A super secret mission is taking me back thru the Cool Cleveland archives where I came across this letter from the senior researcher @ the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland:

“You might be interested in the new figures on the depth of the job loss in metropolitan Cleveland during the recession that we remain in locally. They became available yesterday, and are posted up on the research section of the CEOGC web site. I attach a chart that adds up the bad news. As you see, Cuyahoga County has lost 7.7% of its jobs during the last three years. The raw job loss in Cuyahoga County alone was 62,403. Even the eight county Cleveland-Akron-Lorain-Elyria metro area lost 7% of its jobs, a raw job loss of 79,525. Cleveland’s job losses were more rapid than the -4.3% job loss in the entire state of Ohio, which lost 233,448 jobs. Further, Ohio’s job loss was more rapid than the -1.5% job loss in the USA as a whole. Thus, it is clear that the recession has been brutal in metropolitan Cleveland. The level of human suffering that has been caused by this massive job loss has been staggering. When we lose 8% of all our jobs, we have a massive disaster on our hands. Further, all that talk that you hear about the national recession being “mild” does not apply to Cleveland or Ohio. The recession has been severe here at the local level, and it continues to be severe right now… It is also interesting to note that although this same information has been in the possession of a very large local newspaper, they have thus far not seen fit to mention it.”

That issue was sent out exactly one month ago. I wonder if that “very large local newspaper” has done anything about it yet? On the verge of an election with major economic intiatives [not just Issue 31, but the levy to support the people’s universities too (public libraries, silly)], I would hope we be having an intelligent civic conversation [that’s right, civic. not just the 200 or so people that talk about it ALL the time] about how to get the local economic sustainable. That’s right. I didn’t say going or growing. I said sustainable. This isn’t some cycle we’re going through. This is change. Get used to it.

Via Purse Lip Square Jaw:

“Artist/curator friend Mark Soo did a piece for one of the Infest openings where he visualized the curators’ social network using balloons with people’s names printed on them as the nodes and ribbons tying them together as the edges (the data comes from “invites” he got the curators to send to one another).”

.Thanks, Anne! Click on the title to read more and view the images.

Niko says: “Thought you would find this interesting George. This summer I have to show you the secrets of making the classic, frothy, ultra refreshing, instant Greek ‘pioneered’ coffee! [kafe Frape] “Mmm! Delicioso!” …like the Italians would say my friend.”. I’m looking forward to it:

Iced instant coffee served in a water glass, the icon of 1980s cafe society, has been cold-shouldered by young Greeks lured by the smoother charms of Italian cappuccino.

According to statistics presented yesterday at the CoffeeBiz international fair in Thessaloniki, some 70 percent of young Greek coffee drinkers prefer cappuccino � which most drink iced, in a form pioneered in Greece � with only 30 percent going for the frothy �frappe� instant coffee, another Greek invention. The figures were based on a survey of 200 Athens cafes.

A few years ago, frappe accounted for 80 to 90 percent of coffee consumption at cafes frequented by younger people.

Greeks go through some 48,000 tons of ground coffee every year, while worldwide consumption reaches 6.6 million tons. According to coffee wholesalers, only 7 percent of the Greek population never drinks coffee.

Love this, the intersection of computers and creativity:

Almost everyone can and should be a hacker, according to the curators of a new exhibition on the fine art of hacking at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sof�a in Madrid, Spain.

Alongside the museum’s collection of masterpieces by Picasso and Dali, Hackers: The Art of Abstraction explores the connections between hackers, artists and anyone engaged in any kind of creative work, an idea that the curators of the show say was inspired by McKenzie Wark’s The Hacker Manifesto …

“I have been always fascinated by the invisible world of hackers and the notion of hacking as a tool to understand the world’s workings and to reconstruct it in a personal and creative way” …

“I believe that hackers are the great intellectual adventurers of our time, but in mainstream culture hacking often has negative connotations,” Sichel added. “With this show we hope to refute the negatives and make people aware that in an age of increased surveillance, hacking can be a vital countermeasure and a commendable act of self-defense.”

Emphasis added.

I’ll be at Phoenix Coffee, 2287 Lee Rd, Cleveland Heights, OH on Monday, March 1 @ 7:00PM for the Coffee meetup. Will you?

Here’s two that jump off the page at me: Chiapas coffee growers discuss fair trade at Ithaca High School

Two representatives from the Northern Chiapas Coffee Network spoke to Ithaca High School students Wednesday about the conflict in their country and their desire to set up local fair-trade coffee markets.

Miguel Gonzalez Hernandez, 50, an elementary school teacher in Chiapas, Mexico, and Angel Alvarez, 30, an agrarian engineer, told students in four different classes about how their organic coffee network operates and their involvement in the conflict in Chiapas.

and Coffee shop gives Everett Public Library a jolt

It’s become a regular habit for David Kelley and other frequenters of the Everett Public Library: Check out some books and get a cup of coffee.

“I think this is a great idea,” said Kelley, as he stood with a stack of library videos under his arm waiting for a chai-tea latte. “This used to be dead space. A museum piece that wasn’t that interesting.”

We’ve got lots of those here in Northeast Ohio - high schools, libraries, and independent coffee shops. Wouldn’t it be great if the new Morley Library they’re working on up the street from me had an espresso bar? I’d stop in more often…

On my trips around the net today, I’m noticing some sites didn’t really plan for leap year. How zen is this?:

“Default Quote Here…” - Default

Steve Goldberg lays his patent move [WWE enthusiasts will know that wrestler Goldberg calls his move the spear] on the Issue 31 debate at Cleveland Poetics. Nice work, Bagger.

If you sick of Linux talk, go to the next post down. I had to do some tweaking on the filter I set up in Ximian Evolution. Spamassassin [check out their support site, it’s a wiki] was marking everything as spam. I added the switch to the filter so it reads:

spamassassin -c /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf -e > /dev/null/

and it seems to be working.

Jon Husband puts up a couple of Valdis’ maps with a title “Any of These Look Like Traditional Org Charts to You ?”

These quotes are for my brothers-in-arms, Valdis Krebs and Doug Mazanec, who had to put up with my entreprenuerial rhetoric today:

“Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.” - Mao Zedong, 1893 - 1976

“Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: ‘No man should have so much.’ The capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: ‘All men should have as much.’” - Phelps Adams

“How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” - Ronald Wilson Reagan

“A communist is like a crocodile: when it opens its mouth you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile or preparing to eat you up.” - Winston Churchill, 1874 - 1965

“I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harvard University
commencement address, 7 June 1978

“Communism is like one big phone company.” - Lenny Bruce

Most of us here in America are fortunate. My parents were born here, as were their parents. I’ve only know one person personally who escaped from Hungary and their communist regime there. Have you talked to anyone from a communist or former communist country lately?

I’ll admit it. I’m feeling a bit drained these days:

More than ever before, our technical civilization has cushioned life on all sides, yet more than ever, people helplessly succumb to the blows of life. This is very simply because a merely material, technical culture cannot give help in the face of tragedy. The man of today, externalized as he is, has no ideas, no strength, to enable him to master his own restlessness and division… He has no peace.

How do you feel?

I guess I need to read the rest of FC:

“My title at KeySpan is corporate ombudsman, but what I really do is help foster change in this old company. I also try to preserve a sense of spiritual connectedness in our agenda.

I found out about it because of their emails, which had this eye catcher:

“Corporate America not only has financial problems, it has spiritual problems.” -Kenny Moore, Corporate Ombudsman, KeySpan Corp.

In keeping with my recent theme of highlighting brand new Ryze members, check out what Nick has to say:

Hello Ryzers!

Just joined this community this morning and am already excited about updating content. This is something relatively new to me- the thirst for updating content. I’ve tried three times to start a blog, but a little intimidated by the collaborative nature of them, I’ve never had much luck. Then, I found something to write about. my music.

So, the web becomes something to get people writing again. I’ve met a few of the “underground digerati”, pioneers in online underground publishing. It makes me realize The Web Is Underground Publishing. With so much to choose from, finding new sites, new sources, new news… its an amazing experience!

Incidentally, just got out of a meeting with some local people interested in developing media for the Northeast Ohio region- and while I won’t go into the gory details, I can say I learned the following valueable lessons:

1. Choice is good. The more options, the more connections, the closer we get to providing new perspectives- the deeper the culture becomes. We tend to think about culture in terms of art, entertainment, tradition while we generate culture every day. Getting that culture to people, getting people to gather around it… what offers more choice than the net?

2. The web is all about links. Blatantly obvious to most people, forest for the trees situation for me. Link to others, have them link to you, you will grow. Thus Ryze.

3. Stop thinking and tell your story. I am a serious person much of the time- way too serious. Intensity is my curse. If I can just produce without being concerned about the details, what’s next?

I couldn’t agree more. You’ll find a link to Nick’s blog on the NEO blogroll.

Driving in to downtown Cleveland on the interbelt, I was grateful to see the how blue the lake was after a long winter covered with ice.

Niko points out a little exchange going on over at Cleveland.com about Issue 31. Since I’m not a resident of Cuyahoga County, my vote doesn’t count. I’ll still weigh in with an opinion.

I think arts and culture are paramount to the quality of life in a community. I’d be happy to contribute an additional $20 a year for improving the QoL for people in Cuyahoga or Lake County where I live on top of all the other taxes I pay to maintain civic infrastructure. I’m not very excitied about civic infrastructure falling into disrepair, especially while I’m living in it!

I bagged Bogofilter for SpamAssassin. Works good so far…

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” - Mark Twain

“In another example that just about anything can be ranked, Purina has ranked the healthiest cities for pets. Cleveland comes in 28th place.” - Chris Thompson is the editor of CrainsCleveland.com.

I was arranging coffee with my friend Niko and asked him to email me his telephone number. I’m reprinting his reply with his permission:

Did I hear you mention a - and I quote - “stack of cards” ! (refering of course to a somewhat conspicuous and outdated archiving system used by humans during the late 19th and 20th centuries..)

Whatever happened to becoming a paperless society? I always think of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash…

Jack has been persistant in his queries about the value of Linux. Last night, I cited my tech support experiences. In three cases [WiFi card, Spam, and now the Up2date errors] I’ve gotten my answers from the Linux community. Each time, when I’ve search regarding the problem, I’ve found detailed info on how to solve them.

How much outsourcing would take place if the dominent OS was open source?