I am amazed by the fact that the City of Cleveland, Ohio has so many concurrent events driven by civic organizations, community development organizations, social service organizations, businesses, veterans groups, institutions of higher learning, and philanthropic entities that continually cycle through the Cleveland region annually and that there is no 1 entity that tracks them all for their meeting dates, their event dates, and their administrative/organizational events which should-in most cases-be open to the public.

Dear realNEO Members and so Real Coop owners,

realNEO was founded October 7, 2004, making this our 6th year providing a free, open source content management system and social computing platform to the citizens of Northeast Ohio and the world... for the past few years as a cooperative. In this 6th year, we have reached a stage of ad hoc organizational maturity whereby we have a large, real, engaged community of members who have been active with realNEO for years, who share foundational commitments to openness, truth and freedom, and who are working in concert for the sustainability of our communities... both our virtual realNEO/coop community and our real NEO neighborhoods, around the world.

With maturation comes the opportunity to evolve, with the knowledge we have gained in our lives, now including over 5 years of realNEO.

An old brick garage, the roof long ago collapsed, shards of glass remain in the broken widows. Trees over grown, the remains of a cultivated flower bed by the side door of a house. Plants grow in cracks in the driveway. A slow return to nature.

In 2006, Gen-X Consultant Rebecca Ryan came to Cleveland to speak at the City Club and lead some roundtable discussions (hosted by realNEO) on making this region more desirable to the global Generation-X population.  She was working on Gen-X planning in Akron and Canton and proposed to the City of Cleveland some collaboration with her regional efforts - she was suggesting to brainstorm very openly at very little cost to the city. Her outreach received the cold shoulder here. The last time I remember communicating about this was with Chris Ronayne, then with the city of Cleveland, and I was basically told the development people were too busy trying to close a Nike Cavaliers advertising deal to bother with Rebecca Ryan's proposal - the city economic development resources were too focused on Cavaliers advertising to care.

Is this graffiti? Or are you a Cav's fan so it's ok? Dan must think it's pretty funny, all the way to the Bank! Socialize the costs, privatize the profits.  Go Cavs!

Hot off the CCD!   Very windy on the lake shore this evening...knock out sunset.  Ed Hauser knew Whiskey Island was the place to go.

IT Update - Change To Blog Submission Form - Promote Your Own Pages To Home, If Authorized

In response to problems with some real coop members posting content on realNEO that is harmful or objectionable to other members, and some members abusing the coop trust structure, it has been found advisable to change how content is promoted to the home page of realNEO. In the past, all content has automatically been promoted to the home page for all members, regardless of content. Now, when you post your content, you must select to post it to the home page yourself, if authorized - you will see that option available to you in the last section of the blog (and other content type) submission form - "Publishing Options"... check "Promoted to front page". If you have been asked not to promote your content to the home page, please respect that request and leave this option unchecked. Otherwise, check this option to send your content to the home page as usual.

Using 48" pallets and 8" concrete block this image demonstrates a quick, tool-free method of constructing waist high tables for propagating and selling nursery seedlings.   The edge of the pallet can be finisihed with a rough sawn 8" board to make the set up look a little classier, and to provide a raised edge to keep the plant trays from sliding off the pallet. 

THE 2ND DISTRICT POLICE/COMMUNITY RELATIONS COMMITTEE IS HAVING THEIR

I'll have my daughters read this - thanks Guy

Submitted by Norm Roulet on April 27, 2010 - 2:55am.

I'll have my daughters read this - thanks Guy

Disrupt IT

Lester Brown's book, Plan B 4.0 is available as a free
download from the earth policy website.  There is also a hardcopy
edition for sale.
http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4

Book review...

Scary But True: No One Really Knows Exactly How Much Oil Has Leaked From The Deepwater Horizon

Scary But True: No One Really Knows Exactly How Much Oil Has Leaked From The Deepwater Horizon

I missed several days of blogs for events beyond my control and my time is limited to rsvp a subject I am unable to spend HOURS and HOURS and HOURS reveiwing to make any assessments...moreover, I am tapped for time to react...which brings to mind a particular way of life these days.....too much information and information overload....

I guess my simple point is this....we are all trying to share info across the board that we feel our members should be "aware" of so that they can choose to pass it forward, share it, or react to it as they deem appropriate.

by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 05. 7.10

I may hate old time politics, but I love this video - thanks Channel 5 - found on the Cleveland.com website. According to a poll on realNEO, "Does Jimmy Dimora deserve the privilege of being considered innocent until proven guilty?", 63% voted "Yes, Jimmy Dimora deserves the privilege of being considered innocent until proven guilty".

No real issue to discuss here--just putting out some flowers--peace offering.

Photo credit: Steven Litt

Please revisit the post from Lee Batdorff regarding the shell game of monies along Euclid Ave. 

 Americans are being "bombarded" with chemicals, gases and radiation that can cause cancer, and the federal government must do far more to protect them, presidential cancer advisers said on Thursday.

As for Guy's Pollution Of realNEO - We Need A Board Meeting and Policies for What is Legal and Posted To Home. I don't care that Guy fills our server with random wisdom he mines from the Internet, if that content is not violating the rights of others and is legal to host on our servers. It is the responsibility of the Board of real coop to insure that is the case, and address any inquiries from authorities about the content posted here. As we do not have a formal board or board proceedings, I believe responsibility for all this rests with the officers of real coop.