Citizen Ed Hauser, Victorious In The Battle Of Whiskey Island - "Ask Not What Your Planet Can Do For You..."

It has been a year since Northeast Ohio lost our selfless civic activist "Citizen" Ed Hauser, silencing the great voice in the community saying that "The Process is Broken".

November 14, 2009 - the one-year anniversary of Ed's death - a group of family and friends came together on the beautiful Whiskey Island Ed saved, before a late Autumn setting sun, to toast a glorious man, and mourn a most cursed and horrible year in Northeast Ohio without Ed.

What does the dawn hold for this long-suffering region, in the second year without Citizen Hauser?

We have had discussions on REALNEO about the antitrust of Microsoft, and the harm that has caused the world, but few people remember back to 1999, when the antitrust case United States vs. Microsoft determined Microsoft's dominance of the Intel-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, Real Networks, Linux, and others. The court's conclusion was Microsoft must be broken into two separate units, one to produce the operating system, and one to produce other software components... a decision weakened on appeal (see below).

A decade later, we have the opportunity to explore related antitrust in the computer industry further, and put Microsoft antitrust in new perspective, as the November 4, 2009, New York Times reports "Cuomo Files Intel Antitrust Suit" - "Following the lead of foreign regulators, New York's attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, filed a federal antitrust lawsuit Wednesday against Intel, the world's largest chip maker."

With timing that could not be better for political candidates who actually care about the environment and real sustainability for NEO and the world... the greatest demonstration of the unsustainable harm of our current leadership of Mayor Jackson and all or most Cleveland City Council members (did any oppose), and of our other Powers That Be, will be showcased here, tomorrow, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports "AMP Inc. on Monday holds its annual membership meeting in Cleveland". AMP is planning a poorly conceived $3+ billion coal burning powerplant in Southern Ohio, at astounding ecological expense, that is largely the fault of Cleveland politicians committing to buy the unsustainable, dirty power to be generated there, for 50 years!

I was reviewing emails from last week and read, from the EPA, "EPA Proposes Tightening Standards for Lead-Safe Renovation Practices and Lead Paint Dust to Protect Children", which reports "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is marking National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week by announcing several actions the agency proposes to take to prevent lead poisoning."

Do you remember hearing anything in Northeast Ohio about last week being National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week? 

"I think Ohio can be the next Silicon Valley", said Cleveland Foundation President and "former head of North American research and development for Panasonic" Ronn Richard, for a November 2007 Cleveland Plain Dealer article titled "German solar company plans HQ in Cleveland". The PD then reported: "For months, the Cleveland Foundation has sent teams to Europe in an effort to sell Ohio to solar and wind turbine companies as the right place to manufacture."

Today, less than two years later, the PD reports "IBC Solar to leave Cleveland for San Francisco." "The company has maintained its one-person U.S. headquarters here since February 2008." "Cleveland Foundation President Richard hadn't given up Thursday evening. He was to meet with Buntain today to talk about the company's decision -- and what it will take to keep a presence in Ohio."

I was quite breathtaken when I scanned the list of contributors to Issue 6 - the NEOCON ploy to restructure Cuyahoga County - published today in the primary communications vehicle for NEOCON 6, the Cleveland Plain Dealer. 

Disgraced, bankrupt National City Bank contributed $30,000 for Issue 6 - in Federal Bail-out funds, must be.

The article reports "The primary authors of Issue 6, County Prosecutor Bill Mason and Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti, lent $5,000 each to the cause."

The Cleveland Plain-Plan Dealer has shown remarkable bias in the coverage and promotion of Issue 6 - the NEOCON-created, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor/Off Shore Wind Economy Expert/political insider's-insider Bill Mason-sponsored plan to eliminate Cuyahoga County government, as we know it, and replace it with some lawyerese slight-of-mind proposal for new leadership of our region... aka NEOCON 6.

Resident Advocacy Group - Tremont
RAG - Resident Advocacy Group
http://rag14.weebly.com/index.html
http://twitter.com/RAG14Tremont

Does anyone know what this stuff is?

I'm pleased to see a candidate for East Cleveland City Council has joined REALNEO... finally, someone to talk with about politics on the East Side. Welcome, Ephraim Abdullah, Candidate For East Cleveland City Council, Ward 3 - Tell Us Your Vision.

Welcome to REALNEO, new REAL COOP member and recent Cleveland transplant Bill Botkin. Thanks for joining our real NEO community.

Bill's REALNEO member bio reads: "I am a transplant from Columbus as of 2 years ago. My career has spanned 20 years in the copier/mfp industry and I recently made the change to the Office Supply/Furniture Industry where I discovered Sustainability. I am looking to become more involved in the Cleveland area." Bill came to the right place!

Because Bill filled out his REALNEO user profile with useful information about himself and his employer, I found reasons to learn more about Bill and spent some time visiting his employer's website - Today's Business Products - where Bill "discovered Sustainability"... and Today's Business Products seems to have a good interest in sustainability - they list many "green products".

Every so often I see this sign driving down Lorain. Usually it mentions that they're looking for a 3rd shift press operator or something...

I don't know who the make gears for, I don't know how good or bad business is, I don't know who runs this place...but man. Is "positively Cleveland" or "the Cleveland Foundation" or a least the city council rep. have a sit-down to see what's up?

Has the owner lost it because the auto industry finally died?

Did he exhaust his options to find alternate revenue since?

I have noticed, in the reader comments at Cleveland.com to their coverage about the great "Crisis at FirstEnergy" Lightbulb rip-off scheme, that many people in Northeast Ohio don't quite grasp this is an example of extreme monopoly corporate corruption of government - big, bad corporation using corrupt lawyers, lobbyists and politicians to steal $ millions from hard working citizens. That is not the work of Tree Huggers. Yet, the tone of Plain Dealer readers is to shoot the environmentalists, and Obama.

I realize there are many people of NEO who will blame even the worse corporate corruption, like this, on the most innocent people, like environmentalists, and have wondered why.

The pro-gambling-interested Cleveland Plain Dealer announced today that "Cleveland's City Council passed a resolution this week endorsing state Issue 3", which changes the Ohio constitution to give a monopoly on casino gambling to Cleveland Cavaliers owner and overnight "Don" Dan Gilbert. Councilmembers Brian Cummins and Zack Reed did not sign the resolution supporting Issue 3. The support of the other council members follows the endorsement of Issue 3 by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson. As these endorsements show support by these specific people for gambling in our community, and all the ills that go with that, it is time to set in place the names of these people as those accountable for addressing all the harm that is caused by expanding gambling here from now until they are dead... these are our advocates for gambling addiction in Cleveland.

Meet the Public Utilities Commissioners of Ohio - five "public servants" of the State of Ohio who have approved an electricity demand side management program that is so unfair and costly to residents of Northeast Ohio, and so advantageous to a select group of public utility companies, as to raise absolute doubt about the integrity, competency and honesty of those setting energy policy and regulations for our state. Of course, energy policy for Ohio determines our levels of pollution, which are high. These dubious people are:

Over the past four years, since I became involved with the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council, I have been astounded by the lack of concern about childhood lead poisoning among our largely DINK and empty-nested, baby-boomed, sprawled, childhood-lead-poisoned suburbanite sustainabilly Illuminati, who view today's lead poisoning issue as a poor, urban, peeling-paint code enforcement problem of little societal importance, other than proof the poor are pigs. They think old, suburban farts are not harmed by lead poisoning, and lead is not of long-term interest to them.

In coverage of truly depressing news in our region, the Cleveland Plan Dealer today reports "Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port authority passes on grant for Dike 14 preservation". The Plan Dealer reports:

"It is more prudent to allow for the Dike 14 planning to mature along the time frames anticipated for the lakefront projects as a whole," wrote port attorney Joel Pentz in a letter to a group of environmental agencies working to rescue and preserve the area as a wildlife refuge.

Pentz is absolutely correct. The Port Authority is working with these same environmental groups to plan the relocation and development of facilities so disruptive to the local environment and Lake Erie that it would be entirely foolish to spend a penny on any environmental initiatives within miles of the planned port relocation - especially along the lakefront. If we are seriously allowing over 1/2 billion dollars to be spent reconfiguring our lakefront for container traffic, do not spend a penny on anything not container port related around there until done - for the next 30 years or so.

At around 5 PM, on September 23, 2009, WKYC Channel 3 news reported "shocking and disturbing photos, allegedly of incumbent Mayor Eric Brewer, are being circulated in the community, The Investigator Tom Meyer has learned." Photographs that appear to be East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer in woman's clothes, some that are pornographic, have apparently been circulating in East Cleveland for over a year - reportedly many years - and been broadly published by the mainstream media since the 23rd.

On the 24th, I was called by one of the mayor's confidants and told to watch out for retaliation. It seems that Mayor Brewer told the confidant he thinks I distributed the pictures of the mayor. I am not the only person being targeted by such paranoid delusions.

Since June, 2003, bio-defense industry world-leader Ronald B. (Ronn) Richard has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Cleveland Foundation, the nation's oldest community foundation. Since January, 2005, Richard has also served as a Director of Emergent BioSolutions Inc., a leading biopharmaceutical company whose marketed product is BioThrax(R) (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed), the only FDA-licensed vaccine available for pre-exposure protection against anthrax infection - www.emergentbiosolutions.com.

Severe Particulate Matter 2.5 Hourly Reading in Cleveland at 8:00 AM on 09/23/09 - see current here

There is clear evidence the leadership of Northeast Ohio has failed to create an environment encouraging world-class monitoring, analysis, research, notification and controls of pollution created in our region of Ohio, and the consequences on residents and society. As a result, the people of this region have suffered significant health consequences, including early death, and impaired learning ability, crippling our schools and workforce, and society and the regional economy have suffered greatly. As much of our pollution is exported beyond our region, our failure to be world-class addressing pollution here causes harm world-wide.

It recently came to my attention that one of the most serious sources of pollution in Cuyahoga County is literally in my back yard. Less than two kilometers upwind from my home are the coal and natural gas fired external boilers at the power plant shown above, at University Hospitals, operated by Medical Center Company (MCCo), polluting the surrounding neighborhoods since the 1930s.

For the 30+ years of my life spent in Northeast Ohio, in childhood and as an adult, University Circle has been at the center of my universe. What Place is at the Center of Your Universe?

Thanks to REALNEO's lmcshane for pointing out one of the most interesting developments in the American "sustainability movement" ever - what appears to be Chicago's real news source, The Chicago Reader, broke the news, September 4, 2009, that "The Green Mayor's Green Policy Maker Leaves for Vancouver". This is the story of former Cleveland and Chicago area sustainability guru Sadhu Johnston, now set to become the deputy city manager of Vancouver.