Before the dog eats it, Bill Callahan lists the blogs he reads every day.

During the meeting last night, we went around the room and everyone named at least two of the blogs they read the most. The original assignment was to post the ones you mentioned, but a variation of that was to post the blogs that you couldn’t go two days without reading.

So let the posting begin. If you were at last night’s meeting, please do so. I’d also invite those of you who couldn’t be there to do the same. And if you don’t have a blog, either comment on this one, or one of the other Northeast Ohio bloggers who post their list.

Thanks! This should be interesting.

UPDATE:

1. Read Jerry’s notes here

2. Jeff cops out pointing to his blogroll here.

3. The Lady speaks here.

4. Peter gets an incomplete here for not even copying someone else’s homework.

5. Paul the Tinbasher posts his here.

6. Jim Morana gets extra credit here for posting his list and posting pictures of his daughter

7. After a round of golf, Democracy Guy gets his homework finished.

8. Adam adds his own variation on the theme here.

9. Daniella spreads the love here.

10. Lori turns her homework in late here after dining on some new dish called impromptu tacos.

11. MaryBeth, the teacher who hates homework but caves to peer pressure posts her’s here

12. LadyGoat couldn’t be at class, but she sent her homework in

13. Ken Duncan completes his homework here.

14. Akron blogger Pho adds his list here. He’s new to the network, so please stop by, welcome him, and encourage him to come to The August Cleveland Blogger Meetup.

15. John Ettorre, in a poor example to his teenage boys, reverts back the bad habits of his days in school, turning in his homework late. (He always tries to have the last word).

16. Jack Ricchiuto did his homework, but fails to mention that he browses Flickr because there’s no f-in’ words.

17. Will is cavalier about turning in his homework late.

John Ettorre describes Wednesday Blogger Meetup here, but neglects to turn in his homework. But more important, he relates that Dan Hanson has received a grant from The Civic Innovation Lab to create a business plan for Computers Aiding People.

If you click through to the CAP site, there’s a long list of donations the org has made - all without a formal business plan. Just think what they’ll accomplished once they amp up their efforts!

Add your comments here.

Empress Taytu does an Ethiopian coffee ceremony:

It is the main social event within the village and a time to discuss the community, politics, life and about who did what with whom. If invited into a home to take part, remember - it is impolite to retire until you have consumed at least three cups, as the third round is considered to bestow a blessing. Transformation of the spirit is said to take place during the coffee ceremony through the completion of ‘Abol’ (the first round), ‘Tona’ (second round) and ‘Baraka’ (third round)…

You’ve got to experience it. They roast their green coffee beans in a cast iron skillet on the stove with whole cloves, then place them in a wooden bowl and bring them to your table. The smell is heavenly. Then they remove the beans to prepare the coffee. After your entree, your coffee is served from a jebena, in demitasse cups with lots of sugar. Along with the jebena is another clay pot containing a burning charcol sprinkled with frankincense.

Divine.

A bit more coffee lore for my readers enjoying a cup on Sunday morning:

After discovering his goats to be excited, almost dancing on their hind legs, he noticed a few mangled branches of the coffee plant which was hung with bright red berries. He tried the berries himself and rushed home to his wife who told him that he must tell the monks. The monks tossed the sinful drug into the flames, an action soon to be followed by the smell we are all so familiar with now. They crushed the beans, raked them out of the fire, and distilled the stimulating substance in boiling water. Within minutes the monastery filled with the heavenly aroma of roasting beans, and the other monks gathered to investigate. After sitting up all night, they found a renewed energy to their holy devotions.

I’ve resigned from being the organizer of the Ryze Cleveland networking mixers.

New to the NEO Blog Network, Jill Miller Zimon:

During the last several hours, with some sleep in between, I’ve tried to teach myself how to blog and write code - or at least, move code - or at least delete the right code I don’t want. I’ve felt like the member of an alien species who has invaded a world to which she may never acclimate.

This feeling made me think of the animals who treat our yard as their playground. Five deer, two very cute bunnies, a large furry slow-moving rodent and several chipmunks live around and under our house, and in our trees. From my writing space, I can see them romp, stop, nibble and scurry across sunlit and shaded portions of the grass.

But when we moved here over seven years ago, my oldest son - who then was five - labeled our family “the alien species” that was invading the animals’ territory…

Hopefully, my acclimation to the blogosphere will be a lot less existential.

I’d tell you to go there and leave a comment, but right now, only team members can do that. So welcome her to the network by visiting her site, then dropping her an email.

One of our civic leaders doesn’t get it:

An aquaintance I know from the civic innovation sphere dropped by Lucky’s, one of TWifi’s hotspots in Tremont. We chatted as he opened his laptop to use the free wifi…

I was waiting for him to step to the counter to order an iced coffee or other weather-appropriate drink, but instead he closed down his laptop after checking email and started to walk out quickly.

I yelled out “hey aren’t ya going to order something?” He responded, “not this time.” WTF! Here is a guy that is mingling with the community builders and volunteers hustling to improve our region, who seems to talk the same positivity and social network approach to inter-relationship making, but I guess it’s only rhetoric to him…

Pseudo-Civic-Leader, you know who you are! Next time I catch you selfishly taking broadband without acknowledging the provider with a purchase or even a WiFiThankYou, I’ll call you out on it more publically than a shout as you rush out the door, like naming names on this venue!

And to think, this person is trying to be a civic entrepreneur without being fueled by coffee. My God! What is he thinking? Trying to change the world and passing up a coffee at Lucky’s? If I was posting what Steve did, I would have printed his name.

On Callahan’s Cleveland Diary, Bill writes:

Not all our suburban “city leaders” are [as superfluous as David Lynch]. Rokakis moved to Rocky River when he ascended from City Hall to the County Building, but he’s still a serious Cleveland politician with one of the city’s biggest voting bases. Rev. Marvin McMickle, a Shaker resident who used to be “mentioned” for Cleveland mayor all the time, spends his days pastoring a church at 89th and Cedar. Dan Moore’s “Action Cleveland” program is a mess — in some respects an elitist, condescending mess — but he’s a smart guy who’s built and operated real businesses in a Cleveland neighborhood for twenty years, so you have to take his views about the city seriously.

But David Lynch, parachuting in from Euclid to save us? Is this the best the party of Perk and Voinovich can come up with?

Another reason why Northeast Ohio bloggers are gathering your questions to ask mayoral candidates.

From Bridget Ginley:

yesterday a friend from the Buzz hood dropped me an email with the news that the MoDa patrons had once again started a fracas that escalated into gunfire spewing all over. I am sure once again you won’t read about this in the PD or hear it on the news… we simply don’t want to admit our trendy neighborhoods turn deadly in the dead of night…

i just wanted to add to this that I lived in Ohio City from 95 - 97. IT was HELL. my parked car was smashed into by a crackhead who got stuck( police response time - 3.75 hours ), another crackhead broke into my studio to sleep ( no police response ), somebody was shot in front of my porch after a bad drug deal ( no police ) and finally my friend Toni had her bike stolen by a pack of kids at the WSM, punched in the face and taunted at work by the gang of kids who destroyed her bike for weeks in front of us- the cops did come and they told us nice white girls to ‘ move to Fairview Park ‘. Toni moved to North Carolina and i am was in the Clifton hood within weeks of that incident. Oh wait, did i mention the time my gallery was shot up ? now , i am not bashing Ohio City as a bad hood, it’s just you need to address these growing pains. It is not going to be easy kicking out the trash for your treasured young ( and they are NEVER really young ) professionals …

Bridget prints the email:

Unfortunately, there was another shooting on W25th last night. I was wondering how things ended up with the previous incident where thewindows were shot out at Buzz? Did the police catch the shooter(s)? I know this is something that you probably don’t want to revisit and would understand if you choose not to reply. I’m in the process ofworking with some public officials and residents to try to nip this problem before someone gets killed. Thanks for the reply Bridget. One of the things that bothers me about the two shootings is that both were patrons of Moda’s hip-hop nights. Thursdays and Sundays have become a free for all here and it is solely because of these kids coming into my neighborhood for this one reason. Last night it started with yelling…

Please click through and read the whole thing. I agree with Bridget (and it is very 80’s to say) but someone needs to stop the violence. Wasn’t Moda’s liquor license revoked?

Why couldn’t Cleveland make a similar commitment to the one Seattle has made?

With the long-term goal of “zero waste”, the city hopes to drastically reduce the need for landfills and to lower disposal, transportation and energy costs.

Through various programs, including mandatory recycling and fines for violators beginning in January, the city is urging its employees, residents and businesses to rethink how they dispose of everything from egg shells to electronics.

Dr. Jeff Cornwall wonders why employment is up in 43 states, but the media focuses on corporate cutbacks. He writes:

Why are jobs growing even though these large corporations are cutting their workforce? It is because job growth has been coming from entrepreneurs and they have been more than making up for any loss from the old economy. In fact, entrepreneurs have created over 77% of all new jobs over the past twenty years.

Is this why the economy in Northeast Ohio is still languishing? Is the local media still focusing on established companies in declining industries?

Steve would like to go to Empress Taytu for the coffee ceremony.

Would you?

Actually, I see this as an incredbile learning experience, similar to traveling to ACEnet or visiting Northeast Ohio’s green buildings.

After our dinner, I stood by the kitchen and started asking the cook how she prepared dinner. I asked how she roasted the coffee. I also asked about the bread and learned that it was made with flour from a grain know as teff. One of the ladies there said she’d be happy to show us how to make it.

Empress Taytu is an amazing example of an urban entrepreneur. It’s thriving after being open 14 years. I wonder why?

Anyway, let me know if you’d like to go with Steve and I. We’ll set something up soon.

Tim Russo’s wondering about a blog colony. Go there and add your comments.

This beautiful bit was inspired by Lo’s SBC DSL being down:

I am committed to holding a space–a small, but very real space– within my heart, of love, faith, and strength that can be of service to the world. Still there are days when I feel done in by things as huge as terrorism, as draining as medical bureaucracies, and as irritating as the phone company. Yesterday, grace was mediated through very simple blessings– figuring out how to hook myself up to a dial-up service so I could catch up on work, teaching a yoga class to women in an inner-city half-way house, taking my own yoga class, cleaning the house, and watching a movie with my husband and son. I felt very subdued. An image of my spirit being encased in tons of marble has danced around the corners of my consciousness of late. I see aggravation, fear, stupidity, and loss working like chisels in the hands of a master sculptor to liberate whatever strength lies buried within. So, just for today, I intend to wait somewhat quietly, and breathe, and show up for whatever is happening, knowing that bane and blessing are inseparably linked in the pulsating rhythms of life.

I was disappointed in “the big story” on Walmart. Bill Callahan was too:

PD City Hall reporter Olivera Perkins has been working on this story for at least a month. Isn’t that unbelievable?

The last actual event mentioned in the story (the “recent house party”) took place almost three weeks ago, on July 6. The “recent” meeting of bloggers at Metro Joe’s was a week before that (I was there). If Perkins did any follow-up interviews from those two events — other than the obligatory phone call with the AFL-CIO’s John Ryan — it sure doesn’t show in the story…

I have to admit, I really expected better from Perkins. Live and learn.

P.S. Twelve more days have passed, and the PD still has not written about the Secret Wal-Mart Subsidy… either the $32 million in New Markets Tax Credit financing itself, or the fact that it contradicts repeated claims that SYC is an unsubsidized project, or the bizarre attempt by Port officials to evade public scrutiny through the “private” Northeast Ohio Development Fund. Sorry, but I don’t think the “excited bloggers” passage above changes anything. Still counting.

Visit his blog for link and much more commentary.

WTF? Why is E&P focusing on the story that’s already published and not asking where the second story is?

And could the editor of one of the top 20 newspaper in the county please quit whining?

“It set everything in motion,” an exasperated Clifton told E&P Friday, just a day after a federal prosecutor asked a judge to order that the sources of the leaked documents be revealed. “If I kept it to myself, it wouldn’t have ultimately set the fuse. I think I was wrong to think that when I revealed it, it wouldn’t become the cause celebre that it has become in the media….

“I thought that it would help to dramatize to people the consequences” of the Judith Miller/Matthew Cooper case, he said. “Instead, it became a simplistic discussion of a chickenshit editor and a source he was protecting…”

Clifton also stressed that his initial decision to hold the story is not as unusual as some of the coverage has suggested. “People are deceiving themselves if they think editors aren’t making these decisions all along,” he said. “Every day editors are deciding not to run stories based on varying reasons. They just don’t usually talk about them.”

I’m in sure they’re good reasons too, unlike your reason in this case.

I haven’t had much to say on the topic, because like Chas Rich, I thought the Scene publishing a story about Nate Gray was anti-climatic. Didn’t Cleveland Magazine have the first punch back in June? And probably just a distraction from the other story that has yet to be published.

UPDATE: Jerry @ Red Wheelbarrow suggests some of the stories Clifton has languishing and that “if Iwas sitting on any of the above stories, I’d probably hide amongst the trees in the Rocky River Reservation, subsisting on moss, before publishing.”

From the Guardian:

Final figures from the BBC show that the complete Beethoven symphonies on its website were downloaded 1.4m times, with individual works downloaded between 89,000 and 220,000 times. The works were each available for a week, in two tranches, in June.

I’m pleased to announce that John Palmer who blogs at Cleveland Townhall will be one of the bloggers contributing questions and interviewing mayoral candidates.

To that end, I’ve set up a page for the process here.

Please send me your questions or leave a comment on this post.

By the way, your questions don’t have to be general for all candidates. You can ask specific questions of specific candidates.

SportoSlimmy, for the beach even.

Would someone please explain to me why the [expletive deleted] I have to go to the iTunes store to subscribe to a podcast?

A technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world’s children…

Do you think local CEO’s are going to know what a mesh network is? From KurzweilAI.net:

Podcasts, RFID tags, and mesh networks are among the 10 new technologies that should be on the radar of every chief exec.

For example, IBM is developing AI-based software called the Uber-Personal Assistant (UPA). It will analyze your schedule, e-mails, and the text you’re typing to figure out exactly what you’re working on. Then, it will alert you to new e-mails pertinent to that project.

From the Online Recruitment Blog:

This past week a good friend of mine in the SEO space here in Cleveland, Ohio told me about hiring someone through LinkedIn. My friend isn’t a recruiter, although the current growth of his business has probably made him one by default.

While exploring the service, my friend discovered SEO professionals with the exact skill sets for which he was looking. These candidates were dispersed around the country, but relocation has become a way of life for companies in Cleveland on the grow…

Great story. Check it out.

From Scott Suttle at Crain’s Cleveland Business:

Canadian news magazine Macleans sent writer Steve Maich to Cleveland to look at the controversy about Wal-Mart and the proposed Steelyard Commons development.

Well, sort of.

Mr. Maich is only nominally interested in Steelyard Commons or Cleveland. The headline and subhead give away the real agenda: �??Why Wal-Mart is good: We�??ve heard all the horror stories about the retail giant. They�??re just not true.�?�

He cites a 2002 study by Ryerson University on the company�??s impact on nearby small retailers that found �??the opening of a new (Wal-Mart) outlet is generally an economic boon for the whole area…

Scott comments “That�??s at odds with virtually everything I�??ve read about Wal-Mart, so I�??d need to know a lot more about the study than the story offers before I�??ll entirely buy Mr. Maich�??s premise.”

I’ve added my comments here

Mel at Please Choose Me writes about her pain and gain. She’s obvious been in Cleveland a while, she’s got the attitude:

I need to buck up and start from scratch.

I’m going to work on a business idea that has haunted me for years as I work on my job search.

And I’ll feel sorry for the company in upstate New York instead of myself. Because they made a very bad business decision by choosing to neglect the good of the enterprise in favor of sparing the ego of one individual. And I probably wouldn’t have gotten the support needed to drive change.

In retrospect I think I dodged a bullet.

Please stop by and say hello to her. I’m looking forward to seeing what she’s going to do, and how our Northeast Ohio Network can help her, and she us.

Thanks for all the feedback about BFD’s new theme.

My apologies to Internet Explorer users. As soon as I get a chance, I’ll look at the problems. All I can say is, it looks fine on my Mac using FireFox and Safari.

From - ToledoBlade.com:

Another part of the oxygen-depletion problem has to do with excess algae along the lake floor. Algae feed on phosphorus and other nutrients that enter the lake through falling rain or the runoff from rivers or sewage overflows…

For a different beverage, see Japundit » Firewater.