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 have lived in Northeast Ohio most of my life... have founded the amazing realNEO... have done lots of other important work here and worldwide... have proposed the most innovative economic development platform in the region...

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.

The first concert I ever attended was one of the best possible - Led Zep in their prime, for a big arena show, with levitating drum platform and all the ampification, lights, and lasers technologically possible, at the now-long-gone Coliseum... apparently the first rock concert at the Richfield Coliseum, in January 1975... I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was doing some research on lead paint on toys - still a huge problem in America and world-wide, as the lead industry keeps expanding - and I thought about all the lead American children were exposed to growing up in my generation, and the generations before me, during the foolish industrial era in America. Consider the harm caused to us - older Gen-X, Baby Boomers, down through "The Greatest Generation" - the greatest price for which is still to be paid in healthcare-costs, pain and suffering for industrially-impaired older adults and senior citizens suffering for such socially-irresponsible behavior as chewing their pencils in school, as kids.

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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Dear Norm,

I'm wearing red today, because today is Equal Pay Day. This is the day designated each year to mark how far into the year the average woman must work to earn what the average man made the previous year. Women working full-time and year-round currently earn about 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, so today marks the day using 2009 figures that an average woman would finally earn what an average man made in 2009. In Ohio, this pay deficiency ($33,628 per year compared to $45,214) for women and their families in real terms means they could buy food for another two years or pay mortgage and utility payments for nine more months.

I was pleased to see posted on Secretary of State Brunner's campaign for U.S. Senator blog a video provided by the Cleveland Plain Dealer of her opening remarks at the City Club debate, this week. This was the highlight of the entire debate... watch to the end, as she differentiates herself from Fisher - nice to see the PD make this available, including allowing it to be embedded in other sites.

Richard T. Andrews writes an insightful blog called "The Real Deal", which he describes as "Periodic reporting and commentary from Cleveland Heights OH. Primary interests: Cleveland/NEOhio regional public affairs; African American politics, commerce, culture and society; public education; national and international affairs; Cavaliers∫Browns∫Indians." I receive it by email and suggest everyone on realNEO check it out. I strongly agree with his most recent posting "Brunner the Best for Ohio Democrats" and suggest all Ohio voters read through to his posting, which I introduce below:

In reflecting on the future of the food economy in America, one must understand the role of genetically engineered crops, which have blown-apart food economics and ecology in America and increasingly worldwode since their monopoly-mounted introduction 14 short years ago, driven by Monsanto covering the Earth in Roundup, AKA glyphosate.

As the world and America move forward from an age of rampant, generational, systematically-enabled global corporate, government and individual leadership incompetency, corruption, excess, conflict and greed punctuated by widespread warmongering and the rising and bursting of global energy, military, housing and financial markets, and an escalation of climate change, throughout the first decade of the 2000s, some of the great concerns of the world's legitimate economists now center on the transference of wealth and opportunity from excessively greedy individuals and enterprises - which have been riding a wave of imperfect monopoly wealth creation and productivity realignments, only benefiting large corporate executives and stockholders - to now benefit excessively impoverished common workers, who are heavily underemployed and outside the power/elite fountain of trickle-down opportunity proposed to be the benefit of unenlightened contemporary "capitalism", as we have seen over the past several decades.

Come to watch films, network, socialize and eat some great Chinese food (not mandatory)!

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CLEVELAND, OH — Douglas A. Blackmon, an author and winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in the General Nonfiction category for Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, will address The City Club of Cleveland at noon on Friday, April 16, 2010, atThe City Club of Cleveland, 850 Euclid Ave., Second Floor. 

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Ohio Secretary of State and realNEO member Jennifer Brunner shows love for realNEO, so there is certainly much to support about her (besides thanking her for cleaning up the Secretary of State's office)... and she is running for US Senate, so now is your chance...

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European Trader in a Hammock, 1800s
Wood, pigment
Unknown artist
Bembe, Congo-Brazzaville

Living in Cleveland, when I think of businesspeople from Detroit I picture someone very much like the European trader depicted in the African carving above - big-game-trader, big-thinker Dan Gilbert, coming from the West to transform Cleveland through gambling... carried through our streets by our native leaders and their subjects. I expect about as great an outcome for Cleveland as such "Westerner" infestation brought to Africa, looking more like complete annihilation than salvation... except in the art, where change may be beautiful, despite being tragic.

I wouldn't go to Detroit or anywhere for a casino, but I am planning to visit the "Motor City" shortly for their museum, to celebrate "Through African Eyes," a major exhibition exploring the European presence in African art that opens April 18 (through August 8, 2010) at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) - the images featured here are from this exhibition. I won't hold Detroit's gambling interests against that city, when their leaders at the DIA have traditionally sought to elevate the community above the annihilation of their local culture.

I was reading a moving article on NYTimes.com today - As Families Gather at Dover, Efforts to Ease Pain - that had a surprising fact... President Obama Gave $250,000 Of His Nobel Prize Money To Help Build A Hotel?!?!

There can be no question Ohio has a dismal record on public policy and the environment - we are a national disaster. The Governor-appointed Public Utility Commission has failed to protect the public interests of citizens and has embarassed the citizens of the state in countless ways, most recently with matters surrounding an absurd light bulb subsidy program they divised with First Energy, report on realNEO here..."Let Me Introduce To You Five Public Servants Who Just Cost Citizens Of Unreal NEO Millions Of Dollars, While Poisoning Them".

Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports energy policy in Ohio is moving from laughable to criminal... damn-well communist... announcing that "Governor pushes for permanent discounts on all-electric heating", leading off with the following:

Here's an opportunity to hear one of the world's most acclaimed writers on the Nuclear Age. Jonathan Schell, author of the landmark 1982 book, "Fate of the Earth," will speak at Case Law School, Monday, April 12, from 12 noon to 1 pm. The program is free and open to the public. He will speak on "Obama's Nuclear Disarmament Pledge: Has the Time Come?"

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I've been printing out many of the unique panorama photo collages of real NEO that I have created over the past six years, which I have displayed as headers on realNEO, as I plan to sell editions of some favorite images to raise money for realNEO. I'm currently producing a series from many shoots at Whiskey Island, in memory of my friend Ed Hauser.

They are stunning, printed in their full glory. Composed of often dozens of high resolution images, these panoramas are 100s of megapixels in size and, printed at 300x300 ppi resolution, they are around 8 feet long... and some may be printed up to 36 feet long, while still holding a strong image.

How low will Cleveland and Northeast Ohio sink in the global new economy, as a result of the embarrassment the leadership of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and their Newhouse parents have brought upon this community, as a result of their pathetic if not illegal misuse of information technology and the Internet here? It doesn't get much lower than this... "Cuyahoga County Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold files $50 million lawsuit against The Plain Dealer and others".

Linked above is the PD spin on this case. Read the actual lawsuit linked as a PDF here (1.13 MB)... and read all the way to the end, where it concludes "Plaintiffs demand a trial by jury by the maximum number of jurors permitted". Smart move for the citizens-Saffold to choose to be judged by their peers.