A New Home for a New Era

Some time last year Google, which owns this site, made some changes that suddenly made  it more difficult to post content here. I could no longer simply write a story in Word, then copy and paste it here. I thought it was a settings issue before learning that many other bloggers were having the same problem. 

This turned out to be a good thing for The Real Deal in some ways, as we had been dragging our feet in making the transition to our own website. But the frustrations we were having here, along with the inherent limitations of a blog, helped push us to confront and overcome an unhealthy degree of tech phobia. We essentially had to learn to navigate a platform new and a couple of wholly unfamiliar, and largely nonintuitive, programs. [Old dogs, even if slightly arthritic, can still learn new tricks when properly motivated]. But we've put in the work, and after a period of time cross-posting, we have begun to post exclusively on our new site.

That in turn has kept us so busy that we have unforgivably neglected you, our most loyal readers, whose encouragement has helped sustain us over the nearly 15 years and more than 500 posts we have posted on this site.

So if you can see your way to stick with us, come over to The Real Deal Press [we added the surname in 2014 when we ventured back into print to distinguish our first cycle in print [1991-1993]. You will find that we are publishing virtually every day, that we have a sophisticated, attractive, and yet easily navigable site that will reward your curiosity. We have relationships with folk who help us keep you apprised as to what's happening in our state capital and elsewhere. We also have regular columnists like Burner Crew and Jinida & Julius Dorsey, who write provocatively and practically.

Our main menu has topics in your favorite areas of interest: Government, Business, Health, Education, Community, and Essential Diversions [Arts, Books, Sports, Entertainment]. The latter is also where every Friday  morning you can find Nate's Northcoast Notes, an eclectic selection of what's going around town and on the web. 

Other popular sections are People and Obituaries.

We've also established a Real Deal Press archive where you can find more than five dozen PDFs of issues that we produced either in print or online from 2014-16 and 2018-19.

We are making site improvements practically every week, thanks to the good folk at DigitalJetstream and especially their chief tech officer, Anthony "Big Tone" Jones, once an aspiring astronaut and now just a genius techie.

We could say more, but that would be like an extended speech when the food is hot and ready on the table. So click here and get started. We''d love to see you there and hope you will like it enough to sign up [it's free] and return often.

By the way, we have the capacity to offer display advertising and much more now. As our audience continues to grow, because of articles like this, this and this, we are becoming a better bargain every day.*

Thank you for sticking with us. Come visit our new digs!

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* Ask about our special discount if you have have been a follower here.

THE REAL DEAL PRESS is now a digital weekly!!!

THE REAL DEAL PRESS, an outgrowth of this blog, is a digital weekly

reporting on the interplay of race, class and power in the civic, business and cultural spaces of Northeast Ohio and beyond.

Click here to read this week's issue, including:

- Giving Black

-Trends to Watch in Small Business

- Social Justice Teach-In

- Increasing Racial Equity in Higher Ed Outcomes for Students of Color  

- Barney & Clyde

- & More!!!

Text realdealpress to 48421 and be notified instantly each Sunday when the issue posts!

Prior issues of THE REAL DEAL PRESS  can be found here.

The Power of ONE Vote

There are numerous examples of the importance of every single vote. We like this reminder, courtesy of today's Monday Morning Message, a weekly missive from Lee Fisher, Dean of the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University.

Fisher was elected Ohio Attorney General in 1990 in the closest statewide election in Ohio history. The margin is easy to remember, 1,234 votes out of 3.4 million votes cast. That was less than one vote per precinct, earning him the dubious moniker of "Landslide Lee".

If you haven't voted early, vote tomorrow. If you don't care to vote for yourself, vote for someone you love, whose freedom, finances, education, health, or security depends on the outcome. Be her hero.

And make sure you vote all the way to the end of the ballot. Some of the most important races are there. If you haven't researched all the contests and issues, check our our endorsements in the current  issue of  The Real Deal Press. You can even access it on your smart phone or tablet inside the voting booth, so there is no reason to skip a race because you don't have a clue.

Political Notes on the Weekend before Election Day 2015, Part I

There are local and state matters on this year's ballot, but since all politics is local, let’s start closest to home:

CLEVELAND

In a move that smacks of desperation as well as contempt for the intelligence of black voters, the campaign of a sitting judge is distributing fliers that wrongfully imply an endorsement he does not have.

James Hewitt III was appointed to the Cleveland Municipal Court by Gov. Kasich early this year. To retain the seat he must win next week’s election.

Judge James H. Hewitt III

Hewitt is a Republican, which doesn’t bother us but apparently bothers him because he obviously thinks Cleveland’s overwhelmingly Democratic electorate will disdain him in favor of one of his three opponents.

In a pretty blatant effort to deceive voters, his campaign is distributing handbills that show Hewitt standing alongside popular Democratic Congresswoman Marcia Fudge. Problem is she has endorsed Suzan Marie Sweeney, one of his three opponents and the one rated most highly by the highly regarded www.judge4yourself.com, which provides composite ratings from four area bar associations.

The flier also shows Hewitt with Cleveland's Democratic mayor, Frank Jackson, who has not endorsed anyone in the race but typically supports the party's endorsed candidate, which happens to be Sweeney. A close political ally of the mayor's told us the mayor is too busy to be concerned with this kind of politics, but that "somebody ought to look into the ethics and the law" of appropriating another's image without permission.

Flier produced and distributed by the Hewitt campaign showing top local Democrats pictured
with Judge Hewitt. The picture at right was taken at this year's 11th District Labor Day Parade.

Hewitt’s campaign manager told us “we’re just running a race” and declined further comment.

While some may see Hewitt’s campaign tactic as a small matter, or chalk it up to “politics”, a judge is expected to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

MAPLE HEIGHTS

Check out the November issue of The Real Deal Press here to see why we think voters should choose Annette Blackwell to lead the city’s efforts to pull out of its decades-long tailspin.

[While there, take a look at our discussion on endorsements in general, particularly our observation on what can happen when a narrow closed process leads a once-respected organization like the Black Women’s Political Action Committee to unprincipled choices. We'll have more to say about this in Part II.]

New Publication, New Schedule, New event for Small Business Owners

Faithful readers have perhaps wondered where The Real Deal has gone, given that our last post was March 12.

Short answer: The Real Deal blog went on an unannounced sabbatical to prepare for the emergence of The Real Deal Press, a free monthly tabloid newspaper that made its debut in Cuyahoga County in early April.  More than 10,000 copies of each issue are distributed to over 200 locations in Greater Cleveland. The July issue hit the streets last week.

The mission of The Real Deal Press is to attract, articulate, and amplify civic intelligence and community good will to our coverage area and beyond. The* principal coverage area is comprised of those communities that make up the "BMW" school districts: Bedford, Bedford Heights, Highland Hills, Maple Heights, North Randall, Oakwood Village, and Warrensville Heights. Additionally, the Real Deal Press provides coverage of business, health, education, nonprofit, and civic affairs of particular interest or importance to our readership throughout Northeast Ohio.

It was always our intent to return to blogging on some schedule and in some fashion that would complement The Real Deal Press. Today is the day we do so. Many of you have become familiar with our Nonprofit Thursday posts. In that spirit, we offer Business Tuesday, a feature that will focus primarily on items of interest to minority business enterprises and other small businesses in northeast Ohio.

Most successful businesses, regardless of size, learn how to plan. To paraphrase a popular saying goes, those who fail to plan are planning to fail. This of course applies to a range of business activities, from financial projections to marketing to scheduling.

Small businesses are known for being nimble, and it is in that regard that we share this last-minute news of an event set for today that we just learned about. It intrigues us enough that we plan to attend.

The event, a Workshop On How To Use Facebook To Grow Your Small Business, will be held Tuesday, July 2, at Corporate College East, 4400 Richmond Rd, Warrensville Heights, OH 44128. Representatives from FB will conduct the presentation, which will run from 11:30AM-1PM.

The event is free. Register here or onsite beginning at 11AM.

Congresswoman Marcia Fudge of Warrensville Heights will offer welcoming remarks.

Nonprofit Thursdays will resume this week.

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* Bedford, Maple Heights, and Warrensville Heights.

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* Bedford, Maple Heights, and Warrensville Heights.