The other day I had coffee with Alex Ennes of Gateway:Church (check out his Best Kept Secret post) and among all the stuff we talked about was this program:

Expanding Fresh Coat Cleveland in 2007

As we wind down the season for 2006 and look forward to 2007, the Fresh Coat painting process escalates. Word continues to spread and suburbs are contacting us to reproduce similar projects in their communities. Word just came out in the news that poverty is spreading to our suburbs at one of the fastest rates in the country…

Latest News - Cleveland Hope

I think it’s pretty important to acknowledge this post by Bill Callahan, not so much for it’s content (I disagree with MaxSpeak’s premise re: fear. ‘Kos is backing another horse. One whose jockey pays him) as for a(nother) sterling example of how bigboxblogs treat/view Ohio and the Ohio blogosphere.

Callahan’s Cleveland Diary » Blog Archive » The Markos vs. the Menace

Thinking back to Sunday School, I recall that Nehemiah wept when he saw the walls of Jerusalem and rallied his people to help rebuild them. A walled city might not be the right metaphor for Cleveland, but conceptually, I think Alex is right on with the work he’s doing:

We talked a lot about what Cleveland needs most in order to flourish downtown. I expressed to him Gateway Church’s desire to help establish community and service. As I look around, I am amazed at how tightly compressed the “neighborhoods” are, yet I also hear how people have trouble getting connected. When people aren’t connected, they leave. Plain and simple. Cleveland’s downtown is attracting people to live down here. But, are we working on closing the back door?

It certainly isn’t going to do us any good to have as many move in’s as we do move out’s. As a matter of fact, I see moving trucks almost every day. Some are moving in. Some are moving out. If we can establish a community environment where people get connected, then I believe that we will be extremely effective in closing the back door. Sure, there are other factors as well (jobs, safety, etc.). You certainly can’t downplay their role. But, in order for a neighborhood to survive, it needs more than cool ambience and fun things to do. People need connections:relationships:friendships:allies…

Emphasis is mine. Interesting that what Alex refers to as “church planting” sounds an awful lot like network weaving.

An Ongoing Conversation from Gateway Church » The people you meet

An opportunity:

Ohio currently ranks 51st among the states, lagging behind even the District of Columbia, in obtaining federal funding for job training through the Workforce Investment Act.

Job growth, education are key to Ohio’s future

And yet,

Ohio Ranks Best in the Midwest for Aerospace Propulsion and Power

Looks like the Mahoning Valley is getting its act together. Next step, I imagine, will be tighter connections with Akron and Pittsburgh.

Tom Humphries, president of the Regional Chamber, said after the meeting that he felt a sense of urgency building among business leaders.

Humphries formed the Business-Led Development Group of Mahoning Valley in 2005 with U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, and David Sweet, president of YSU. It has four committees — constructive dialogue, brainpower, branding and innovation.

Valley’s elected officials discuss cooperative effort

Regionalize, group urges area leaders

One of the most impressive cars at this week’s Philadelphia Auto Show doesn’t come from Japan, Germany or Detroit.

It came from the auto shop at West Philadelphia High School.

The car - designed and built by students in the school’s Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering - delivers more horsepower than some Porsches and gets gas mileage comparable to a Toyota Prius. It runs on fuel made from soybeans.

Last year, the car was the surprise winner of a competition for eco-friendly vehicles, the Tour de Sol. The students, hoping to prove their success was no fluke, will enter the car again this year.

They’ll be back despite an effort by school district budget-cutters last year to eliminate the program. It was saved by an outcry from parents and area auto dealers, who see the program as a source of hard-to-find trained mechanics.

The high schoolers’ engineering feat may have observers wondering why Detroit hasn’t already made such a car…

(more…)

From this week’s PostSecret, riffs.

Via RealNEO.us:

Sims Park in Euclid, Ohio is home to a pier that is designed to camouflage a sewer outfall. On this day my daughter and I find it to be billowing out water visibly laden with sediment. My daughter knows this is our communities source of drinking water.

A near by dead fish is an ominous sign, and the source of her first question. She asks “are there still some of those fish around”. I tell her “The sheephead, yes, its not extinct, if thats what you mean”. Only I have not the heart to tell her about the unknown disease wiping them out in our lakes western basin…

There’s a GooTube video after the clickthru.

North Coast Green Spieler: Brown City Dead Lake Volume 1

You should notice an appreciable increase in BFD’s performance, thanks to the guys at HMon. They’ve invested in a better machine for their open source platforms since they’re hosting several Joomla sites for clients. They’re rock-solid with Windows hosting, and have worked hard to solve the problems BFD and it’s open-source packages have caused. I can’t say enough good things about them.

YouTube - Carleton Singing Knights - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (A CAPPELLA!?)

…writes Joel Kotkin in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Link. Economic and income growth are down, income disparities are widening, the cost of housing is prohibitive, the middle class is fleeing the big coastal cities for other states or the Inland Empire, and politicians of both parties are clueless, he writes.

 Today, economic growth in California — like that in much of the Northeast — seems tilted largely toward elites. Once a state known for its relative social democracy, the Golden State is becoming what Citigroup strategist Ajay Kapur has dubbed a plutonomy, dominated largely by a small wealthy class and their spending.

The Blue States, that is.

Ed Morrison is out of the country:

Beginning on Saturday, I will be traveling to Mumbai, India to do some consulting on regional economic development with the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority. I’ll be using this space to collect my thoughts and insights…

Mumbai Perspectives: Overview

While some media outlets pass along talking points without question, when you’ve got a blogger on the frontlines (not “embedded”), things look a bit different:

I am asking all media when reporting the story of the small increase in funds going to homelessness mention the huge cuts to housing programs by HUD. While HUD champions their commitment to ending homelessness in 10 years, which happens to be two years after they leave office, they cut many of the mainstream programs that homeless people depend on to move into housing. One year of funding homeless programs in the United States is $1.4 billion dollars for the millions of homeless people in America, which compares to over $300 billion spent to fund the War in Iraq and a current $100 billion supplemental funding bill pending in Congress to support the war…

clevelandhomeless: Homeless Dollars only Half the Story

Will the ABJ article be ignored as well?

The present holds bad news for retail jobs and wages in the Akron area: Both have decreased locally and statewide in the last five years.

“I think in Ohio for the forseeable future, it’s going to be a a zero-sum game,'’ said Bob Antall, CEO of LakeWest Group, a retail consulting firm in Lakewood. “You’re going to see winners and losers, and it’s not a real healthy economic climate…'’

Callahan’s Cleveland Diary » Blog Archive » Beacon-Journal: Ohio retail “a zero-sum game”

Bill MacDermott posts a photo of his solar shingles, but more importantly, thoroughly describes it, including costs.

Who Says That Solar Panels Have To Be Ugly??? | REALNEO for all

Steve Goldberg:

I called a client today, one that was supposed to call me friday, about when he is going to pick up his laptop that I serviced. He told me that his newborn baby of just a few months died friday. Then he had the gall to apologize to ME.

It is hard to care about all those mundane tasks, the prideful activities, the projected discomfort of having to get up early in the morning for rest of my life or next layoff, when faced with this tragedy.

All the interviews, meetings, networking. All the letter writing, art watching, literature reading. All the analysis, “higher thinking”, education, and contemplation. None of it seems very important in the face of a death to a friend’s baby, with eyes that barely could even focus on this world. A world that we have built up in our minds to be so significant, but is nothing to the sorrow of two young parents…

What’s In The Bag - Post details: Getting Out My Head

Thanks to Maggie Thurber’s blog, we know about this, and I know I probably should go myself, but at the least I expect some of our leaders to attend (after all, they’re elected to represent US):

Dear Lake Erie Coastal Community Leaders and Residents:

You are invited to attend a free two-day workshop that will provide you with several useful tools for alternative community growth and development planning, including cost-benefit analyses of development scenarios, case studies of US EPA Smart Growth award communities, implementation tools, and a community scorecard… .

Date/Location
March 27 - 28, 2007
9 am – 4:30 pm
Erie County Building Commission Chambers
247 Columbus Avenue, Sandusky, OH
http://www.coastaltrainingohio.com

Who Should Attend
City councils and commissions, planners, developers, business leaders, realtors, civic organizations, concerned citizens from Lake Erie coastal communities or counties

Thurber’s Thoughts: Coastal Planning & Development Workshop

Mind you, this is just hearsay, but perhaps the CF should save the $12K they’d spend on the contest for a new logo and run “Cleveland Foundation” thru the handy Web 2.0 Stylr.

Does this mean we’ll be see the same old crap from Clear Channel and not ads promoting things to do when you come to Cleveland?

The city of Cleveland is revamping its in-airport advertising program. A joint venture of Interspace Airport Advertising and Clear Channel Outdoor Cleveland has been awarded a 10-year contract that promises to generate $27 million in revenue for the city. Airport travelers can expect new advertising kiosks in about three months.

Crain’s Cleveland Business

A tale of two bloggers. In one corner Wendell Robinson:

As a result of the success of work done by Meet the Bloggers, the Obama campaign has been kind enough to extend an offer to a few of us involved with MTB to attend the Senator’s visit tonight in Cleveland in a blogging capacity. It’s our hope that more of the presidential campaigns will extend the same courtesy when they visit the area…

In the other, Anthony Fossaceca of BlueOhioan.com.

wenBLOG » Live blogging Obama

Anthony gets the first post off shortly after 5PM with some good description, but Wendell unloads with a picture to recover. Robinson follows up with some namedropping, beating Fossaceca to the punch (unless their server’s timestamps are off).

I’ve set my Firefox tabs to reload each of their pages every 5 2 minutes. I wonder if they’re reading what the other is writing?

(more…)

This is disappointing. I expected a bit more from Mr. Gore.

Press Release:
GORE MANSION USES 20X AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD
Gore’s mansion, [20-room, eight-bathroom] located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=367

Jason Haas has the best summary so far.

Psychobilly Democrat

Lots of photos up on flickr of the rally.

An email:

Shalom Y’all,

It looks like my server is infected with a Trojan and is throwing pop-ups. The source may have come from American Pink Collar because a reader has emailed me to say that they first noticed it there and then at HCWW, but that’s just anecdotal.

Please let people know to stay away until I give the all clear. Thanks.

B’shalom,

Jeff

I’ve got to start thinking about mine:

Planting and tending a garden allows us to spend time with Mother Nature in a very personal and hands-on way. We work in tandem with nature while gardening-honoring the seasons, participating in the life cycle of various organisms, experiencing the unique biorhythms of our environments, and transcending all that divides us from the natural world. As we interact with the soil, we are free to be ourselves and reflect upon meditative topics. Fresh air invigorates us, while our visceral connection to the earth grounds us.

Though you may plant a garden to grow food or herbs, or for the pleasure of seeing fresh flowers in bloom, you will likely discover that the time you spend working in your plot feels somehow more significant than many of the seemingly more important tasks you perform each day. Whether your garden can be measured in feet or is a collection of plants in pots, tending it can be a highly spiritual experience. You, by necessity, develop a closer relationship with the soil, seeds, water, and sunlight. Nurturing just a single plant means cultivating a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that permit it to thrive…

DailyOM - Healing Gardens

With all the rhetoric you hear from local union leaders about how China is killing American manufacturing, maybe they should focus on competing with the South first. Seems to me to be another argument for making Ohio a ‘Right to Work” state.

“It continues the company’s strategy of building plants in southern states, where automotive factories are largely nonunion.”

Link

Got an email on this late last night, looked at it before it went live, and am just getting around to it:

I worked with Ray Bethea to set up his blog, Greenback Chronicles, the site and first post are now up. The blog is about personal finance, from the perspective of the middle class American. Ray is an excellent writer and if you’re interested in this field I think his blog will be one you’ll want to read. The first few posts are going to be a little longer, as they serve primarily as introductory material. After the first four are up, I’m going to package them as an e-book that you can download and pass along if you’d like…

I wonder how long it’ll take for the first post to be fisked over at TheWritingOnTheWal.net?

The Daily JDA · Blog Launch

A couple of thoughts on Barack Obama. I think the “lack of substance” might not have been so striking if a candidate would do a Meet.The.Bloggers interview. Going back to our early interview with Ted Strickland, the bloggers that participated or listened to the interview experienced more depth then a 30-minute stump speech @ a pep rally.

On the other hand, Ted Strickland as a candidate in Dec 2005, was much less developed then the Ted Strickland who debated Bryan Flannery before the primary in 2006. Maybe one of these days we’ll get a follow up with Governor Strickland.

What do you think it was about Obama? Was it the forum or the candidate?

I’m loving this:

I’m willing to turn a blind-eye to the “forgotten triangle” project which was so aptly named in that you’ve conveniently forgotten your support (or lack thereof). I’m not holding you accountable for the failure of the city to recognize the tax loophole implications that accompanied Steelyard Commons (hey it occurred on the previous mayor’s watch… even though you were the City Council president AND the Finance Committee chair at the time). That’s old news and water… err politics under the Lorain-Carnegie bridge.

But blah is not good enough. It may qualify as acceptable to those in the community’s intelligensia ranks who prefer to lord over this once proud city’s slow cancer-like death, losing a busload of people everyday to the suburbs and points beyond. And hey, what do they care - they’ll be dead by the time we drop below 200,000 residents (and besides they don’t actually live in the city, they just occasionally work here). They like blah. It’s easy to manage city hall when you know exactly how it will perform.

Not me, I’m tired of blah…

Some other key phrases/ideas:

• “I want Mike White to come back.”
• I want a Daley-like mayor (he of Chicago’s Meigs Field lore) who would take a backhoe and a bulldozer to Burke Lakefront Airport - RIGHT NOW.
• I want a mayor who will go to Columbus (how often have you actually visited the state capitol since you took office?) and demand that the state legislature and the new Democratic Governor take on Cleveland as a project to move Ohio forward.
• FIX THE DAMN SCHOOLS!
• Tell the truth - the population models of 1950 don’t work in a modern society where transportation and technology have made commuting (whether physically or virtually) the way of this region.
• Take on some more sacred cows like the CDC’s.

Click thru an read the whole post. It’s that good.

wenBLOG » My state of the city

Pastor Alex is bootstrapping his church, enlisting some help to accomplish their mission of serving the city:

Our first mission team (college students from Louisiana) will be here Thursday through Saturday. If you want to meet some of them, let me know and we will arrange a time. I know they will be at my apartment complex quite a bit putting together “gift bags” for area merchants/apartments/condos, as well as labeling our direct mail card. They will also be helping West Side Eccumenical to read to kids and distribute literature so that people in surrounding neighborhoods are familiar with WSEM’s social services. Just wanted to give you a “heads up.” On March 11-15 there will be 130 college students staying at the Holiday Inn Downtown. They are learning about planting a church as well as assisting us in cleaning up the downtown area before St. Patrick’s Day, and other projects.

From the latest entry on the Gateway:Church blog:

We need a lot of things rebuilt and we need self-aware leaders. We need leaders who have the right motivation and are passionate about what they are called to do. We need leaders who know how to get the right things done with the right heart and won’t take advantage of situations just because they are a leader…

Someone would tune in why?

“Townhall.com is the preeminent umbrella site for conservatives because it combines the time-tested power of talk radio with the cutting-edge power of the blogosphere,” said Blackwell…

Gimme a for-instance, Mr. Blackwell. Rush? Stern?

As Ohio Goes, So Goes the Nation -An Ohio Progressive Politics Community Blog

We have had some enlightening discussions here in Mumbai about the process of economic transformation in a democracy. (India is facing different challenges in this regard than China.)

Hunter and I met last night with the business leadership of the effort, Bombay First. We discussed the importance of transparency to transformation.

They will be soon launching a new web site to keep people informed of their many initiatives. Visit the site.

This approach would work well for the Fund for Our Economic Future and the Greater Cleveland Partnership.

Issue 18:� I don’t mean to tie them together, but� I’m just thinking aloud here…� how do you think the landscape for the Cleveland Arts Prize will change since� the passing of Issue 18?� Do you think some consolidation needs to take place amongst arts orgs to make them more “appealing” to being funded by Issue 18? What role do you think the CAP (if anything) might have in deciding that?� What about other arts-based organizations? How involved are they?

The bigger issue I am leading into here… Am I the only one who is still wondering why it’s been so quiet since Issue 18 passed? Certainly we can do better than “Cuyahoga Arts and Culture is currently working on updating this site. Please check back for updates.” Wait, wait, wait, lemme get this straight… you’ve PULLED DOWN the entire site where “sin taxpayers” are supposed to learn more about where the money for persecuting smokers is going?

This is an abomination… who is managing the money? Who is handling the program management? Why not leave up the old site so you (whoever the heck you might be) can UPDATE Northeast Ohio on what you’re doing? Why not have some good old fashioned transparency??? No one told you this would happen, did they? Oh, right. I forgot… maybe I did.� Maybe not explicitly enough, but I did.

Lentine’s Music Closes: A sad state of affairs, really. Longtime music store purveyors Lentine’s is really going out of business — actually, when I was originally wishing to write this entry, they weren’t “going out of business,” so to speak. They were merely “retreating.” I can only assume they’re all but out of business now.� Reports in the ABJ suggested that the family-owned� local� chain� would severely cut back operations, possibly down to the one, original store… but now, “financial crisis” has all but shuddered the rock juggernaut for good. Look for more of the same with other music stores down the road: with instrument rentals being what they are –� and with extraordinarily low-priced, Chinese-produced� stock with big-box stores� as competition — the� days of American made music shops could well be numbered. Let the record show, this closing has nothing to do with downturn in NEO as much as it has to do with said same in the ol’ USA. We don’t MAKE anything anymore. Can’t be a super power making each other burgs and doing each other’s laundries…

Brew Kettle Kicks, Fryer Stops Bubbling: Speaking of burgers… I could have told you this. In fact, if you remember the Memorial-to-Labor Day feature in Cool Cleveland called “Eats,” I told you as much. The Brew Kettle in Strongsville has been rated off the charts as a divine taproom at ratebeer.com. You can brew your own beer there as well, with the results being more fun to create and better-tasting than your average national brand (e.g. Bud, Miller, Coors). And believe it or not, it costs LESS per ounce this way, to boot. It’s right under your nose, Cleveland. And if you’re into beer, like CHQ is, you have no excuse for not going there and checking it out… Sadly, I must add one more eulogy to this entry, this one gastronomic. The Town Fryer on Superior is no more. I know this three-year-old “slice of Austin, Texas on Superior” (quoting myself here) is old news. But I am going to miss the Shiner Bocks, Cajun catfish, and the deep-fried pickles and Twinkies. I’m heartbroken over here. There’s a tear in my beer. Good night, Fryer.

CHQ

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