Drove by William Rainey Harper School on Cleveland's near west side. 

Looks like planned abandonment is the agenda for this school, too.  Along with the Cleveland School of the Arts, John Marshall and other local landmarks. 

"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.

As I sat on my front porch, around 10 PM this evening, a group of about a dozen teenage boys could be seen and heard approaching from Euclid, shouting "where you from" for all to hear. One of the little g's from across the street (who recently broke into another neighbors' house) was walking toward them, but turned and ran back to his porch... until he recognized them, and he joined them.

"Where you from?", they asked. "I'm from Wadena", they replied.

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.

 

I was deeply saddened to learn today that Rafala Green passed away, April 7, 2009, in Elgin, Texas.

 

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.

 I have some great pictures from a great Parade the Circle and will post them as soon as possible... here's the end of the parade, which was a true work of art!

If you were there, what were your favorite highlights...?

One I loved for sure was this...

 

Parade's over... time to get to work....

Register today for the 2009 Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council (GCLAC) 4th Annual Symposium, “Countdown to 2010: Revisiting the Past and Planning for the Future”, Friday, June 12, 2009 from 7:30 a.m. - noon at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (1 Wade Oval Drive)

Location

Early notice of the most important event of 2009 - this is exciting!

The "Effect" is Ed's house band... rocked the Beachland Ballroom at Ed's going away party... mark your calendars...

Location

Are you concerned that your children's health is affected by pollution?
Do you want some answers about your industrial neighbors?
Do you want to build your environmental campaign skills?

Location

Irish Eyes were smiling across downtown Cleveland for a beautiful St. Patrick's Day parade 2009... 67 in the shade! Please enjoy my favorite photos below, and from the annual St. Patrick's Day St. Baldrick's head shaving here...

You can't hang out at A.J. Rocco's Cafe before St. Patrick's Day without feeling an incling to shave your head. I stopped by, today. I'm shaving my head tomorrow.

A buddy of mine – I'll call him DC - just had a rough couple of weeks. One of DC's friends had his house invaded by gunmen... another friend went ballistic and killed five family members, and himself... and DC was denied a job because he is “colored”. This last problem is the most serious, because it causes the first two, a million times over each year in America, and seems all too commonplace here in real NEO.

The Social Sciences Dept. of the Cleveland Public Library is facilitating a non-fiction book club.  Our next discussion will be held on April 9, 2009 at 12:00 PM.  We will discuss the book entitled, "Raising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World," by Debra Ginsberg.  All book club members may register and pick up their books in the Social Sciences Dept.   All questions may be directed to the Social Sciences Dept. at 216-623-2860.

***This Page Is Under Construction***

I would like to advance the thesis: the following virtues, processes and dimensions are qualities or competencies nurtured in the competitive sports environment provided by Cleveland area high schools which facilitate development of proactive, stable neighbor-citizens in our community.

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.

The October 30, 2008 Sun Press lead cover story article (strangely... not on-line) was: "New Uses For Coventry? Music School Settlement, day care, and charter school send letters of interest". This reported, "The Intergenerational School's proposal also listed several partners: Richard Fleischman Architects, of Cleveland, Star Neighborhood Development, of East Cleveland, Strategic Resource Consultants, of Cleveland Heights, and City Fresh Cafeteria, Fresh Stop and Market, of Cleveland". "Fleischman would serve as design architect, while Star Neighborhood Development and Strategic Resource Consultants would likely be development partners...". "That proposal would also include a 1.5 acre "Urban Farm"...". I submitted the proposal, a public document, highlighted below and attached as a PDF, and can say the Sun Press report is largely correct, but the story is far from complete, and far more exciting than the Sun brings to light.

Apple tree by board-up on Terrace Drive, East Cleveland

We Americans are at the threshold. There is no turning back after November 4th. Please read Barack Obama's address to the American Library Association given in 2005.