I just caught Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the Kimmel Show and Jimmy mentioned to Julia that he heard she has a solar home, and she expanded to say it has solar power, heat and hot water, recycled fiber carpet, renewable wood, etc... also drives an electric car. Imagine if those in the media in NEO bothered to be socially conscious like this, and the media here promoted that. Imagine if the newscasters here bothered to live green. Louis-Dreyfus is politically active and otherwise socially conscious, yet seems very unassuming. Good for her - step up NEO media leaders... get green and then feel free to brag about it!

Only adding to the excitement surrounding the art auctions of the last few days, Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, a blue period painting by Picasso from 1903 was withdraw from Wednesday's auction, its provenance clouded claims that it  should be counted among the art looted by the Nazis. Andrew Lloyd Webber's charitable foundation is the current owner and consigner. The British composer bought the painting for the foundation in 1995. He had hoped  the funds from  the auction Wednesday would benefit the foundation. A Federal Judge in Manhattan, Jed Rakoff decided that the Federal court has no jurisdiction over the case and the auction could go on; however, the man who claims to be rightful owner, Julius Schoep, heir of a Jewish baker and art collector living in Berlin, plans to take his claims to the lower court. Andrew Lloyd Webber's foundation willingly withdrew the painting. Hopefully these claims, which sound spurious will not hurt the value of the work.

I can't think of an artist more deserving of this award! Please read on ...

President Bush Announces Viktor Schreckengost as 2006 Medal of Arts Recipient
Washington, D.C. – Cleveland resident Viktor Schreckengost has been named one of 10 National Medal of the Arts recipients for 2006. President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush will honor him in an Oval Office ceremony at the White House Nov. 9th.

Well, it is November 02... a glorious morning of Fall leaves, bicyclists, fleeces and sunshine. An afternoon of blustery wind from the north, and lake effect snow. Odds are we'll have more beautiful Fall days ahead, but Winter in Cleveland has arrived. I happened to hear Dick Gaddard's Fox 8 winter forecast tonight... in brief:

I thought those who are part of REALNEO would be interested in the latest from the development team. Phillip Williams and I are thrilled to have built and to host a site for the Cleveland Club of Washington, D.C. (feel free to attend their open events) and huge props to Phillip for lots of great work in East Cleveland - especially building a web-based data management system to track their speed camera data and payment processing (I bet you didn't even know they have speeding cameras ). We're working on other interesting projects, for future updates, but the one I'm most excited about is for the top contemporary glass art gallery in Canada, Material Matters, which has us working with scores of awesome artists and pushing Drupal much further than we were able to do with realneo, to date.

I just received the following from TrueMajority.Org and thought other realneo members would lke to add their choices:

It's less than a week before the election, and the candidates TrueMajorityAction have supported are looking strong to Take Back Congress in a photo finish. We don't want to hold anything back, so we're emptying out our campaign cash to the closest races -- but we want you to tell us which ones to send it to.

It was a beautiful Fall day today, so I wanted to take my little bugger out to enjoy nature... I reflected on where to go. I thought the Metroparks would be nice, or perhaps the park in the Flats with the sculpture by Gene Kangas, and then it occurred to me I live in one of the most interesting neighborhoods in America, Ohio City, and I can enjoy that without driving a mile. So off we toddled to see what was shaking in the 'hood, and wound up at the smaller of the two community gardens down the street.

Today on NPR's BBC news, there was a lead story about the latest findings about the cost of global warming to society ($7 trillion), and they had some sustainability wiseguy saying how we shouldn't worry so much - industry leaders like GE have recognized the crisis and are modeling their behavior and taking care of the problem - don't make a big deal about the fall of the global economy, as the corporate jets are aloft. Well, I'll point to a different story, on transfats, and dispute that claim.

Just want to go on the record for wishing Clevelanders would just start having an attitude.  This is a great liveable city.  Kudos to the Emerging Cleveland website, Jason Therrien/Thundertech and all the creative minds that just do it and get on with it.

Someone set up an account at realneo and posted 10 items in some language I couldn't identify - something character based like Chinese - and I deleted the account before deleting the items, so now they show up as N/A. Sorry for the postings to nowhere below. We'll clean this up in the database later. Sorry for the imperfection. I know better for the future. Why do people do these things?

I had a good talk today with some folks at the Plain Dealer, and took a good read of the Sunday paper, and heard and saw lots to feel good about for the community. Best was seeing John Kuehner's article "Watch Your Step", owning the front of the business section, for environmentalism... and satisfying was seeing all the op/eds accepting this is a time of political change. But, more touching was Chris Jensen's retirement farewell. This is a time when dozens of PD writers and staffers are leaving the paper, as part of a major restructuring, and those staying on board are clearly exploring their mission, value and purpose.

There is an excellent string of postings on Brewed Fresh Daily worth checking out and interacting with here! Enough said.

Below is nonprofit ClevelandBikes' letter to the Ohio Department of Transportation regarding the ODOT plans for the West Shoreway. Individuals wishing to add their views on the plan can visit the ODOT website (http://www.innerbelt.org/Lakefrontwest/Lakefronthome.htm) or email project officers (craig [dot] hebebrand [at] dot [dot] state [dot] oh [dot] us, Lora [dot] Hummer [at] dot [dot] state [dot] oh [dot] us).  

Steven Litt shared very exciting news today in the Plain Dealer - the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) has announced their choice of architect to design their relocated facility in University Circle, and the potential for something spectacular is astounding. The choice is Foreign Office Architects, of London, which Litt calls "one of the hottest young architecture firms in the world", and their portfolio shows some exciting designs from around the world (some examples posted above and below) - it seems the MoCA project will be their most important ever in the USA... they will be working with Cleveland's Westlake Reed Leskosky. Also mentioned in Litt's column, University Circle Incorporated seem to be making progress working with MRN, Ltd. (developers of E. 4th Street), and Zaremba, Inc., for remaining planning of the Triangle area, so a complete development picture for this important zone is coming into focus.