Please see the agenda below and let me know if there are any specific concerns you would like addressed - you know I'll be focused on lead poisoning, source point industrial emissions in general, and especially industrial pollution from coal and steel-making, so serious in Northeast Ohio. I do not know the format of the forum but there will be some question and answer opportunities. I encourage you to tune in and watch it live at whitehouse.gov (link below). For Clevelanders, this is one of the most exciting developments yet from the Obama Administration. With all the right players at the table at the White House - and these are some very right players - I expect good outcomes for environmental justice in America to come of this. I look forward to covering and learning from it first hand.
Environmental Leaders, Cabinet Secretaries to Participate in First White House Environmental Justice Forum
WASHINGTON – On December 15, Obama administration officials will convene the first-ever White House Forum on Environmental Justice. Environmental leaders from across the country will attend the day-long forum featuring White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 20:06.
I have no doubt everyone interested in public health, planning, engineering, architecture, real estate development, cool stuff and local foods will find absolutely fascinating the feature and the following three videos from The Economist on vertical farming...
Three views of the vertical farm
GROWING crops in vertical farms in the heart of cities is said to be a greener way to produce food. The idea is that skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields, producing crops all year round, will sprout in cities across the world. As well as creating more farmable land out of thin air, this would slash the transport costs and carbon-dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances. But the concept is still unproven. Does it really stack up? To accompany our article on vertical farming in this week's issue, here are three videos offering different perspectives on the subject.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 15:44.
An original John F. Kennedy Democrat - paid-his-way through college - self-made-rich made Reagan Republican - this interview on 60 Minutes shows Boehner is highly emotional, very proud, business-like, with firm middle-American (Ohio) roots, firmly planted in his world... which is most of Ohio and middle America's dream-world, which has included achieving the American Dream... going en mass to mass EVERY MORNING... growing up one of 12 children in a modest, small house near Cincinnati... nice siblings... nice wife... what's not to like?
I'll find out for myself.
I intend to challenge Boehner on my core objectives for transforming the economy of Ohio and America, and will see where we find common ground.
My #1 priority is reducing harm from pollution here and worldwide. We need impartial science driving effective climate change legislation and environmental justice regulation - world-wide - to address our global environmental crises during our time together on common ground Earth.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 05:00.
The new science about lead's effect on the brain may force policymakers to re-examine some social issues through a new prism. For example, if lead can cause aggressive behavior, learning disabilities and hyperactivity, might it not also be a contributing factor in poor educational performance among low-income blacks, who suffer the most lead poisoning? - Newsweek, 1991
Where Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eugene Sanders, and CMSD overall, have been completely ineffective, and so failed, is in their Strange Ignorance of The Role of Lead Poisoning in Failing Schools. Sanders is not alone in responsibility for this tragedy, as leadership of Northeast Ohio in general has been so incompetent as to make Cleveland the lead poisoning capital of America and the developed world.
Perhaps our politicians even hired Sanders with the specific direction to ignore the realities of lead poisoning here, as "there exists a body of medical research which demonstrates that politicians themselves are responsible for a conveyor-belt of tragedy that produces precisely those symptoms attributed to "failing schools.""
The good news for the future of Cleveland and education and students here is Eugene Sanders has announced he shall resign, as of February 01, 2011, meaning we may now select a CEO who may lift CMSD students off the "conveyor-belt of tragedy" caused by lead poisoning that literally guarantees the direct hardship of around 30% of CMSD students, guaranteeing the failure of CMSD and Cleveland.... greatly harming the economic competitiveness and sustainability of the state of Ohio.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 12/12/2010 - 08:00.
With the deceptive headline "68% in poll say parents, not teachers, are to blame for students' poor performance" the Cleveland Plain Dealer published today results of a "poll", paid for by eugenics champions and world's richest "humans" Bill and Melinda Gates, which misrepresents poorly-surveyed, poorly-reported opinions of 1,001 Americans about public education in America as significant indicators regarding the failure of the American public schools system, and reports "68 percent of adults believe parents deserve heavy blame for what's wrong with the U.S. education system -- more than teachers, school administrators, the government or teachers unions."
In fact, "government" was not a category in this poll... and, statistically, these Americans placed the same level of blame on State Education Officials (65%, with +/-3.9% sampling errors) as on parents... and all these answers are irrelevant.
Science proves a primary cause of failure in education in America is lead poisoning and other toxins put in the environment by the industrialists partnered with the Gates to control the world.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 12/11/2010 - 14:24.
Did You Pay Homage and Taxes To One Of The Most Heinous Humans Ever To Walk The Earth, Today? Did You Turn on Microsoft today! If you use Microsoft, you turned on the Bill Gates fortune and all the harm that causes the world, today and forever hereafter. If you use a computer running any Microsoft products, you must know how your Microsoft addiction and dollars work for the world today, via perversely enriched micro-psychopath Bill Gates... from AlterNet's "5 Awards For the World's Most Heinous Climate Villains":
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet
Misdeeds: Pretend to be friends while engaged in a vicious competition to see who ends up with the most expensive coffin. Flew together to inspect the Alberta Tar Sands and ponder investments, looking to add to Buffet's $34 billion Burlington Northern Santa Fe coal-hauling railroad purchase and the Gates Foundation Nigerian oil portfolio. Gates is dumping cash into geo-engineering as a way to "hack" the climate, instead of getting off oil and coal. The duo insist that the government should be responsible for clean energy development, but that we need to tax our citizens to pay for it. They can't be bothered, since they're too busy banking on sure things like fossil fuels.
Corporate Teat: They're the tits, not the pups. Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway, much of it tax sheltered by the Gates Foundation.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 12/11/2010 - 11:44.
Americans certainly don't waste much of our limited TV-time and mutated brain-power seeking insight from our past failures, as our global industrial complex has so screwed-up humanity itself that the work-a-day citizen must stay focused on basic survival on Earth today. So, as a quick review of the distinctly American political views and interests of yesterday, as they shaped the world today, scan some highlights from the 1973 Presidential tapes of great visionary Republican leader Richard Nixon, among his White House staff, and know these people and their followers have shaped our national interests, civil rights, and international and humanitarian policies ever since - this is the legacy and culture influencing our post-Nixonian Industrially Complex President Obama, who is shaping our national interests, civil rights, and international and humanitarian policies today...
Nixon offered sharp skepticism at the views of William P. Rogers, his secretary of state, about the future of black Africans.
“Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it’s a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he’s been in New York,” Nixon said. “He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.’ So forth and so on.
“My own view is I think he’s right if you’re talking in terms of 500 years,” he said. “I think it’s wrong if you’re talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that’s the only thing that’s going to do it, Rose.”
First of all, from comments, CRA is a confusing issue and even liberal community development advocates associate CRA with urban development ills - projecting frustrations with local political corruption and planning failure upon all Federal urban renewal efforts, lumping in CRA (and organizations like NCRC). In fact, these citizens do not understand where CRA fits in and are misplacing their anger - missing an opportunity to support what may help.
Those responsible for educating citizens about CRA and credit issues - the councilpeople and CDCs - are the ones causing the harm and frustration for working class citizens, who feel under-served and under-represented - and they are under-educated about Federal efforts to improve their lives, and the availability of basic help.
Joshua Gunter/ The Plain DealerSteve Dettlebach, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Ohio.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When federal prosecutors began to work with the Greater Cleveland Partnership on ways to encourage ethical business practices in the wake of local corruption scandals, they heard a stunning story.
During a trip abroad to recruit business, partnership representatives were told by a Dutch company that Cleveland wasn't a place they were interested in coming to because they believed it to be corrupt.
November 30, 2010 -- The National Research Council, at the request of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has launched a study to strengthen the scientific basis for incorporating sustainability concepts into EPA’s decision-making. “Today I am formally requesting President Cicerone and the National Academies convene a committee of experts to provide to the U.S. EPA an operational framework for sustainability that applies across all of the agency’s programs, policies, and actions,” said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at an event held at the National Academy of Sciences’ Koshland Science Museum. NAS President Ralph Cicerone and Bernard Goldstein, chair of the committee that will conduct the study, made remarks as well.
Wow! November 30th was an amazing day for the EPA. Not only are we in the midst of commemorating four decades of accomplishments in protecting the health and the environment, but Administrator Jackson also made a landmark speech at the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Science on the future of the EPA. That future is sustainability. The Administrator laid out her vision to a packed house of luminaries from across the spectrum, from academia to industry, to environmental groups.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 11:25.
2010 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement
"Well-conceived, effectively implemented environmental protection is good for economic growth… A clean, green, healthy community is a better place to buy a home and raise a family; it’s more competitive in the race to attract new businesses; and it has the foundations it needs for prosperity." – EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, March 8, 2010
At the top of our broken Democratic political, social, environmental, and economic pyramid-scheming is President Obama, who has "turned out to be such a political dud as chief executive" that our "blue-state financial misery continues", along with other blue-states, and that "deepens the ideological crisis for American liberalism" worldwide. Even billionaires traditionally supportive of Democratic party interests and candidates appear to be seeking "alternative brands to Obama himself."
I quote above two excellent columns published online this week, coming from opposite directions, analyzing the challenges Obama faces ahead, mid-term into his presidency, if he seeks any hope of winning a second term in office in 2012 - The Second Wave, by conservative writer Michael Gerson... andSaving Progressivism from Obama, by liberal writer Robert Kuttner.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Mon, 11/29/2010 - 05:43.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported today Birders to lose favorite perches, birds lose havens when 2 power plants close, whereby the PD takes some of the best economic development and public health news of Clevelanders' lifetimes - "plans by FirstEnergy Corp. to close lakefront power plants at East 72nd Street in Cleveland and in Eastlake in Lake County" (and two others on Lake Erie, apparently) - and presents that as bad news for bait shops, birds, ecotourism and the region.
The PD doesn't even mention that what this news really means for Clevelanders is NOT BEING EXPOSED TO 148,141 pounds of toxic chemicals spewed by Lakeshore into the air Clevelanders breathe each year, and that will save lives and make citizens smarter, healthier and more productive in Northeast Ohio. Better air quality will lead to higher property values and reduced public health costs, and that will make this region wealthier and more attractive for residents, who will have a higher quality of life here with cleaner air quality. People will have fewer reasons not to move to the region, and more reasons not to leave.
I was just commenting to a Facebook Friend that "I was driving on I-10 in Texas a few weeks ago and they have Border Patrol imprisonment centers ON THE FREEWAY IN AMERICA (I've seen them in New Mexico as well) where they stop every car and truck looking for illegals, I suppose. They searched my whole car - without ever asking my name... they obviously had the car in their system. 1984 but worse, as our society is a complete lie, claiming we are free."
So it is timely to read Willie Nelson Arrested After Pot Found on Tour Bus - traveling from California to Austin, Texas... detained as a US citizen on US soil and searched by US Customs Patrol, though he crossed no borders, just like me - in poor Willie's case to be arrested for what is legal in 15 states in America. From ABC News:
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 11/28/2010 - 14:44.
12/04/2010 - 13:00
12/04/2010 - 15:00
Etc/GMT-4
Cleveland NORML will be meeting at Sidetracks Cafe on December 4th from 1 to 6pm! We welcome members and non-members alike! Join us in our fight to reform marijuana laws in Ohio and advocate for safe, compassionate access to marijuana for all patients.
DENVER, CO – Over 300,000 square feet of the Colorado Convention Center in Denver this December 17-19 will be consumed by KushCon II, the largest star-studded Cannabis Lifestyle convention ever to take place.
The event, sponsored by Kush Magazine and dailybuds.com, is open to the public, family-friendly and cannabis free. The event will feature over 450 vendor booths running the gamut of the marijuana industry – from a daily concert series to ski jumping demonstrations to dispensaries to gift items that are sure to complete any “Kushmas” list.
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 11/27/2010 - 17:51.
Just in case you are still feeling "Thankful" this Thanksgiving weekend, now that the turkey buzz has worn off... some reality for you and those friends and loved ones you thanked the heavens for, and stuffed yourself with... evidence grows that recent global warming is unprecedented in magnitude and speed ... and a few other climate change links from Thanksgiving week. Can't wait to see what Christmas has in store...
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 11/27/2010 - 14:31.
The New York Times published more disturbing news for citizens living in states that have political leadership too incompetent, corrupt and/or ignorant to legalize marijuana and other cannabis industries, like HEMP... living in a nation ruled at the federal level by political leadership too incompetent, corrupt and/or ignorant to legalize marijuana and other cannabis industries, like HEMP..."It is being called the green rush. With more states moving to legalize medical marijuana, the business of growing and dispensing it is booming, even as much of the rest of the economy struggles."
