Michael Scharf, professor of law and director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University, will provide an insider’s perspective about the Saddam Hussein trial and its consequences at noon on Friday, January 12, 2007, at The City Club of Cleveland.

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Building blocks for bridging digital divide in East Cleveland 

In a recent article on bridging the digital divide in NEO, "It seems time to open up the OneCleveland network vision of Cleveland Heights, to see if there is value for others", I mentioned "An example of a progressive community building a mesh broadband network environment is found in Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN), which is a world- leader in such grass-roots broadband community service and technology. That is a model we are exploring in trying to help residents of underserved communities of East Cleveland and Cleveland secure access to broadband services, as carriers have underserved their neighborhoods, and poverty there is a significant issue."

Well, I was pleased to start the first work-day of 2007 with the correspondence posted below, from the Executive Director of CUWiN - globally celebrated community computing expert Sascha Meinrath - who is helping us center in on a viable model for East Cleveland and other undersupported urban neighborhoods in the region to bridge the digital divide here. Read on, as we are clearly on the right track and farther along than anyone may imagine. I'll add related insight and next steps as they develop.

One of my Heroes of 2006 is certainly "Citizen" Ed Hauser, who I had the pleasure of working with closely last year. Not only does Ed get credit for driving into public hands Whiskey Island, but he has taken the lead pushing for saving the national Historic Landmark Coast Guard Station, and he has been the #1 champion in the world for holding the Ohio Department of Transportation accountable for their poor management and inept planning in attempting to steamroll through Cleveland a pathetic vision for a new bridge spanning the Cuyahoga River Valley, where the current I-90 span sits, and turning the Innerbelt Trench into a bypass of historic downtown Cleveland to benefit future development by the Lake. Other than Plain Dealer Architecture Critic Steven Litt and a small cult of other friends of Citizen Hauser, Ed has been alone in waging these battles. What he has been up against are some of the most powerful forces in Ohio - the Port Authority - ODOT - and, it turns out, the powerful contractors who buy politicians like trinkets and then make $ billions from ODOT, the port, etc. That fact was made well clear in a Plain Dealer article titled "Gas-tax increase fuels ODOT building boom" on soon to be dismissed ODOT director Gordon Proctor and his ODOT, which have been wasting perverse amounts of public funds on foolishness, which was to include their hack bridge and trench plans for Cleveland. Incoming Governor Strickland will replace Proctor and could not do worse - then we will move on in determining what will happen with ODOT developing in NEO, with Ed championing good solutions. We are so fortunate, as a community, to have this special citizen activist watching over such seemingly immense battlefields where few have the courage to tread. Read below the December 31, 2006 public communication from Ed Hauser to Director Proctor, which will serve as his send-off to the highway (surely we'll see him lobbying or working for one of his contractors soon enough). We of NEO will welcome a new director in this important position leading this multi-billion-dollar state department, and we will expect that public employee to treat our community with the respect we deserve, and we know Citizen Hauser will keep the process honest. Good bye Proctor.

Source: Environmental Health Watch 

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.

Thank you again, Ohio Republican legislature, for bringing a second city into litigation against Sherwin-Williams and the paint industry in a single day, December 27, 2006, as Canton has joined Cincinnati demanding that those who created the public nuisance of lead poisoning now clean up their mess, that has harmed 1,000s in these communities. From the Canton Repository: "In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Stark County Common Pleas Court, the city says the paint industry knew lead was toxic as early as 1900 but continued to add the metal to paint and even promoted the product as having health benefits. The city wants the companies to pay for the removal of lead paint and for public education about its dangers, as well as reimbursement for money the city has spent dealing with lead-related hazards."

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.

If we have anything to thank Ohio Republican legislators for, and especially Rep. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican,  it is that their cloak-of-night passage of Substitute Senate Bill 117, which seeks to outlaw cities suing polluters for public nuisances they cause, and legislate-away other consumer rights for Ohioans, has driven our state capital of Columbus and now huge Ohio city Cincinnati to storm their courthouses to sue Sherwin-Williams and other paint companies over the public nuisance of lead poisoning in their communities, which is a legal position proved valid in the courts of the State of Rhode Island. In Columbus, the Mayor has said it was the action of these Republicans that forced them to sue. Of course, Ohioans' greatest appreciation goes to Mayor Brewer, of East Cleveland, who was the man who brought such public nuisance lead litigation to Ohio to protect his residents, the most effected by lead poisoning in the state, and so he is protecting all citizens of Ohio.

Since late June, 2006, a growing team of innovative community leaders has been working together with Lamond Williams, the owner of Hot Sauce Williams BBQ, and East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer and Community Development Director Tim Goler, and government leadership in Cleveland, to determine how best to redevelop the historic Hough Bakery Complex, formerly the Star Bakery, which Lamond also owns. The objective is to use that redevelopment as a catalyst for transformation of the neighborhoods surrounding that significant property, located on Lakeview, partially in both Cleveland and East Cleveland. On the map above, the Star Complex is in magenta, and the green circle marks a 1/2 mile radius surrounding that - the other colored areas are key neighborhoods and assets within that radius.

One might think when the capital of our state sues one of the biggest companies in our state, Sherwin-Williams, which is based in the Plain Dealer's home town of Cleveland, and is defended by one of the world's most powerful law firms, also based in our hometown, seeking over $1 billion, that story would rank a few real column inches in the local paper... perhaps hit Section One, or Metro. Not in the Sherwin-Williams Plain Dealer...

Zygote Press, Inc. is Northeast Ohio's only non-profit cooperative fine-arts printmaking facility. In its tenth year, Zygote is located with other arts organizations and businesses in Cleveland's Quadrangle neighborhood, a developing arts district complete with galleries, restaurants and exciting new live-work possibilities for artists and other members of the creative community.

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.

Nothing like seeing a good old lynching by newspaper editor to make people "Believe in Cleveland" and Northeast Ohio. In an editorial today from the power-brokering "We" of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the "editors" make a move everyone in the know has expected from them since September 29th, 2006, when the City of East Cleveland sued "dear friend" of the Plain Dealer Sherwin Williams for making East Cleveland "perhaps Ohio's most troubled city" by creating a public nuisance and economic and health crisis by selling lead-based paint long after it was well known and proved to cause permanent physical harm to humans. In a strong retaliation against the mayor who brought lead litigation to the State of Ohio, Eric Brewer, the Plain Dealer is creating dubious scuttlebutt about a situation in which the editors acknowledge "We don't know where the truth lies." To the Plain Dealer editors, this is personal... from their editorial: "as we've stated repeatedly, we do know Brewer can be rash, reckless and extraordinarily vindictive." The logical observation is that one of the world's most powerful and troubled companies, Sherwin Williams, and one of the world's most vicious law firms, Jones Day, (which have sued East Cleveland for suing Sherwin Williams) have partnered with the region's most powerful media outlet, to which Sherwin Williams certainly pays $ millions for advertising, and they are all attacking the mayor of East Cleveland in as "rash, reckless and extraordinarily vindictive" ways as they may. Is it the duty of a newspaper to focus on facts, and allow due process, even when the publishers fear that bites the hands that feed them? No, the only purpose of a newspaper is to make the owners money. Read the opinion of the editors of the Plain Dealer here and imagine being the PD's next victim, if you ever hurt their feelings or threaten their bottom line:

On next Wednesday, December 6, 2006,  it will have been two years since I proposed to Northeast Ohio that we can easily and inexpensively bridge the digital divide for East Cleveland, and other communities in need in the region, by deploying mesh wifi networks here and distributing recycled computers running open source software (see original posting below, and linked with other related files here). I called this vision ECHO - originally "East Cleveland Homes Online", renamed "Extending Community Home Online". While I've driven some ECHO progress, over these years, especially deploying to people in need recycled computers running Ubuntu, the mesh is still to come. The time has come.

Attention!!  LADIES!!!   This is It!  Dec 1st, 2nd, 3rd,  Cine Hypo Films and Attic Photo will be selling a large  variety of vintage and retro costumes and clothes for the holiday open house at the Tower Press Building.  Doors open Friday at 6:00 pm in suite #102,  in  my studio space.  
Clothes and shoes will be on sale from $5.00 to $45.00.  Pass the info to your friends. These are the clothes and shoes that have been used in a variety of the films and photos of mine.  Now they are for sale!  Please forward this to all that might be interested.  

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Attention!!  LADIES!!!   This is It!  Dec 1st, 2nd, 3rd,  Cine Hypo Films and Attic Photo will be selling a large  variety of vintage and retro costumes and clothes for the holiday open house at the Tower Press Building.  Doors open Friday at 6:00 pm in suite #102,  in  my studio space.  
Clothes and shoes will be on sale from $5.00 to $45.00.  Pass the info to your friends. These are the clothes and shoes that have been used in a variety of the films and photos of mine.  Now they are for sale!  Please forward this to all that might be interested.  

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Attention!!  LADIES!!!   This is It!  Dec 1st, 2nd, 3rd,  Cine Hypo Films and Attic Photo will be selling a large  variety of vintage and retro costumes and clothes for the holiday open house at the Tower Press Building.  Doors open Friday at 6:00 pm in suite #102,  in  my studio space.  

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Wow -  I just realized Pere Ubu is in town tonight for a concert promoting their rave new album, "Why I Hate Women" - 10:15 PM at the Beachland Ballroom, with the New Lou Reeds opening at 9 PM. I had seen a glowing review of the new album in CoolCleveland this week but didn't notice about the show, which is a must see.... wee need a better way to spread word about arts and culture in NEO. Luckily, there was a feature in the Plain Dealer Friday section today, which gives the new album huge props too.

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I was very pleased to be joined by the new Director of Development for East Cleveland, Tim Goler, last Monday, November 13, 2006, at the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council (GCLAC) Steering Committee meeting. Tim has an undergraduate degree in early child development, and has taught kindergarten and 4th grade, and he has a master's degree in urban planning from Cleveland State University, and has been active in that field, nationwide, including working in environmentalism in NEO. So, he is an excellent addition to the team in East Cleveland, and to the war against lead poisoning in our region. Short story, he has assured me East Cleveland is not intimidated by Sherwin-Williams suing them for suing the paint industry over the public nuisance of lead poisoning in that community, nor efforts of State Rep. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican, who hopes to tweak previously passed legislation that would prevent cities or anybody else from using the state’s public nuisance law to sue the lead pigment manufacturers - Tim Goler is in step with East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer and their law department in pursuing due process and justice and they will drive an aggressive battle against lead poisoning in this region.

In an article that makes one wonder whether the mayor of Akron is perhape lead poisoned, the Cleveland Plain Dealer today gleefully reports " The City of Akron has dropped its lawsuit against Sherwin-Williams Co. (NYSE: SHW) and other former manufacturers of lead pigment, but it’s not saying exactly why"  and "Motley Rice partner Jack McConnell said it’s his understanding that (Akron Mayor) Plusquellic wanted the suit dismissed for the time being, but that when the outside lawyers working with the city wanted to meet with the mayor to discuss his intention he refused." I'll point out that in the term of this mayor it is safe to say more people in his domain have been lead poisoned than died in 9/11, and than the Americans who have died in Iraq, and if it is not the fault of Sherwin-Williams it is Mayor Plusquellic's fault, and he should be subject to litigation. He has been mayor for five terms and, as Wikipedia reports: "He is widely praised and criticized by both sides of the aisle--and some affiliated with neither Parties. In 2006, it was announced by an independent watchdog group that the city was 1.1 billion USD in debt, more per capita then any other city of its size in Ohio. The public school system has suffered due to a very strong tax abatement structure Plusquellic employed to bring new development to downtown Akron. Some complain that the City does not run like a municipal body but a business, complete with press releases and news conferences." More to follow on this shift of responsibility for lead poisoning to the Mayor of Akron.

Dozens of best practices to be learned in this posting... From the North Coast of Lake Ontario comes the following story of an entrepreneur for sustainability in Toronto who has found “There is no longer a paradigm conflict, Renewable energy doesn’t have to cost more”. This entrepreneur, Alex Winch, found his strategy for retrofitting a run-down Laundromat to solar has paid off... "He’s kept prices low—lower than his competition—while tripling revenues and charting an annual 10% rate of return on investment." I'm exploring working with Alex and Toronto-based glass and neon artist Alfred Engerer to use solar and perhaps wind to generate the electricity for a major off-the-grid, hand blown neon installation in Toronto, while, in the big picture, Mondial is looking to go public. As you'll read below, "Alex Winch puts his money where his mouth is and, these days, he laughs all the way to the bank." For all the attention leadership of this community puts on renewable energy, what do we really have to show in the community. Perhaps a NEO Solar Laundromat would be the best next step.

I was thrilled today to see a large collection of the small sculptures, prints, sketches and drawings of John Jackson exhibited at the remarkable Zygote Press, on E. 30th Street and St. Clair. As john Passed away this year, this is an exclusive opportunity not to be missed.

Phillip Williams and I are pleased to have developed and host the social network for the near-50-year-old Cleveland Club of Washington, DC, at http://clevelandclub.org, and I just posted their next event, which sounds great... so I thought I'd post it here as well, in case any of you will be in DC Nov. 14th or know Clevelanders there... you/they should contact Brooke Stoddard (info below) to attend. Here's the invitation:

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There is an excellent string of postings on Brewed Fresh Daily worth checking out and interacting with here! Enough said.

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.