Proud Member of The Moms Clean Air Force
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4
Aw gee, Ray, thanks a lot! 
Okay here goes -
1. I rammed the side of my parents’ Buick Estate Wagon against the island of a drive-thru bank teller in the summer of 1980 and blamed it on my older brother. Guess who they believed? (now I know no one will vote for me if I ever run for anything; but I did tell them a few years ago)
2. My first car (given to me by my parents after they’d had it for a few years) was a pistachio green four-door non-airconditioned VW Rabbit that I named Plato. My favorite part about the car was the bumper sticker because it had a very cool Congressional parking lot sticker – not easy to get.
3. I hid in the bathroom for nearly the entire coast to coast airplane ride in 1986, flying back from a cousin’s wedding, because I thought the man sitting next to me, who was Middle Eastern of some type – could have been anything – was a terrorist because he’d left his briefcase unattended and no one could find him on the place and I was too scared to be seated next to him in case he eventually did show up. Important note: when this happened, I hadn’t yet been back in the US, after a year in Israel, for more than a few months and the Athens hijacking and Achille Lauro had happened by then. I was a bit freaked out, duh.
4. I take water from glasses that I’d been drinking at night by my bedside and pour them into the coffeemaker the next morning. I figure the heating up of it gets rid of whatever, and if not, it’s all in the family.
5. When I drive around in my suburban mommobile, I actually believe that people see me as though I’m driving in a Jaguar convertible. I need something to believe in.
I tag Wendy, Lisa Renee, Scott, Rob and Jason. And one for good luck: the staff of the Plain Dealer’s OPEN blog! We’ve never seen them do a meme, and everyone knows you’re not a real blog unless you do at least one meme.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:02 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | 7 Comments
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4
I also recognize many of them, listed here.
Update: For readers uninterested in reading that post on the Strickland transition website, you can visit Ohio2006 and see the same info, organized very nicely of course, here.
Not sure that if it was a match one from column A with one from column B proficiency test question I’d have matched them up the same way, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what they come up with as they, according to Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman, “evaluate what our state is doing right and where we can improve, and report their findings to Governor-elect Strickland to help guide his administration.”
I see at least one Republican, State Senator Steve Stivers. I wonder how much this has to do with the mental health parity push. He also voted against the concealed carry law that’s heading for a veto and maybe an override.
I see Peter Lawson Jones a couple of times.
Charleta Tavares and ODADAS makes sense.
Some big law firm partners are on the list. Some casino supporters too.
My favorite, however, is Chad Wick and his assignment to the Tuition Trust, Higher Ed Facilities Commission and Board of Regents. Excellent choice in that Mr. Wick is a visionary and the head of the $200 million KnowledgeWorks foundation based in Cincinnati. I know – I worked for his foundation for two years following the Euclid school district’s small schools reform effort. He puts his money where his heart is. I remember mentioning him to a few of the candidates with whom we did MTB. Glad he’s being tapped.
But he also uses a lot of foot soldiers. Maybe I need a pair of running shoes? Or combat boots, given the education reform climate in this state.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:52 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | 1 Comment
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Dec
4
[update] Strickland names names, and I See Republicans
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I also recognize many of them, listed here.
Update: For readers uninterested in reading that post on the Strickland transition website, you can visit Ohio2006 and see the same info, organized very nicely of course, here.
Not sure that if it was a match one from column A with one from column B proficiency test question I’d have matched them up the same way, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what they come up with as they, according to Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman, “evaluate what our state is doing right and where we can improve, and report their findings to Governor-elect Strickland to help guide his administration.”
I see at least one Republican, State Senator Steve Stivers. I wonder how much this has to do with the mental health parity push. He also voted against the concealed carry law that’s heading for a veto and maybe an override.
I see Peter Lawson Jones a couple of times.
Charleta Tavares and ODADAS makes sense.
Some big law firm partners are on the list. Some casino supporters too.
My favorite, however, is Chad Wick and his assignment to the Tuition Trust, Higher Ed Facilities Commission and Board of Regents. Excellent choice in that Mr. Wick is a visionary and the head of the $200 million KnowledgeWorks foundation based in Cincinnati. I know – I worked for his foundation for two years following the Euclid school district’s small schools reform effort. He puts his money where his heart is. I remember mentioning him to a few of the candidates with whom we did MTB. Glad he’s being tapped.
But he also uses a lot of foot soldiers. Maybe I need a pair of running shoes? Or combat boots, given the education reform climate in this state.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:52 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | Comments Off
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Dec
4
Aw gee, Ray, thanks a lot!
Okay here goes -
1. I rammed the side of my parents’ Buick Estate Wagon against the island of a drive-thru bank teller in the summer of 1980 and blamed it on my older brother. Guess who they believed? (now I know no one will vote for me if I ever run for anything; but I did tell them a few years ago)
2. My first car (given to me by my parents after they’d had it for a few years) was a pistachio green four-door non-airconditioned VW Rabbit that I named Plato. My favorite part about the car was the bumper sticker because it had a very cool Congressional parking lot sticker – not easy to get.
3. I hid in the bathroom for nearly the entire coast to coast airplane ride in 1986, flying back from a cousin’s wedding, because I thought the man sitting next to me, who was Middle Eastern of some type – could have been anything – was a terrorist because he’d left his briefcase unattended and no one could find him on the place and I was too scared to be seated next to him in case he eventually did show up. Important note: when this happened, I hadn’t yet been back in the US, after a year in Israel, for more than a few months and the Athens hijacking and Achille Lauro had happened by then. I was a bit freaked out, duh.
4. I take water from glasses that I’d been drinking at night by my bedside and pour them into the coffeemaker the next morning. I figure the heating up of it gets rid of whatever, and if not, it’s all in the family.
5. When I drive around in my suburban mommobile, I actually believe that people see me as though I’m driving in a Jaguar convertible. I need something to believe in.
I tag Wendy, Lisa Renee, Scott, Rob and Jason. And one for good luck: the staff of the Plain Dealer’s OPEN blog! We’ve never seen them do a meme, and everyone knows you’re not a real blog unless you do at least one meme.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:02 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | 7 Comments
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Dec
4
Strickland transition committee leaders fine, but who is actually on the committee?
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Anyone who’s ever been on or served a board of trustees – whether it’s for your religious institution, NGO, academic entity or corporation – knows that it’s the committees that get all the work done.
And so, I ask, after reading Mark Naymik’s OPEN piece here, the committee chairs sound lovely – but who will actually be on the committees doing the work? Those are the people whose names I want to see. Because those are the people who will be calling upon their education, experience and knowledge to, as Columbus Mayor and Strickland transition team leader Michael Coleman is quoted as saying, “evaluate what our state is doing right and where we can improve.” The chairs no doubt will be guides, but I think they’ll primarily be doing the “report their findings to Governor-elect Strickland to help guide his administration.”
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:02 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | Comments Off
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Dec
4
SEE?SEE?SEE??????? Removal of mailboxes not a myth and I still want mine back
Filed Under Politics | 6 Comments
Less than two weeks ago, I wrote about the mystery of the moving mailbox here. And now, today, just now – I read this from my News 5 noon updates:
There are fewer mailboxes on curbsides as letter-writing declines.
The postal service is trimming the number of mailboxes as people instead keep in touch with e-mail and cell phones. First-class, single-piece mail has dropped 20 percent in six years.
Nationwide, the postal service removed 28,000 mailboxes last year, about one in 10. That leaves more than a quarter-million still standing and ready to serve.
In the Cleveland area, 99 mailboxes got yanked last year, about 3 percent of the total.
I’m pissed. I want my mailbox back.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:18 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | 6 Comments
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Dec
4
Tagged by Ray: Five little known facts about me
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Aw gee, Ray, thanks a lot!
Okay here goes -
1. I rammed the side of my parents’ Buick Estate Wagon against the island of a drive-thru bank teller in the summer of 1980 and blamed it on my older brother. Guess who they believed? (now I know no one will vote for me if I ever run for anything; but I did tell them a few years ago)
2. My first car (given to me by my parents after they’d had it for a few years) was a pistachio green four-door non-airconditioned VW Rabbit that I named Plato. My favorite part about the car was the bumper sticker because it had a very cool Congressional parking lot sticker – not easy to get.
3. I hid in the bathroom for nearly the entire coast to coast airplane ride in 1986, flying back from a cousin’s wedding, because I thought the man sitting next to me, who was Middle Eastern of some type – could have been anything – was a terrorist because he’d left his briefcase unattended and no one could find him on the place and I was too scared to be seated next to him in case he eventually did show up. Important note: when this happened, I hadn’t yet been back in the US, after a year in Israel, for more than a few months and the Athens hijacking and Achille Lauro had happened by then. I was a bit freaked out, duh.
4. I take water from glasses that I’d been drinking at night by my bedside and pour them into the coffeemaker the next morning. I figure the heating up of it gets rid of whatever, and if not, it’s all in the family.
5. When I drive around in my suburban mommobile, I actually believe that people see me as though I’m driving in a Jaguar convertible. I need something to believe in.
I tag Wendy, Lisa Renee, Scott, Rob and Jason. And one for good luck: the staff of the Plain Dealer’s OPEN blog! We’ve never seen them do a meme, and everyone knows you’re not a real blog unless you do at least one meme.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:02 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | Comments Off
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Dec
4
[updatedx2] Micah Sifry’s Personal Democracy Forum on "Glover’s low blow"
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
Micah Sifry, who blogs at Personal Democracy Forum and is a senior analyst at Public Campaign (which I just muffed up the title of in an email to Sifry re: clean elections, duh), has this take on yesterday’s NYT piece about political bloggers. I like Sifry’s tone and am glad he wrote one of the op-ed’s authors, K. Daniel Glover (the other was Mike Essl,) to better understand what went on that produced the piece. Glover’s answers are there and Glover writes more about the piece on the Beltway Blogroll.
I don’t see anyone, however, asking or writing about the story’s lack of females, as I did in my Shut Up & Blog post. Mr. Glover?
Update: I’ve left comments on Mr. Sifry and Mr. Glover’s blogs re: where the women are, or aren’t as the case may be. Also, given the focus of the piece, Mr. Glover’s work as a blogger in the political realm undermines weigh more heavily his op-ed since it’s not like he’s not working for an entity closely aligned with politics, even if it’s a respected magazine, National Journal. Mike Essl, I read elsewhere, who did the graphic, is also a blogger – and that too isn’t mentioned in the byline. Just saying.
The generalizations are overused and if anything, bloggers should be working hard to dispell them – by the blogging they do as well as calling others out on it.
Udate x2: Just so’s we know, I checked the National Journal’s “Buzz Columns” to see what other blogs it has? Out of 11, only one is written by a woman.
Hell-low???
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:13 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | 2 Comments
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Dec
4
Strickland transition committee leaders fine, but who is actually on the committee?
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Anyone who’s ever been on or served a board of trustees – whether it’s for your religious institution, NGO, academic entity or corporation – knows that it’s the committees that get all the work done.
And so, I ask, after reading Mark Naymik’s OPEN piece here, the committee chairs sound lovely – but who will actually be on the committees doing the work? Those are the people whose names I want to see. Because those are the people who will be calling upon their education, experience and knowledge to, as Columbus Mayor and Strickland transition team leader Michael Coleman is quoted as saying, “evaluate what our state is doing right and where we can improve.” The chairs no doubt will be guides, but I think they’ll primarily be doing the “report their findings to Governor-elect Strickland to help guide his administration.”
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:02 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | Comments Off
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Dec
4
SEE?SEE?SEE??????? Removal of mailboxes not a myth and I still want mine back
Filed Under Politics | 6 Comments
Less than two weeks ago, I wrote about the mystery of the moving mailbox here. And now, today, just now – I read this from my News 5 noon updates:
There are fewer mailboxes on curbsides as letter-writing declines.
The postal service is trimming the number of mailboxes as people instead keep in touch with e-mail and cell phones. First-class, single-piece mail has dropped 20 percent in six years.
Nationwide, the postal service removed 28,000 mailboxes last year, about one in 10. That leaves more than a quarter-million still standing and ready to serve.
In the Cleveland area, 99 mailboxes got yanked last year, about 3 percent of the total.
I’m pissed. I want my mailbox back.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:18 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | 6 Comments
Print This Post
Dec
4
Strickland transition committee leaders fine, but who is actually on the committee?
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Anyone who’s ever been on or served a board of trustees – whether it’s for your religious institution, NGO, academic entity or corporation – knows that it’s the committees that get all the work done.
And so, I ask, after reading Mark Naymik’s OPEN piece here, the committee chairs sound lovely – but who will actually be on the committees doing the work? Those are the people whose names I want to see. Because those are the people who will be calling upon their education, experience and knowledge to, as Columbus Mayor and Strickland transition team leader Michael Coleman is quoted as saying, “evaluate what our state is doing right and where we can improve.” The chairs no doubt will be guides, but I think they’ll primarily be doing the “report their findings to Governor-elect Strickland to help guide his administration.”
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:02 pm December 4th, 2006 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Dec
4
[updatedx2] Micah Sifry’s Personal Democracy Forum on "Glover’s low blow"
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
Micah Sifry, who blogs at Personal Democracy Forum and is a senior analyst at Public Campaign (which I just muffed up the title of in an email to Sifry re: clean elections, duh), has this take on yesterday’s NYT piece about political bloggers. I like Sifry’s tone and am glad he wrote one of the op-ed’s authors, K. Daniel Glover (the other was Mike Essl,) to better understand what went on that produced the piece. Glover’s answers are there and Glover writes more about the piece on the Beltway Blogroll.
I don’t see anyone, however, asking or writing about the story’s lack of females, as I did in my Shut Up & Blog post. Mr. Glover?
Update: I’ve left comments on Mr. Sifry and Mr. Glover’s blogs re: where the women are, or aren’t as the case may be. Also, given the focus of the piece, Mr. Glover’s work as a blogger in the political realm undermines weigh more heavily his op-ed since it’s not like he’s not working for an entity closely aligned with politics, even if it’s a respected magazine, National Journal. Mike Essl, I read elsewhere, who did the graphic, is also a blogger – and that too isn’t mentioned in the byline. Just saying.
The generalizations are overused and if anything, bloggers should be working hard to dispell them – by the blogging they do as well as calling others out on it.
Udate x2: Just so’s we know, I checked the National Journal’s “Buzz Columns” to see what other blogs it has? Out of 11, only one is written by a woman.
Hell-low???
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:13 am December 4th, 2006 in Politics | 2 Comments
Print This Post
Dec
4
SEE?SEE?SEE??????? Removal of mailboxes not a myth and I still want mine back
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Less than two weeks ago, I wrote about the mystery of the moving mailbox here. And now, today, just now – I read this from my News 5 noon updates:
There are fewer mailboxes on curbsides as letter-writing declines.
The postal service is trimming the number of mailboxes as people instead keep in touch with e-mail and cell phones. First-class, single-piece mail has dropped 20 percent in six years.
Nationwide, the postal service removed 28,000 mailboxes last year, about one in 10. That leaves more than a quarter-million still standing and ready to serve.
In the Cleveland area, 99 mailboxes got yanked last year, about 3 percent of the total.
I’m pissed. I want my mailbox back.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:18 am December 4th, 2006 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Dec
4
[updatedx2] Micah Sifry’s Personal Democracy Forum on "Glover’s low blow"
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Micah Sifry, who blogs at Personal Democracy Forum and is a senior analyst at Public Campaign (which I just muffed up the title of in an email to Sifry re: clean elections, duh), has this take on yesterday’s NYT piece about political bloggers. I like Sifry’s tone and am glad he wrote one of the op-ed’s authors, K. Daniel Glover (the other was Mike Essl,) to better understand what went on that produced the piece. Glover’s answers are there and Glover writes more about the piece on the Beltway Blogroll.
I don’t see anyone, however, asking or writing about the story’s lack of females, as I did in my Shut Up & Blog post. Mr. Glover?
Update: I’ve left comments on Mr. Sifry and Mr. Glover’s blogs re: where the women are, or aren’t as the case may be. Also, given the focus of the piece, Mr. Glover’s work as a blogger in the political realm undermines weigh more heavily his op-ed since it’s not like he’s not working for an entity closely aligned with politics, even if it’s a respected magazine, National Journal. Mike Essl, I read elsewhere, who did the graphic, is also a blogger – and that too isn’t mentioned in the byline. Just saying.
The generalizations are overused and if anything, bloggers should be working hard to dispell them – by the blogging they do as well as calling others out on it.
Udate x2: Just so’s we know, I checked the National Journal’s “Buzz Columns” to see what other blogs it has? Out of 11, only one is written by a woman.
Hell-low???
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:13 am December 4th, 2006 in Politics | Comments Off
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Dec
4
Shut up & Blog: NYT can find only one female political blogger out of 13?
Filed Under Politics | 16 Comments
It shouldn’t surprise me. When the Plain Dealer profiled NEO’s political bloggers, they didn’t even stick to just NEO, but even then, I was the only female profiled, out of ten, and in the main article? Not one female blogger is quoted or named.
So what? I’ll tell you so what.
The political blogosphere isn’t putting female voices front and center any more than the MSM or the Sunday news shows or the 0p-ed pages. Even with increased representation and education, still, the imbalance continues.
What is going on?
I don’t know the answer, but I went in search of it, for a few minutes anyway. I found a few interesting articles with data and I have a few emails out to people who should be able to shed more light on the issue.
Here are some of the articles:
Blogads Political blogs reader survey 2006; highlight:
The median political blog reader is a 43 year old man with an annual family income of $80,000. He reads 6 blogs a day for 10 hours a week. 39% have post-graduate degrees. 70% have contributed to a campaign. 69% have bought music, 87% have bought books. 58% say blogs are “extremely useful” sources of information. 52% leave comments on other people’s blogs. Just 18% of political blog readers have their own blogs. (As you’ll see, that’s a lot lower than in other blogospheres.) Of these, 53% blog to keep track of their own ideas, 50% to let off steam, 36% to influence public opinion.
Chris Bowers of MyDD commenting on the Blogads 2006 results regarding gender (4/26/06):
Gender: 66.1% male, 33.9% female (69.0% male, 31.0% female)
While the gap closed somewhat during 2005, the activist segment of the Democratic political blogosphere is, unfortunately, still something a sausage party. I remain hopeful the gap will continue to shrink as time moves forward, but our ongoing tolerance of sexist language, the male dominated legacy of the technology and political sectors, and other factors continue to contribute this imbalance. I should note that in 2005, the imbalance was actually even worse on the conservative side of the aisle.
From the UK’s Guardian Unlimited, Just for the Boys? 6/30/06; profiles six female political bloggers; this highlight describes interaction on a British blog but it could easily have been an American one:
When Polly Toynbee asked the readers of the Guardian’s Comment is free blog why she and her fellow contributors were the target of so much abuse, “BollockstoBlair” got in the first heckle on the comments section. “Give it a rest, love – time of the month is it?” he wrote, adding “Just kidding” and the semi-colon and bracket that denote a grin and a wink.
Read that how you will – teasing provocation or blatant misogyny – it is not a riposte that would ever be hurled at a male blogger. And such comments might well be having a detrimental effect on would-be female commentators. Because, while women are now blogging in increasing numbers, very few write about politics.
These observations resonate as well:
Georgina Henry, the editor of Comment is free, says the dearth of women who blog about politics reflects the “disproportionately male” world of politics. And the “aggressive” tone of online political debate certainly doesn’t help. There is a particular impatience expressed towards female commentators who blog about political subjects that are considered mostly of interest to other women, such as childcare, work-life balance or raunch culture. “Women who write about the social agenda often get slaughtered,” she says.
And there is little doubt that this bad-tempered and belligerent tenor of debate puts women off, even those who might be willing to play by the locker-room rules. When blogs were at the margin of political debate, this mattered less, but now that both Labour and the Tories want to use them to reach out to grassroots supporters, it really does.
Pride, Prejudice and Blogs – Katha Pollit, Washington Monthly 3/24/05; a highlight:
To me, women political bloggers are so fresh and smart and full of fascinating underplayed news items, not linking to them really is a kind of misogyny. And since linking is so important in raising one’s own visibility, Garance may well be right when she suggests that male liberal bloggers shoot themselves in the foot by overlooking women political bloggers, who are disproportionately liberal. (This would parallel the Democrats’ inability really to go after women’s votes by talking about issues women care about — like equal pay, childcare, affordable housing, domestic violence, the whole range of women’s health. I mean, weren’t you shocked that John Edwards looked as clueless as Dick Cheney when Gwen Ifill brought up the high rates of HIV among black women during the vice presidential debate? It’s not some big medical secret — but it’s black people, and it’s women, and it wasn’t on the talking points. But I digress.)
And for something from Free Market News, 11/14/06, (although I haven’t a clue what eurosceptic is, other than this Wikipedia definition) regarding a woman who’ll be speaking at a conference:
However, sharp-eyed readers will note that I shall be this year’s token female speaker. I am told by the Director of the Bruges Group who organizes the conferences that this is not a question of tokenism: I shall be there on the platform entirely because of merit.
That’s very nice. Thank you, Robert. But this does raise the question of why there are so few women who can talk or write on political matters in the eurosceptic world? One could argue that there are very few men and women but, in particular, there is a shortage of women.
The same goes for political bloggers. Of course, some of the women use various names and it is sometimes hard to tell the sex of a particular blogger. Equally, there are not nearly enough eurosceptic bloggers in Britain, anyway, and that has something to do with the fact that, unlike Americans, the British prefer to stick to organized party politics and party loyalties. (If you want any proof of this, the account of who won the ConservativeHome political prizes yesterday, should do it.)
Beyond that, however, in the country, one of whose greatest Prime Ministers was a woman, who has had superb women rulers, women writers and journalists, as well as strong-minded women in public life (such as Bess of Hardwick and Mary Wollstonecraft who are pictured in this posting) we have a serious dearth of women anywhere near the top of politics and journalism.
In particular, this shortage is to be noted in eurosceptic circles. And yet, with the new media, the growing importance of the internet and the blogosphere and the example of powerful women bloggers across the Pond, we should be doing much much better.
Maybe it’s like the title of the documentary about the Dixie Chicks, Shut Up & Sing, something they heard from critics after Natalie Maines dissed President Bush in 2003. We should just, I should just shut up and blog.
Ha.
Blog? Yes. Shut up?
Pursing lips, nodding head and pounding the keyboard: I don’t think so.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:23 am December 4th, 2006 in Politics | 16 Comments
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