Blowing Smoke: Joe Camel And King Coal

There is a highly depressing quote by National City Corporation CEO Peter Raskind, at the end of a Cleveland Plain Dealer "editors" interview clearing him of being more than a poor, SUPER RICH executive, where Raskind says "It's a remarkable period and it would be intellectually interesting if we didn't happen to be living in the middle of it." I don't recall ever seeing more moronic words in my life.

I don't find a time when poor people around the world and in Northeast Ohio starve and suffer, while highly incompetent, over-compensated "career" bankers and advisers have made millions for themselves, remotely "intellectually interesting".

Perhaps the suffering of the poor is interesting to the rich? Perhaps that is how the rich intellectualize being rich, while most people in the world suffer greatly.

To others, the term is horrific...

David S. Hirschman October 8, 2008

 

Prepare to hit the beach…in Iceland

Got this message from a neighbor/longtime colleague, David Budin:

"Last week I sent a message jokingly suggesting that we all change our middle names to Hussein until November 4. I mean, I thought I was joking. Then a lot of people e-mailed back and said they were actually doing that -- and they were forwarding my message to their friends, etc.

Did anyone expect anything less? Cuyahoga County Commissioners waived the $500,000 fee on the East 9th Street and Euclid Avenue property originally bought for a new County Administration Building.

The $500,000 check was made to the County to tie up the property for the developer. The developer should have eaten the fee and the County should be $500,000 richer.

Evidently, we need a little socialism here in NEO.
Am I the only person outraged by this news?

 

I have given myself to watching videos to educate myself about todays concerns. Here is my recent recommended play list.

Power Shift, Energy + Sustainability, hosted by Cameron Diaz

An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore

Big Ideas for a Small Planet, by Sundance Channel

Received via E-mail from a friend.......

You may have noticed a group of golden brown rectangular stones swelling out of the ground in the Euclid Avenue median across from Severance Hall. I don't have a good photo yet, but I will post one soon. The work is by Murase Associates http://www.murase.com/flash/index.html founded by Robert Murase (1938-2005) a Japanese American landscape architect.

 

I am taking a point of personal privilege by linking to my daughter's presentation of how she does her art work. She has been suffering from acute back pain and this afternoon she will undergo her third back operation. I think it is a testimony to her courage and creativity that she spent the day before putting together this short film of how she works. I want to share it.

I've been waiting to see how the Cleveland Plain Dealer is going to attempt to escape the shame of having endorsed for Cuyahoga County commissioner the highly unqualified and now under fire Bay Village mayor Debbie Sutherland, before she even debated the highly qualified and well respected incumbent, Peter Lawson Jones. Sutherland lost her first debate... and she lost her second debate... and, I understand, she lost four debates against Jones organized by the League of Women Voters for high school children... and she will lose the City Club debate (for Sutherland, losing has meant being obviously unprepared, unqualified, flustered, angry, embarrassed and even booed, in past cases). There was no excuse for the PD endorsing Sutherland, and now they must report 32 Cuyahoga County mayors endorse Peter Lawson Jones for commissioner. The PD editors are surely embarrassed over Sutherland, by now, so they are certainly looking for excuses, including attempting to make the race about race. I expect we'll see lots of this racist behavior in the coming months, years, and decades, in various death spirals, as the last generations of real American racists die away.

Ultra Conservative Tendencies starting to show.

 

 

Former fashion major - Current GOP cheerleader

How disgusting and vile are the charges from Sen. George Voinovich that Sen. Barack Obama is a “Socialist.” It tells me that Voinovich would be a staunch McCarthyism advocate if this were the 1950s. What's so ironic and laughable is the Voinovich record of being a Socialist mayor to the Rich of Cleveland. His record is replete with massive give-aways to Cleveland corporate interest. It isn’t for nothing that he once bragged to the New York Times that he loved “Fat Cats,” meaning wealthy corporate types.

From Mayor Frank Jackson!

 

Here's the letter:

 

Hello Friends,

Laura Johnston’s Metro Page Sunday piece on “wage earners” bearing the burden of city taxes presented a distorted view of the issue. It left out the most important factor of this payroll tax – it has no progressivity. It is a regressive tax.

Join us for Midtown Brews with Meet The Bloggers... Branding Stories: Art, Advocacy and Global Networks Date: Thurs Nov 6, 2008 Time: 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM Live Video Broadcast and Chat Conversation 6:00PM - 7:00PM (EST) Location: Insivia, 1900 Superior Avenue, Suite 105, Cleveland, Ohio 44114 Ph: 216.373.1080

The Plain Dealer today has a story on the local mountain bikers' belligerent battle with Cleveland Metroparks. The mountain bike crowd believes that parks exist for recreation - with their emphasis being on speed and obstacles - while actually MetroParks founding legislation was for protection of natural areas.

Bikers like the sensation of speed they get from whizzing past trees - and favor races, competitions, timed runs. Walkers, hikers, horseback riders generally move at a leisurely pace, admiring their surroundings, winding down from the speed of life elsewhere. Nothing wrong with bikers per se, but perhaps they could utilize brownfield areas leaving others to appreciate nature without being run over.

Bringing collaborative design methods and frameworks from open source software to physical architecture.

The abstract made real, and the possibility of community planning by the community...

The ugliness of the McCain/Palin campaign and the hate they are
churning up can be seen in this Youtube couple of minutes:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/238074.php