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. 

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.

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.

Despite public support and an obligation to evaluate cycling and pedestrian access to the proposed Interstate 90/71 Bridge from tremont to downtown, the Ohio Department of Transportation refused to do so.In response, a bunch of cycling and community groups took on the responsibilities ODOT dropped.  Come out next Sunday, December 6th, and learn about an exciting vision for a cycling and pedestrian lane on the bridge and why an exciting, beautiful path (along with a place to enjoy the view) to connect the towpath and downtown makes sense for Northeast Ohio

New York Times

MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

In reviewing REALNEO for material on the historic Cleveland U.S. Coast Guard Station, to accompany these November 25, 2009, photographs and Thanksgiving Day Pans of the Coast Guard site, I came across the May, 2006, REALNEO discussion "COAST GUARD IDEAS" about what should be done with the site... with a lengthy vision from "Citizen" Ed Hauser.

Exquisite decay.

On Thanksgiving eve, a little over a year following the death of Ed Hauser - the primary community activist for preservation of the National Historic Landmark Dyer Coast Guard Station, on Whiskey Island - I went Hauser Way to photograph this best location in the nation, to share with you on Thanksgiving day. Enjoy.

Start Thanksgiving with a smile, and a new perspective on urban settlements in America - enjoy "Veronica Moss Visits Times Square". I found this video at Rob Pitingolo's very cool NEO-based blog - Extraordinary Observations (since September, 2004)... originally from StreetFilms.org.

Definitely check out Extraordinary Observations , which we should add to our blogroll, if it isn't there... and welcome to our newest REALNEO/REAL COOP member, Rob Pitingolo... "progressive, urbanist, entrepreneur, blogger, thinker"... REALNEO's kind of guy!

November 21, 2009, the Cleveland Plain Dealer published a get-out-of-jail-free editorial for seemingly life-term Cleveland Port Authority dictator John Carney, and his board of directors - "A Cleveland Port Authority board already wounded can't afford conflict-of-interest charges -- editorial" - that fully acknowledges "the port is so broke it may not be able to assure continued operations of the Cleveland harbor, much less pay to relocate and expand".

Yet, the PD editors do not call for changes to the current Port Board. Quite the opposite, the PD empowers them to move into the real estate development business... despite their bond rating having sunk near junk.

Reporting on the cost and environmental impact of household and government greenspace maintenance.

Fall, 2009, Attleboro and Shaker

REALNEO Naturally Header 11/21/09

Allison Kilkenney - You would think during a time of vast unemployment, wealth disparity, and economic instability that great minds would unite in order to imagine and build a new tomorrow in which the suffering of the masses could be lessened. Of course, that fantasy includes the provision that The Smartest Guys In The Room are also The Most Moral Guys In The Room, which is rarely the case.

The Huffington Post - Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, are among 3,000 volunteers from 25 countries working with Habitat for Humanity this week to help build and repair homes along the Mekong River in Thailand, Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Laos.

Citizen Ed Hauser, Victorious In The Battle Of Whiskey Island - "Ask Not What Your Planet Can Do For You..."

It has been a year since Northeast Ohio lost our selfless civic activist "Citizen" Ed Hauser, silencing the great voice in the community saying that "The Process is Broken".

November 14, 2009 - the one-year anniversary of Ed's death - a group of family and friends came together on the beautiful Whiskey Island Ed saved, before a late Autumn setting sun, to toast a glorious man, and mourn a most cursed and horrible year in Northeast Ohio without Ed.

What does the dawn hold for this long-suffering region, in the second year without Citizen Hauser?

Max Eternity - To often the role of cultural arbiters, civic activists and community workers is portrayed as a position of emotional engagement, not sensibility.  From direct experience I have come to see that there is a tendency for in-power administrators, politicians and real estate speculators to prioritize their lust of recognition and new revenue above the bread and butter needs of those they should serve--retaining existing communal integrity and existing communal wealth.  Fom this position of pie-in-the-sky optimistic idealism, these powers-at-large become blind,

Public Recreation in Cleveland in 2013?

PD reports: "Visitors to Cleveland's public swimming pools -- now free -- would have to pay admission if the city enacts recommendations of a consultant submitted Tuesday."

It is not surprising, the release of "Management & Efficiency Study – Cleveland, Ohio" (download as .PDF here) by Public Finance Management seems to have Northeast Ohio leadership heads spinning. At least, that is the appearance from coverage of related news - and lack thereof - in the PD.

Exactly one week after 77% of Clevelanders made Frank Jackson mayor of Cleveland for another four years, the strongly pro-Jackson Cleveland Plain Dealer's City Hall reporter Henry Gomez posted to his blog that a "Consultant's report suggests that Cleveland must cut jobs to remain financially sound". In his article, Henry referred to a 344 page report by Public Finance Management that, beneath all attempts at silver lining, offers chilling analyses of the organization, financial management and economic prospects of the City of Cleveland.

Some highlights of the innocuously titled "Management & Efficiency Study – Cleveland, Ohio" (download as .PDF here) include: "Cleveland faces a drop of over 50 percent in its capital program funding from FY2010 to FY2011; further reductions are forecasted for FY2012 and FY2013", "the City projects a significant budget deficit in 2010 if current spending is not adjusted to match the new revenue reality", and "the City will have to scale back services to which Clevelanders have become accustomed".

It is an amazing feeling heating your home with wood. You are able to survive in the harshest of weather, with nothing but mother nature on your side, and no gas bills... and, you may cook and heat water while you heat your environment.

Quite clever, really... invented by cavewomen, I believe.

I was just observing a graphic of Issue 6 voting results, on Issue 6 sponsor site Cleveland.com, and noticed how lily-white the voting for this issue clearly was.

In 98.4% white Hunting Valley, 248 people voted for Issue 6, and 18 against... 93% for Issue 6

Where Issue 6 first festered - Mayor Bruce Akers' 89% white Pepper Pike - 83% for Issue 6.

In Issue 6 Grand Mother Rawson's 30% black Shaker Heights... 74% of voters were for Issue 6...

October 7, 2009, we began our sixth year of ongoing, expansive, free, open source content management and global knowledge sharing, community building, social networking and collaboration on REALNEO. See posting Number 1, REALNEO Development Plan, from October 7, 2004, here, for links to many source documents from the planning and development of REALNEO, since 2004.

Congratulations to all REALNEO members, from day one to today! We've come a long way, since 2004, and our outcomes run far deeper than is seen on the surface of REALNEO. Six years is an eternity, in the world of social computing - we're about 8 months younger than Facebook, and a paradigm beyond - we are Real Co-op!