I just found on Case Management Professor Sandy Piderit's blog, concerning the branding of Case, AKA Case Western Reserve University, that acting President Eastwood has declared that "that Case Western Reserve University by any other name does not smell as sweet to many people". Several years ago the university hired an out of state identity firm to remake the brand, which included shortening the name to Case and adopting a new logo that is described as a fat man carrying a surfboard. They spent $ millions, including for new signage, letterhead and brochures, cards, and all the other identity stuff out there in the local and global community - a bigger thing than it seems at first. The response was from indifferent to hostile - especially about shortening the name, as many alumni went to Western Reserve and loved that brand. See below the relevant excerpt from President Eastwood's letter to alumni announcing that "The University's official self-identification program should acknowledge Western Reserve as an equal partner with Case and formally represent itself in the market as Case Western Reserve University." Also in the letter, "In the coming days, the university will form an implementation group which will be charged with developing and implementing a process for recreating and adapting the university's graphic identity guidelines at minimal cost."

First off I cant believe I beat Norm to the Pb punch.  I consider it an honor.   So in honor of the Rhode Island retrial getting tossed out I bring you data regarding a global Pb victory.  The phase out of Pb in gas, almost globally.   I love visuals...

Spectrum – the Undergraduate Gay-Straight Alliance of Case Western Reserve University – and Case’s University Programming Board are pleased to bring the “Sex Workers’ Art Show” to Case on February 26, 2007.

Location

I just uploaded the latest in a series of ultra-low-rez pollution centric "shock and awe" videos.   Surf into Buckeye Sustainability Institute's blog, see the aerial photo of Sims Park, and watch the video of the pollution spewing out of an outfall there, a dead fish, and my 4 year old daughters observations.

I like to think a picture is worth a thousand words.   And with all this discussions of green wind power, I felt like we could benefit from a reminder of the downsides of some alternitives.  Coal gets plenty of bad press with all those particulate emissions but how about nukes?  

This was tucked away in the Cleveland Plain Dealer Business section today, straight out of Associated Press, without any local perspective - yawn, how boring is this subject. Well, over the next few months expect to see it is not so boring!

   

    Claude Monet's paintings are pretty. For this reason some people love his work and other dismiss it as decorative and superficial. "Monet in Normandy", the exhibition on now at the Cleveland Museum of Art, brings us over 50 works by one of the world's best known painters and presents them in an intellectual manner that may even make you see those water lily tote bags and umbrellas in a different light.

The marketing and advertising industry is constantly teasing us with trendy, cool and largely superfluous products. To judge by investment in advertising, it takes more and more to achieve the same effect. With all that stimulation it is an effort asking just what we stand to gain.

In what represents significant progress with a very positive trend, the Cleveland Institute of Art has announced their selection of one of the world's most respected hip young architecture firms, MVRDV, to design the new campus for CIA. Based out of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the new CIA design will be MVRDV's first work in North America. Add this to the selection by MOCA of Foreign Office Architects of London, for their new museum and we have two of the hot creative properties in the world focusing their best efforts on two of NEO's most important institutions and design projects, both located within strolling distance in the University Circle redevelopment area called "The Triangle." 

View of Lake Erie and the Historic Coast Guard Station from the frozen beach of Wendy Park, on Whiskey Island, taken 02/15/07 around 5:30 PM, after a classic NEO blizzard, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Until I stood by the trackside to take the photo above, it really hadn’t dawned on me what was going on…what was going on in the big picture. 

I was flying back from little auditing in Chicago and we were routed over lake erie.  My phone camera resolution sucks!   Islands visable include South Bass Island (AKA Put-in-Bay), North Bass Island (Closest), Middle Bass Island, and either Sugar Island, or Rattlesnake Island.

My father tells me storeies of folks driving accross from Sandusky / Catbwa out to Pelee back when he was young (1950's).  The lake use to freeze.   These days, just about every year some fools 4-wheeler or snowmobile falls thru the ice.

When I saw this windmill made of hopefully reused cafeteria supplies I immediately knew it had to be posted up with the rest of the windmill wonderment on RealNeo.   

Thanks RealNEO for giving a local home to windmill pr0n of all sizes and flavors!

    An exciting day it was for the steering committee of Great Lakes Bioneers Cleveland.
Most of the members were on hand for the initial planning retreat which took place at the CanalWay Center, near the banks of our river that burned.

    The planning retreat was facilitated by Gloria Rivera and Paula Cathcart, the organizers from the Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit site that has been up and running for 2 years. Cleveland's planning has been in gear since 3rd quarter 06 approximately when steering comm. members were funded to travel to other satellite sites in our reagion to learn more.

Great Lakes Bioneers Cleveland recently received approval to host a beaming site. CSU will host the event via live satellite uplink from the primary conference site in San Raphael, CA.

    What is Bioneers????

    Bioneers was conceived to conduct programs in the conservation of biological and cultural diversity, traditional farming practices, and environmental restoration.  Our vision of environment encompasses the natural landscape, cultivated landscape, biodiversity, cultural diversity, watersheds, community economics, and spirituality. Bioneers seeks to unite nature, culture and spirit in an Earth-honoring vision, and create economic models founded in social justice.

Bioneers are biological pioneers who are working with nature to heal nature and ourselves. They have peered deep into the heart of living systems to devise strategies for restoration based on nature's own operating instructions. They come from many cultures and perspectives, and all walks of life.

Today, a growing movement for sustainable agriculture and locally grown food has emerged in Northeast Ohio, garnering increasing support and acceptance. Not only does this movement address many environmental and social concerns, it also offers innovative and economically viable opportunities for growers, consumers, policymakers, home gardeners, and many others in the food system. As this quiet revolution takes shape across the United States, activists in Northeast Ohio are on the leading edge and have the ability to transform the region.

Location

Thanks to Susan Miller for pointing out an important article in the 02/03/07 Plain Dealer regarding the war to eliminate lead poisoning in our region by 2010 - an outlandishly aggressive objective, as Cleveland ranks among the top five cities nationally for lead poisoning. In 2004, St. Luke's Foundation funded what has been the most important collaboration ever for the future of Northeast Ohio: the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council (GCLAC), aligning over 80 agencies and organizations at local, regional, state and federal levels toward the common objective of lead eradication in our region within the next three years. On February 1, 2007, St. Luke's brought together the leadership of many other foundations for the expressed purpose of convincing as many foundations as possible to join them in funding the next three years of GCLAC initiative. The article states the objective of raising $3 million from foundations to leverage for far greater support from government sources.

This is just a little plug for those in the know.... we have begun pulling together the final data regarding just how green our major renovation at the Moebius Nature Center really was.

I watch the BBC 11 PM World News, rather than the local Northeast Ohio news, because I want an international perspective on affairs in America and world-wide. To learn what is happening in Northeast Ohio, I use the Plain Dealer as one frame of reference but depend on personal research, involvement in the community and connectedness through networks and alternative media, increasingly found through the Internet, to know what is happening in the region.  The main reason I find it necessary to look outside the US mainstream for news is well documented by a project out of Sonoma State University called Project Censored, "which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media."  Below is their list of stories over-looked and/or self-censored by the country's major national news media in 2007 - how does this fit with your observations on the world as reported by mainstream media in NEO and America?

Thanks to an anonymous donor, East Cleveland has received some excellent equipment to start setting up a pilot proof of concept wireless broadband mesh network in some part of the city - location to be determined. The donated equipment is from a similar proof of concept deployment in Washington, D.C., and includes several commercial wifi antennas and routers and cabling to set up a small multipoint demonstration network, running the open source CUWiNWare mesh application and wifiDOG contained portal application, all routing to the city of East Cleveland's open source Drupal community portal, at http://eastcleveland.org. All this, combined with other digital divide bridge programs there, makes East Cleveland approaches to information technology some of the most interesting in America.

 About three weeks ago, I received the first "Letter to the Editor" in the history of REALNEO. Lots of people send me press releases and event info and tips on cool content, but never has someone sent an opinion editorial to be posted for them (probably because REALNEO is open for anyone to create an account and post content and comments themselves). The letter to the editor was titled "Lead Paint - You Are Idiots" and was received from someone named Kim Falk (he authorized publication of his name) and the email address was from Sherwin Williams. A little googling and I learned he is an employee there - a very enthusiastic and loyal one, to be sure... he was responsible for Sherwin-Williams donating paint to help in the repair of the Pentagon after 9/11. So I was not surprised to read he is protective of his company in defense of them being sued over lead. Still, I was intrigued by the language he uses in his editorial, published below.