Despite corruption and cronyism galore, Ohio does have it's bright and shiny moments of good and brilliant. Here's a way to make history come alive for your kids (from ODOT!) http://www.dot.state.oh.us/districts/D06/Maps/Pages/OhioUndergroundRailroadMapsPage.aspx

We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.

Shout out to Slavic Village Sandy, who is the voice of NEO. Thanks for the heads up!

Ohio City Near West Development Corporation is launching a new on line publication Ohio City Argus via the Observer news service (with print installments). This is a throw-back to a publication that served the City of Ohio City (yes, before it joined Cleveland after a little war). The previous Ohio City publication is described as Notes: Published on Thursday. "Whiggish in its tendencies but not very partisan."

For the first time in 9 years, Wal-Mart has a new CEO.

Mike Duke has the historic opportunity to turn the page, and finally start doing things the right way at Wal-Mart. Former CEO Lee Scott failed to substantially change the company. His business and labor polices resulted in dozens of wage & hour lawsuits and declining real wages for Wal-Mart employees, while Wal-Mart and the Walton family took in multi-billion dollar profits.

Chart from: http://www.drought.gov/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_693_208_0_43/http%3B/drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html 

California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, warned on Thursday that his state "is headed toward one of the worst water crises in its history".

ALERT FROM JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP
America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization

February 2nd 2009

JPFO ALERT: RECOGNIZE THE ENEMY

We face more enemies of 2A than ever before.

You need to able to recognize them and defend yourself. Please
read "The Seven Types of Gun Control Advocate at" ....

My little experience with this "community" has been very telling.  I always knew that whenever someone disagreed with my opinion they'd reflexively go after me personally.  Now, I have proof that it's irrational, because the flame war bloggers here at REALNEO, led by the irrational, do it the first chance they get.  Thanks guys!

Last year, my sister and I went to Puerto Rico to find some sun. We had a great time and the weather was perfect. Yesterday, Cleveland had perfect weather, too. It is a matter of luck and how you look at the world. This is Cleveland, too.

 (Heroin addicts lined up for clean syringes in Old San Juan :(

Both are free, fleeting and colorful,

both are blown helter skelter  

Steve Litt provides a good look at the mall site as the proper one for a medical mart and convention center in today’s Plain Dealer. http://blog.cleveland.com/architecture/2009/01/chosen_medical_mart_site_... It’s a good argument for where the project should be. However, it doesn’t address really – as no one has - whether we need this project or whether it is worth the price it will cost.

Are the clay tea cups used in India GREEN?

as we we'er walking friends out of the tremont west development corporation said meeting -  yogi stopped at tim russo's coat - whom i didn't know at the time and started sniffing and yogi esp and body language communicated that tim russo's coat had drugs or gun(s) or explosives in the coat and or was around said items - my secret video audio camera and tims video camera which he was video tapping the meeting - shows tim russo in aggravated tone " get the dog away from sniffing my coat all over" and since yogi didn't have enough time to sniff more to be able to be more precise -

COMMENCE FIREarms Training Academy is the Premier Northeast Ohio Concealed Handgun Our Training Facility is in the Greater Cleveland area

Canadian Tar Sands Look Like Tolkein’s Mordor Says UN Water Advisor

by

Since Norm Roulet created Realneo in 2004 many, many people have put thousands of hours of their volunteer time into producing quality content, and many people have made donations of time and money to pay for and maintain the machinery which operates Realneo.

I will give just one typical example of what it takes to keep a web site operational: At one point about a year ago the url for Realneo expired. No one noticed because no one was notified because the old email in the whois for the url contact was dead. Eventually Realneo.us went dark because the domain registry extinguished the url. To get Realneo back on the web we bought the Realneo.org domain and temporarily used that url to redirect Realneo.us traffic to the servers. But all the Google links to Realneo.us were dead.

It took me a week – 40 hours – of international telephone calls (the Realneo.us domain had originally been purchased through a domain re-seller in Toronto) and of back and forth emailing and calling to our server host (in British Columbia) before the Realneo.us url was finally made available to us again.

During the renewal adventure I received a lot of help and tech education from Jeff Schuler – who I had recently met through another Realneo mutual friend.

If you consider that it took me a week of volunteer time to JUST get back the url, then you can see that Mr. Schuler puts in a heck-of-a-lot of volunteer time because he is the person who does all of the following tasks which allow all the users and readers of Realneo to communicate:

I was very saddened to learn today we lost a great artist, loved friend and family to many, and inspirational Clevelander with the passing of Clarence E. Van Duzer. I knew Van Duzer as a family friend and always was inspired and energized by talking with him, his work, and his approach to life. At our last meeting, at his Convivium opening, in 2006, he was so strong and clear it seemed he would live on forever.

Gene Krebs says it well: Don’t Bail Out ODOT- an op-ed from Greater Ohio

Good afternoon. Today, I delivered the City of Cleveland ’s 2009 operating budget to Cleveland City Council. For the fourth year, I am proposing a balanced budget without layoffs or reductions in service delivery. However, in these hard economic times, I pledge to you that I will remain vigilant and that my Administration will continue to seek efficiencies, reduce cost, increase economic development and raise revenue. Please click here to find out more about this year’s proposed budget.

Brookpark Road at Rocky River Drive a flooded mess after water main break 1-30-2009

Massive Water Main Break in Cleveland Causes Street Collapse, Flood 3-06-2008

Video here.  This "community" has some serious growing up to do.

UFO files to be released under Obama Open Government Memoranda

32 comments

January 22, 12:30 AM

A number of times in my newsletter Point of View I published more extensive reviews of Cleveland politics and the local news media.

I hate to see them simply sit on the shelf. Therefore, I’m offering some copies free. I’d like to send 10 copies of a couple of the issues, one on a 16-page review 25 years of Cleveland mayors – “Who Really Governs” - and another a 16-page review of some 25 years of local media coverage – “Don’t read all about it.”