Improvising Schema got photos of the destruction of a modern landmark this morning. I commented there, so if this "not identifiable" blogger posts the comment, you will be able to see my response.

So I was on the phone with an old aquaintance in LA just now, and we were talking about my brother who died at 58 of a heart attack and he said , "Tim Russert died today".

And here it is: A Personal Remembrance from the Detroit Free Press BY JOHN SMYNTEK • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • June 13, 2008

Biographical information on Tim Russert

By The Associated Press – 2 hours ago

Get your schooling, get your job, get married and have a dog. If you plan any outings with your pooch, you'll need a vehicle, so Honda launched a dog car website: Honda Dog just for the occasion.

Share my lovely 1917 home in Cleveland Heights with me. I have a little mixed breed watchdog named Phoebe. I work at home for a small arts-nonprofit. My politics are on the left (waay left), and I prefer classical and jazz music, but more often than not, just the sounds of the great outdoors.

James Levin (seated) with the Brew Crew at Carnegie Hall - photo by Sandy Kish

Aerial dancing with a marvelous set.

Reading along in the Sustainable Industries Website I found this link for the earthnow EXPO.

The locavore movement is growing.

In case you missed these articles in the NYTimes lately, here they are:

Backyards, Beware: An Orchard Wants Your Spot

Urban Farmers’ Crops Go From Vacant Lot to Market

A Chicken on Every Plot, a Coop in Every Backyard

read up!

When was the last time you went inside the Cuyahoga County Courthouse? Did you visit to find Justice? If so, here are some directions: once past tangle of guards, pocket content checkers and metal detectors walk into the voluminous lobby area, up the stairs and into marble column heaven. Look to your right as you face north and Justice will reveal herself to you. You'll gasp.

photo courtesy Intermuseum Conservation Association

Elmer Brown's murals for Valley View portrayed a heroic image of Cleveland's industrial history in classic Works Progress Administration (WPA) style.

This woman, whom I have written about before, Liz Lerman, gives a little talk about innovation that is instructive. Be sure to listen all the way through til you hear these words from a Nobel Laureate whom she quotes, "I am fueled by my ignorance." Then she says, "So am I. I make things so I can understand things."

I would not be alarmed. We may continue to get a break on the pie in the sky dreams of the "quick and dirty delivery system - Opportunity Corridor"  for University Circle, Inc. (UCI) and Cleveland Clinic as well as the "curbcuts for developer's - West Shoreway" due to this news:

I love my dog. In fact, I have loved all the dogs that have ever lived with me, snuggled me, defended me, kept me company, provided those wags and licks that once you've had 'em they're hard to live without. (How do those cat people do it anyway?) I love them even when they are wet (dontcha love the smell of wet dog?), when they are skunked, when they have accidents on the rug. I love them enough to pick up their crap. Somehow it is easier to pick up after the dog than it is a kid or a husband. I can hear myself now, "get down here and pick up your %#@t!!!" That would be me to a teenage son who thought the kitchen floor was the laundry chute. "Are you gonna move your %#@t or are we supposed to eat dinner around it?" to my husband who would reel into a panic attack if I touched his %#@t. But the dog, she just moves on and sniffs the next bit of news. Ah, my happy go lucky ferocious one! Everyday I read the news and think, Ohmigawd! "I can't take this %#@t" or "who writes this %#@t?" But picking up the dog's %#@t is OK with me. I can take it. How and where to take it is more complex.

First let's address why I dutifully pick up after the dog.

Remember those tacky signs that people with pools used to have?

Same concept. I used to think it was a pain in the butt (excuse the pun) to pick up dog poop. I'd grumble and say well, I'm not picking up your cat's poop or the squirrels' or the deer's or the bird's... Growing up in the country where dogs run free, it just hadn't been on my priority list of to-do items.

To me it was real pain; that is until I learned this:

"When animal waste is left on the ground, rainwater or melting snow washes the pet waste into our storm drains or directly into our local creeks. The disease-causing bacteria found in pet waste eventually flows from our local waterways into the Cuyahoga River, and to Lake Erie our drinking water source. In addition to contaminating waterways with disease-carrying bacteria, animal waste acts like a fertilizer in the water, just as it does on land. This promotes excessive aquatic plant growth that can choke waterways and promote algae blooms, robbing the water of vital oxygen.

National Geographic has a special on TV this evening called Human Footprint. But I don't get National Geographic with my rabbit ears/slim cable, so I cruised over to the website and voila - all the stuff is right there, interactive, readable and I can digest it all a bit at a time.

As you roll down the portage escarpment on Quincy Avenue, you pass a large brick structure with no windows; it is covered with Virginia Creeper. (ahem - I mean the windows are all busted out; they're long gone.) I love this building. I imagine it retrofitted as a place for indoor hydroponic gardens and a food market. Keep going and you’ll cross a new bridge with its requisite tall arching chainlink fence. I imagine planting vines on this so that as you cross the bridge you pass through a green tunnel in the warmer months.

One of the things that is striking about Ohio is the large number of deciduous trees. I learned how dependent I am on these trees for many reasons not the least of which is a sense of place. We all have different visual and natural comfort zones. They may have to do with where we spent time as children. I know when I left Florida and came to Cleveland, I missed the Gulf Coast and being able to stand by the ocean. I also learned that I love the forest after having always lived where there are trees. On a drive across country via the deserts of the Southwest, across Texas and Oklahoma, Missouri and into Indiana, I realized that I finally felt comforted seeing forests on either side of the highway. I feel more comfortable when there is a canopy, and appreciate the shade of a large tree. The huge pin oak and the silver maple next to my house are my air conditioners, shielding the house from the sun in summer.

We're getting a new park in Cleveland. It is being prepared at East 9th and Lakeside across from City Hall and adjacent to the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building - a General Services Administration Building.

It'll be a Plaza WITH TREES - LOTS OF THEM. The site will be designed by Richard Fleischman Architects with artist Pae White.

"Successful plazas have 4 key qualities: They are accessible, people are engaged in activities there, the space is comfortable and has a good image, it is a sociable place: one where people meet each other and take people when they come to visit." AND THEY HAVE TREES - A LOT OF THEM.

And there are a lot of questions to answer: "Can you see the space from a distance? Is there a good connection between the space and the adjacant buildings or is it surrounded by blank walls? Do sidewalks lead to and from the adjacent areas? Does the space function for people with special needs? Do the roads and paths through the space take people where they actually want to go? Are people using the space or is it empty?

Is it used by people of different ages? Are people in groups? How many different types of activity are occurring-people walking, eating, playing chess, relaxing, reading? Which parts of the space are used and which are not? Are there choices of things to do? Is there a management presence, or can you identify that anyone is in charge of the space? Is it clean, safe and is there a place to sit? Does it make a good first impression? Who is responsible for maintenance? What do they do and when? Does the area feel safe? Is there a security presence? What do these people do and when are they on duty? Are there photo opportunities?" ARE THERE TREES?

They looked at topography, shadow during all times of day throughout the year, wind speed and its effect on pedestrians, and they came up after several iterations with this leaf concept.

And they hired artist Pae White to design some art for the space.

Pae White's considerations:

Today we walked morning and afternoon, my dog and I. Round the corner and into the new world as the sun crested over the buildings to our east. The day was cool and young; it was moist. Slick brown patches of mud greeted us, and we spotted a few buds here and there as we rounded another corner and another. Crocuses were pushed up and blooming in the slanted light.

At first we thought he was a little wacky. Later we knew he was totally whack. My brother Stephen Kirby Miller passed away alone in his home somtime in late October 2007. Above and below are some of his artworks I just happened to be perusing this evening.

There is someone we have not had the pleasure of seeing here in NEO, but her work has been seen on film here, and with the spring upon us, I happened on these excerpts...

How the corner of Prospect and East Ninth could look in the near future.

Here's the release:

The K&D Group Announces New Details of Its $200 Million Redevelopment Plan for East Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue in Downtown Cleveland

click the image above to see the "big plans"

I sent this image to port director, Adam Wasserman. It is "Members of American Iron and Steel Institute inspecting the ore docks, Cleveland, Oct. 23, 1915" The image is from the American Memory Digital Archive of the Library of Congress.

New Requirements to Protect Children from Lead-Based Paint Hazards

"Outside the Jaffa Gate: Man carrying two wooden doors on his head while talking on cell phone and smoking cigarette."*
*See no. 4 in this post. Image courtesy of The Columnist Manifesto.

Well, if it's not one thing it's another.

Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking

1-2-3 What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn. The next stop is Vietnam.
5-6-7 Open up the pearly gates.
It ain’t no time to wonder why. Yippee! We’re all going to die.

In this bit of "news" we find that it's not over til the fat lady sings - again. This reminds me of an old theater joke about encores. The opera finishes and the audience stands and applauds. Someone in the balcony shouts, "encore". The singer obliges and again he shouts "encore". Well, this continues ad nauseum and finally the singer says, "I just can't do it one more time". The guy in the balcony shouts down, "You'll do it until you get it right!"

In today's New York Times, I found this article (Did Your Shopping List Kill a Songbird?) about the fact that what we purchase in the grocery is killing songbirds. Yeah, it is, and it's killing more than songbirds. It's killing the whole ecosystem where these dangerous chemicals are used, and it's killing the people who eat the "Green Revolution's" products. Thank you Ford Foundation, Hailey Ashton Foundation and Gates Foundation.

As I read this sad story, I thought about Rachel Carson and her battle against the dangerous chemicals we dusted on our crops. I remembered reading Silent Spring while riding in a car along I-90 where I could glance up and see how the edge of the road had been "killed off" by a generous dose of herbicides.