Below is the Policy, Research, and Program Recommendations from the 2008–2009 Annual Report of the President’s Cancer Panel - REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER RISK... What We Can Do Now - April 2010. This report is submitted to the President of the United States in fulfillment of the obligations of the President’s Cancer Panel.

Based on its conclusions, the Panel recommends:

1. A precautionary, prevention-oriented approach should replace current reactionary approaches to environmental contaminants in which human harm must be proven before action is taken to reduce or eliminate exposure. 

Below is the Executive Summary from the 2008–2009 Annual Report of the President’s Cancer Panel - REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER RISK... What We Can Do Now - April 2010. This report is submitted to the President of the United States in fulfillment of the obligations of the President’s Cancer Panel.

Executive Summary

Despite overall decreases in incidence and mortality, cancer continues to shatter and steal the lives of Americans.  Approximately 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and about 21 percent will die from cancer.  The incidence of some cancers, including some most common among children, is increasing for unexplained reasons.

Public and governmental awareness of environmental influences on cancer risk and other health issues has increased substantially in recent years as scientific and health care communities, policymakers, and individuals strive to understand and ameliorate the causes and toll of human disease.  A growing body of research documents myriad established and suspected environmental factors linked to genetic, immune, and endocrine dysfunction that can lead to cancer and other diseases.

Below is the cover letter to the President of the United States from the 2008–2009 Annual Report of the President’s Cancer Panel - REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER RISK... What We Can Do Now - April 2010. This report is submitted to the President of the United States in fulfillment of the obligations of the President’s Cancer Panel.

The President
The White House
Washington, DC  20500

Dear Mr. President:

Though overall cancer incidence and mortality have continued to decline in recent years, the disease continues to devastate the lives of far too many Americans.  In 2009 alone, approximately 1.5 million American men, women, and children were diagnosed with cancer, and 562,000 died from the disease.  With the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the unacceptable burden of cancer resulting from environmental and occupational exposures that could have been prevented through appropriate national action.  The Administration’s commitment to the cancer community and recent focus on critically needed reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act is praiseworthy.  However, our Nation still has much work ahead to identify the many existing but unrecognized environmental carcinogens and eliminate those that are known from our workplaces, schools, and homes.

In my neighborhood, the "graffiti" is all tagging, either for gangs here (haven't seen much of that lately) or in memory of someone who has died... still see plenty of that. One of the more intense memorial tags in EC is for "Lil Shit" on a beautiful boarded up house off Terrace, in East Cleveland. I assume Lil Shit lived or died here and was much loved by Hough Harlem. Anyone know any details?

I think Lil Shit is still around here.

I'm not a party politics guy, but I sure supported Obama from the first day I saw what he offered the world - and I well remember the awe of the moment I knew Obama was President. While I'm sure I could do much better, and so could you, I think he is doing an excellent job overall, and I am certain we want to stay the course with him and leaders who share his vision, through this administration and another - he is turning around a leaky rusting out of control supertanker here, hoping to get our economy back to safe harbour before we have another deepwater experience.... and this supertanker US Enterprise is running on empty.

To help the nation get and stay on course for the future, in the Blue state of Ohio, the Democratic party must be effective, and that means citizens need to get involved helping good candidates succeed... at least getting candidates engaged about what citizens believe and want from their leaders. That's one thing I feel realNEO enables well, and I know our core members make a point to get active in support for good in politics, to the core. Below is a message from Governor Strickland asking everyone to volunteer to " Fight for Ohio’s Future", and I look forward to dialog here on the candidates in the upcoming elections - there are certainly some big races being decided in November... best not sit this one out as a passive spectator in 2010, to find yourself a helpless victim in 2011!

Both long stayed and new residents as well as businesses interest and support for creating a green scape proposed by me for the the property is very high. I feel that this is the most appropriate and positive solution that would benefit all equally without sacrificing additional parking spaces. Creating a huge tar surface with a sea of vehicles (even with some landscaping) right in the center of such a beautiful and historic district would be unconscionable.

I got chills today, scanning ongoing coverage of Cleveland City Hall's plans to lock citizens and their children here into a 10 year sole-source LED lighting contract with Sunpu Opto, of China - Cleveland council committee embraces LED lighting deal - when I made the interpretation my instincts about Sunpu Opto are the same as Councilman Polensek's... which means my instincts may be wrong, as how could he be right?

Polensek's take on the Sunpu Opto deal:

"When my gut tells me something is wrong, I've been around long enough to know it's not right," Polensek said during the hearing.

He accused the administration of conducting a faulty process in choosing Sunpu-Opto.

"We're going to pay for every one of those jobs five times, six times over," Polensek said.

If you want to feel your heart sink in your chest, consider the forecast above shows the Deepwater oil flow is expected to round Cuba and the tip of Florida and head north into the Atlantic, within a week or so, and think of the Keys to the Future. The current progress of the flow of oil from the Deepwater drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is following the forecast worst case expectations - and the amount of oil being spilled seems to be at the worst case level - and the efforts to stop the leak are nearly at worst case conditions... changing daily. This means Florida is in deep trouble, and oil will be flowing up the Eastern Atlantic coast next week.

I turned my Nexus One to Pandora tonight to stream some free music while I work. It launched to my Pere Ubu radio and the first track that played seems so fitting for this week - "Chinese Radiation". I just heard Pere Ubu play it live at their performance of Modern Dance, at the Beachland, but I can't find any place to stream the song to you from on-line... here is a sample on Pandora - so you will have to just read the lyrics below and imagine the rest of the tune in your head... the song does not remain the same, but the story does, 32 years since 1978... buy Modern Dance:

He'll be the red guard
She'll be the new world
He'll wear his grey cap
and she'll wave her red book
He'll tell her
One way?
I want you all ways
One way

Free Download — whitehouse — May 01, 2010 — President Obama speaks at the 2010 University of Michigan commencement ceremony in Ann Arbor, MI.

Below is the text President Obama's speech at the University of Michigan Commencement, as prepared for delivery.

It is great to be here in the Big House, and may I say "Go Blue!" I thought I'd go for the cheap applause line to start things off.

Good afternoon President Coleman, the Board of Trustees, faculty, parents, family, friends, and the class of 2010. Congratulations on your graduation, and thank you for allowing me the honor to be a part of it. And let me acknowledge your wonderful governor, Jennifer Granholm, your mayor, John Hieftje, and all the Members of Congress who are here with us today.

Remarks of President Barack Obama--As Prepared for Delivery
Hampton University Commencement
May 9, 2010
Hampton, Virginia

Good morning, Happy Mother's Day to all the moms here today, and thank you for inviting me to share this special occasion with the Hampton community. Before we get started, I just want to say, I'm excited the Battle of the Real H.U. will be taking place in Washington this year. You all know I'm not going to pick sides. But it's been, what, 13 years since the Pirates lost. As one Hampton alum on my staff put it, the last time Howard beat Hampton, The Fugees were still together.

 

Join Phil Metres and Robin Pease-Kerr for an evening of poetry, stories and discussion Saturday, May 22nd at 7:30 pm.

Location

Source: Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index

Ceridian reported today the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index™ (PCI) fell 0.3 percent in April, suggesting the economic recovery may have stalled. "The latest PCI numbers are disappointing and cast considerable doubt on the strength of the recovery and the strength of GDP numbers for 2010," said Ed Leamer, the PCI's chief economist. Five of the nine US census regions were weak in April. With a decline of 1.7 percent, the PCI in Ohio's East North Central region fell the most.

The ICEarth Welcome Wagon stopped by Sansai Environmental Technologies this weekend to tour the world's largest indoor vermitechnology facility and meet Cleveland's greenest, meanest, fighting machine - the 60 million worm team bringing the world "Magic Dust". See Sansai for more information on their amazing processes and products... here are some pictures of their crib, right in the heart of South Collinwood - Cleveland - Ohio.

The variance appeal for treehouse to expand has been withdrawn, due to the support, unity and vigilence of concerned residents, businesses and political organizations. We now have a grand opportunity to create a most unique greenscape in the heart of tremont. A format for the neighborhood which both residents and businesses can share in pride without adding to the parking congestion of the neighborhood and further solidifying  it as a vibrant , progressive and sustainably oriented neighborhood. A win win situation for all.

Dear realNEO Members and so Real Coop owners,

realNEO was founded October 7, 2004, making this our 6th year providing a free, open source content management system and social computing platform to the citizens of Northeast Ohio and the world... for the past few years as a cooperative. In this 6th year, we have reached a stage of ad hoc organizational maturity whereby we have a large, real, engaged community of members who have been active with realNEO for years, who share foundational commitments to openness, truth and freedom, and who are working in concert for the sustainability of our communities... both our virtual realNEO/coop community and our real NEO neighborhoods, around the world.

With maturation comes the opportunity to evolve, with the knowledge we have gained in our lives, now including over 5 years of realNEO.

In 2006, Gen-X Consultant Rebecca Ryan came to Cleveland to speak at the City Club and lead some roundtable discussions (hosted by realNEO) on making this region more desirable to the global Generation-X population.  She was working on Gen-X planning in Akron and Canton and proposed to the City of Cleveland some collaboration with her regional efforts - she was suggesting to brainstorm very openly at very little cost to the city. Her outreach received the cold shoulder here. The last time I remember communicating about this was with Chris Ronayne, then with the city of Cleveland, and I was basically told the development people were too busy trying to close a Nike Cavaliers advertising deal to bother with Rebecca Ryan's proposal - the city economic development resources were too focused on Cavaliers advertising to care.

I may hate old time politics, but I love this video - thanks Channel 5 - found on the Cleveland.com website. According to a poll on realNEO, "Does Jimmy Dimora deserve the privilege of being considered innocent until proven guilty?", 63% voted "Yes, Jimmy Dimora deserves the privilege of being considered innocent until proven guilty".

CLEVELAND, OH— Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones will discuss the State of the County at The City Club of Cleveland at noon on Monday, May 10, 2010, at The City Club of Cleveland, 850 Euclid Ave, Second Floor. 

Although county government will look different come January, it will function as is until that time. Lawson Jones will address issues and challenges facing the current administration.

Location

About two months ago I asked the question: Should ICEarth Be Developed In Real NEO Or Elsewhere In The World? In general, the response has been to develop here, and a Strategic Technology Analyst for the Cuyahoga County Department Of Development has asked for a brief overview of my development plans for the activities I propose for Cuyahoga County to help make Northeast Ohio

Question of the Day: What is Coming Out of this House at Farmington and Forest Hills in East Cleveland? I won't try to explain, as I can't.

Friends of Charlie Mosbrook (seems nearly everyone in Cleveland) have been concerned for his sudden health issues this year, and gladdened to see him back up, around, and performing stronger than ever. Featured above is a video from Charlie's website - inspiring, as is all his work - and he has many events upcoming - two in Lakewood may interested realNEO readers (we have lots of traffic in Lakewood)...

On April 29, 2010, EPA proposed a set of regulatory proposals under the Clean Air Act that address emissions from boilers, process heaters, and certain solid waste incinerators. These rules would significantly cut emissions of pollutants that are of particular concern for children. Mercury and lead can cause adverse affects on children's developing brains -- including effects on IQ, learning, and memory. The rules would also reduce emissions of other pollutants including cadmium, dioxin, furans, formaldehyde and hydrochloric acid. These pollutants can cause cancer or other adverse health effects in adults and children. Together, these rules would cut mercury and other air toxics emissions from nearly 200,000 units across the U.S.