In September 2009 I observed about Chicago... from The Reader: "Under Daley the city has embarked on aggressive tree planting, installed a green roof atop City Hall, and mapped out an ambitious plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions—but failed to ensure basic recycling services, force dirty power plants to clean up, or confront the city's traffic and transit problems... it did nothing to force the coal-fired power plants on the southwest side to cut emissions."

Citizen activism appears to have improved in Chicago, since then... citizens have become environmentalists, refusing to allow government to sustain dirty coal pollution and bad public health there.

That coal pollution has gone unchecked in Chicago, and will have broadly expanded in Illinois under Obama leadership in Illinois and the White House, may well put a nail in the coffin of Barack Obama's presidential aspirations for 2012... and this issue should keep Obama's right-hand-man Emanuel from succeeding in his pursuit to rule over the millions of poisoned citizens of Chicago, as mayor... and should stand in the way of Obama lifting Alexi Giannoulias into Obama's former Senate seat in Illinois, in November.

As the Obama administration continues the Bush doctrine to deny government responsibility to protect citizens from pollution.... Jeff Biggars asks, on AlterNet: "Will Rahm Emanuel and Other Chicago Mayoral Candidates Join the Clean Energy Race?"

As I recently wrote on realNEO, regarding legalizing medical marijuana in Ohio, Governor Ted Strickland “feels that the predominant opinion of the medical community is that there are existing medicines available that provide appropriate patient care. So based on that opinion and the current research, he feels this type of legislation doesn’t seem necessary or warranted.“

Yet "tens of thousands of sick people throughout California find relief from scores of ailments by using cannabis because this plant has so many healing qualities", according to Raymond Cushing's posting on Alternet - Prop. 19 Offers Major Potential for Some Cancer Patients.

So who is right... citizen-oriented AlterNet or our Governor, now seeking reelection.

On AlterNet we learn:

What begs discussion on the occasion of California’s historic vote, which the whole world is watching, is that cannabis has been shown in hundreds of laboratory studies over the past ten years not only to be physiologically harmless, but also to be the most potent anti-cancer agent found in nature. No other natural substance holds the cancer-stopping power of cannabis and that's a proven fact.

How many folks are really set to capitalize on the destruction and gross misuse of tax dollars being funneled into the Opportunity Corridor??

2010 is a definitive year for the Ohio Democratic Party, as all the Democratic leaders of Northeast Ohio are entangled in webs of corruption, tarnishing the Party state- and nation-wide, to the White House, as all Democratic leaders of Ohio must explain poorer economic performance statewide than is the national average, which has been poor under Obama.... with no good vision for the state and nation for the future... with important elections upon us in November.

To keep the purple state of Ohio blue in 2010 and for 2012, where Democrats have largely been in-charge in the past, the Democratic machine needs to show it is serious about changing how it does business here in the future, while going the distance with Obama, and getting the job done in Ohio... no matter how long that takes. 

How many days of deliquency determines the transfer of a tax delinquency to Plymouth Park in Cuyahoga County????

Can any one out there help me to answer the question?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Revisiting an older post RE: The Land Bank

From former Mayor Eric Brewer via Cleveland.com:

When politicians like Barack Obama, Ted Strickland, George Voinovich, Sherrod Brown, Marcia Fudge, Frank Jackson, Gary Norton and our councilpeople speak of the promise of "Clean Coal" and carbon capture and sequestration, ask the politicians how to safely capture coal slurry... especially after it has spilled... as that skill is needed in Ohio today. On October 1, 2010, Murray Energy (of Pepper Pike, Ohio) spilled 1,000s of gallons of toxic coal slurry into an Ohio stream, as reported by the Sierra Club in the video above. That is the same Murray Energy responsible for the collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine, in 2007, which "was so extensive, federal officials found no other mining disaster in the last 50 years to compare to it."

Was this reported in Cleveland?

The Sierra Club asks citizens to help stop Murray Coal from doing even more harm to our environment in Ohio...

I often ponder what are they thinking when I reflect on the current state of modern culture and the environment. Clearly, so does Kwame Anthony Appiah, a philosophy professor at Princeton University, who published an inspiring editorial What will future generations condemn us for? in the September 26, 2010 Washington Post, below - see a poll on this subject at the Washington Post website, and participate in a poll on the same issue on realNEO here - When future generations look back on us, what will shock them most?

Matthew Harris works with a white widow marijuana plant at Marjyn Investments LLC in Oakland, Calif.
He is among 40 workers who joined the Teamsters this month. (Associated Press)

In states where medical marijuana is legal, there are a wide range of jobs created in diverse industries, including healthcare, food preparation, pharmaceutical research and development, retail, and agriculture.  In Ontario, Canada, there are over 100,000 jobs associated with marijuana cultivation alone - and most of the marijuana grown there is exported illegally to America.

A 2010 Pew poll found approximately 40% of Americans have tried Marijuana, about the same number believe marijuana should be legalized outright, and 73% of Americans - over 7 in 10 - believe medicinal marijuana should be legalized. Those polling numbers say the writing is on the wall - marijuana is becoming mainstream industry in America, as Americans get their way nationwide! Where marijuana is legal, it is a high-growth economic engine churning activity in many clusters.

Generation Blank, X, and Y (why?), meet Generation Hot. That is the term given by Mark Hertsgaard to every child on earth born after June 23, 1988 - "when humanity was put on notice that greenhouse gas emissions were raising the temperatures on this planet. The warning came from NASA scientist James Hansen's testimony to the U.S. Senate and, crucially, the decision by the New York Times to print the news on page 1, which in turn made global warming a household phrase in news bureaus, living rooms and government offices the world over."

Hertsgaard is author of the soon-to-be-released book Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth and has covered climate change, politics and the media for Vanity Fair, The Nation, Time, The New Yorker, NPR, L’espresso and other leading news outlets worldwide. In his Huffington Post article Meet Generation Hot, below, he states: "For Generation Hot, the brutal summer of 2010 is not an anomaly; it's the new normal."

As a firm, vocal supporter of Barack Obama - a blogger for Obama - I receive frequent emails from various democratic party affiliations... a recent barrage encourages me to order a free bumper sticker promoting my love for the Democratic Party - it seems they have decided they need to rebrand and reimagine themselves a bit, as "Democrats have launched the most ambitious voter-turnout effort we've ever seen for an election like the one this fall." "With this renewed focus, the Democrats have introduced a new website filled with innovations to better connect supporters with candidates, state parties, and each other -- and a new look to match that message." To me, the rebranding is poor and suggests a grade on a report-card... that grade being a "D".

What do you think - does the Democratic Party deserve a "D", since we elected Obama President... better... worse?

If you want to prove you are a true blue Democrat, the information to order your free "I got a D" bumper sticker is provided below....

scheme
   [skeem] noun, verb, schemed, schem·ing.
–noun
1. a plan, design, or program of action to be followed; project.
2. an underhand plot; intrigue.
3. a visionary or impractical project.
4. a body or system of related doctrines, theories, etc.: a scheme of philosophy.
5. any system of correlated things, parts, etc., or the manner of its arrangement.
6. a plan, program, or policy officially adopted and followed, as by a government or business: The company's pension scheme is very successful.
7. an analytical or tabular statement.
8. a diagram, map, or the like.
9. an astrological diagram of the heavens.
–verb (used with object)
10. to devise as a scheme; plan; plot; contrive.
–verb (used without object)
11. to lay schemes; devise plans; plot.

I've sadly watched the better part of an important historic block, in an important historic neighborhood, fronting an important historic park, be demolished and cleared without so much as a peep of concern from anyone in NEO, other than on REALNEO. Are we really so disengaged, or are we just so dumbfounded by the rapid succession of bad plans coming from NEO leadership that we can't keep up and focus. The block I question, today's header above (full size image here), was a wonderful grouping of interesting mixed use urban landmarks, complimenting the astounding Rockefeller Park to the west, University Circle to the south, and the surrounding Wade Park neighborhood, now a massive demolition zone that looks suspiciously like a surface parking lot. In a few short weeks, "they" have done immeasurable damage, and that is exactly how leaders in this region operate... quietly destroying what they may and explaining what they must as they must, largely through their Plain Dealer. Already, I doubt there are many people who remember the buildings just demolished here, or the many mature Rockefeller Park oak trees ripped from their roots in the haste of greed (did they have a right and permit to do that)... see the earlier demolition picture here to see the beautiful setting before this eco-disaster. Seeing the trees gone made me wonder what evil "they" lurks behind this tragedy, and of course learned this is another Carney Port Authority bond deal, this time to be repaid at the expense of Cleveland taxpayers, to enrich a new character on the "developer" scene... Michael Forlani... CEO of Doan Pyramid Electric, of Bedford Heights, Ohio, and a major Republican contributor, who has formed a new company, Veterans Development, LLC, to process $ millions in federal and Cleveland taxpayer contributions to his bottom line, this time routed through the Federal Veterans Administration. This deal is an extreme example of what is wrong in Northeast Ohio and America today.

Greenversations, the official blog of the EPA, has some excellent postings and is worth following - I subscribe to that and all the EPA email updates as they are excellent - dozens a week. Today, Greenversations highlights The Pollution Prevention Act Turns 20, suggesting "If companies, communities and consumers make a concerted effort at eliminating wastes at the source, then perhaps the theme of P2 Week in 2020 can be the arrival of the zero-waste society, one where greenhouse gas emissions, toxic exposures in the home and workplace, waste disposal in landfills and underground wells, and nutrient dumping in our nation’s waters are all a rapidly fading memory."

It is the responsibility of the citizens to make that happen through our actions, VOTING and choices today. In Northeast Ohio, with an EXCESSIVE SHARE of toxic release point sources, and pathetic EPA performance, we need NEW elected officials committed to a 0-waste 0-harm P2 2020 vision - willing to stand up to the big polluters and shut them down - shut down Mittal for real.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer pimped the Opportunity Corridor into existence and has greatly disrupted our economy over that - the St. Louis-sourced publisher Terry Egger is the leader of the Opportunity Corridor whorehouse and bulldozing committee - flightless queen-bee-designee Terri Hamilton Brown exists for the Opportunity Corridor - ex-Con made Concilman Jeff Johnson pimps for it - RPM Prince Randell McShepard and Most-Made-Handmaid-to-the-Rich Ronayne Pimp for it - Gund top-gun Abbott Pimps for it - flabbergasting Cleveland Foundation flops Richards and Kuri pimp for it - and the usual suspects that profit from it pimp for it... Cleveland Clinic, all organizations UCI and all local universities, some churches and non-profits, the CDCs and their sponsors, the architects and contractors and their trolls, the unions... the web of crooks who have fucked up everything in this region for decades, and are the enablers of all the corruption now being dismantled with County and city government here, by the FBI. The state, county and city levels of government have failed and are being dismantled here, along with the entire statewide mafioso Democratic party regime and their networks of funders, contractors and colluders.

So when the incompetent, sell-out, paid-to-pimp Cleveland Plain Dealer proclaims in their latest pimping for the Opportunity Corridor that "The project is a top priority of elected, business and neighborhood leaders", I'd like to know EXACTLY who are the elected, business and neighborhood leaders that are not corrupt and benefiting financially from the Opportunity Corridor and are willing to step forward today, with the degree of corruption at all levels of leadership here, and say the Opportunity Corridor is the top priority for Cleveland and Northeast Ohio today.

I want to know, before the next election, which candidates for any offices are pimping that the Opportunity Corridor is the Top Priority of the region.

I've absolutely despised Plain Dealer "columnist" Phillip Morris, as a "writer" and inhuman, since he attempted to send my friend Kieth's son to the electric chair by branding him a "hate" criminal. Morris is an irresponsible psychopath.

psychosis (sī-kō'sĭs)
A mental state caused by psychiatric or organic illness, characterized by a loss of contact with reality and an inability to think rationally. A psychotic person often behaves inappropriately and is incapable of normal social functioning.

I hate Morris even more now that I know he was one of the "journalists" who helped friend-only-to-the-rich former Mayor Mike White and his partner in crime Dick Jacobs get out of jail free for all the crimes they committed together here - Morris still celebrates hisself for celebrating the corruption of that day... recounting when scumbag friend of all corrupt scumbags in town Nate Grey "didn't snitch" on his scumbag political friends, all rooted around the evil Mike White... as Morris features in his latest contemptible column today - The silence of the good allowed the unfettered plunder of the bad: Phillip Morris - offering a free guilt-if-not-jail-pass to more of Morris' scumbag friends in local politics and leadership today, asking "How did honest public officials (and there are many) sit silently (almost universally) while thieves raided the temple for so long?"

You see, this psychopath Morris doesn't understand that people who aid and abet crimes are criminals... not honest people. Lacking that basic ethical and legal understanding, Morris causes this community great harm... and has for decades. As Morris writes...

Important guest editorial in the Cleveland Plain Dealer today asking questions about Mason all people of Northeast Ohio must ask of Mason, Campbell, Hagan, Jones, Strickland, Brown, Jackson, all Cleveland Council people, all local mainstream media agents, so many other "community leaders" and themselves...

Bill Mason, the 800-pound gorilla: David Barnhizer

Published: Friday, September 17, 2010, 3:00 AM

By David Barnhizer

In the midst of the Cuyahoga County corruption scandals, there is an unasked question about the county's "800-pound gorilla," Bill Mason. The prosecutions and investigations in this and other cases have been done by federal authorities rather than by the office of Mason, Cuyahoga County's prosecutor. The question is why the chief law enforcement officer in the county, with a staff that is wired in to virtually all the local political machinery, as revealed in a recent Plain Dealer article, was unaware of or chose to ignore the cesspool of corruption, bribery, kickbacks and special deals for friends and contributors that has been Cuyahoga County.

Given Mason's amazing political reach and obvious sophistication, it is difficult to accept any claim that he was unaware of the corruption. The investigative power of a prosecutor is also substantial, as is the ability to use the grand jury as a device to uncover wrongdoing.

We as a community have much more to learn, share and discuss about the take-down of local government finally upon us. From current reporting on Cleveland.com, it appears there are innumerable sitting judges, Cleveland city officials and other county officials, employees, appointees and contractors still to go down, along with a massive web of area businesspeople.

I proposed positive change to some of the officials who appear to be going down, and I was disappointed by my experiences working with them. So I have long considered the "County" corrupt... the "Democrats" corrupt. Based on my observations from the outside, we are just seeing the very beginning of the FBI actions against public and private parties here, and it seems things will get far worse before they get better - Jimmy DiMora and his goon squad will see to that, as demonstrated in the video above.

Chris Hedges  September 13, 2010 - TruthDig

There are no longer any major institutions in American society, including the press, the educational system, the financial sector, labor unions, the arts, religious institutions and our dysfunctional political parties, which can be considered democratic. The intent, design and function of these institutions, controlled by corporate money, are to bolster the hierarchical and anti-democratic power of the corporate state. These institutions, often mouthing liberal values, abet and perpetuate mounting inequality. They operate increasingly in secrecy. They ignore suffering or sacrifice human lives for profit. They control and manipulate all levers of power and mass communication. They have muzzled the voices and concerns of citizens. They use entertainment, celebrity gossip and emotionally laden public-relations lies to seduce us into believing in a Disneyworld fantasy of democracy.

The menace we face does not come from the insane wing of the Republican Party, which may make huge inroads in the coming elections, but the institutions tasked with protecting democratic participation. Do not fear Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. Do not fear the tea party movement, the birthers, the legions of conspiracy theorists or the militias. Fear the underlying corporate power structure, which no one, from Barack Obama to the right-wing nut cases who pollute the airwaves, can alter. If the hegemony of the corporate state is not soon broken we will descend into a technologically enhanced age of barbarism. 

There are few intelligent, informed, unbiased people still walking the Earth so ignorant or corrupt as to publicly preach against Marijuana, hemp, and their health and industrial benefits to society and the Earth, but the State of Ohio is ruled by such a Neanderthal - Ohio Democratic Governor Ted Strickland - who is likely to lose his position of power to a Republican in the upcoming November election because he is such a cowardly, industry sell-out. His Lieutenant Governor, Lee Fisher - thinking he had some success in his work with Strickland that he should build-upon - seems positioned to hand an Ohio Senate Seat to a Republican for similar display of cowardice. And they certainly deserve to lose.

According to the Marijuana Policy Project, about the progress of Ohio to join the civilized world allowing the sick to use marijuana to live better, our Governor is already a loser, and deserves to lose re-election... “The governor feels that the predominant opinion of the medical community is that there are existing medicines available that provide appropriate patient care,“ said a statement issued recently. “So based on that opinion and the current research, he feels this type of legislation doesn’t seem necessary or warranted.“

As Ohio is so contaminated by pollution - especially from the heavy mining and industry Strickland and Fisher have supported here - the citizens here live unhealthy lives and die young, horrible deaths. To deny citizens access to any medicine to help comfort them - especially a medicine that may be grown for free - is criminal. Below is more from MPP about the pathetic leadership of Ohio, and what citizens may do about them - followed by a recent article by a doctor about the medical benefits of Marijuana - Andrew Weil: Medical Marijuana's Tremendous Potential for Curing Ailments - Cutting through all the government misinformation - and some of the politics around denying those benefits to citizens, as is perpetuated by sell-out mis-informers like our Ohio Governor Ted Strickland...

I strongly recommend daily reading of Joe Romm's expert portal on climate and the environment - Cimate Progress: An Insiders View of Climate Science, Politics, and Solutions - which offers the latest rundown on climate news around the world, edited and produced by the former Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during the Clinton Administration... you may subscribe for email updates there. Joe doesn't just address the science of climate... very often he writes about the climate of science, like in his sharing of perspectives on an Editorial in Nature (which is subscription only, so the public may not see): Science scorned: The journal Nature warns, “The anti-science strain pervading the right wing in the United States is the last thing the country needs in a time of economic challenge.”I can't access Nature, but I may share Joe's observations, which are most valuable, coming from such a valuable source:

 US citizens face economic problems that are all too real, and the country’s future crucially depends on education, science and technology as it faces increasing competition from China and other emerging science powers….  Yet the public often buys into anti-science, anti-regulation agendas that are orchestrated by business interests and their sponsored think tanks and front groups.

The chart above shows citizens of Northeast Ohio have the worst level of mortality from coal fired power plants in America - based on an online risk assessment tool accompanying the September 2010 Clean Air Taskforce study The Toll From Coal - An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America’s Dirtiest Energy Source. As the introduction states: "Among all industrial sources of air pollution, none poses greater risks to human health and the environment than coal-fired power plants – perhaps most consequential of all from a public health standpoint – fine particle pollution."

Fine particles are especially dangerous because they can bypass the body’s defensive mechanisms and become lodged deep in the human lung. Indeed, research also indicates that short-term exposures to fine particle pollution is linked to cardiac effects, including increased risk of heart attack. Meanwhile, long-term exposure to fine particle pollution has been shown to increase the risk of death from cardiac and respiratory diseases and lung cancer, resulting in shorter life-expectancy for people living in the most polluted cities compared to people who live in cleaner cities. And although research suggests fine particles reduce the average life span of the general population by a few years, the life of an individual dying as a result of exposure to air pollution may be shortened by 14 years.

The hopeful news for Northeast Ohio in this science is:

Because most fine particle-related deaths are thought to occur within a year or two of exposure, reducing power plant pollution will have almost immediate benefits.

The worst news is, considering the greatest harm to human health comes from fine particle pollution, and Northeast Ohio has many more sources of fine particle pollution than just the 500 major coal power plants considered in the data of this study (think Mittal), it is an understatement to say the air pollution situation in Northeast Ohio is far worse than it appears in this Clean Air Taskforce report, and there Ohio is ranked the second-worst America gets... and the Cleveland-area is the 8th most toxic metropolitan area in the county...

mor·tal·i·ty
   /mɔrˈtælɪti/ [mawr-tal-i-tee]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the state or condition of being subject to death; mortal character, nature, or existence.
2. the relative frequency of deaths in a specific population; death rate.
3. mortal beings collectively; humanity.
4. death or destruction on a large scale, as from war, plague, or famine.
5. Obsolete . death.

President Barack Obama gave a personable and hopeful speech to an invitation-only Democratic booster-club crowd of 1,300 smiling faces, at Tri-C West College, in Parma, Ohio, today - showing how concerned the National Democratic party is over under-performance and downright failure by leaders of their party here

Appropriate to the weak local platform on which he stands, the President expressed humility, flexibility and openness to change local and national focus within his economic policy. This was not a commanding speech, but one seeking broader coalition. In fact, the speech acknowledged failure under his administration and the role of Independents in the future.