen since World War II, putting the nation deeper into a global war against Islam, sabotaging efforts to combat climate change, and further deregulating the financial sector, could they have come up with anything better than Barack Obama?