Thanks to an anonymous donor, East Cleveland has received some excellent equipment to start setting up a pilot proof of concept wireless broadband mesh network in some part of the city - location to be determined. The donated equipment is from a similar proof of concept deployment in Washington, D.C., and includes several commercial wifi antennas and routers and cabling to set up a small multipoint demonstration network, running the open source CUWiNWare mesh application and wifiDOG contained portal application, all routing to the city of East Cleveland's open source Drupal community portal, at http://eastcleveland.org. All this, combined with other digital divide bridge programs there, makes East Cleveland approaches to information technology some of the most interesting in America.

Attend this lecture, the Distinguished Law and Technology Lecture, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, in person or through WEBCAST LIVE. Robert P. George, Princeton University, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University is a memeber of the President's Council on Bioethics. He previously served as a presidential appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and as a Judicial Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. Professor George is author of Making Men Moral: civil Liberties and Public Morality (1993) and In Defense of Natural Law (1999). His most recent books are The Meaning of Marriage, edited with Jean Berthke Elshtain and The Clash of Orthodoxies. Professor George's articles and review essays have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Review of Politics, the Review of Metaphysics, and the American Journal of Juriprudence. He has received numerous awards, including the 2005 Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on several boards of directors.In addition, he is of council to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee.

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Thanks to Ed Morrison for sending over a link to an interesting analysis of the value of FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) for European businesses and society. From the article: "European companies are saving a lot of money on software investment and development, due to the existence and emergence of open-source software, a Commission-funded study finds." An especially interesting observation is that "The bigger a company is, the more likely it is to use FLOSS." I wonder how NEO stacks up in the FLOSS world - use of FLOSS in business and government... training of FLOSS programmers and administrators... marketing and purchasing of FLOSS solutions in the region... number of FLOSS professionals and firms deploying FLOSS solutions? Read more about this movement in Europe below...

At the recent Green Affordable Housing discussion held at Cleveland Institute of Art, in association with their Home House Exhibit, Cleveland Planning Director Bob Brown stated that Cleveland needs to see more older properties renovated - we have many great old buildings, they add character and quality to our community, and that is the most environmentally sound strategy. Typically, much more energy is conserved by saving an old building than may be saved by building a new building, even if very energy efficient, because the energy required for creating and constructing all the material of a new building is the greatest factor in overall environmental impact, even when factored over a very long time period. So it is very good news for Cleveland and the environment that, just before leaving office for good, Governor Talf signed Sub HB 149 into law, providing critical tax incentives for the redevelopment of historic buildings in older cities and towns. A priority for NEO economic development strategy should including identifying important properties the community would like to see saved and move them on track to take advantage of these tax benefits - make sure as many of the 100 annual statewide projects are NEO project as is possible.

Michael Scharf, professor of law and director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University, will provide an insider’s perspective about the Saddam Hussein trial and its consequences at noon on Friday, January 12, 2007, at The City Club of Cleveland.

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Cleveland attorney Richard  Herman sent me an outstanding analysis (posted below) of a Duke University study released on January 4, 2007, which is attached to this posting and "concludes that foreign-born entrepreneurs were founders of over 25% of the technology and engineering companies started from 1995 to 2005," and surfaces that "Only 14% of Ohio's tech companies were founded by immigrants, well below the national average." "The study further found that Indians have founded more engineering and technology companies in the U .S. in the past decade than immigrants from U.K, China, Taiwan and Japan combined.  26% of all immigrant-founded companies have Indian founders." "Similarly, the study found that Ohio was successful in attracting only 1% of the Indian tech entrepreneurs and only 5% of the UK tech entrepreneurs." Richard offers three excellent suggestions for addressing this problem, and you should read those and his entire Economic Development Advisory and the attached report below.

Building blocks for bridging digital divide in East Cleveland 

In a recent article on bridging the digital divide in NEO, "It seems time to open up the OneCleveland network vision of Cleveland Heights, to see if there is value for others", I mentioned "An example of a progressive community building a mesh broadband network environment is found in Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN), which is a world- leader in such grass-roots broadband community service and technology. That is a model we are exploring in trying to help residents of underserved communities of East Cleveland and Cleveland secure access to broadband services, as carriers have underserved their neighborhoods, and poverty there is a significant issue."

Well, I was pleased to start the first work-day of 2007 with the correspondence posted below, from the Executive Director of CUWiN - globally celebrated community computing expert Sascha Meinrath - who is helping us center in on a viable model for East Cleveland and other undersupported urban neighborhoods in the region to bridge the digital divide here. Read on, as we are clearly on the right track and farther along than anyone may imagine. I'll add related insight and next steps as they develop.

Source: Environmental Health Watch 

Since late June, 2006, a growing team of innovative community leaders has been working together with Lamond Williams, the owner of Hot Sauce Williams BBQ, and East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer and Community Development Director Tim Goler, and government leadership in Cleveland, to determine how best to redevelop the historic Hough Bakery Complex, formerly the Star Bakery, which Lamond also owns. The objective is to use that redevelopment as a catalyst for transformation of the neighborhoods surrounding that significant property, located on Lakeview, partially in both Cleveland and East Cleveland. On the map above, the Star Complex is in magenta, and the green circle marks a 1/2 mile radius surrounding that - the other colored areas are key neighborhoods and assets within that radius.

The other day I saw, in The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Crain's Cleveland Business, an announcement Case University is funding OneCleveland to put wifi in some high density, affluent commercial and residential rental and home ownership cores of Cleveland Heights. Justifying the expenditure, from Crain's: “Part of the entry into Cleveland Heights is that it’s really an extended community of Case Western,” said OneCommunity chief operating officer Mark Ansboury, and Cleveland Heights law director John Gibbon said. “It’s designed primarily as a trial for the business district, but it certainly will hit a number of residences, as well.” From the PD: "Lewis Zipkin, a major Cleveland Heights landlord" is qouted saying: "It's going to be a terrific benefit for me, my properties and the community". If I were a Case student or trustee, SBC/AT&T, the Cable company or a person living in a less affluent community, I'd have serious concerns about all of this. In fact, as my wife is a Case Ph.D. student being assessed $100s a year by Case for a technology fee, which it now seems is going to Cleveland Heights, I guess I have a right to be concerned myself.

It is always a pleasure and privilege to see the Cleveland Orchestra perform at Severance Hall, but their presentation of Gustav Holst's "The Planets" was unique and special. This is a great creative set of compositions, being composed in 1914-1916 as highly expressive, at times avant-garde voyages to each of the planets known at the time, long before man had physically probed space, and no man has probed space more aptly than did Holst. And, I doubt any men and women could probe the complexities of these compositions more ably than does the Cleveland Orchestra.

One of NEO's most striking and fascinating galleries, Convivium33, is featuring, as its first anniversary showing, Evolution 1964-2006, an exciting retrospective of the work of globally appreciated mixed-media artist and Case University art professor Christopher Pekoc, curated and catalogued by prolific author and Case art history professor Henry Adams, delivering an inspiring and intriguing experience for all visitors. From Professor Adams' writings about the show: “There’s something dark, tough and roughly textured about Pekoc’s work that captures the creative essence of Cleveland”... “His imagery is both repressed and intensely sensual.” I like those thoughts about Pekoc and Cleveland and this show very much.

1st Anniversary Exhibition - Convivium33 Gallery at Josaphat Arts Hall in cooperation with the Bonfoey Gallery presents: CHRISTOPHER PEKOC- EVOLUTION 1964-2006

Christopher Pekoc, whose mural Night Sky in the main hall of the downtown Public Library is a Cleveland landmark, will be staging a major retrospective [that charts the technical and expressive evolution of his work over the last four decades and that highlights the ways in which photography has remained a constant creative stimulus for his work.] The exhibition, at Convivium33 Gallery in Cleveland will feature over 40 years of work as well as major pieces that have not been seen in decades, such as his grand-scale Kent (State) Triptych, based on his eyewitness experience of the shooting of unarmed student protesters by the National Guard in 1970.

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Having truly faced environmental and economic crisis, New Orleans has had to attack urban planning in a more real way than any other city in America ever has. Being the largest employer and most important institution in the region, Tulane University has taken on its role and responsibility in the planning process very seriously, looking far beyond the interests of the institution to the needs of all people there and their futures. The latest demonstration of their commitment is found in the "Project New Orleans" initiative and exhibition just opened at the New Orleans African American Museum there. As the less battered but still embattled Northeast Ohio starts looking at the future of this region with greater intelligence, and hopefully collaboration, the advances in planning and process in New Orleans offer excellent models for our improvement. Read on and take a look at the linked website for related insight... and, note, the current "Home House Project" show at the Cleveland Institute of Art is an excellent step in the right directions here.

On next Wednesday, December 6, 2006,  it will have been two years since I proposed to Northeast Ohio that we can easily and inexpensively bridge the digital divide for East Cleveland, and other communities in need in the region, by deploying mesh wifi networks here and distributing recycled computers running open source software (see original posting below, and linked with other related files here). I called this vision ECHO - originally "East Cleveland Homes Online", renamed "Extending Community Home Online". While I've driven some ECHO progress, over these years, especially deploying to people in need recycled computers running Ubuntu, the mesh is still to come. The time has come.

I recently caught the end of a TV ad that said "If we all washed in cold with Tide Coldwater, we would save enough electricity to light up homes in 1,000 towns". Now this is fascinating in many respects. Here we have a massive consumer products company, Procter and Gamble,  advertising their detergent in a way that promotes the product, but also raises environmental consciousness... I suppose this is an example of Business as an Agent of World Benefit, promoted by Case. While I'm sure Zebra Mussel can explain all the greenwashing of P&G and this product promotion, it is better to use advertising to raise social consciousness than not. Visiting the Tide Coldwater website, you see many other smart references to energy efficiency. This represents a new "tide" (pun intended) in social consciousness.

I was at the Cleveland Institute of Art today to review the subtle "Home House Show" of green affordable housing and noticed across the street the extravagant, stony Cleveland Museum of Art expansion is really taking shape. While not scheduled to open until Summer 2008, contractors are already adding the skin to the East Wing and it is now possible to visualize what the finished product will look like. Most visually dominant, the surface of the addition is covered in marble that is similar to the light gray of the original 1916 Beaux-Arts building, transitioned with horizontal thin dark gray lines in a pattern lifted from the more recent 1971 Breuer addition, and the new structure is overall very much in that modern, brutal style. Still to come is all the glass, which should give the structure greater lightness. I now look forward to the end result.

I was very pleased to be joined by the new Director of Development for East Cleveland, Tim Goler, last Monday, November 13, 2006, at the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council (GCLAC) Steering Committee meeting. Tim has an undergraduate degree in early child development, and has taught kindergarten and 4th grade, and he has a master's degree in urban planning from Cleveland State University, and has been active in that field, nationwide, including working in environmentalism in NEO. So, he is an excellent addition to the team in East Cleveland, and to the war against lead poisoning in our region. Short story, he has assured me East Cleveland is not intimidated by Sherwin-Williams suing them for suing the paint industry over the public nuisance of lead poisoning in that community, nor efforts of State Rep. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican, who hopes to tweak previously passed legislation that would prevent cities or anybody else from using the state’s public nuisance law to sue the lead pigment manufacturers - Tim Goler is in step with East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer and their law department in pursuing due process and justice and they will drive an aggressive battle against lead poisoning in this region.

Two weeks ago saw the second birthday of REALNEO. I started REALNEO in October, 2004, to provide “Regional Economic Action Links for North East Ohio” and implement for the region some exciting open source social networking technology. While the outcomes have not been entirely what I expected, and these years have in ways been rough, I've been thrilled to help drive and support some great developments in the community.

2nd Annual Distinguished Alumni Lecture in Art History

William H. Robinson (PhD, Case Western Reserve University, 1988)

Curator, Modern European Art, Cleveland Museum of Art

Adjunct Professor, Department of Art History & Art, Case Western Reserve University

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Humanitarian Interests: Anti-Slavery Activism in Concord, Massachusetts

a lecture presented by Case Western Reserve History Department and the American Studies Program

Robert A. Gross, Draper Professor of Early American History, University of Connecticut, Author of The Minutemen and Their World, Winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History.

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Ohio State Representative Mike Foley (D) will be holding a press conference tomorrow, Tuesday October 17 at 11:30 am at the gazebo at Lincoln Park (W. 14th and Starkweather), located in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland’s west side..  

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 Thanks to Ed Morrison for forwarding to me an Akron Beacon Journal article about Akron filing a lawsuit against U.S. paint makers over lead hazards in their community. I don't believe the Cleveland Plain Dealer bothered to report on this important development, and the PD certainly didn't do as good a job of reporting on related litigation in East Cleveland and Toledo, a few weeks prior. Wonder why? As defendant Sherwin Williams' spokesman Bob Wells said, "Ohio is the last place we thought cities would bite their own'', and, in the case of mainstream local media, that line of reasoning holds true... they earn money from Sherwin Williams advertising and don't cover the lead issue in Northeast Ohio, even as 1,000s of children in Cuyahoga County are lead poisoned each year and so fail in life, trapping our core population in toxic poverty. With such a realization that our economy is held hostage by large corporate interests, it is time for the community to get serious about this issue... especially as Sherwin Williams and their attorneys act to intimidate our cities and deceive the people and the courts. Read on!

If you read REALNEO, you know the huge burden of lead poisoning on our region's children and adults, the community's quality of life, and our education system and economy, and you know that, since May, East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer has been planning to work with Motley Rice to bring litigation over lead poisoning to Ohio courts. Today, the Plain Dealer published word the litigation is finally here, as East Cleveland is expected to file suit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court over the public nuisance lead causes in their community, as has been done in 27 other states to date. East Cleveland is the leader bringing such litigation to our state, and it appears other cities and the state of Ohio are preparing to follow suit. I take great pride that I helped advance this development, and I look forward to helping East Cleveland, NEO and all Ohioans win, as a result.

I just got the following event details from our Tech Czar Michael DeAloia about an important international conference coming to Cleveland - The International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers - with keynote by Case VP of IT Lev Gonick (congratulations, Lev). I've worked with lots of high level global IT managers and they are an excellent draw to Cleveland... they like to explore and they spend money, so this conference is a gem. And they are offering a special deal for Cleveland IT companies worth checking out. Most interesting to me and you is how they are selling Cleveland to their international membership... check out our forum on 22 reasons to attend this conference in Cleveland, Ohio, and add your ideas to share with these important guests of our community, and all others! See conference details below...

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