I just had no idea! I was literally just at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and I even visited the polar bears (what, it was really cold out, and I especially like to visit the polar bears on those kind of days, because then it's like I'm seeing them in their natural habitat).
Little One, the only male polar bear in residence in Cleveland, is being loaned to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden for at least two years. And why? Breeding! Yes! We are desperate for more young polar bears in Cleveland, apparently, and we certainly couldn't mate Little One to his sisters here in Cleveland. It's actually even bigger than that, because polar bears are being considered for the threatened species list. I shouldn't mock too much - I would be really saddened to see the polar bears go. But I am seriously surprised - I feel like I should run back over to the zoo and figure out if there's anything else there that I missed. Are they shipping out the tigers? The rhino? Anything?
I have to admit that "severe weather" warnings seem to be getting more common, along with warnings of "don't go out if you don't have to." I don't think it's because we have more bad weather than ever before. It's just because we hear about it a lot more in this day of instant information. If you'd like to see just how bad Ohio weather can get, and you don't scare easily, there's a good website Ohio History called Severe Weather in Ohio. It might make you a little less ready to run for the basement, thinking the latest storm isn't all that big a deal, or it might make you take the next plane out in terror. i wouldn't recommend that course, though. You can't run from Mother Nature.
The site was developed with information from a book called Thunder in the Heartland: A Chronicle of Outstanding Weather Events in Ohio, by Dr. Thomas Schmidlin and Jeanne Appelhaus Schmidlin. Brief accounts of twenty-five events are presented, with photographs and, in some cases, videos. Whoever designed the site did an excellent job. There's a weather glossary and a good page of links. If you go to Weather for You, you'll find out that, on any given day, there was a time when the weather was a lot worse. Maybe it will make shoveling the snow a little easier. Want a forecast? Just go to the National Weather Service. It's a lot faster than waiting for the news.
The site deals with tornadoes, floods, heat waves, and some mysterious eight-foot waves that hit Cleveland. Toledoans remember the day in, 1992, when twenty-eight tornadoes passed through Northwest Ohio, a record that I'm glad I missed. There is an event on the list that I remember well, even though I survived it in the next state over. January of 1977 is a month I'll never forget. The blisters on my hands from shoveling snow ten times a day for a whole month lasted till spring. I never want to see twenty-five below on a thermometer again! After that shock, it takes a lot to impress me.
And when you think about it, isn't that one of the biggest ones? We don't have a lot of mountains, we have no enormous canyons, we have no volcanoes - I'm thinking that we do however have quite a few really amazing bodies of water, like Lake Erie!
According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (and frankly, they're great for giving good information), Lake Erie is a fairly recent phenomenon, less than 4,000 years old. It was formed by glacial deposits (which is one of the reasons it's one of the smallest Great Lakes; by the time the glaciers got this far south, they were pretty thin and didn't have a lot of gouging power). Various natural and geological aspects of northern Ohio caused by Lake Erie include the Black Swamp region (up by Toledo), beach ridges (the dunes!), a score of other lakes and rivers, and a lot of the soil makeup of northern Ohio. It's also part of the Great Lakes, and a part of the Erie Canal and larger waterways that allowed trading to go from the Midwest to the East and Canada! You might also want to check the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio organization, which gives a lot of good information about the lake.
Although there's lots of man-made efforts currently going to keep Lake Erie contained, it was one of the first natural-made wonders of Ohio, and was the cause of a lot of others!
For as much time as I end up spending in coffee shops, I really feel that I ought to drink coffee. But that's ok, since the hot chocolate and on-the-spot-made bakery at Gypsy Beans & Baking Company more than compensates for my not knowing how their coffee tastes (according to Sidekick Girl, it's awesome).
Today the coffee shop, restaurant and bakery will have been opened for exactly two weeks, and it's been a packed two weeks! As owner Niki Gillota says, "I didn't expect the place to be packed every day!" And it has been - I've been in twice during these two weeks, and there have always been people in there. And they are wildly flattering. In a quick survey of the larger room this past Saturday, I received these quotes about Gypsy Beans:
"I was here the other day and the whole neighborhood came through here!"
"I love it here."
"This is the second time this week that I've been here."
"Better than the commercialized coffee shop - it's your own little place."
"Loving it - I'll never go to Starbucks again."
"The neighborhood needs something like this - there's no other little cafe here."
My heart breaks a little every time I see a house or other building with wonderful ornamentations and appointments rot in place. Fortunately, the architectural salvage business is prospering, allowing us to reuse some of those old features in new settings.
Ohio has a number of companies in the trade, but not as many as we might wish. A few of the most prominent:
Old School Architectural Salvage, Cleveland. They offer everything from doors to floors, hardware, water fountains, beams, decking and utility poles. They work mostly wholesale, so call before visiting, 216-509-5303, no web site.
Toledo Architectural Artifacts, Inc. Over 3,000 doors, are included in their 20,000 piece inventory, as well as iron gates, heat vents, and even a lavender cast-iron bathtub.
Scioto Architectural Salvage, Chillicothe. The Scioto Valley, after the opening of the canal, was for a short time the breadbasket of the country, and you can see the effect of that wealth in homes built at that time. This company recycles that craftsmanship. They are currently preparing to host a film crew from the History Channel preparing an hour-long feature on salvage. Their entire catalogue is on-line for your browsing.
Olde Wood Ltd. In North Canton specializes in antique flooring, timber frames and hand-hewn timbers.
Wooden Nickel, Cincinnati. They both sell antique pieces such as bars, stained glass and make reproductions or original designs with period authenticity.
Also don't overlook your local Habitat for Humanity's second-hand shops for antique building supplies
I'm sure you've all been reading along with David Beckham's change to the LA Galaxy from Real Madrid. No? I'm quite shocked. I thought most young women, I mean young men, would be excited at this revitalization of professional soccer. The man's got a five-year deal that could end up being well over $50 million! Major league soccer in the US is hoping to be revved up with all of this attention, and Cleveland is going to benefit!
Yes, we are. Cleveland and Twinsburg are the new homes of the Cleveland City Stars, a member of the United Soccer League and owned by the Cleveland Soccer Foundation. We can expect to see them play other pro soccer teams from Baltimore, Maryland; Cincinnati; the states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts; the country of Bermuda, and Charlotte, North Carolina! Big doings. I myself am really excited at this, both because I love soccer and because the team will be holding their home matches at Cleveland State University's Krenzler Field, and that is so close to me! I think this is going to be tons of fun.
Recently we told you about the reputed Nazi sadist John Demjanjuk and attempts by Israel to avenge themselves for his WWII atrocities. Now another Ohioan enemy of Israel has been arrested by Shin Bet, the Israeli security police.
Fawaz Damra emmigated from the West Bank to the U.S. in the 80's, and became the Iman of Ohio's largest mosque, the Islamic Center in Cleveland. In 2004, he was arrested and convicted of raising funds for the Islamic Jihad organization. He was scheduled for deportation for concealing his fundraising actions when applying for U.S. citizenship. Damra had been imprisoned in Michigan while the U.S. searched for a country that would accept him.
Damra was finally transported back to the West Bank last week. He was promptly arrested by the Israelis when he attempted to cross the border into Jordan.
Damra's wife and children, U.S. citizens all, remain in Ohio. Charges for Damra's apprehension have not yet been made public.
Some of the interesting stories in the Blog-O-sphere recently-
Gallipolis Daily has an interesting twist on the search for ancient Ohio cave writings.
Writes Like She Talks questions whether Cinci school kids will be permitted field trips to the Creation Museum.
The Chief Source is out in front in the Tressel-hating wave following the OSU-Florida debacle earlier this week.
MyHometownOhio is waxing enthusiastic about the Historic Rehab Tax Credit Taft signed into law just before he left office. The Cincinnati Blog did a nice piece about the most important and most overreported Ohio stories of 2006.
Politics in Mudville is keeping us up to date with the ongoing comedy/tragedy of the Toledo mayor's actions.
If you know of new, interesting Ohio blogs, please drop us a note!
Since 1977, Ohio resident John Demjanjuk of Cleveland has been fighting the accusation that during WWII he was the SS guard known as Ivan the Terrible who terrorized Jews at the Nazi concentration camp Treblinka. The 86-year-old this week again filed an appeal to stop deportation to his homeland, the Ukraine.
The retired auto worker has been through a labyrinth of courts and charges. In 1977, when Demjanjuk's possible identity as the long-sought Nazi guard was uncovered, the U.S. District Court revoked Demjanjuk's citizenship on the basis that he had lied on his immigration request.
While working though appeals of this decision, he was extradited to Israel in 1986 to stand trial for war crimes. Convinced that Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible, the Israeli court in 1988 sentenced him to death. In 1993, however, the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the decision, finding insufficient proof of the claim.
In 1998, the U.S. court returned Demjanjuk's citizenship, but a year later the Justice Department filed a civil complaint charging him with complicity as a Nazi camp guard and member of an SS group that sent 2 million Polish Jews to the camps. In 2002, the court found him guilty. In 2004, he was again stripped of his citizenship, and a year later ordered to leave the country for the Ukraine, an order he is still appealing.
Demjanjuk has been a cause celeb for both those pursuing justice for Jewish deaths during WWII and whack jobs such as white supremacists, Holocaust doubters, and Ohio Rep. James Trafficant.
Now in 2007 Ivan, if that's who he is, and his victims are all in end game, and we will probably never know the truth of his involvement. The only thing we can say for certain is that someone did not receive justice in this life.
If there is an afterlife, though, somebody is in a world of hurt.
Listen, I know you're not going to be doing anything on Thursday January 11 in downtown Cleveland. Come on! You know that you have a free evening, and I think you should come spend it with me, and with the Rockstar comics. This is late notice, I know, but I'd like to pretend I have the power of the Internet enough that when I point out an entertaining, fairly cheap evening of comedy that you might like to come to it!
Plus, there will be some dynamite entertainment! Carrie Callahan will be hosting the evening (she'll do a little bit at the beginning and then introduce comics in their turns). A variety of local funny people will be there, including Jim Tews, Joe Howard and Bill Squire. Headlining (we think) the event will be young Erik Myers, who was at the Cleveland Improv only yesterday! He apparently gave a hilarious performance, although doing a quick search for him on the Internet gave me nada. So come on!
I was reading the New York Times article on Jim Tressel and the bizarre dichotomy between his sterling behavior and the not-so-sterling behavior of his players, and it mentioned a great statistic: how many Ohioans would vote Jim Tressel in as a major politician, based solely on his performance as the head coach at OSU. Quite a few, is the response. (Exact number?) I can't really blame them; I'm from Berea where the Tressels are from (I once had his brother as a teacher in sixth grade; and there is a Tressel street), so we love the Tressels without question.
But I'm also a Clevelander, and so here's my thought: who would win in a political race between LeBron James and Jim Tressel? That is a tough question. You have LeBron "King" James, bringing the Cavs and Cleveland's sports back into the national spotlight (sportlight?). He's young, he's energetic, and he'd obviously be able to get the entire youth vote. But what about Jim? Been around for a while, also getting national recognition for his team. A little more of a leader (corralling young football players year-round has got to be good for leadership) and obviously a little more mature than 22-year-old LeBron. But who would win? Let's see some votes!
The newest members of the hall will be inducted at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York on March 12th. Performers at the ceremony won't be announced until next month.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five features hip-hop artist Joseph Saddler, one of the originators of the DJ mix.
R.E.M., a rock band from Athens, GA. became famous in the 1980s for their fusion of punk and art rock and the singing of Michael Stipe.
The Ronettes were a prototype girl group of the '60's, and a favorite of Phil Spector. Among their biggest hits was the tune "Be My Baby."
Patti Smith was known as a poet before she took on the world of rock and roll. She became a leading figure in the punk movement.
Van Halen is a quintessential American hair band which has topped the charts since the late 70's. Lead singers David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar provided the gossip mags with plenty of copy, but it is guitarist Eddie Van Halen's riffs that have nailed their HOF status.
I am always so behind the times - although that's not really kind to myself! Isn't it more along the lines that I was just not away, and now I know more about more cool things to do in Northeast Ohio? Yeah, let's look at it in that light. It makes me seem more on top of things and less clueless.
The Parma Theater (located on Ridge Road in Parma, Ohio, of course) has been showing Bollywood hit movies fairly regularly, as has the Solon Cinemas (Solon, Ohio). Bollywood, for those of you even more out of touch with what's hip and worldly than myself, is the cinematic glory of Mumbai (what used to Bombay), India. Bollywood films find huge audiences anywhere that there are Indian immigrants, who enjoy the glamorous colorful picture of life in the extremely lovely subcontinent of India. The films are also quite popular with non-immigrants - I myself am a big fan! I just recently re-watched Bride and Prejudice again, a Bollywood interpretation of the British Pride and Prejudice, and it's so much fun. I love it!
This weekend, the Parma Theater and Solon Cinema will be screening Guru, which stars Aishwarya Rai. Rai has been described as the most beautiful women in India, and frankly, I think she could be the most beautiful woman in the world. She is incredibly glamourous, and a stunning actress.Check out the showtimes here - and don't worry, there will be English subtitles.
I'm a little behind on this assignment. I blame my terrible cold and the fact that I may have broken a bone in my foot - more on that exciting news tomorrow! But since the end of the year has come and gone, I want to join the ranks of my fellow bloggers and talk about what I think were some of my better posts from 2006.
Most recently, my review of the Bazaar Bizarre craft fair. Start saving up for the December 2007 version! In October, I talked about two things that I thought were pretty interesting, and completely unrelated: Toni Morrison and her anniversary of getting the Novel Prize, and being filmed in November on Election Day. I really like to review restaurants, local fairs of any kind and books. So, in a quick sampling, my review of Sullivan's restaurant in Lakewood, Ohio; a review of my annual pilgrimage to the St. Rocco's Festival; and a review of Cleveland native Les Roberts' memoir, We'll Always Have Cleveland! Obviously, I love Ohio - you may have gathered that piece of information from my working for a website wholly devoted to Ohio! But I like when our great Buckeye state makes it into the news in weird ways: like when I found an mention of our major cities in Forbes' discussion of best cities for singles. I really have become involved in the wholly stand-up comic scene here in Cleveland, for which you may totally blame my dear good friend, Sidekick Girl! But I like helping her and her fellow comics out with a little bit of free publicity, like when I reviewed the first Rockstar Comedy event.
I also love getting to take pictures for you, Blogging Ohio! Enjoy an old Ohiopic of the Day! Let's go to '07!
Hooray! It's almost time for the Miss America pageant. What? As a filthy liberal, I shouldn't support the event? Well, technically, it's still a scholarship contest, and I will always support people trying to get more money for their education. Plus, Miss Ohio deserves my support not only because she is representing me (and therefore, I think for her talent she should sing the OSU fight song while dressed as a buckeye candy), but because she is from Brook Park, Ohio!
Clearly, Melanie is a winner. She was a Cavs girl, for crying out loud! That's way tougher than any silly beauty pageant. Sadly, the Miss America website does not tell us what her talent is going to be - I can only hope that she does a dance routine! I'm going to be watching on January 29, and if you had any buckeye love in you, you would too!
I just had no idea! I was literally just at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and I even visited the polar bears (what, it was really cold out, and I especially like to visit the polar bears on those kind of days, because then it's like I'm seeing them in their natural habitat).
out if you don't have to." I don't think it's because we have more bad weather than ever before. It's just because we hear about it a lot more in this day of instant information. If you'd like to see just how bad Ohio weather can get, and you don't scare easily, there's a good website 
And when you think about it, isn't that one of the biggest ones? We don't have a lot of mountains, we have no enormous canyons, we have no volcanoes - I'm thinking that we do however have quite a few really amazing bodies of water, like 
For as much time as I end up spending in coffee shops, I really feel that I ought to drink coffee. But that's ok, since the hot chocolate and on-the-spot-made bakery at 
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My heart breaks a little every time I see a house or other building with wonderful ornamentations and appointments rot in place. Fortunately, the architectural salvage business is prospering, allowing us to reuse some of those old features in new settings.
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Recently we told you about the reputed Nazi sadist John Demjanjuk and attempts by Israel to avenge themselves for his WWII atrocities. Now another Ohioan enemy of Israel
Some of the interesting stories in the Blog-O-sphere recently-
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Since 1977, Ohio resident 
Listen, I know you're not going to be doing anything on Thursday January 11 in downtown Cleveland. Come on! You know that you have a free evening, and I think you should come spend it with me, and with the Rockstar comics. This is late notice, I know, but I'd like to pretend I have the power of the Internet enough that when I point out an entertaining, fairly cheap evening of comedy that you might like to come to it!
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I am always so behind the times - although that's not really kind to myself! Isn't it more along the lines that I was just not away, and now I know more about more cool things to do in Northeast Ohio? Yeah, let's look at it in that light. It makes me seem more on top of things and less clueless.
I'm a little behind on this assignment. I blame my terrible cold and the fact that I may have broken a bone in my foot - more on that exciting news tomorrow! But since the end of the year has come and gone, I want to join the ranks of my fellow bloggers and talk about what I think were some of my better posts from 2006.
Hooray! It's almost time for the 
