An anthem for Real NEO today, from the day - vintage Gang of Four performing Anthrax in 1980 - my first year in college - one of the great bands and songs of then and all time. I think the love many of us may feel for this corrosive, punk town is like a case of Anthrax, and that's something I don't want to catch. Read the lyrics below from our context in NEO... concluding "I don't think we're saying there's anything wrong with love, we just don't think that what goes on between two people should be shrouded with mystery." That's REALNEO! Listen, read, and surprise yourself with great music.

Gang of Four: Anthrax

For the 30+ years of my life spent in Northeast Ohio, in childhood and as an adult, University Circle has been at the center of my universe. What Place is at the Center of Your Universe?

They are low on capital because the housing values fell, they have to tighten their belts. The housing feeds the system, so getting the housing values back up is necessary. Considering that the abatements came with false values and an inflated markets its pretty catastrophic what happened.

So now what?

They need to get off abatements, they could be using bonds to build affordable housing.

"O mio babbino caro" - Gianni Schicchi - Puccini - performed by Amy Irvine (August 9, 2009)

Many beautiful worlds collided the evening of Sunday, August 9, 2009, at "OPERA IN THE ITALIAN CULTURAL GARDEN", a free outdoor evening concert of favorite Italian opera classics, beautifully performed by Opera Per Tutti (Opera For All), held in the spectacular Italian Cultural Garden, in one of the greatest public parks in the world, The Cleveland Cultural Gardens, presented by the Italian Cultural Garden Foundation, Northern Ohio Opera League, and the Cleveland Cultural Garden Federation.

While I was sitting behind Food On The Move, at St. Clair and East 140th, where a friend works, I noticed a pear tree in the lot next door, full of rippening pears. While the lot is well tended, and does not appear "vacant", the lone pear tree is the only occupant. And nobody seems to notice it is there, despite its bounty of free food. There are 100s of pears on the tree - in a market, they would be worth $100s. This lot could contain dozens of pear trees - perhaps 100s - producing $10,000s in income for the owners and those who tended them.

The US Marine Corps decision to ban social media, citing concerns for operation and mission security, is an issue every employer wrestles with, but banning social media is on excessive response, one that forfeits important value for social media, including military recruiting.  Employers, military or otherwise, should develop fine-tuned policies on social media, not comprehensive bans or unqualified endorsements. 

Since our founding, in 2004, REALNEO has become a groundbreaking free, open source social network of global interest – recently recognized as one of the top networks of our type in the country, by the Knight Foundation.

In 2008, the members of REALNEO.US formed REAL COOP, an Ohio legal cooperative, which now owns and operates REALNEO.US and REAL.COOP. We are unique in the world of social computing, and a global innovator in the evolution of information systems.

From the REALNEO.US homepage:

Thanks to Laura McShane for posting this morning a comment linking to Will Allen's "Good Food Manifesto" on his Growing Power blog. I, and millions of other people, became aware of Will last Sunday, when he was featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine article "Street Fighter", but folks who follow local foods best practices surely knew of Will long before.

Over the past 20 years, I've spent most of my "professional" time as an entrepreneur, with world-class expertise conducting multi-dimensional, multi-client relational comparative data and best practice analyses of any aspects of the world's largest and best global enterprises, environments and systems, and developing and consulting on innovations and total quality improvement. This work has generated a wealth of knowledge on large general systems, with a unique expertise in information systems and telecommunications. REALNEO is a product of this highest level expertise, drawn from the best practices of the best organizations on Earth. What REALNEO has developed for Cuyahoga County - what has been generated out of the REALNEO-generated Real Cooperative - takes general systems innovation to a whole new level of making us the brightest greenest place on Earth. So, we really do have a purpose to Cuyahoga County owning the Breuer, and the vision is beautifully expressed in this great rendering above, to be REAL COOP citizen headquarters of the open source capital of this brightest greenest state of Earth.

JOIN US FOR CLEVELAND BICYCLE WEEK -- MAY 11-17, 2009. We've got all sorts of interesting events planned!  Visit www.clevelandbicycleweek.org for full details, but here are some highlight events:

* Cleveland Bike to Work Day, May 15th.  Park at the future Bicycle Station at Gateway and see the latest drawings (East 4th Street and High Street, just north of Huron Road).  Bike to Work brought to you about NOACA, visit the Bike Buddy program at: www.Ohiorideshare.com

Yesterday was a special day for me - a beautiful day in the region - so I ended it with my good friend Ed Hauser, as I often do. Alone on his own island, he is always easy to find. I was photographing the sunset right by where Ed's boats belong. They are gone... he is now walking on water.

Because of Ed, my heart lives on Whiskey Island too, and I have photographed there scores of times.

Cleveland Bicycle Week is coming, May 11-17! Join us for Northeast Ohio's biggest gathering of diverse cycling interests and activities, with events all around town! 

Information technology pioneer and visionary - and Oberlin graduate - Marc Canter helped me launch REALNEO.US, in 2004... from San Francisco. Now, five years of social community and technology building and innovation later, I've convinced Marc to personally return to Northeast Ohio to collaborate with government, citizens and organizations in the community to make the open web a core economic and social strength of our region, at the global level.

Location

Northeast Ohio has the opportunity to rebuild our neighborhoods and by offering healthier and more active transportation choices, we can create thriving neighborhoods where people want to live. However, the current transportation network leaves us way behind the curve. New investment to support walking and biking will create pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, an important step to get the nation back on track. Fortunately, it's a cost-effective step we can take in these tight financial times.

While on the subject of cities, some analysts look to the nation's economic woes, it's impact on tax receipts for cities and foresee municipal bankruptcies growing at alarming rates.  Cities may need to look to municipal bankruptcy, chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code, to protect themselves and taxpayers. We haven't seen this since the Orange County bankruptcy in 1994, which lost over $1.5 billion.

I never thought Councilman Mike Polensek was a bad guy, maybe a frustrated, burned out, partially-jaded reformer facing difficult tasks in Cleveland, but not a bad guy. However, in my mind, you can't justify the latest problem involving his asking a local development nonprofit organization to buy a house for him while he secured financing.  He can say he gave the nonprofit a modest profit for helping he can say it was only a short-term thing and he can say he only did it for his mom, but....

In the same week that Ohio Governor Strickland vetoes a bill to create a tax credit for those creating film and video production jobs in Ohio, the Illinois Governor (yeah, that guy, the one who's been in the news lately), signed a bill to expand their 20% tax credit to 30%. Do you think he knows something that Governor Strickland does not?

"Cleveland of My Dreams' Postcard by Joe Stanley

EDWARD J. "CITIZEN" HAUSER, beloved son of Walter and Theresia; dearest brother of Harold, Sylvia, Thomas, and Caroline Widemann (husband Reiner); dear uncle of Nicole and Erik; dear friend of Cathy Stahurski; dear nephew, cousin and friend to many.

Ed Hauser died suddenly November 14, 2008. Northeast Ohio has lost its most ardent, studied and tenacious citizen activist.