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Where Jill Will Talk Like She Writes
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May
31
Chase and Sky Bank are GOING DOWN
Filed Under Politics | 9 Comments
Two local bank workers must have thought they’d witnessed a woman having a mental breakdown this morning while I stood in their lobbies and uttered streams of words that, to them, I’m sure, made no sense. And they’d be correct.
However, if they thought that watching me perseverate - as they denied my request to notarize a document because I don’t bank at one of the companies and I only have a mere tens of thousands of dollars in credit available with the other one and still I fail to qualify for notary services - was uncomfortable, they should remind themselves to take pleasure in that tiny dose of discomfort as I prepare to unleash the full wrath of a consumer done wrong.
Obviously they’ve never before denied notary services to a writer who also blogs and loves to blather about unethical and possibly illegal practices that also happen to deny common sense.
Research questions into:
The United States Notary Association
The National Notary Association
Letters soon to be written to:
Useless award goes to:
Ohio Secretary of State website
Ooo! Ooo! A Horshack moment: the Better Business Bureau!
Let me end with this, from the National Notary Association’s brochure, What is a Notary Public?
Because there is no such thing as a “Notary private,” privately employed Notaries remain duty-bound to put the law above all other matters and to serve all members of the public - not just business clients. This commitment to high standards of integrity protects the interests of both the employer and the public and allows the Notary to play a key role in the company’s continuing success.
Seems like some folks have forgotten that key role, I’d say. I look forward to being of assistance in educating them about their lapse.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:05 pm May 31st, 2006 in Politics | 9 Comments
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May
31
Chase and Sky Bank are GOING DOWN
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Two local bank workers must have thought they’d witnessed a woman having a mental breakdown this morning while I stood in their lobbies and uttered streams of words that, to them, I’m sure, made no sense. And they’d be correct.
However, if they thought that watching me perseverate - as they denied my request to notarize a document because I don’t bank at one of the companies and I only have a mere tens of thousands of dollars in credit available with the other one and still I fail to qualify for notary services - was uncomfortable, they should remind themselves to take pleasure in that tiny dose of discomfort as I prepare to unleash the full wrath of a consumer done wrong.
Obviously they’ve never before denied notary services to a writer who also blogs and loves to blather about unethical and possibly illegal practices that also happen to deny common sense.
Research questions into:
The United States Notary Association
The National Notary Association
Letters soon to be written to:
Useless award goes to:
Ohio Secretary of State website
Ooo! Ooo! A Horshack moment: the Better Business Bureau!
Let me end with this, from the National Notary Association’s brochure, What is a Notary Public?
Because there is no such thing as a “Notary private,” privately employed Notaries remain duty-bound to put the law above all other matters and to serve all members of the public - not just business clients. This commitment to high standards of integrity protects the interests of both the employer and the public and allows the Notary to play a key role in the company’s continuing success.
Seems like some folks have forgotten that key role, I’d say. I look forward to being of assistance in educating them about their lapse.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:05 pm May 31st, 2006 in Politics | Please comment
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May
31
I didn’t appreciate my older brother enough when we were kids, but he didn’t appreciate me too much either. Although we’re only three years apart, our differences in style and benchmarks represent just how much the world changed during certain sets of three years. For example, I was 12 when Nixon resigned, not yet Bat Mitzvahed and completely absorbed in hating my parents for moving us to a new school and selling my Suzy Homemaker oven. At the same moment in time, my big bro, at 15, could taste his driver’s license, his first job and high school, not to mention a few things teenagers liked to experiment with circa 1974. He loved MAD magazine, black lights and Star Trek. I spent my sick days doing needlepoint wallhangings of panda bears and self-designed hooked rugs of butterflies.
As we’ve aged, however, we’ve developed a qualified affinity and respect for one another. Our styles clash still, but our tolerance for one another - and the fact that, with our younger brother, we comprise the insider party establishment that knows what life during our childhood was really like - far exceeds any irritation caused by the clashes.
Now, as some readers may have gleaned, within the last two weeks, I’ve been trying to maintain a boundary between the personal and the all-too-personal, and haven’t provided many specifics about certain struggles of late. It will remain that way. However, what I can say is that this evening, I received an email from my older brother, who doesn’t send me too many emails, and when he does? It’s usually to direct me to an article about how rotten Ken Blackwell is or how Ohio has to get it’s act together or it’s going to totally f**k up the rest of the country for the rest of eternity (really, he sends me stuff like that). My bro is an activist - a flesh and blood, goes to rallies kind of activist. I’m just a poseur, as you nine readers know, because, you know, all I do is blog.
So, when I saw the subject line of his email, “This should bring back memories…,” I got really nervous. Watergate? Steak night (when inevitably someone from the dinner table would argue with someone else at the dinner table and a third and/or fourth someone would leave the dinner table)? The old Buick Estate Wagon I damaged and then got away with blaming the accident on him?
None of the above.
Instead, what I found inside the email was a link to this.
Take a look at those album covers.
Come on! Who can forget (and I SWEAR I am blogging this from total memory):
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into Helium
and la la la la la la la la la.
Okay - I can’t remember the rest of those words without cheating, but I do remember the tune. (If you’re a They Might Be Giants fan, you must listen, now.)
I’m almost positive that our set came from the gas stations. Do you remember when you’d drive around on a Saturday and look for gas cheaper than 29cents/gallon, as the weekend’s activity? (didn’t everyone do that? wait - don’t tell me - I don’t want to know that we were the only ones)
Now, of course, I must download these tunes so that not only my kids can listen and learn, but I can too.
Don’t you think that, between NPR’s Science Friday, Ms. Frizzle and these six records, at least some of Ohio’s students can learn more science than they may already be exposed to?
Thanks bro. You reminded me of at least one very positive, pleasant, repetitive memory from our childhood. AND, you might have provided the answer to keeping Ohio from bringing on Armageddon (or wait, do some Ohioans want that to happen?).
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:25 am May 31st, 2006 in Politics | 6 Comments
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May
30
I didn’t appreciate my older brother enough when we were kids, but he didn’t appreciate me too much either. Although we’re only three years apart, our differences in style and benchmarks represent just how much the world changed during certain sets of three years. For example, I was 12 when Nixon resigned, not yet Bat Mitzvahed and completely absorbed in hating my parents for moving us to a new school and selling my Suzy Homemaker oven. At the same moment in time, my big bro, at 15, could taste his driver’s license, his first job and high school, not to mention a few things teenagers liked to experiment with circa 1974. He loved MAD magazine, black lights and Star Trek. I spent my sick days doing needlepoint wallhangings of panda bears and self-designed hooked rugs of butterflies.
As we’ve aged, however, we’ve developed a qualified affinity and respect for one another. Our styles clash still, but our tolerance for one another - and the fact that, with our younger brother, we comprise the insider party establishment that knows what life during our childhood was really like - far exceeds any irritation caused by the clashes.
Now, as some readers may have gleaned, within the last two weeks, I’ve been trying to maintain a boundary between the personal and the all-too-personal, and haven’t provided many specifics about certain struggles of late. It will remain that way. However, what I can say is that this evening, I received an email from my older brother, who doesn’t send me too many emails, and when he does? It’s usually to direct me to an article about how rotten Ken Blackwell is or how Ohio has to get it’s act together or it’s going to totally f**k up the rest of the country for the rest of eternity (really, he sends me stuff like that). My bro is an activist - a flesh and blood, goes to rallies kind of activist. I’m just a poseur, as you nine readers know, because, you know, all I do is blog.
So, when I saw the subject line of his email, “This should bring back memories…,” I got really nervous. Watergate? Steak night (when inevitably someone from the dinner table would argue with someone else at the dinner table and a third and/or fourth someone would leave the dinner table)? The old Buick Estate Wagon I damaged and then got away with blaming the accident on him?
None of the above.
Instead, what I found inside the email was a link to this.
Take a look at those album covers.
Come on! Who can forget (and I SWEAR I am blogging this from total memory):
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into Helium
and la la la la la la la la la.
Okay - I can’t remember the rest of those words without cheating, but I do remember the tune. (If you’re a They Might Be Giants fan, you must listen, now.)
I’m almost positive that our set came from the gas stations. Do you remember when you’d drive around on a Saturday and look for gas cheaper than 29cents/gallon, as the weekend’s activity? (didn’t everyone do that? wait - don’t tell me - I don’t want to know that we were the only ones)
Now, of course, I must download these tunes so that not only my kids can listen and learn, but I can too.
Don’t you think that, between NPR’s Science Friday, Ms. Frizzle and these six records, at least some of Ohio’s students can learn more science than they may already be exposed to?
Thanks bro. You reminded me of at least one very positive, pleasant, repetitive memory from our childhood. AND, you might have provided the answer to keeping Ohio from bringing on Armageddon (or wait, do some Ohioans want that to happen?).
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:25 pm May 30th, 2006 in Politics | 6 Comments
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May
30
Free science education tools to rocket Ohio’s students to the top
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
I didn’t appreciate my older brother enough when we were kids, but he didn’t appreciate me too much either. Although we’re only three years apart, our differences in style and benchmarks represent just how much the world changed during certain sets of three years. For example, I was 12 when Nixon resigned, not yet Bat Mitzvahed and completely absorbed in hating my parents for moving us to a new school and selling my Suzy Homemaker oven. At the same moment in time, my big bro, at 15, could taste his driver’s license, his first job and high school, not to mention a few things teenagers liked to experiment with circa 1974. He loved MAD magazine, black lights and Star Trek. I spent my sick days doing needlepoint wallhangings of panda bears and self-designed hooked rugs of butterflies.
As we’ve aged, however, we’ve developed a qualified affinity and respect for one another. Our styles clash still, but our tolerance for one another - and the fact that, with our younger brother, we comprise the insider party establishment that knows what life during our childhood was really like - far exceeds any irritation caused by the clashes.
Now, as some readers may have gleaned, within the last two weeks, I’ve been trying to maintain a boundary between the personal and the all-too-personal, and haven’t provided many specifics about certain struggles of late. It will remain that way. However, what I can say is that this evening, I received an email from my older brother, who doesn’t send me too many emails, and when he does? It’s usually to direct me to an article about how rotten Ken Blackwell is or how Ohio has to get it’s act together or it’s going to totally f**k up the rest of the country for the rest of eternity (really, he sends me stuff like that). My bro is an activist - a flesh and blood, goes to rallies kind of activist. I’m just a poseur, as you nine readers know, because, you know, all I do is blog.
So, when I saw the subject line of his email, “This should bring back memories…,” I got really nervous. Watergate? Steak night (when inevitably someone from the dinner table would argue with someone else at the dinner table and a third and/or fourth someone would leave the dinner table)? The old Buick Estate Wagon I damaged and then got away with blaming the accident on him?
None of the above.
Instead, what I found inside the email was a link to this.
Take a look at those album covers.
Come on! Who can forget (and I SWEAR I am blogging this from total memory):
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into Helium
and la la la la la la la la la.
Okay - I can’t remember the rest of those words without cheating, but I do remember the tune. (If you’re a They Might Be Giants fan, you must listen, now.)
I’m almost positive that our set came from the gas stations. Do you remember when you’d drive around on a Saturday and look for gas cheaper than 29cents/gallon, as the weekend’s activity? (didn’t everyone do that? wait - don’t tell me - I don’t want to know that we were the only ones)
Now, of course, I must download these tunes so that not only my kids can listen and learn, but I can too.
Don’t you think that, between NPR’s Science Friday, Ms. Frizzle and these six records, at least some of Ohio’s students can learn more science than they may already be exposed to?
Thanks bro. You reminded me of at least one very positive, pleasant, repetitive memory from our childhood. AND, you might have provided the answer to keeping Ohio from bringing on Armageddon (or wait, do some Ohioans want that to happen?).
By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:25 pm May 30th, 2006 in Politics | Please comment
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May
29
Where my head’s been at (is that not the most AWFUL way to end a question ever uttered? with the word “at”??)
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:35 pm May 29th, 2006 in Politics | 1 Comment
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May
29
Where my head’s been at (is that not the most AWFUL way to end a question ever uttered? with the word “at”??)
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:35 pm May 29th, 2006 in Politics | 1 Comment
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May
29
Happy Memorial Day
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Where my head’s been at (is that not the most AWFUL way to end a question ever uttered? with the word “at”??)
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:35 pm May 29th, 2006 in Politics | Please comment
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May
28
Letter to Matt Bai re: Can Bloggers Get Real
Filed Under Politics | 4 Comments
I posted about Mr. Bai’s NYT Sunday Magazine piece here on Brewed Fresh Daily. After several attempts at locating a specific email for him, I settled for letters AT nytimes DOT com.
In focusing on content that supports the conclusion that big box blogs “vanquish the party’s insider establishment [and] simply take its place,” Mr. Bai ignores the millions of bloggers who use blogs as a dialectical tool to learn about politics.
The real threat to making this “iteration of American politics” meaningful isn’t the swapping out of insiders. The real threat comes from the possibility that whomever occupies the inside will ignore or runover the other millions - who are, in their individual way, trying to get out the vote. As a sometimes political blogger in Ohio, I’ve observed this threat first-hand since the Ohio Democratic Party leadership changed hands early last winter.
Mr. Bai should have focused more on how, just as the animals in “The March of the Penguins” must trade places with the outsiders on a regular basis in order to preserve the entire species against the harsh environment - as well as learn what it means to be from, to live on and to have to protect the fringe, so too should whomever next occupies “the party’s inside” make sure it respects the contribution of every Democratic thinker who takes the time to blog his or her thoughts, no matter whether it’s a blog linked to 11,000 other sites, or one.
Sincerely,
Jill Miller Zimon, JD, MSSA
blogging at www.writeslikeshetalks.blogspot.com
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:14 pm May 28th, 2006 in Politics | 4 Comments
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May
28
I love Helen Thomas
Filed Under Politics | 6 Comments
I’ll never be Helen Thomas, ever. I’m thinking more along the lines of Diane Rehm. But I do love Helen Thomas even more after reading this “Questions For” edition in the NYT Sunday Magazine.
However, one note to Deborah Solomon: I always turn to your Questions For page either first or second (it competes with Lives for my attention) when I pull out the magazine. But lately, your questions often seem to be longer than the answers from the subjects. I know it’s not necessarily your fault that they provide short replies, but might you consider how you’re asking what you’re asking? I just would rather see you elicit more information from the respondents.
And, now that I think of it, reading a bit more about you, I’m thinking that maybe some new media combination of you and Rehm and Thomas would make an excellent role model. See how helpful blogging can be?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:06 pm May 28th, 2006 in Politics | 6 Comments
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May
28
First Amendment applies to "online reporters," says San Jose court
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Hattip to Buckeye State Blog for noting, quoting and linking to this New York Times article. The case addressed Apple’s assertion that it’s “…entitled to know the source of leaked data published online.”
The gist:
In its ruling, the appeals court said online and offline journalists are equally protected under the First Amendment. “We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish ‘legitimate’ from ‘illegitimate’ news,” the opinion states. “Any attempt by courts to draw such a distinction would imperil a fundamental purpose of the First Amendment.”
The ruling states that Web sites are covered by California’s shield law protecting the confidentiality of journalists’ sources.
Calling on Wendy Hoke: How ’bout under Ohio’s shield law? Do we have any case law on that yet?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:01 pm May 28th, 2006 in Politics | Please comment
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May
28
Letter to Matt Bai re: Can Bloggers Get Real
Filed Under Politics | 4 Comments
I posted about Mr. Bai’s NYT Sunday Magazine piece here on Brewed Fresh Daily. After several attempts at locating a specific email for him, I settled for letters AT nytimes DOT com.
In focusing on content that supports the conclusion that big box blogs “vanquish the party’s insider establishment [and] simply take its place,” Mr. Bai ignores the millions of bloggers who use blogs as a dialectical tool to learn about politics.
The real threat to making this “iteration of American politics” meaningful isn’t the swapping out of insiders. The real threat comes from the possibility that whomever occupies the inside will ignore or runover the other millions - who are, in their individual way, trying to get out the vote. As a sometimes political blogger in Ohio, I’ve observed this threat first-hand since the Ohio Democratic Party leadership changed hands early last winter.
Mr. Bai should have focused more on how, just as the animals in “The March of the Penguins” must trade places with the outsiders on a regular basis in order to preserve the entire species against the harsh environment - as well as learn what it means to be from, to live on and to have to protect the fringe, so too should whomever next occupies “the party’s inside” make sure it respects the contribution of every Democratic thinker who takes the time to blog his or her thoughts, no matter whether it’s a blog linked to 11,000 other sites, or one.
Sincerely,
Jill Miller Zimon, JD, MSSA
blogging at