"O mio babbino caro" - Gianni Schicchi - Puccini - performed by Amy Irvine (August 9, 2009)

Many beautiful worlds collided the evening of Sunday, August 9, 2009, at "OPERA IN THE ITALIAN CULTURAL GARDEN", a free outdoor evening concert of favorite Italian opera classics, beautifully performed by Opera Per Tutti (Opera For All), held in the spectacular Italian Cultural Garden, in one of the greatest public parks in the world, The Cleveland Cultural Gardens, presented by the Italian Cultural Garden Foundation, Northern Ohio Opera League, and the Cleveland Cultural Garden Federation.

CNBC - Orchards and vineyards may soon spring from the blight of thousands of abandoned buildings in Cleveland, a city struggling to rise from years of decline and home foreclosures. Once a proud manufacturing powerhouse, Cleveland has lost nearly 10 percent of its population since 2000, the fastest drop of any U.S. city except for hurricane-hit New Orleans.

While I was sitting behind Food On The Move, at St. Clair and East 140th, where a friend works, I noticed a pear tree in the lot next door, full of rippening pears. While the lot is well tended, and does not appear "vacant", the lone pear tree is the only occupant. And nobody seems to notice it is there, despite its bounty of free food. There are 100s of pears on the tree - in a market, they would be worth $100s. This lot could contain dozens of pear trees - perhaps 100s - producing $10,000s in income for the owners and those who tended them.

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 From August 12-14, Mayor Frank G. Jackson will host a three-day summit, bringing together a diverse group of people vested in and dedicated to Cleveland to use their vast knowledge and imagination to create an action plan for building a green economy for Cleveland’s future. This summit will be facilitated by Dr. David Cooperrider of the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value (my teacher, advisor, mentor and friend) at Case Western Reserve University, my alma mater (x2).

Sometimes there's no bigger impact than hearing from City leadership itself.  There is no excuse not to apply and attend - to have your voice heard, and to make a difference !   Come help us.

The folks who plant, water, and weed will offer freshly picked vegetables, herbs, eggs, and flowers every Sunday from 3:00 to 5:00 at the permaculture gardens of Gather 'Round at 3919 Lorain Ave. This will begin Sunday 8/2/09 and will go into September.

For more information, please visit gatherroundfarm.webs.com.

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Adam Harvey, Amy Weahry and Tim Russo, acting as Blackheart Cleveland, you have acted to cause me and my family harm. I believe you are acting with intent, and you claim to be acting as one.

I have met Tim Russo and do not know that I have ever done anything to harm him. I have not met you other two, so consider you strangers.

In your attack against me and my family, you make a series of inflammatory and inaccurate statements, that I challenge. I also challenge your social and ethical behavior, and I call you out personally to explain your actions, to my family.

Late on the 4th of July, there was a big fight in my neighborhood. Thankfully, I wasn't there. A friend who was there described it as around 100 people - some from East Cleveland and some from Cleveland - who just plain wanted to fight. No gang or drug issues - no girl in the middle - just a bunch of people so stressed and freaked out by life that they needed to pound somebody. On that night, those folks settled for pounding each other, and little harm was caused.

So I went to see Food, Inc. at the Cedar Lee with a full house of foodies on Monday night. I recommend the film. It features Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser and Joel Salatin and other well known (to foodies) folks. I had received an email invite from Brad Masi and I went with my farm collegues. After the show there was a panel. Brad was on it and some guy (who's name I cannot recall from Whole Foods) and Warren Taylor of Snowville Creamery in Pomeroy, Ohio. Warren was awesome.

This is a great site.  Love to see people coming together innovatively and in a community setting like this.  I'm running for the U.S. Senate.  You can view my blog at http://www.jenniferbrunner.com/index.php/blog  I learned about this site on Twitter (http://twitter.com/JenniferBrunner).  On FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/brunnerforsenate. Check out my state office's latest initiative, "Better Lives, Better Ohio" at http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/betterLives.aspx

Since our founding, in 2004, REALNEO has become a groundbreaking free, open source social network of global interest – recently recognized as one of the top networks of our type in the country, by the Knight Foundation.

In 2008, the members of REALNEO.US formed REAL COOP, an Ohio legal cooperative, which now owns and operates REALNEO.US and REAL.COOP. We are unique in the world of social computing, and a global innovator in the evolution of information systems.

From the REALNEO.US homepage:

Thanks to Laura McShane for posting this morning a comment linking to Will Allen's "Good Food Manifesto" on his Growing Power blog. I, and millions of other people, became aware of Will last Sunday, when he was featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine article "Street Fighter", but folks who follow local foods best practices surely knew of Will long before.

Here is a photo of the Metrohealth campus taken less than a block from Lincoln West High School.  I work with some of the most bright, kind, warm, funny and beautiful young  minds in Cleveland. 

Tap into this community Cleveland.  Build a sustainable community here.

Over the past 20 years, I've spent most of my "professional" time as an entrepreneur, with world-class expertise conducting multi-dimensional, multi-client relational comparative data and best practice analyses of any aspects of the world's largest and best global enterprises, environments and systems, and developing and consulting on innovations and total quality improvement. This work has generated a wealth of knowledge on large general systems, with a unique expertise in information systems and telecommunications. REALNEO is a product of this highest level expertise, drawn from the best practices of the best organizations on Earth. What REALNEO has developed for Cuyahoga County - what has been generated out of the REALNEO-generated Real Cooperative - takes general systems innovation to a whole new level of making us the brightest greenest place on Earth. So, we really do have a purpose to Cuyahoga County owning the Breuer, and the vision is beautifully expressed in this great rendering above, to be REAL COOP citizen headquarters of the open source capital of this brightest greenest state of Earth.

Speaker: Majid Rashidi, Ph.D., P.E., Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Cleveland State University Fenn College of Engineering.
Topic: "Harnessing the Power of Wind"

Program sponsorship opportunities available; sponsorship includes a table of 8 and signage.

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Theme: “Manufacturing Excellence: Innovate Locally, Succeed Globally”

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Today's harvest available at North Union Farmer's Market, Shaker Square and Sunday at Crocker Park.

pickers in the peas

peas before they were snatched (they're a little hard to locate... three passes usually find the ones that are ready to be eaten)

This Saturday, June 13, 2009, the members of REALNEO are invited to a community meeting of our cooperative, REAL COOP. The REALNEO social network is owned and operated by all members of REALNEO, through their REAL COOP, an Ohio cooperative, making us entirely unique in the world of social computing. As such, all members are welcome to participate in the network and cooperative planning. This meeting is an important opportunity for REALNEO members to become involved in the operation of REAL COOP and the planning of our virtual network...

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Michael Moore says goodbye to the old General Motors and offers some really good advice to President Obama.

He offers nine really good suggestions for the GM makeover (that'd be our taxpayer makeover of GM). The first one sets the stage well.

Register today for the 2009 Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council (GCLAC) 4th Annual Symposium, “Countdown to 2010: Revisiting the Past and Planning for the Future”, Friday, June 12, 2009 from 7:30 a.m. - noon at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (1 Wade Oval Drive)

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 The Tipping Point Cooperative

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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