History has been made. Surprisingly so. In a surprisingly short time.

It’s hard to imagine 45 years ago tonight I had a train ticket to Washington, D. C., for the historic March on Washington.

At the time I was working as the assistant to the editor of the Bridgeport Sunday Post, now the Connecticut Post. I was told by the editor that I could not take the day off and should not to go to Washington.

REALNEO.us will be going to maintenance mode very soon, for a Drupal upgrade and transfer to our new (old) host, Bryght / Raincity Studios.

Please bear with us. The site should be back to (better-than-)normal within a few hours.

Good things are in store!

August 27, 2008: Updates in Open Source Economic Development

It occurs to me, watching Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden speak at the Democratic National Convention, he is a far superior speaker, intellect and candidate for President than is John McCain.  While McCain is years older than Biden, Biden makes McCain seem like a kid. I really want to see Biden step up in the campaign and put McCain in his place, in his face, personally. I'd like to see Biden vs. McCain in a gloves-off debate... let Biden put McCain away for good.

image by Bryan Boyer courtesy of Archiplanet

Breuer-Designed Atlanta Central Library Endangered

Here's the news about Georgia's preservationist community's fight to save another modern icon. And what a beauty she is, too!

I scratch my head and wonder... what's wrong with these people?

If you dig into the links as I did, you might find a wonderful piece, but I will copy it here for safe keeping:

"Progress in preservation - Downtown library merits renovation

By Cynthia Rogers
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/18/08

My friend and neighbor, Jim Sollisch wrote this article last year about the cost of college text books - the cost to students and to forests: Save trees; put college textbooks on the Web.

Just meant to inspire us togreater things

Plea to all

The Plain Dealer reports today that Cleveland's new poverty rate is 29.5 percent, ranking second worst among large cities. That rate is up from 27% the previous year. Among our peers:

Yesterday after I posted the bit on permeable alley paving, I sent the link off to Terry Schwarz, senior planner at the CUDC.

Here's our correspondence.

Susan: "Are we doing this in NEO? paving what we need to pave - sustainably Please offer examples.  Terry – good to read the beet farming idea out there in some press recently."

Last Sunday, at St. Ann's Catholic Church, in Cleveland Heights, I saw the first McCain bumper sticker I can recall. Perhaps I've simply overlooked the tiny, militaristic, white-on-black branding on all those massive suburban Suburbans and Hummers. But this one star general caught my eye. Seeing this brought me understanding... so this is where the McCain community lives... although I didn't see any other McCain stickers in the lot, which mostly contained simple, spartan, sensible, socially conscious vehicles. I thought, "at least one bible-thumping Republican practices the preach". Then The General left the service long before it was over... before anyone else left the church... and I realized The General had been in church not for a shared community experience but drive-through religious self-service. Probably escaped right before the offerings basket was passed.

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:

Huge props to the many artists, MCs, DJs, bboys-and-girls, organizers and 100s of real NEOans who turned out for the 7th annual City Xpressions Street Art Festival, August 23, 2008, at West 25th and Lorain, Cleveland. A perfect summer day - great happy crowd - creative vibe and entertainment - and some spectacular urban art. While there weren't as many artists as the last year I attended, what showed was diverse and often pure genius.

Are we doing this in NEO? If we aren't, why not? I have written before about permeable asphalt, but this is permeable alley paving - in Chicago, where else? Hi Sadhu. We sure miss you here in NEO.

Midtown Brews with Meet The Bloggers

Following up...

Is anyone as sick of weaseling Democrats as I am? That’s the category I put Gov. Ted Strickland and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher for their cave-in on the sick day ballot issue. A pair of ingrate weasels.

Organized Labor – not exactly vigorous – has been pushing a measure that would legislate seven days for sick leave for employees in businesses as large as 25 employees or more.

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

Have the news media dropped the “Cone of Silence” story too quickly? Was candidate John McCain cheating?

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.

My father, bless his soul, played and replayed the soundtracks to Fiddler on the Roof and Man of La Macha, over and over, until the lyrics became a mantra.  Tradition!  Try to establish just one simple family tradition and you will have children with the gift of memory.

Yet another reason to push for 'more green' - it can lead to 'more clean' air. Something that both urban areas and their schools need to address. (Not that suburbia is immune to pollution. Dirty air is everywhere)

Take a moment to explore and participate in a new collaborative online space, Economic Gardening Economies, just formed over last weekend during a curriculum retreat at the beautiful 2,600 acre Edward Lowe Foundation Property, Big Rock Valley, in Michigan.

Economic Gardening is a process begun almost 20 years ago by Chris Gibbons in the City of Littleton, Colorado to identify and connect knowledge, local assets and companies to strengthen prosperity. Read CI for Small Business: The City of Littleton's Economic Gardening Program.

Here is more information taken from the side bar of the Economic Gardening Economies Web space:

This web site provides background on where the strategy of Economic Gardening is taking hold. 

You can become a member of this site here. Members of the site can freely contribute content and help us build an even more vibrant economic gardening network. 

Two white papers on Open Source Economic Development definitely worth downloading to your desktop and reading, studying.

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.