As I sat on my front porch, around 10 PM this evening, a group of about a dozen teenage boys could be seen and heard approaching from Euclid, shouting "where you from" for all to hear. One of the little g's from across the street (who recently broke into another neighbors' house) was walking toward them, but turned and ran back to his porch... until he recognized them, and he joined them.

"Where you from?", they asked. "I'm from Wadena", they replied.

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.

Location

Henry Gomez today announced the date of the Cleveland City Club debate for Ward 14 and the mayoral debate.

It will be interesting to see, which generates more interest.  I would also like to see the Ward 8 candidates face off. 

Meanwhile, the City Club's website is down now.

Check back later for more details here.
http://www.cityclub.org

Location

I am very happy that friend and local artist Carol Anderson will help our neighborhood understand Mandalas and the art of PEACE.  The theme of this summer's reading club at the Cleveland Public Library is BE CREATIVE.  So much to learn about PEACE, Love and understanding...

Maybe Gates just snapped. Just was having a bad day. Just couldn't take it anymore. It happens. Maybe he has a history of depression and anger issues.

I'm sane, employed and a productive member of society but stupidly argued with the cops twice in my life. They always win. Now -- even on my worst day -- I will do whatever they say...yes officers, yes, sir, how can I help you sir.....

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.

I wish I could put this book in the hands of every American.  

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.

In observing what has been planned for major infrastructure and private developments and strategic investment initiatives in the Greater Cleveland Area, with a focus on high dollar, high roller plans for downtown Cleveland and especially the lake and river fronts, when there are no current economic indicators projecting high income growth in Cleveland or the region, my only conclusion is that the "smart money" has been riding for a long time on the easy money of driving casino gambling downtown, in a big way, in the near future.

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:

Brooklyn Centre Naturalists Community Meeting

Sat Jul 11, 2009   2:30pm – 4:30pm
Cleveland Public Library-Brooklyn Branch 

Who can identify the locations of these pictures taken in and around my neighborhood on a beautiful Sunday?

Photo credit: New York Times

Dust off your Jean Jacques Rousseau NEO--Google "social contract" Cleveland, and, then, "social contract," Atlanta.

The game here will all start to make sense--after you PLEASE READ:

Atlanta Is MakingWay for New Public Housing, New York Times

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.

I wrote about a wonderful local jewelry designer recently called Susan K.

Tremont Communicator is now out for distribution.  I won't harp on CDCs and the mailing list issue.  Everyone deserves a chance to have their say.

Spam alert.  I am going to promote the recently released travel guide to Cleveland by Douglas Trattner and published by www.moon.com.

Good neighbor Carol Ward reminds us through i-neighbors.org that we have a whole LAKE to enjoy for FREE this summer.  Check out the activities offered by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources!!!