The Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Victor Liva today at Zion United Church of Christ in Tremont today--was transcendent.

The music felt like chocolate for the soul, after subsisting on bread and water for too long. 

Evan Knappenberger @ Common Dreams  - As I prepare to take my first college degree and enter into the world of the Great Recession, I look back on a time of great turmoil. Not only have we students roundly rejected the Neo-Con worldview, but we have been betrayed by the leader we helped to elect. I also look forward to a time of re-generation. Though our generation is the most democratic and least republican one since the civil war, don't be surprised if we turn away from the Democratic party soon. Fool us once, DNC, shame on you. But beware: it may not happen again.

Max Eternity - In her December 11th interview with African-American talk show host, Tavis Smiley, one of America's most respected Democrats in Congress, Representative Maxine Waters, said that Blacks need to hold President Obama to account.  Waters, a progressive member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said that Blacks are suffering as a result of many of the current White House Administration's policies.  And even though Obama is the first Black President, beloved for his charm, eloquence and sophistication, Waters said that that should not be justification for allowin

Max Eternity - In her official capacity of Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, Elizabeth Warren--Professor of Law at Harvard University--is bringing to light the real possibility that with current economic policies as they are, the US is on a crash course with a destiny likely to result in America no longer having a middle-class. Warren states:

Max Eternity - Quoting Fredrick Douglass on the subject of politics and power, celebrated journalist and independent TV host of Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman, commented recently that "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Goodman was being interviewed by PBS TV host, Tavis Smiley, when she made the statement, referring to the fact that even with a Democrat in the White House, progressive change will not occur if citizens do not hold leadership to account.

Average Unique Monthly Visitors for REALNEO Benchmarking Sample
November 2008 - November 2009

REALNEO/COOP members, we own this... we accomplished this... in just our fifth year of operations. Congratulations!

Matt Taibbi @ The Rolling Stone - Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008.

Norman Solomon for TruthOut - Eloquence in Oslo cannot change the realities of war.

As President Obama neared the close of his Nobel address, he called for "the continued expansion of our moral imagination." Yet, his speech was tightly circumscribed by the policies that his oratory labored to justify.

http://kucinich.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2850&Itemid=76

Representative Dennis Kucinich wants Congress to end the war.  Take a look at his proposal.

Naomi Klein @ Mother Jones - The highlight of my first day at COP15 was a conversation with the extraordinary Nigerian poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International. We talked about the fact that some of the toughest activists here still pull their punches when it comes to Obama, even as his climate team works tirelessly to do away with the Kyoto Protocol, replacing it with much weaker piecemeal targets.

Robert Scheer - Barack Obama’s faux populism is beginning to grate, and when yet another one of those “we the people” e-mails from the president landed on my screen as I was fishing around for a column subject, I came unglued. It is one thing to rob us blind by rewarding the power elite that created our problems but quite another to sugarcoat it in the rhetoric of a David taking on those Goliaths. 

The Resource-Based Economy

Abundance is possible right now for everyone; however, very few people are aware of this fact.  When a large number of people finally know, giant steps can be taken to transition to the resource-based economy; its largely an educational endeavor.  Watch the movies Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist_Addendum at www.zeitgeistmovie.com. Then, please provide feedack.

Garbage collection is more important than reading the Plain Dealer so I just canceled my newspaper subscription to pay for the garbage fee.  I was hoping our council members would vote against this fee but that didn't happen so the only alternative for me to make ends meet is to cancel something else that costs money.  Since I recently opened my upstairs apartment to my granddaughter who is currently working as a caregiver for my daughter's father-in-law who has Parkinson's disease so his wife can continue working full time at a nursing home as a medical records technician, I

Yes Magazine! - This June, the doors will open at the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, a state-of-the-art, nearly $6 million facility in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cleveland lost another one of its great historic institutions, Sunday morning, as the Lancer Steakhouse burned beyond salvage, and was demolished. Established in the mid-1950's, making it one the first restaurant’s in Cleveland owned and operated by an African American, the Lancer was for five decades at the heart of more political action, and home to more important moments and memories, than any other restautant in this region - a truly historic place in the evolution of Northeast Ohio, for the past 50 years.

And, free wifi.

Now it is gone.

ODOT and the control over ODOT to determine real estate and land use in NEO has been a reign of terror and an abuse of absolute power.  Whole neighborhoods and communities have been systematically wiped out.  Neighbors are expendable.

In the past, it was apparent that the man with absolute power was Albert S. Porter, County Engineer and Democratic Party Chair.*  

West Side Market - Road Divider Island - near W. 25 and Lorain-Carnegie Bridge 1976 photos from Cleveland Memory Project

Resident Advocacy Group - Tremont

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

In the Sunday Nov. 29th Plain Dealer cover story about the Health Line Steven Litt deserves much praise for mentioning in the fifth to the last paragraph of a 32-paragraph article that somehow, “a state psychiatric hospital planned near East 55th Street could discourage development of housing and other businesses nearby.”

At least Mr. Litt said it somewhere. This soft touch on something that could be very destructive to the future of Cleveland is puzzling. There is much to look into concerning this proposal.

As the day becomes night, should we fear the darkness?

Common Dreams - If the Republicans had created and inserted into the Democratic Party a secret candidate designed to trick Democrats into electing him, so that he could then enact Republican policies of robbing from the poor to enrich the rich, expanding the military budget to a level not seen since World War II, putting the nation deeper into a global war against Islam, sabotaging efforts to combat climate change, and further deregulating the financial sector, could they have come up with anything better than Barack Obama?

Despite public support and an obligation to evaluate cycling and pedestrian access to the proposed Interstate 90/71 Bridge from tremont to downtown, the Ohio Department of Transportation refused to do so.In response, a bunch of cycling and community groups took on the responsibilities ODOT dropped.  Come out next Sunday, December 6th, and learn about an exciting vision for a cycling and pedestrian lane on the bridge and why an exciting, beautiful path (along with a place to enjoy the view) to connect the towpath and downtown makes sense for Northeast Ohio

New York Times

MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.