I noticed a few days ago that the City of East Cleveland website is now a Drupal site. It is a big improvement from the most recent previous website, which looked more like the website for an Eric Brewer fan club than a city website. It is a good start to improving IT in East Cleveland -- now lets get more citizens online!

I've been asked what our traffic looks like over time, so I pulled a few quick charts of the number of visitors to realneo since we started using Google Analytics, and what they have visited, to measure performance of this site - and we've grown by pretty much all counts I've considered important by 30-100% since then - in some cases by 1,000s% - in less than a year-and-a-half.

I just received great news from our friend Max Eternity - very inspiring developments for him in Atlanta, including saving a Breuer (why we all met Max in the first place)... CONGRATUALTIONS AND THANK YOU MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!

Family, Friends and Colleagues:

 

When I was asked the other day to be interviewed by Architects + Artisans, it caught me by such surprise that all I could do was laugh.  You see, in the last several years I've spent so much of my time thinking, talking and writing about others--advocating for various causes--that it had become unfamiliar to actually have someone want to write about who I was, my art, and what I was doing personally.

 

For a piece entitled "To Write, Paint and Save a Monument", the Editor of A +A, Mike Welton, who has written for The New York Times, Interior Design Magazine and Dwell Magazine, writes in part:

 

Now that he’s saved Marcel Breuer’s last building from the wrecking ball, Max Eternity has returned his attention to the things that really matter, like painting and publishing.

Norm -- Both parties have worked for months crafting a bipartisan Wall Street reform bill. But, just hours ago, Senate Republicans -- including Senator George Voinovich -- voted for a second time to protect their allies on Wall Street and block reform.

Maybe they think obstruction is a good political strategy in an election year. Maybe they're hoping the delay will give bank lobbyists time to water down reform with loopholes and exemptions.

"Kudos on providing a forum for hatred, racism and trolling. Hope you considered this project a "success"" - believelandd. I couldn't say it better myself... this comment by a Cleveland.com reader, posted on Cleveland.com today, condemning the departing "Chief Executive" of the smoke and mirrors PlainDealer/Newhouse's wretched little portal to spam. Hard to calculate anything that has harmed  development of the new economy in Cleveland so much in our history... and so The Chief Executive is being universally trashed in departure.

There is a new Facemob that is degrading society worldwide, as is the Facebook purpose.  This trashy Facemob is called DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN. To think "Social Computing" consultants in Cleveland are paid (probably with our tax dollars) to force citizens to use Facebook, just to interact with Cleveland City Council - I believe that foolishness must NOW STOP! Those responsible must be terminated.

On May 11th you may benefit three important peace organizations while being smart and local about your foods... simply by grocery shopping. The Food Coop will generously donate a portion of your total bill, on the second Tuesday of every month, to benefit Cleveland Peace Action, InterReligious Task Force on Central America (IRTF), and Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice

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Come and start your Cinco de Mayo celebration one day early with great authentic Mexican cuisine and Dine Out for Peace! Dining Out for Peace continu

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Dear Norm,

I've been traveling Ohio on our silver school bus that we bought on eBay and our supporters named "The Courage Express." What's it like? Well, it's a little bumpy, as school buses are, but it's one of the happiest times of this campaign.

2008 Lead Poisonings of children in Cuyahoga County, Ohio - do not move here

The Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council has released data on children in the neighborhoods of Cleveland and surrounding suburbs who were tested and documented as lead poisoned in Cuyahoga County in 2008 - about 3,200 of our Cleveland children were KNOWN to be lost to lead poisoning - about 4,000 children poisoned in Cuyahoga County overall. As only a small percentage of our children are actually tested for lead poisoning, the numbers of children in the County lost to lead poisoning is much higher... 1,000s of victims higher.

Cleveland's worst known mass-murderer, Anthony Sowell, is only known to have killed 11 people.... yet that has captured 1000s of inches of pointless newsprint... hours of pointless news coverage... to help nobody.

For a humorous take on a previous transition—the shift from scrolls to books—
watch this clip from Norwegian television NRK (with English subtitles)

realNEO is popular with librarians, and our members are certainly data intellectuals, so I expect an extensive treatment of the future of libraries - Gutenberg 2.0 - in the May/June Harvard Magazine will be of great interest here.

The insightful feature begins:

I deleted the Venn Diagram post--it is the one factor that humble posters, not administrators, can control here. 

For some reason, it's okay to use REALNEO, but not to use Facebook or Twitter.  Fine.  I agree--it's insidious and the site recently sold all of our personal info dispersed there to Spokeo.com.  I didn't invent REALNEO or Facebook or Twitter or Spokeo.  It is important to find some way to enjoy one's life. If social media makes anyone miserable.  You have control.  Flip the switch.  OFF.

A photo montage of images taken en route to recently meet with Jennifer Brunner. 
The woman who will help us save NEO :)

This event is the premier event of the Department of Arts Education of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. This is our 11th year of producing this fun packed month of events. Please come out to some of our events and learn what we know – the kids of CMSD actually do some great and wonderful things.

I just stumbled through the stark, ghost-town of Ed-and-Hunter-Morrison-self-promoting formerly George-Nemeth-self-promoting Brewed Fresh Daily land, and over to the neon lights of the glitzy apparently paid product placement based unCoolCleveland dynasty, now featuring original low budget video programming called NEOtropolis... after I finished puking, a lot, I wondered who pays for this unCoolCleveland Dynasty and why? Who really believes such propaganda may be real? Or cool? Or helpful for our economy?

Interesting to see a man who has been responsible for lead poisoning 1,000s of children - 100,000s throughout his "political career" - now "DEFEND" himself about anything, yet here our Cleveland City Council PRESIDENT proclaims "I am not a crook". SO TYPICAL of our incompetent, irresponsible "leaders" to our deathcamp here.

A great movie about Cleveland leaders and justice?!?!

Home Depot uses Ohio U.S. Senator George Victor Voinovich in a failed attempt
to delay EPA rules protecting children and pregnant women from lead poisoning?!?!

Despite the foolish, incompetent, worst efforts of our disgraceful Republican U.S. Senator from Ohio, Genocidal-George Voinovich, who attempted to derail life-protecting lead poisoning prevention measures for America's children and pregnant women - supposedly as a favor to Home Depot, which we should all now boycott for life - I'm pleased to announce:

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that renovations and repairs of pre-1978 housing must now be conducted using safe practices to protect children and pregnant women from exposure to lead-based paint. Almost a million children have elevated blood lead levels as a result of exposure to lead hazards, which can lead to lower intelligence, learning disabilities, and behavior issues. Adults exposed to lead hazards can suffer from high blood pressure and headaches. Children under six years old are most at risk.

“Our lead-safe program will protect children and families from lead-based paint hazards associated with renovation and repair activities in houses built before 1978,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “This rule requires contractors to follow some simple and effective lead-safe work practices to prevent children’s exposure to dangerous levels of lead. Lead poisoning is completely preventable.”

I grew up with pot smoking, strung out babysitters, DDT clouds, the Vietnam War and Ecology Flags...so when Jessica showed me this site, it was a blast from the past.  I can remember coloring in banners for my radical babysitters...we are definitely living in strange times.

I was just reading the latest installment of Goldberg's Folly - Were 'governmentwatcher' posts made by same user as 'lawmiss'? - the stranger-than-fiction real-time reality showing of the persecution of Judge Saffold by the editor of the region's monopoly newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer... and I finally saw revealed the smoking gun the PD couldn't keep under the mattress any longer, as this matter went before the state Supreme Court, and is headed to civil trial... it turns out this case is all about who gets the wishbone at the Saffold family Thanksgiving dinner... Judge Saffold or her not-kissing-cousin, PD columnist Phillip Morris... 

This year, celebrate Mother's Day the way its Founders intended!

Join us for the Third Annual MOTHERS' DAY PEACE PARTY - Sunday, May 9, 2010, 2 - 4 pm, at the India Garden (by the Gandhi Statue), 1190 Martin Luther King Blvd., Rockefeller Park, Cleveland (free curbside parking). SPECIAL GUEST: SEPTIMA CLARK ("The Grandmother of the Civil Rights Movement"), portrayed by Sherrie Tolliver of Women in History. Come, bring your mother... bring a friend. Enjoy a peaceful afternoon among friends!

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 Today was my mother's birthday and what started out as a normal dinner at a Greek place near our apartments turned into much more. The woman who owns the restaurant has been going through some problems trying to understand how American children are put through what they are put through, and it turns out Greece and France are much better places for children. She grew up the daughter of a French diplomat and sat with presidents and other diplomats at dinner and and flew on planes where children were allowed to run around and be children.