The following survey results from a BBC poll should not come as a surprise to anyone - the world, including the people of the United States, is unhappy with the US role in the world these days... "among Americans, the number of those who viewed their country's role positively fell to 57% - six percentage points down from last year and 14 percentage points down from two years ago.See a full article on this posted below and linked at BBC News here.

I can remember when Doug Clifton started as Editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, in 1999. At the time, I had some email correspondence with then Washington Bureau Chief Tom Brazaitis and I had a question about the PD... actually, why Cleveland.com was so weak - and Tom suggested I contact the new editor. It had never occurred to me that the editor of the Plain Dealer would bother reading mail - at that time, they didn't even have email addresses published in the paper... Doug brought than innovation. And he did respond to my email, and others, whenever I had some concern. At the same time, he improved the Plain Dealer in many ways, without trying to be news, or Cleveland or the Plain Dealer himself. And, under his leadership, The Plain Dealer's explored some innovative paths and developed interesting voices - and defended public access to information.

Three articles in the Sunday, January 14, 2007, Cleveland Plain Dealer really caught my attention. 1. "Power shifts, and a fast-track bill is derailed"; 2. "Gloomy forecast" and 3. "Lost confidence in Bush? So has he"  - especially the last one, where Elizabeth Auster writes, about President Bush, that "he now seems shaken by the prospect that his vision of a free and stable Iraq may be fading along with his power to achieve much else." Because of this, despite "Gloomy forecast", I expect most important aspects of the Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, Ohio, US and global economy to improve dramatically over the next 2, 4 and 10 years. In fact, I can't think of an area where there won't be significant improvements. Think of the growth I expect like when an economy is freed from a dictatorship and people are allowed to be free and thrive - markets open up - that is America, now that Bush has been replaced by democracy.

I'm just old enough to remember Watergate, and Nixon's resignation, and President Ford pardoning him, and Chevy Chase spoofing Ford throughout his presidency, and the end of the Viet Nam War, and then Ford was gone, defeated by Carter. Ford died December 26, 2006, and the headline in the Plain Dealer the following day was "The Accidental President." The news also referred to him as "a healer", taken from the title of Ford's autobiography "A Time To Heal". To me, his legacy was not especially memorable, until I learned Ford had conducted a series of interviews with Watergate investigative reporter Bob Woodward, of the Washington Post, to be published after Ford's death, which make public Ford's exclamation "Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq." This was published in the Washington Post December 28th, and spread like wildfire, and is certainly Ford's greatest contribution to world peace imaginable.

Cleveland Vision's Bill Callahan hosts a remarkably insightful blog called Cleveland Diary where he digs deeper into fascinating regional economic issues than anyone else on Earth, in a very precise and reputable way. Today, he posted a fasinating revelation that "NOPEC natural gas will be 33% higher than Dominion East Ohio next month", because "Dominion’s current residential rate of $12.49 per mcf will fall to around $9.90 starting in mid-January" while "the rate charged by the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council (NOPEC) — at $12.68, already higher than East Ohio’s — is going up next month to around $13.13." He goes on to point out, "So tens of thousands of residents of Cleveland and other NE Ohio cities who were automatically “opted in” to the NOPEC supply deal last Spring by our cities, and didn’t go to the trouble to opt out — either because they believed in the promised savings, or weren’t sure what to think, or just didn’t understand the system at all — will now be paying 33% more for NOPEC gas than they’d be paying as Dominion East Ohio customers." Well, by some stroke of luck, I'm still a Dominion customer... I sure didn't understand the system at all.

On Sunday, December 24, 2006, Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Sheryl Harris wrote a column I thought to write myself, titled "My holiday gift to you: A list of Ohio politicians who sold you out", "a list of the Northeast Ohio legislators who voted to curtail your consumer rights" by passing lobbyist, lawyer and industry-benefiting Amended Substitute Senate Bill Number 117, allowing significant corporate entitlements to soar through the Ohio legislature without community debate. The amendments are most significantly designed "to prohibit the use of enterprise theories of liability against manufacturers in product liability claims, and to include public nuisance claims under the definition of product liability claims", meaning to protect the paint industry here from liability for the public nuisance they have caused by selling lead based paint nearly a century after it was known to harm humans, as proved in their loss to the State of Rhode Island earlier this year. The amendments also protect car dealers, scam loan sharks, manufacturers, etc. from real accountability for harming the public. The legislators who are guilty of this abuse of their offices were listed in the PD article with the suggestion that is "a keepsake you could clip and save." Local blogger Jill Miller Zimon repeated the list on her excellent blog, "Writes like she talks", and I repeat it here, so it may be as present in cyberspace and available to the world as possible. We will need this list over the next many years, until all of these anti-Ohioan men and women are driven from public "service", as they have shown they do not protect public interests. By having this information in as many public places as possible, I hope we the people will be more successful protecting the public than has our legislature under current rule. The list of sell outs and further harms they cause the public is as follows, from Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Sheryl Harris:

This afternoon I came across a truly revolting locally-produced channel 5 I believe Christmas special filmed at Crocker Park, celebrating what appeared to be 1,000,000s of plastic Christmas lights a-burning, and 1,000s of plastic people a-shopping, and 100s of plastic big boxes a-selling, and that made me appreciate the humble and community-based holiday season I have enjoyed, with peaceful moments of good cheer talking with local shopkeepers I've known in some cases over a decade, wishing them joy for the new year, and hearing the same from them, like friends, and buying local little things, knowing tomorrow they will be truly appreciated, as simple as can be.

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.

An organization in Toronto called New Mind Space hosts some very innovative public events I've been following online, and this week got to join in on - in this case, something called Night Lights. The point of the event was to bring lots of people together to increase awareness of light pollution... the light humans create that blocks the light the Creator creates. In NEO, you can look at the issue as the glare off Jacobs Field when they burn the lights even when there isn't a game, or the wasted electricity to do that (BTW, think of all the sick KWHs and coal/oil wasted and pollution created as you celebrate Christmas lights this season). - in every case... duh. I've never heard this subject raised in NEO at all, anywhere, but I've always been very disturbed to come into the city from the East and see the sky turn from black, with stars, to grey/blue/red with smoke and light pollution. Try it some time - drive from Chagrin Falls into downtown on a clear night and watch the sky turn to crap. Consider that, and then realize last week I was in one of the highrises downtown (where the Cleveland Foundation is housed, as a matter of fact) and in the elevator was a notice for tenants to "leave your lights on" that night because ESPN was in town covering the Cav's game and the city wants the world to think someone is home, downtown. So, in these times of a war in Iraq over fuel and high fuel costs and global warming some powers that be want everyone in downtown NEO to leave the lights on all night. How stupid are we? There are less stupid people in Toronto, and they do things like Night Lights, and twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder why environmentalism leaders in NEO don't think to do the same smart things...

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!

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.

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.

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.

Last week, my lifelong Republican now Democratic parents told me there is a promising candidate for President in 2008. Barack Obama. They are entusiastic, and even gave me a Time Magazine about Barack. I hadn't had a chance to think too much about this until today, when I got an email from Barack encouraging my support for the Democratic ticket this year. So I went to his website, and saw something very positive about the man... "Since coming to Washington, Senator Obama has made the elimination of childhood lead poisoning one of his top priorities." Add to that, "Senator Obama has been a strong supporter of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration and is a cosponsor of the Great Lakes Environmental Restoration Act (S. 508)" "He is a cosponsor of the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (S. 1151)"... etc.

In today's Plain Dealer, columnist Regina Brett posted an editorial acknowledging the decline of PD readership and asking readers to offer suggestions. " How should we change? What do we do to attract young people without alienating the faithful?" I can offer an easy answer: " “When we talk about moving toward sustainability, we need to talk about at least three things,” he says. “Changing the economic structure we’re all working in, changing the culture we live in, and changing our own individual consumption patterns.”

Tonight, at Future!, director David Moss put together a fun and inspiring event/exposition of the work of NEO cool entrepreneurs: Derek Hess, of Strhess, 1300, his own world, SthressFest, etc., etc.; Factory 13 Experimental Skateboard Mfg., Ltd.; Cleveland’s Jakprints, Inc., which features designs by Institute alumni; GoMedia, a Cleveland-based design firm; Alternative Press, a monthly magazine published in Cleveland since 1985 covering “new music and youth culture"; and three tattoo designers, 252 Tattoo, and Voodoo Monkey Tattoo. Cool... yes. Inspiring... yes. Fun... yes. Quality... YES! Props to Moss, co-instigator Diann Mistelske of the CIA, and Future! With great presentation, sounds and company, this was another standout performance by CIA showcasing NEO arts and culture excellence at the global level. Complaint? Could have been 10X more entrepreneurs and work in 10X the space.

Phillip Williams and I happened to be in Toronto on business during the Canadian Thanksgiving, this year, which was yesterday, October 9th. On the surface, it is much like the USA Thanksgiving holiday... lots of comfy people eat turkey and tofurky and trimmings, while TV news broadcasts happy homeless people eating something similar in soup kitchens. What made the experience interesting for us is we spent the past few days with First Nations people, who view our Thanksgiving celebration quite differently from we of European and other non-indigenous descent. "What would our people have to be thankful for about what you did to our land" is the reasonable viewpoint of our friends here, which we discussed over Vietnamese food in Chinatown, the night before, and fresh peaches and grapes from Ontario, Thanksgiving morning. That experience was to be thankful for, as North Korea makes the world wonder what else to be thankful for.

Talk about great timing. Evelyn, Claus and I arrived in Toronto around 7:30 PM Saturday, September 30, 2006, to a light, cool rain, and as I was driving down Queen Street to pick up some dinner at my favorite restaurant here - Albert's Real Jamaican Foods - I noticed an unusual scene surrounded me. There were video projectors beaming images on the Gladstone and Drake hotels, and others glowing from parking lots, galleries and car washes... and 1,000s of people swarming around... more than the usual active Saturday night... especially a drizzly one. While I was waiting for my take-out at Albert's, I picked up a Now magazine (their Scene/Free Times) and realized I was in the heart of Toronto's first Nuit Blanche - "White Night"... "a night without darkness; a night for new discoveries; a sleepless night"... "a free, all night contemporary art thing." Unbelievable... what a great thing!