After what seemed like quite a lapse in postings, Northeast Ohio's original b'logger (billboard logger), Harry "X" Sysack, recently put on-line what he promises is "the truth & the whole truth your overpaid teachers & benighted college professors never teach you". Sysack's line is on the RTA, on his private property where W.25th forms Pearl, and his "truths" begin with "Yo, students" and include "What is Christian America all about? Everybody is fuckin' everybody & everybody is lyin' about how they're fuckin' everybody. All politicians are evil & dishonest...". And, one of my favorites, "All lawyers are legal ho's."

In My Colombian War*, Silvana Paternostro reports that the average Colombian reads less than 2 books a year.  Does the average northeast Ohioan top that number?

George Nemeth, over on Fresh Brewed Daily, has picked up this bellweather post which has the metrics on blog discussions re topics of local interest around the US.   The blog index is a new and, I believe, very important statistic.

 

Louie (on the left) is lugging one of the 75 pound precast concrete waffle blocks.   Each block covers about 1.5 square feet.  At $12.00 each, or $8.00 per square foot, this is a little more expensive than having a concrete driveway installed.

The Adelaide City Council has raised the standard in International sustainability with the introduction of the world’s first solar-powered electric bus.

10.18.11 Occupy Cleveland needs a permit for Willard Park and for Public Square.   Downtown Cleveland Alliance needs access for Xmas decor. Right.

Christmas in Cleveland will be hard for many.

But some have shelter, colored with red, white, and green.

The FREE STAMP is a negative, as is much of Cleveland.

Pursuing a Cure For an 'Orphan' Ailment

A Doctor Struggles to Develop A Drug for Lead Poisoning; Bypassed by Patient Advocates

By AMY DOCKSER MARCUS
December 18, 2007; Page D1

I thought I'd share some meaningful revelations and reflections regarding participation in the OHEJ Environmental Justice forum recently held at beautiful and idyllic Deer Creek State Park, located just south of Columbus in Mount Sterling, Ohio.  This weekend retreat offered a valuable experience and opportunity to contribute toward the delineation of a cogent and comprehensive statewide environmental justice policy.  I was happy to be invited to partake in this experience, for which I was offered a generous scholarship to compensate for lodging and transportation.  The event was co-sponsored by two grassroots organizations propelling meaningful work around EJ issues - Ohians for Environmental Justice (a project of the Center for Health and Environmental Justice) and the Environmental Support Center, based in Washington D.C.

Here's how some of your federal dollars were divvied up.  A bit of good news for Ohio and for the environment. Click on the photo of West Creek for more good news:

I've known enough musicians in my lifetime to know that recognition is important.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is located here.  Does that mean anything at all?

We know that Cleveland does not lead the country among U.S. cities for new business creation.  But, how many Clevelanders work for publishers based in other cities?  Do "our" writers, designers, and illustrators pull the heavy writing and creative process for other cities?

I've wanted to be a professional skater for the longest time.

Too much violence in the standard hockey and too many jumps in figure skating.

So my consulation has been to clown about the city on skates. As people ask about why I busy myself with picking up trash while skating I develope new spectators for Karmic Hockey. I make it semi-professional by picking up aluminum cans. The greatest concentration of cans is a Brown's Tailgating Party. With all the snow i believe I turn in the skates for a Santa suit.

The Visual Display of Vampire Information

Here is the sequence of events during the last week concerning Cleveland, Ohio's Myers University:

The President of the University, Mr. Scaldini, announces Monday that the University will close its doors at the end of this semester because the school is out of Money. 

A Young Tinkerer Builds a Windmill, Electrifying a Nation
Mr. Kamkwamba's Creation Spurs Hope in Malawi; Entrepreneurs Pay Heed
By SARAH CHILDRESS
December 12, 2007; Page A1
MASITALA, Malawi -- On a continent woefully short of electricity, 20-year-old William Kamkwamba has a dream: to power up his country one windmill at a time.
So far, he has built three windmills in his yard here, using blue-gum trees and bicycle parts. His tallest, at 39 feet, towers over this windswept village, clattering away as it powers his family's few electrical appliances: 10 six-watt light bulbs, a TV set and a radio. The machine draws in visitors from miles around.
 Self-taught, Mr. Kamkwamba took up windmill building after seeing a picture of one in an old textbook. He's currently working on a design for a windmill powerful enough to pump water from wells and provide lighting for Masitala, a cluster of buildings where about 60 families live.
Then, he wants to build more windmills for other villages across the country. Betting he can do it, a group of investors are putting him through school.
"I was thinking about electricity," says Mr. Kamkwamba, explaining how he got hooked on wind. "I was thinking about what I'd like to have at home, and I was thinking, 'What can I do?' "
To meet his family's growing power needs, he recently hammered in a shiny store-bought windmill next to the big one at his home and installed solar panels. He has another windmill still in its box that he'll put up at a house 70 miles away in the capital, Lilongwe, where he now goes to school.
A few years ago, he built a windmill for the primary school in Masitala. He used it to teach an informal windmill-building course. Lately, he has offered to help the village handyman down the road build his own machine.
"Energy poverty" -- the scarcity of modern fuels and electrical supplies in poor parts of the world -- is a subject of great interest to development economists. The windmill at the Kamkwamba family compound, a few brick buildings perched on a hill overlooking the village, has turned it into a stop for the curious: People trekking across Malawi's arid plains drop by. Villagers now regularly make the dusty walk up the hill to charge their cellphones.
The contraption causing all the fuss is a tower made from lashed-together blue-gum tree trunks. From a distance, it resembles an old oil derrick. For blades, Mr. Kamkwamba used flattened plastic pipes. He built a turbine from spare bicycle parts. When the wind kicks up, the blades spin so fast they rock the tower violently back and forth.
Mr. Kamkwamba's wind obsession started six years ago. He wasn't going to school anymore because his family couldn't afford the $80-a-year tuition.
When he wasn't helping his family farm groundnuts and soybeans, he was reading. He stumbled onto a photograph of a windmill in a text donated to the local library and started to build one himself. The project seemed a waste of time to his parents and the rest of Masitala.
"At first, we were laughing at him," says Agnes Kamkwamba, his mother. "We thought he was doing something useless."
The laughter ended when he hooked up his windmill to a thin copper wire, a car battery and a light bulb for each room of the family's main house.
The family soon started enjoying the trappings of modern life: a radio and, more recently, a TV. They no longer have to buy paraffin for lantern light. Two of Mr. Kamkwamba's six sisters stay up late studying for school.
"Our lives are much happier now," Mrs. Kamkwamba says.
The new power also attracted a swarm of admirers. Last November, Hartford Mchazime, a Malawian educator, heard about the windmill and drove out to the Kamkwamba house with some reporters. After the news hit the blogosphere, a group of entrepreneurs scouting for ideas in Africa located Mr. Kamkwamba. Called TED, the group, which invites the likes of Al Gore and Bono to share ideas at conferences, invited him to a brainstorming session earlier this year.
In June, Mr. Kamkwamba was onstage at a TED conference in Tanzania. (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/153) (TED stands for Technology Entertainment Design). "I got information about a windmill, and I try and I made it," he said in halting English to a big ovation. After the conference, a group of entrepreneurs, African bloggers and venture capitalists -- some teary-eyed at the speech -- pledged to finance his education.
His backers have also showered him with new gadgets, including a cellphone with a hip-hop ringtone, a laptop and an iPod. (Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway" is his current favorite tune.) They rewired his family's house, replacing the homemade switches he made out of flip-flop parts.
They're paying for him to attend an expensive international academy in the capital, Lilongwe, for children of expatriate missionaries and aid workers. But his teacher, Lorilee MacLean, sometimes worries about his one-track mind and about all the attention he's getting.
"I don't want him to be seen as William the windmill maker," said Mrs. MacLean one day recently. While Mr. Kamkwamba quietly plowed through homework, his classmates were busy gossiping and checking their Facebook profiles.
Mr. Kamkwamba has taught his family to maintain the windmill when he's away at school. His sister Dolice and cousin Geoffrey can quickly scamper up the tower, as it sways and clatters in the wind, to make repairs.
A steady stream of curiosity seekers make the trip to the Kamkwamba compound -- mostly unannounced. The visits are unsettling for the reserved family.
One afternoon, a pair of Malawian health workers came by to get a closer look and meet Mr. Kamkwamba. The family scattered, leaving the pair -- dressed in shirts and ties for the occasion -- standing awkwardly in the yard.
"We have heard about this windmill, and so we wanted to see it for ourselves," one finally spoke up. Mr. Kamkwamba came around to shake hands, then quickly moved away to show another visitor around.
Jealousy is a social taboo in these parts, but Fred Mwale, an educator who works in Wimbe, the area that includes Masitala, says the family's new prosperity is causing some tensions.
"People do desire what is happening here. They come, and admire," he says. "They think that they might get the same support if they build a windmill."
Down the hill, the village handyman started building his own windmill after secretly studying Mr. Kamkwamba's. A gust of wind blew the blades off the man's first few attempts. Mr. Kamkwamba offered to help him rebuild, but got no reply.
"I'm waiting to see if he's serious," Mr. Kamkwamba says.
 

Fascinating....

BREWED FRESH DAILY HAS A THREAD which carries  a discussion which I believe it is important for everyone in NEO to read.  The thread is especially important now that the City of Cleveland is looking desperately for immediate cash-back from the taxpayers’ UDAG loans. 

Nice graphic--thanks guv :)