Winter in NEO--it gets cold, warm up.

The fire, the food, the music, the company--Sokolowski's on a cold Friday night in Cleveland.

Country Rose performed.

I just received a dozen or so CDs of Kodachrome slides which I had taken in 2000 in Siberia.  Looking at images which I haven't viewed for 11 years - but still remember like Wordsworth's "spots of time" - is pretty exciting. 

Three heros emerged from the TWDC Annual Membership meeting last evening.  Guy T. Black, Larry Cornett and David Gamble.  These three Tremont residents rose to the occasion and helped to lead the membership/voters into deciding against the by-law proposals that would give centralized power to the board.  The passing of this code of regulations would in many ways provide the organization with the guidelines for running a top down structure........to the detriment of the poor, elderly, minorities and long time residents of our community.

TWDC VISITED BY IRS

Tremont West Development Corp. (TWDC) rings out the old and brings in the new facing an Audit by the Internal Revenue Serivce (IRS). TWDC Board President Chris Alvarado was informed of the Department of the Treasury's intent in a letter dated December 21, 2010, which included/attached Form 4564, Information Document Request (IDR).

The EPA Environmental Justice grants announced below would fit nicely with lead poisoning eradication needs and objectives in Northeast Ohio, as funded by HUD. The Federal Government wants to attack environmental injustice at the core, through collaboration among Federal agencies, like HUD and EPA, with environmental justice organizations in local communities, like in the overly-lead-burdened Cleveland, so proposals to build EPA environmental justice programming to leverage impact of HUD Lead Eradication funding would make sense and likely appeal to grant review committees. Unfortunately, a community must recognize it is victim of ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE to apply for this grant money, and Cleveland has not yet made that recognition. We're the Green City by the Blue Lake.

Let's see if any local Environmental Justice organizations (are there any?) apply for and receive funding from this Federal EPA program for environmental justice, developing programs addressing lead poisoning here, in leverage of the $4.5 million just provided by HUD for lead poisoning eradication, as Obama has determined is a priority here. Let's see if anyone admits we have any environmental injustice here and applies at all.

From the EPA:

Environmental Justice Mailing List

EPA Seeks Applicants for $1.2 Million in Environmental Justice Grants to Address Local Health and Environmental Issues

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting grant applications for $1.2 million in funding to support projects designed to research, educate, empower and enable communities to understand and address local health and environmental issues. Eligible applicants from non-profit, faith-based and tribal organizations working in the community of the proposed project are encouraged to apply.

I'm pleased to see the Cleveland Plain Dealer giving coverage to HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims presenting a $4.5 million Federal Grant to Cuyahoga County to Protect Citizens from Lead Poisoning... on Cleveland.com, at least. Here is their advance story... Cuyahoga County gets $4.5 million to curb lead in homes. Especially insightful, from this coverage: "HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims is traveling to Cleveland on Friday not only to present the grant to Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald but also to formally announce the nearly $127 million HUD will spend for the communities nationwide with the highest rates of lead poisoning. Cuyahoga County and the city of Cincinnati received the largest of six grants awarded in Ohio. The city of Lorain is getting $2.1 million."

Most alarming, in coverage on Cleveland.com, is the feedback of trolls and readers registered there. As the parent of lead poisoned children, I now know what it is like to be a rape victim blamed for being raped. I have corrected some of the misinformation of truly despicable posters there - at least until Cleveland.com for some reason FROZE MY ACCOUNT.

I will say, for any poor behavior on realNEO - at the user and Admin level - it does not begin to compare with the wretchedness of life on Cleveland.com. I've posted below the comments up until I was blocked access, to protect them and save me the effort of rewriting my thoughts for you... I guess they own my voice and words on Cleveland.com now, and they don't want the world to know the truth about lead poisoning in their fair city.

And that is why there is such serious lead poisoning in their fair city...

 jmsullivan  January 27, 2011 at 11:06PM

I don't care about being an ignoramus about lead paint. I will venture to guess that over 90% of us were raised in homes built prior to 1978 which means they had lead based paint in them. My mom did not allow me to chew on the window sills, the house was meticiulously maintained and I have never known one person, not one, have any problems with lead poisoning. This is about common sense. For those that think we are ignorant, have you paid $13,000 on your personal dwelling to eliminate lead paint. If not, then why are you expecting us to spend our money on something that we thing is just plain STUPID and a WASTE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 27, 2010
CONTACT: Tom Angell (202) 557-4979 or media//at//leap//dot//cc

In YouTube's "Ask Obama" Contest, Drug-Legalizing Cop Comes in First Place

Obama Previously Laughed Off Marijuana Questions, But Can He Ignore a Cop?

WASHINGTON, DC --  A video question about legalizing drugs from a former deputy sheriff has come in first place in YouTube's "Your Interview with the President" competition, where users submitted and voted on questions to be posed to President Barack Obama.

Obama is scheduled to answer the top-voted questions today, Thursday, Jan. 27, at 2:30 PM EST in an interview that will be streamed live online at http://www.youtube.com/askobama

Google Analytics of weekly realNEO visits and pageviews from December 01, 2008 to January 26, 2011

As I've reported over the past year, while sharing realNEO site statistics with members - most recently, in November, marking our 7th year - realNEO traffic demonstrates very consistent month-to-month and year-to-year growth for visitors, visits and pages viewed. Where there are dips, like each Christmas holiday season, there is year-to-year growth - we've always had strong, consistent, steady performance as illustrated above, since December 2008 (the first month we had reliable Google analytics).

 Here is the cover image of the book first published in 1954.   The story is very relevant right here - in Realneo.   Dismantling ourselves....

Here is a synopsis from Wikipedia about the conch:The Conch

VOTE FOR YOGI AND GUY

Tremont West Annual Membership Meeting - January 27th 6pm - Dinner 6:30pm - Remarks 7pm Meeting at OLA/St. Joesph Center (2346 West 14th Street)

Join us for dinner and let's celebrate Tremont together! Please join us for our Annual Membership Meeting. To become a member of Tremont West, one must attend at least one meeting per year or fill out a membership card and live, work, or own property in Tremont. Membership is free.

Some Cleveland trailblazers deserving recognition are featured in this press release - the Cleveland musicians, writers and business innovators featured below are part of the authentic core that truly defines Cleveland as the Rock and Roll Capital of the World, and brings us the type of global appreciation that offers a sincere foundation for our future... if you can understand punk.

From Smog Veil Records:

Being successful generates a lot of talk and brings positive and both negative criticism. Apple App store has around 300,000 applications. Everyday new applications are received and rejected for different reasons. The reasons can stir controversies as happened with the Android magazine.

Uncountable FEDERALLY FUNDED PROGRAMS are administered locally by social service and community development organizations on behalf of the low income, disabled, and demographically disadvantaged folks. On the West Side of Cleveland, the industry of PHILANTHROPY rakes in approximately $2 Billion Dollars per year. How many folks understand how this "DEMOGRAPHIC DATA" fuels this local economy and why the leaders don't want to change their formats or accept responsibility for their actions to "ALLEGEDLY" empower the people? 

  Jan. 24: St. Petersburg Police Chief Chuck Harmon talks on a cell phone as he walks from the scene where a U.S. Marshal and two St. Petersburg police officers were shot while trying to serve an arrest warrant in St. Petersburg, Fla.

So we now begin to perceive that the people that are “service to self” will gain control over this Planet in order to eliminate those who live their lives to be “service to others”.

Android operating system is quickly becoming the most used mobile platform. The open-source architecture while has attracted developers it may also have a downside. Android application development is based on an open source architecture that makes some people believe that it is more vulnerable to hackers. The increasing number of android application development for Smartphone devices is due to its open-source architecture which makes it easy for developers to posts thousands of applications.

necessity may be either a possible justification or an exculpation for breaking the law.Defendants seeking to rely on this defense argue that they should not be held liable

Marijuana Policy Project 2011 Strategic Plan

As you can see in the strategic plan below, this year is an ambitious and bold one for MPP. 

LOBBY STATE LEGISLATURES

• Enact medical-marijuana laws in Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, and New York. (If we don’t succeed in some of these states in 2011, the progress we make will bolster our efforts in these states in 2012.)
• Expand Vermont’s existing medical-marijuana law by authorizing the sale of medical marijuana through dispensaries.
• Enact marijuana-decriminalization laws in Rhode Island and Vermont.
• Assist our allies in Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, and Washington state to protect and expand these five states’ existing medical-marijuana laws.
• Implement the new medical-marijuana laws in Arizona and the District of Columbia.
• Assist our allies in Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin with building support for medical-marijuana legislation, with the hope of passing bills in some of these states in 2013.

LAUNCH STATEWIDE INITIATIVES FOR THE NOVEMBER 2012 BALLOT

The Greater Cleveland Health Homes Advisory Council (formerly the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council) has announced a press conference, January 28, 2011, at 1:30 PM, at Cleveland State University Levin College Atrium, where HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims will present a $4.5 million federal HUD grant to Cuyahoga County to "conduct a wide range of activities intended to protect children and families from potentially dangerous lead-based paint and other home health and safety hazards". The press release states the "grant funding will clean up lead and other health hazards in hundreds of homes, train workers in lead safety methods, and increase public awareness about childhood lead poisoning.  Lead is a known toxin that can impair children’s development and have effects lasting into adulthood."

The obvious objective of this press conference is to encourage the MAINSTREAM MEDIA OF NORTHEAST OHIO to provide better information about lead poisoning prevention to the people of Northeast Ohio, to protect public health and improve our community. Encourage your favorite Media representatives (and politicians) to attend and serve the region better.

Also expected to attend will be Congresswoman Marcia Fudge,  Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and various other elected and appointed officials.

From The Other 98% - Please help stop the spread of Mad Billionaire’s Disease. Download and post this infographic to your blog, facebook page, myspace, reddit, yfrog, flickr, heck you can even print it out and duct tape the thing to your car!

The handset sales increase also resulted in the increase in iphone application development as well as the market for Android based devices. The recent market analysis shows that as Smartphone penetration is increasing Android is all ready to push ahead for the number one place. The lead that iPhone has over Android might be at risk. No longer is Android considered inferior because of its open source policy. In fact it has been readily embraced by the developers.

Good Morning Real NEO - something to think about over a good meal... "Steep Oil Prices and Food Shortages Will Likely Spark Deadly Riots This Year."

That's from TomDispatch - "A Regular Antidote To The Mainstream Media"... a project of The National Institute... "Dedicated to Free and Independent Press".

Perhaps the mainstream media has covered this... "we’ve entered the age of resource revolts and there’s no turning back"... "From now on, rising prices, powerful storms, severe droughts and floods, and other unexpected events are likely to play havoc with the fabric of global society, producing chaos and political unrest. Start with a simple fact: the prices of basic food staples are already approaching or exceeding their 2008 peaks, that year when deadly riots erupted in dozens of countries around the world."

Ready for more war... we all need to change many things about how we live just to reduce some of the horror of this, in years to come. For this year, full horror show:

It is funny how things work out.

I went to the Hemp Industry Association conference looking for hemp-based energy solutions, to help address our pollution crisis in Northeast Ohio, and I found a delicious, healthful hemp dessert, too - Hemp I Scream.

As I learned more about the inventor of Hemp I Scream - the founder of Hemp Sources, Inc. - Agua Das, I discovered he is a world leader in hemp innovation, including for energy - "Agua was the first person to make hemp bio-diesel fuel in the modern hemp era in 1993; made from virgin hemp oil he pressed himself."

As I got to know Das better, I learned he studied engineering at Case, and still has good feelings for the school and Northeast Ohio. He lived on Hessler, and was involved in starting up the Street Fair, in the beginning... we know some of the same people still there, from way back.

So the expert with the energy solutions we need in Northeast Ohio studied engineering in Northeast Ohio... and makes awesome desserts, too. Nice coincidences.

Joe Romm reports extremely bad climate news on Climate Progress. Sit down, take a breath (drink... hit...), and read on.... baby, it ain't cold outside! Canada sees staggering mildness as planet’s high-pressure record is “obliterated” - Climate Progress - January 23, 2011

Surface temperature anomalies for the period 17 December 2010 to 15 January 2011 show impressive warmth across the Canadian Arctic….

The largest anomalies here exceed 21°C (37.8°F) above average, which are very large values to be sustained for an entire month.

The disinformers and many in the media love to focus on where it is cold in the winter.  It has been cool where many people live.  Brr!

Unfortunately for homo sapiens, it’s been staggeringly warm where the ice is.  I’ll do a post on Greenland shortly, but the NSF-sponsored researchers at UCAR/NCAR  have posted some staggering data on just how warm it has been in northern Canada: