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May
21
Wow – okay – lots to leave:
1. I’ve always thought I liked the Literary Mama ezine. I received word today that its blog has an entry for writing submissions for something called the In The Motherhood Scriptwriting Contest. With trepidation, I clicked on the hyperlinked words and my fears were realized: In the Motherhood is, lo and behold, connected to Suave’s Pretty Mommy Movement! ACK!
2. Please read Bill Callahan’s post on the how the Ohio House will be holding hearings starting this Weds. on SB 117. He provides an excellent list of what we must recommend to our statehouse representatives be accomplished by whatever version the House chooses to pass – because, as Bill asserts, there will be a bill passed on this issue of telecom service. Bill is not someone to ignore and I personalized the list and sent it to my rep, Josh Mandel, who happens to be the vice-chair of the House Committee on Public Utilities.
3. Have I mentioned how there’s a bill in the Kansas legislature to create a system that would let you search on any word, like “furniture” and find out how much state money was spent by the KS gov’t on…furniture? Should we do this or what!? (sorry if this is a repeat but I love the idea)
4. Susan at BlueOhioan recommends reading this article from In These Times about the evolution of Democrats. I ditto her.
5. RIP, Terry Ryan, author of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.
6. So, what kind of mother does this make Dr. Laura? There is only one answer: one who wants to help her son anyway she can, I would hope, whatever it means, whatever it takes. Good luck to them both.
7. Finalists announced in the first ever Mirror Awards for media reporting on … the media.
8. Florida moves presidential primary to Jan. 29, 2008. Oy.
9. From the Chronicle of Higher Education, more questioning of college rankings by magazines.
10. The Dayton Daily News covers the very important topic of what happens to the mentally ill when they get imprisoned and not placed into treatment.
11. Has anyone tried putting The Newsroom on their blog yet? I’m thinking about it.
12. No More Words? And no more promises. (for Pho)
13. I love articles like this one about why some newspapers capitalize the W in Iraq War and others don’t.
14. Last but not least, and linked to from other blogs, Dann as Spitzer?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:17 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
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May
21
OH DOE Science standard for First Graders overlaps with Food Stamp Challenge
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One classroom in an Ohio public school is taking this Ohio science standard:
Explore that organisms have basic needs: air, water, food, space, shelter. Organisms can only survive in environments that meet their needs.
and demonstrating it in the classroom this way:
Please do NOT send a snack to school today. We are going to think about our basic ned for “FOOD”. [sic] We will record our feelings about this basic need before we eat our lunch today!
I’ve been trapped on highways in standstills for hours and rationed goldfish, Starbursts and half-full water bottles. But boy, depriving 24 seven year olds of their morning snack? Under the tutelage of one adult? That is not something I want to witness.
Isn’t it interesting, however, that this particular classroom’s experiment dovetails with the Food Stamp Challenge?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:59 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
What Winkelman means
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Truly a fascinating decision in the US Supreme Court today regarding parents’ rights and kids’ educational plans under the IDEA.
Not quite the full frontal slam dunk because Scalia and Thomas say that there’s no parental right to sue over the adequacy of a child’s education plan but only a parental right to sue to recover costs and address procedural issues.
However, the majority opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, says the opposite: Kennedy found that the parents – in addition to their kids – do have rights connected to the adequacy of a child’s education and those rights are what give parents the ability to represent themselves in court when the child’s education plan is at issue. Scalia and Thomas’s dissent on this portion would mean that parents would have to hire a lawyer to challenge the adequacy of a child’s education program.
Very, very interesting.
My prediciton is that whenever a parent doesn’t want to hire the lawyer, they’ll be sure to include a prayer in the lawsuit that indicates a concern for the adequacy of the education plan because then, under Winkelman, they’re allowed to represent themselves, since Winkelmand says that parents – and not just the child – have a right to an adequate education plan.
But also: watch out for what kinds of cases will now be litigated in which parents want to extend the purview of parental rights. Kennedy is indicating a willingness to expand such rights and in this day and age of helicopter parents and arguments that talk about “choice” – well, the legal mind is a terrible thing to waste and with fewer torts, hey – let’s go for the civil liberties and fundamental rights, yes?
Love that JD/MSSA sometimes.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:26 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
Do not skip this excellent post by the premier SCOTUS Blog blogger, Lyle Denniston (ooo and he’s a Georgetown grad). He is at the top rung of how wonderful blog posts can be. Okay, so I’m a geeky law school permanent student kind of person – what can I say? I think he does an awesome job at a really tough gig.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:14 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
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May
21
Wow – okay – lots to leave:
1. I’ve always thought I liked the Literary Mama ezine. I received word today that its blog has an entry for writing submissions for something called the In The Motherhood Scriptwriting Contest. With trepidation, I clicked on the hyperlinked words and my fears were realized: In the Motherhood is, lo and behold, connected to Suave’s Pretty Mommy Movement! ACK!
2. Please read Bill Callahan’s post on the how the Ohio House will be holding hearings starting this Weds. on SB 117. He provides an excellent list of what we must recommend to our statehouse representatives be accomplished by whatever version the House chooses to pass – because, as Bill asserts, there will be a bill passed on this issue of telecom service. Bill is not someone to ignore and I personalized the list and sent it to my rep, Josh Mandel, who happens to be the vice-chair of the House Committee on Public Utilities.
3. Have I mentioned how there’s a bill in the Kansas legislature to create a system that would let you search on any word, like “furniture” and find out how much state money was spent by the KS gov’t on…furniture? Should we do this or what!? (sorry if this is a repeat but I love the idea)
4. Susan at BlueOhioan recommends reading this article from In These Times about the evolution of Democrats. I ditto her.
5. RIP, Terry Ryan, author of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.
6. So, what kind of mother does this make Dr. Laura? There is only one answer: one who wants to help her son anyway she can, I would hope, whatever it means, whatever it takes. Good luck to them both.
7. Finalists announced in the first ever Mirror Awards for media reporting on … the media.
8. Florida moves presidential primary to Jan. 29, 2008. Oy.
9. From the Chronicle of Higher Education, more questioning of college rankings by magazines.
10. The Dayton Daily News covers the very important topic of what happens to the mentally ill when they get imprisoned and not placed into treatment.
11. Has anyone tried putting The Newsroom on their blog yet? I’m thinking about it.
12. No More Words? And no more promises. (for Pho)
13. I love articles like this one about why some newspapers capitalize the W in Iraq War and others don’t.
14. Last but not least, and linked to from other blogs, Dann as Spitzer?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:17 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
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May
21
OH DOE Science standard for First Graders overlaps with Food Stamp Challenge
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One classroom in an Ohio public school is taking this Ohio science standard:
Explore that organisms have basic needs: air, water, food, space, shelter. Organisms can only survive in environments that meet their needs.
and demonstrating it in the classroom this way:
Please do NOT send a snack to school today. We are going to think about our basic ned for “FOOD”. [sic] We will record our feelings about this basic need before we eat our lunch today!
I’ve been trapped on highways in standstills for hours and rationed goldfish, Starbursts and half-full water bottles. But boy, depriving 24 seven year olds of their morning snack? Under the tutelage of one adult? That is not something I want to witness.
Isn’t it interesting, however, that this particular classroom’s experiment dovetails with the Food Stamp Challenge?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:59 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
Advice from top 3 news websites on how to redesign them (hint hint hint PD/Cleveland.com)
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I bet that both Susan Goldberg and Denise Polverine (of Cleveland.com) have already read or heard this advice. I hope so, anyway, because if I’m shaking my head saying, uhhuh, uhhuh, uhhuh because this stuff has occurred to me…
Here’s part of the intro:
…if a newspaper site — even a major news source with upwards of 50 million hits per month — remains too static these days it risks falling way behind the competition. With readers migrating en masse to the Web for their news, making sure your paper’s site is ahead of the curve becomes ever more vital.
E&P spoke to the editors of three top newspaper sites — USATODAY.com, latimes.com, and washingtonpost.com — about how a redesign makes its way from a set of ideas and needs to an executed vision. One theme that emerged was that redesigning their site was an ongoing process that relies more and more on taking readers’ opinions into effect and making the process more of a conversation than ever before. Still, one editor admitted, half of the reader feedback was initially negative.
Some of the advice:
From the LAtimes.com: Among the changes that were recently made as part of this “treatment” — which Artley says were designed not to affect the branding or feel of the site — a space was created for reader comments from the site’s blogs; a user-generated photo element was brought higher on the page; headlines were made cleaner; and a video player was also moved higher up.
“What we did in our cleanup had some foreshadowing for what will happen to the rest of the site,” says Artley. “Readers are coming to us for the journalism we’re producing, and we wanted to make maybe a subliminal statement that interactivity with readers is going to be a huge priority going forward.”
From the Washington Post: “There were too many elements, and you couldn’t find things easily enough,” he says. “I mean, we have 70 blogs. And we also wanted to show off a little more of the feature stuff, giving it a similar treatment to multimedia.”
To accomplish this, he and his team added a number of new elements to the homepage; cascading style sheets were created to improve navigability to the site’s different sections; a box for discussions was moved higher up on the page; and a multimedia strip was put beneath the top headlines to feature photo galleries, interactive elements, and video.
On the technical side, Brady says it was important that the new page would be optimized to load quickly, as well as to make sure the major elements on the page would be picked up by Google, which is responsible for a large portion of the site’s traffic. Additionally, the new design has to be “tested like crazy” to make sure that it will work with every Web browser and operating system.
Brady says that, in terms of what his staff is producing every day, there has been some change in the workload. His Web team is now responsible for maintaining the multimedia strip on the homepage, and for making sure that there’s a good mix between video, photo, and text elements on the page. The discussions box on the top of the page also has to be monitored, he says, and there is more responsibility for the editors of the section pages as well.
From USAToday: “In the summer of 2006 the publisher challenged us to present a vision that would move us beyond experimentation to a full blown transformation of the site,” says Wilson. “In early July we held a two-day planning retreat; by the end of the month we had a vision and an estimate of the manpower and dollars required to realize that vision. By September we had a partnership in place with Pluck (whose technology would power the social media features) and by October the team was in place and project was underway. We established a goal of an early March launch.”
Wilson says the team divided the work to be done into “zones” with small teams of designers and developers responsible for each zone. At its peak workload, there were about 50 people working on the redesign, all put together in a “war room” where they would be able to easily exchange ideas and work as a team.
“There were clear risks,” Wilson notes. “We would be the first major client to deploy the social media tools Pluck was providing and we would not have an opportunity to fully test them until well into the project; five separate development efforts (ranging from web page design to partner integration to a rebuilding of our publishing system) were being undertaken simultaneously and had to be integrated prior to the launch; we had set an aggressive timetable; and (because of the complexity of the various efforts we were undertaking) we would have to ‘throw the switch’ at launch rather than introduce the redesign in beta.”
Despite those risks, he said, the redesigned USATODAY.com site launched on time and came in under budget. And, with the new homepage in place, the site’s traffic spiked by 21% in March.
And in conclusion: “It’s a medium — as we saw with the Hillary 1984 video — in which anyone can author, publish, distribute and in some cases even amass audience around their content,” Wilson says. “And while original reporting remains at the core of a successful news operation, it is just as important to aggregate content from other sources, engage directly with readers, and steer readers to the most useful sources on the web.”
He says that the main challenge for news organizations isn’t to find the latest Web fad to mimic, but “to figure out how those tools can improve the presentation and delivery of the news.”
“Anyone can let readers comment on news articles. The harder question is how can you use those comments to improve readers’ understanding of the news,” he says. “As ambitious as our redesign was, we’re still in the very early phases of that effort. We must continue to innovate. It’s essential that we experiment with these tools and move closer to a place where we are not only experts at reporting and telling the story; but experts at identifying other useful resources on the web and engaging in a direct dialog with readers.”
Carry on, now.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:50 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
Women in the Ohio political blogosphere
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So Blog Net News Ohio is now doing this influence index thing. And, as deserved, Lisa Renee’s Glass City Jungle is firmly planted at the top of the Top 20. I scooted in this week but I’m far less reliable when it comes to posting (IMO) than Lisa Renee.
That’s it. Totally it, for the Top 20 out of over 100 Ohio blogs that list with BNN.
Now, there are others that include women in the group:
The Chief Source has Terra.
Buckeye State Blog has women frontpagers though not posting anywhere near as often as the men.
Word of Mouth blog has Paula, Loraine, Kelly.
Right Angle Blog has others post but I don’t know if any are women – many posters there use pseudonyms so someone will have to out whether or not those authors are women
OPENERS is an MSM blog, but yes, there are women who post through it.
And I think that’s it for women-contribution in the Top 20.
As Ohio Goes was Cindy Zawadski but she’s been invisible lately (I’ve sent a couple of emails to her – don’t know anymore though, hopefully, it’s just life moving on).
BlueOhioan has Susan
Brewed Fresh Daily gets a woman posting now and then – Gloria, myself, others
Some of the Cincinnati blogs might – I don’t follow them closely
Faithful Ohio is Renee in Ohio who blogs at several places and does a great job
Madrigal Maniac – I think is female, yes? Sorry that I don’t recall
Thurber’s Thoughts is written by Maggie Thurber, in the Toledo area.
And those are the only ones I can identify as being written by or having contributions from women. Please add in information on others if you have it.
So – out of a total of more than 100 blogs, a few at least that are not currently active, I could identify a female presence of some type in 13 of them.
Hmmm, women make up what proportion of the voting electorate? Of the number of high school graduates? Of purchasers and decision-makers in households?
I don’t know.
But I know women make up 100% of mothers, daughters and wives (we’re not arguing about that last one today, okay?).
How good is the representation in the Ohio political blogosphere for women’s issues? Do we need to care?
I don’t know. I do what I do, I know Lisa Renee does what she does. What do other’s think about these numbers? I’ve read about how one thing bloggers like to do is get more people blogging. I agree. I’ve just been asked to speak at a girl’s forum on women and technology. Ripe opportunity.
Again – what do others who frequent blogs and consider themselves news consumers think about this info, if you think about it at all?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:05 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | 3 Comments
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May
21
Dann convinced MySpace to give up registered sex offenders
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From James Nash at the Columbus Dispatch:
About a half-hour ago [Ohio AG Marc] Dann said MySpace.com has agreed to release names and personal data on thousands of people who were identified as registered sex offenders by a contractor hired to scour the site.
Here’s more specifics from ZDNet.
Don’t forget this Ohio legislative bill, SB 97, proffered by State Sen. Steve Stivers – it seeks to increase penalties for not registering and to require more frequent registry updates by the offenders.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:15 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
[updated] Parents of kids on IEPs don’t need to hire lawyers, BIG SCOTUS win, originated in Ohio
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Wow. Big, big win for parents who were supported by the US DOJ btw.
The opinion is here (Winkelman v. Parma City School District)
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said parents have legal rights under the Individuals With Disabilities in Education Act, the main federal special education law.
“They are, as a result, entitled to prosecute IDEA claims on their own behalf,” Kennedy said.
The court sided with Jeff and Sandee Winkelman and their son, Jacob, in their fight against the Parma, Ohio school district.
The Winkelmans can’t afford a lawyer or the cost of private schooling for Jacob. Neither parent is a lawyer.
The parents objected to the Parma schools’ plan to educate Jacob at a public school. They wanted the district to pay for his $56,000 yearly enrollment in a private school that specializes in educating autistic children.
The Winkelmans have spent about $30,000 in legal fees since first contesting Jacob’s treatment in 2003. Jeff Winkelman has taken a second job while his wife has researched previous court rulings and written her own filings.
Huge, huge win.
I wrote about it here and here and will post updates as I learn more, understand more. Wow – really, REALLY big deal for kids with special ed needs and parents who differ with their public school districts. Read more about a tangential issue in Ohio here at Brewed Fresh Daily.
UPDATE: More first-person reaction from the Winkelmans, by the Plain Dealer Openers.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:33 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | 6 Comments
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May
21
What Winkelman means
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Truly a fascinating decision in the US Supreme Court today regarding parents’ rights and kids’ educational plans under the IDEA.
Not quite the full frontal slam dunk because Scalia and Thomas say that there’s no parental right to sue over the adequacy of a child’s education plan but only a parental right to sue to recover costs and address procedural issues.
However, the majority opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, says the opposite: Kennedy found that the parents – in addition to their kids – do have rights connected to the adequacy of a child’s education and those rights are what give parents the ability to represent themselves in court when the child’s education plan is at issue. Scalia and Thomas’s dissent on this portion would mean that parents would have to hire a lawyer to challenge the adequacy of a child’s education program.
Very, very interesting.
My prediciton is that whenever a parent doesn’t want to hire the lawyer, they’ll be sure to include a prayer in the lawsuit that indicates a concern for the adequacy of the education plan because then, under Winkelman, they’re allowed to represent themselves, since Winkelmand says that parents – and not just the child – have a right to an adequate education plan.
But also: watch out for what kinds of cases will now be litigated in which parents want to extend the purview of parental rights. Kennedy is indicating a willingness to expand such rights and in this day and age of helicopter parents and arguments that talk about “choice” – well, the legal mind is a terrible thing to waste and with fewer torts, hey – let’s go for the civil liberties and fundamental rights, yes?
Love that JD/MSSA sometimes.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:26 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
Do not skip this excellent post by the premier SCOTUS Blog blogger, Lyle Denniston (ooo and he’s a Georgetown grad). He is at the top rung of how wonderful blog posts can be. Okay, so I’m a geeky law school permanent student kind of person – what can I say? I think he does an awesome job at a really tough gig.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:14 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
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May
21
Ability to talkbalk to online content "dismal failure" of civil discourse
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I know exactly what he means.
In all of the hundreds of talkbacks we reviewed at Ynetnews, and which I still read today on all the Israeli media sites, I can’t say I ever saw someone write, “You know, you’re right. Your comments make a lot of sense. I think I am going to have to revise my thinking on this matter.”
Instead, I see people digging in their heels, taking the most extreme positions, and defending sometimes indefensible positions on both sides of the so-called security barrier (or fence, or wall).
From a business perspective, from a “viral marketing” perspective, and from a Web 2.0 citizen journalism perspective, talkbacks — which are still not as widespread in American media as one might think — make a lot of sense.
However, from a civil discourse perspective (at least so far in Israeli media) I think they have been a dismal failure.
Recently, I had a face-to-face talkbalk moment (lengthy moment no less) about my position on Israel, the Palestinians and Hezbollah with someone who is very firm and very opposite in approach from mine (not necessarily that hard to be, but even so, firm and opposite). And, much as Abbey describes, it wasn’t so much uncomfortable personally but rather intractable, from the other person’s treatment of the discourse.
The other person did not waiver, and posed good questions to get me thinking. However, I was receptive to doing so – to thinking that is. This person, on the other hand, although asking me questions, seemed to do so in hopes that I’d tie myself up in my words, rather than because the person wanted to actually think about what I was thinking and how I thought and consider if there was some merit to it. That’s the way I felt anyway.
So – I have to say, based on what I’ve seen around the blogosphere, I would tend to agree with Abbey’s thoughts on talkback value.
What do you think?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:09 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
VaTech incident’s review panel bars media
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The panel closed the meeting and tour under provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act that protect students’ privacy and briefings by law enforcement agencies. Reporters for several news organizations objected, saying it that it did not appear the grounds for closing the meeting were properly applied in this case.
“We want this process to be as public as we can make it,” W. Gerald Massengill, chairman of the panel, told reporters. “But I hope you understand there are certain sensitive materials that are allowed for within Virginia law.”
Massengill said the university made the decision to close the tour of West Ambler Johnston Hall, where the first two students were killed, and the classrooms of Norris Hall, where senior Seung-Hui Cho killed 25 more students and five faculty members before committing suicide.
Sigh. Hmm – I’m not sure how I feel about this. Thoughts?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:05 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
[updated] A PD editorial, written to love: Strickland should veto anti-stripper bill
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UPDATE: From the Columbus Dispatch, on the question of which of our Ohio political leaders have been to a strip club, we learn that our dear Governor at least is honest (no surprise, and thank you, Governor Strickland; sheesh!) and House Speaker Husted a little cagey (he’s not that old to begin with so which younger years does he mean) and Senate President more cagey (does it really matter where you visited the strip club, Bill?). Look guys – no matter your answer, you could always have said that at least you haven’t been to as many as Phil Burress frequented before his conversion. Kudos to Dispatch Statehouse Reporter, Jim Siegal, for asking and getting the answers.
Another update: Here’s the Akron Beacon Journal’s editorial on the bill, titled, Virtual Toadies.
I gave up my Plain Dealer subscription because I hated how the editorial that endorsed Issue 3 was reasoned (although I really like the writer who wrote it, but I didn’t know who wrote it at the time and well, yeah, I don’t know if it would have made a difference – but hindsight, 20/20 all that).
Now comes this wonderfully written and reasoned editorial (whose author remains unknown to me) about why Governor Ted Strickland should veto SB16.
Of course I and many others (though the right of center blogs have been very quiet on the issue itself) have written about most of the same reasons cited in the editorial before in the name of the same outcome: veto the thing.
The bill erodes local control (previously a bellwether of whether you’re a real Republican) and thus shows up the schizophrenia of the Republican party and its special interest lockdown. It will also have an effect on my district which houses adult establishments (my state rep. Josh Mandel voted for the bill). I’ve seen nothing to explain how the local communities should be expected to fall in line, how they should pay for doing so or who, in fact, is going to be responsible for enforcing the restrictions, should they become law.
So what if there’s an override likelihood of a Strickland veto?
Make these legislators accountable. They’re so willing to be the emissaries of Phil Burress and the Citizens for His Community Values? Then let them show just how willing they are – to their constituents.
This Toledo Blade editorial likewise is to love and repeats my refrain and others: What a waste:
Opposition to this bill does not equate to an endorsement of the adult entertainment industry. It is, instead, opposition to a measure that wastes lawmakers’ time, that allows them to posture for a special-interest group, and demonstrate what little imagination they have for the issues that really matter to Ohioans.
Talk about chronic procrastinators – the award would have to go to these legislators, or at the very least, their leaders who allow this stuff to sidetrack them.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:58 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
It’s my inner cheerleader I guess. Go send some hellos to Jeff and Ohio Daily Blog.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:09 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
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May
21
Women in the Ohio political blogosphere
Filed Under Politics | 3 Comments
So Blog Net News Ohio is now doing this influence index thing. And, as deserved, Lisa Renee’s Glass City Jungle is firmly planted at the top of the Top 20. I scooted in this week but I’m far less reliable when it comes to posting (IMO) than Lisa Renee.
That’s it. Totally it, for the Top 20 out of over 100 Ohio blogs that list with BNN.
Now, there are others that include women in the group:
The Chief Source has Terra.
Buckeye State Blog has women frontpagers though not posting anywhere near as often as the men.
Word of Mouth blog has Paula, Loraine, Kelly.
Right Angle Blog has others post but I don’t know if any are women – many posters there use pseudonyms so someone will have to out whether or not those authors are women
OPENERS is an MSM blog, but yes, there are women who post through it.
And I think that’s it for women-contribution in the Top 20.
As Ohio Goes was Cindy Zawadski but she’s been invisible lately (I’ve sent a couple of emails to her – don’t know anymore though, hopefully, it’s just life moving on).
BlueOhioan has Susan
Brewed Fresh Daily gets a woman posting now and then – Gloria, myself, others
Some of the Cincinnati blogs might – I don’t follow them closely
Faithful Ohio is Renee in Ohio who blogs at several places and does a great job
Madrigal Maniac – I think is female, yes? Sorry that I don’t recall
Thurber’s Thoughts is written by Maggie Thurber, in the Toledo area.
And those are the only ones I can identify as being written by or having contributions from women. Please add in information on others if you have it.
So – out of a total of more than 100 blogs, a few at least that are not currently active, I could identify a female presence of some type in 13 of them.
Hmmm, women make up what proportion of the voting electorate? Of the number of high school graduates? Of purchasers and decision-makers in households?
I don’t know.
But I know women make up 100% of mothers, daughters and wives (we’re not arguing about that last one today, okay?).
How good is the representation in the Ohio political blogosphere for women’s issues? Do we need to care?
I don’t know. I do what I do, I know Lisa Renee does what she does. What do other’s think about these numbers? I’ve read about how one thing bloggers like to do is get more people blogging. I agree. I’ve just been asked to speak at a girl’s forum on women and technology. Ripe opportunity.
Again – what do others who frequent blogs and consider themselves news consumers think about this info, if you think about it at all?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:05 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | 3 Comments
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May
21
What Winkelman means
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Truly a fascinating decision in the US Supreme Court today regarding parents’ rights and kids’ educational plans under the IDEA.
Not quite the full frontal slam dunk because Scalia and Thomas say that there’s no parental right to sue over the adequacy of a child’s education plan but only a parental right to sue to recover costs and address procedural issues.
However, the majority opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, says the opposite: Kennedy found that the parents – in addition to their kids – do have rights connected to the adequacy of a child’s education and those rights are what give parents the ability to represent themselves in court when the child’s education plan is at issue. Scalia and Thomas’s dissent on this portion would mean that parents would have to hire a lawyer to challenge the adequacy of a child’s education program.
Very, very interesting.
My prediciton is that whenever a parent doesn’t want to hire the lawyer, they’ll be sure to include a prayer in the lawsuit that indicates a concern for the adequacy of the education plan because then, under Winkelman, they’re allowed to represent themselves, since Winkelmand says that parents – and not just the child – have a right to an adequate education plan.
But also: watch out for what kinds of cases will now be litigated in which parents want to extend the purview of parental rights. Kennedy is indicating a willingness to expand such rights and in this day and age of helicopter parents and arguments that talk about “choice” – well, the legal mind is a terrible thing to waste and with fewer torts, hey – let’s go for the civil liberties and fundamental rights, yes?
Love that JD/MSSA sometimes.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:26 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
Dann convinced MySpace to give up registered sex offenders
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From James Nash at the Columbus Dispatch:
About a half-hour ago [Ohio AG Marc] Dann said MySpace.com has agreed to release names and personal data on thousands of people who were identified as registered sex offenders by a contractor hired to scour the site.
Here’s more specifics from ZDNet.
Don’t forget this Ohio legislative bill, SB 97, proffered by State Sen. Steve Stivers – it seeks to increase penalties for not registering and to require more frequent registry updates by the offenders.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:15 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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May
21
Do not skip this excellent post by the premier SCOTUS Blog blogger, Lyle Denniston (ooo and he’s a Georgetown grad). He is at the top rung of how wonderful blog posts can be. Okay, so I’m a geeky law school permanent student kind of person – what can I say? I think he does an awesome job at a really tough gig.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:14 pm May 21st, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
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