..Or Lessons Learned.

One flag, one country. We're all different, but asked to come together under one flag. I hope to see one card and access for all.

"Let's face it; all I did was talk to this kid." The words of Willoughby South High School assistant principal and 19-year educator Jeff Lyons.  In the rush to blame someone--we look to our administrators and the parents of this world will be quick to say they don't know how a young man got a hold of a gun.

If an apple a day keps the doctor away, what is the economic value to Northeast Ohio of bringing fresh, local fruits and vegetables to poor, unhealthy, underserved inner city places like The Star Neig

Kudos to McCain on his choice of a running mate. It shows that he does have some ability to see what others see right through or refuse to see at all. That there are a lot of people who are tired of being invisible, tired of being bullied and harassed and tired of the status quo.

Just meant to inspire us togreater things

I saw this sadly honest bumper-sticker in Cleveland Heights the other day - the same day an article in the New York Times pointed out a horrific circumstance of our attacks on the Middle East - 100,000s of concussions among our forces alone... imagine how many of the people of the countries we have brought to war are suffering the same injuries - far more than our soldiers, who are suffering as follows:

I've used the Cleveland Heights library on Lee Road since the 1970s, and can say with confidence the recent Studio Techne reinvention of this facility transformed the space, site, and surrounding neighborhood for the better. Featuring a dramatic, high-art bridge over Lee Road, and two reused buildings - one signficantly modernized - with crisp, fitting site improvements, this is one of the best library facilities and urban redevelopments in Northeast Ohio.

Brooklyn Centre gets sloppy national coverage on public radio's Weekend America for participating in Cleveland's Corner Store project. 

Does Cleveland and northeast Ohio have a policy of deferred maintenance?  It would seem that the strategy is to let everything fall apart until we qualify for state and federal funding.

Harry Bell is a powerful urban artist, well appreciated in Cleveland and beyond. His most famous work I know is the Wall of Sorrows, recently dismantled, under controversy, and now in storage... scheduled for future re-installation. You may know his current work from cruising through Cedar and E.55th, where he is commissioned by a gas station and car dealership to create urban art on their walls, now including the work-in-progress shown above... a memorial tribute to "Houghs Angel", Fannie Lewis, rest in peace.

Thanks to Sudhir, I had the opportunity to check out the Flobots at Peabody's, Sunday night. If I'd browsed the Cleveland Scene Magazine concert preview, beforehand, I probably wouldn't have bothered going. The 100s of fans who enjoyed the show agreed that would have been a mistake.

Bioneers Conference 2008 Bioneers, now in its 19th year is an acclaimed leading-edge forum that features a solutions-based approach, connecting environment, social justice, health and spiritual networks.  For the second year, Great Lakes Bioneers—Cleveland will bring to Northeast Ohio the excitement and energy of the inspiring social and scientific innovators speaking at the national conference and a wide-ranging line-up of regional and local speakers, workshops and tours to communicate and celebrate the trailblazing work taking place in our region.  This year’s conference will emphasize water and the important and diverse role that it plays in the social, economic, and natural environment of the Great Lakes Region.   

Location

The results of a study on violence in the Cleveland public schools, commissioned by the Cleveland Municipal School District, has their leadership and the Cleveland Plain Dealer finally focusing on lead poisoning as a cause of failure of our schools and school children. In an article in today's PD, "Cleveland schools struggle with finding and helping potentially violent students, study reports", a researcher from the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C., which performed the CMSD study on violence in our schools, is quoted saying "Cleveland's plight is unique because of an unusually high rate of lead poisoning - from paint in aging houses - that can affect behavior and academic performance." CMSD Board Member Louise Dempsey is quoted in the article as saying "I'm very pleased to see a lot of this stuff out in the open," she said. "Let's not kid ourselves, we've got to be honest if we're going to solve the problem." I'm pleased to see this getting CMSD Board-level attention.

In greening our little patch of the Independent Green Republic of East Cleveland, we have learned more about "Green" gardening from friends on REALNEO than anywhere else in the world... from insight sharing on how to "Improve Your Soil This Fall", to "Smart Seed"... and we're practicing what has been preached, building up our yard by a good foot with free organic matter like mulch and straw we picked up at the Shaker Heights mulch pile, shown here... leaves to be added this fall. All this in preparation for toxin free farming next year and forever after.

Final W+R events for 2008!

40 years ago, a great tragedy occurred at Beulah and Lakeview roads - police officers and citizens of Cleveland died here in one of the longest, most deadly urban gunfights and riots in modern American history... the Glenville Shootout.

I was over by Glenville High School today and I asked my friend Snag what was the meaning of the shoes hanging from the powerlines. He said "Fallen Soldiers". I asked if he meant people from around here who were killed... a sort of memorial... and he said basically so. He said they did it in the army, too, and the three pair in the header today are probably for the people killed the other day over by St. Clair...

I've always loved sunflowers, but the bright, sunny blooms glowing in our front yard this Summer are special. The seeds were from the work of art below, in the "To Masumi" memorial exhibition, held last October, in celebration of the everlasting, peaceful, sunny spirit of Masumi Hayashi, the great photographer killed a year earlier, in Cleveland, with other great Cleveland artist John Jackson. The Masumi Sunflower seeds distributed in Tremont may have been planted anywhere on Earth, and I wonder where else such Masumi Sunflowers are growing today, from this one showing of love for love and art received and lost.

Today 8/3/2008, Chris Ronayne gets a front page editorial on the Forum page of the Plain Dealer.  Chris lives in Cleveland and drives to work every day.  I know his commute, because I made a similar commute when I worked at Metrohealth Hospital in the eighties.*  My drive time?  Ten minutes from University Circle to Metrohealth Hospital. Sure, sometimes, it was 15-20 minutes, if traffic held me up, or, if it took forever to get out of the parking lot, but I literally made the commute every day with my eyes closed.  It scared me so much to realize that I was driving in a trance, that I committed myself to public transportation. 

Jessica, Aladeen, Mohammad and Mustafa rode their bikes to see the kids perform in Lincoln Park under the stars!