Proud Member of The Moms Clean Air Force
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Jul
31
Remains of the Day, 7-31-07
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1. Can this possibly be worth $500? Or, maybe the question is, can I be so desperate to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing with my life that I’d waste a birthday gift request on it? Mmmm – I think I’m going to have to be a lot more desperate. In the meantime, I’ll just live with this manifesto. Maybe I could just graft one of these? I do like their web designer.
2. I am not a fashion plate. And I’ve written before about how I’m not really sure how I feel about the Ladies Who Launch. But I continue to get their regular newsletters because some days, I get ones that feature women and efforts like this one. If you didn’t click yet, I will tell you that it’s a clothing company, started by an Afghan woman, educated in the States, that operates in Kabul. The business plan won her awards while in school and I have to say, the clothing looks beautiful. Hmmm, birthday, birthday, birthday….
3. I don’t watch Bill O’Reilly precisely because why would I subject myself to wasting time listening to someone who says what he says? The italics are to emphasize that I do not understand why people waste their time watching stuff they know has so little value (I’m not saying O’Reilly has so little value – I’m saying, why do people who keep complaining about him still watch him). Whatever. Anyway – I guess he’s been nasty to Daily Kos – you know what? So have I. But if it’s been to the point that Chris Dodd is going on to defend blogs, well, hey – it must be bad because I really like Dodd and he’s not going to subject himself to O’Reilly and O’Reilly’s core audience unless there’s something to it. I signed the petition. H/t Cliff Schecter.
4. What if Ohio legislators Josh Mandel and Shannon Jones had used this tactic re: divestment?
5. Contemplating Israeli army options, from the viewpoint of A Mom in Israel (who, by the way, was born in the Midwest) (I didn’t say where, I didn’t say where!).
6. Now this is the kind of post I can really support as being the fodder for a blog like Buckeye State Blog. #1 – It helps me get a grip on what exactly is going on. #2 – It compares what’s going on between campaigns. #3 – It helps people who care about one candidate or another figure out if they want to get involved or not, just yet, by implying where there might be opportunities. #4 – It provides a baseline from which we can measure the effort the candidates are putting in in Ohio. I hope Jerid keeps this kind of post as a monthly or at least quarterly feature between now and this time next year.
7. This rabbi wasn’t familiar to me, but may she rest in peace. I’m certain that her role in women taking on leadership position in the Jewish religion has had repercussions that have affected me.
8. Okay. See? This is why I absolutely HATED that damn Issue 3 amendment language. So much of what they call legislation is pure, unadultered, would never pass an Ohio proficiency exam crap. Argh. And then they expect citizens to follow it? And enforcers to enforce what they can’t even read and judges interpret the uninterpretable? Double Argh. Thanks for reminding what drives me nuts about the law, Bill.
9. TV Anchors subjected to ridicule. Awwww.
Not.
10. Want to stop the war? Listen to CPN’s Sound of Ideas tomorrow to hear advice from Harvey Pekar.
11. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me why there is only ONE WOMAN named to the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation board? Are you serious that there was only one, for one of eleven seats, who made the grade? I find that impossible. Paging Frances Strickland.
12. East Cleveland Roots News. Trying to get some action going there.
13. David Brennan’s name has not been treated well in Colorado – I’ve linked to stories there before. Now Plunderbund’s got more on Bad. News. Brennan.
14. READ CHAS RICH. READ CHAS RICH. READ CHAS RICH.
15. Plain Dealer Doh moment of the day.
16. Could the media PLEASE indicate that we’re not even talking about paid leave for moms – we’re talking about taking time off, period. Damn but our country can be so backwards sometimes.
This list made me so tired.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:42 pm July 31st, 2007 in Politics | 4 Comments
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Jul
31
Don’t talk to me about being a self-hating Jew
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Just read this. If it’s true, I can think of a lot more things I’m interested in hating way ahead of myself.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:58 pm July 31st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jul
31
Enough about Hillary’s cleavage
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Ellen Goodman helps the effort to examine Hillary Clinton’s cleavage come to a close in this column, Political Fashionbabble. Likewise, NPR’s Talk of the Nation chatted with Goodman today and you can listen to it here (after 6pm today) about the same subject.
Could you imagine what we might be able to accomplish in this world if as much time was spent on issues we should be cleaving to rather than a non-issue like Hillary’s sternum?
Goodman was a Spring 2007 Shorenstein Fellow, looking at the new gender gap in the news media and the Internet. I am eager to read what she wrote as a result of her work.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:24 pm July 31st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jul
31
More female political ascension: GOPper from DE becomes NCSL prez
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And, although Delaware state representative Donna Stone (R-Dover South) won’t be the first female president of the National Conference of State Legislatures, she is the first female Republican president of the NCSL.
More here, here and here for more about Stone.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:27 pm July 31st, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jul
31
If you had an Ohio county’s chief elections person in a room with not too many people for more than an hour, what would be your must-know the answer to this question? I’ll have a chance tomorrow at the Pepper Pike Democratic Club’s monthly meeting. Jane Platten, the new Director of the Board of Elections, will be addressing the group. You can read more about her here. Feel free to leave the questions in the comments or email me.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:37 pm July 31st, 2007 in Politics | 17 Comments
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Jul
31
Remains of the Day, 7-30-07
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Eyes barely open.
1. Is this double-dipping okay? As more and more people are retiring, and there will be more and more, are we really sure we want to ban retire-rehire scenarios? This is not something that has an easy answer.
2. I’ve asked this question of other people probably ten times, googled it myself, read the instructions at Blogger 1000 times and so on. But I think this post really might help me. The thing I can’t quite figure out is: I need to make a new path at my jillmillerzimon.com site, yes? And a button for people to hit that would make WLST show up at jillmillerzimon.com, right?
3. Bill does a fantastic job deconstructing the Plain Dealer’s editorial on the Third Frontier. I swear, I think the PD is bipolar sometimes. They love him, they hate him, they’ll leave him, they’ll take him. Whatever. I don’t know what to expect from a paper anymore – but then that’s part of the problem for papers, isn’t it?
4. I’m not much into name-calling, but I gotta tell you – the way the Republican candidates are freaking out over the CNN/YouTube debates – criminal and immature at the same time. You want people to vote for you, but you don’t want to have to answer to them, in even the most transparent way possible? That is not the quality of a leader – period. And everyone should remember that.
5. The rooms did look pretty nice (I know I know – I still haven’t written about that trip there). Now – if they came with babysitters or something….
6. With one simple link, Nixguy brings up a very interesting set of questions that, on the surface, might seem easy to answer. But, I posit in comments there, are not.
Exactly 21 days until the school’s opening ice cream social.
AAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:49 am July 31st, 2007 in Politics | 7 Comments
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Jul
31
National Conf. of State Legislatures waives registration fee for bloggers at annual event
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The short version: read more here. And here’s NCSL’s home page.
The long version: A fellow blogger who noticed that I like the NCSL resources emailed me news about the group’s annual summit that happens this weekend (Aug. 5-9) in Boston (see the schedule here). I wrote NCSL to confirm the details and here’s the response:
We do consider bloggers for admission as media to our Legislative Summit. Each blogger’s request for credentials is considered on a case-by-case basis as all requests to attend as media are. Feel free to share this info with your fellow bloggers. I’d be happy to answer any questions they might have.
P.S. There’s even free wi-fi access throughout the convention center in Boston – perfect for live blogging!
Here’s the contact info:
Bill Wyatt
Director of Media Relations
National Conference of State Legislatures
444 North Capitol Street NW
Suite 515
Washington, D.C. 20001
Office: (202) 624-8667
Cell: (202) 413-0534
E-Mail: william.wyatt@ncsl.org
If I’d done just a wee bit more planning, I actually might have been able to go this year but camp schedules and visitors’ trips won’t make it possible. Next year, though? New Orleans. I’m always looking for an excuse to go back there. Hmm – wouldn’t it be fun to present there? Though I’m sure that the majority of legislators still don’t want to have much to do with bloggers on any regular basis.
Finally, I did a little inquiring about whether members of our Ohio legislature pay attention to NCSL and it appears that indeed they do. I’m told that at least several members of each House caucus tend to go, with there being four caucuses (if I got that right). Don’t know about the Senate side but I would imagine that the numbers are parallel.
Buckeye State Blog was writing today about leadership in the Ohio state legislature. Would you think that this weekend in Boston some good before, during and after hours conversations might go on regarding that very same topic?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:10 am July 31st, 2007 in Politics | 4 Comments
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Jul
30
Ingmar Bergman, RIP
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I adored the movie Fanny and Alexander, probably because the scenes that appear to be the most innocent never were – the filmmaker knew. I’ve seen it several times. I admired Ingmar Bergman‘s work because through some of the most spare of spare images, combined in ways that he envisioned, we came to understand and question so much more about our world and relations within it.
Bergman is a person whose legacy will truly live on through many, many disciples of his work.
Here’s a lovely piece from the New York Times’ blog, Paper Cuts, on Bergman and Woody Allen.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:06 pm July 30th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jul
30
Plain Dealer’s "Blog 5"
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I’m not really sure what it is (I tried to sub to it with Bloglines but got an internal error message) – as in, a new feature or just for today. But thanks.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:48 pm July 30th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments
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Jul
30
Eric using iPhone on JMZ
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I’m outting myself. Woopdedoo. Jill. Wearing a Dancers for Democracy shirt that was so big on her, because she’s so tiny, that her husband had to alter it to make it look even remotely provocative.
Folks, if you get a kick out of seeing a nearly 45 year old mother of three wearing a plain pink tshirt with the phrase, Dancers for Democracy on it?
You need a life.
Here’s a little Q&A to explain what happened:
Q: Gee, Jill, you always seem to champion women – why did you wear a shirt in support of strippers?
A: Thanks for asking that question, Jill. I wore the shirt because Eric said that if I was getting two, he’d give me one free if I wore the shirt.
Q: But Jill, that sounds so…Jewish of you, no? Why would you feed into that stereotype?
A: Well, again Jill, you ask an excellent question. You know, it was a fun day, I was in a fun mood, I wanted the shirt for my dad because the company he and my mom ran for 40 years used the almost exact same symbol of a fist that Plunderbund uses. And I flashed back to all the times I was so conservative – like when I was 22 and I turned down a ride on a moped in Naples, Italy when I was stranded on a boat that had docked and an 18 wheeler had careened down the only street that led from the dock to the city and the cute Italian guy on the moped wanted to take me on his moped up to the train station and I was too shy and nervous and then there was the time when I was at the Colisseum in Rome and this guy started talking to me and invited me to lunch with his family and again, I was just too nervous and said no.
So you know what I thought, Jill? I thought, hey – it’s a TSHIRT. It’s PINK. I didn’t support that stupid law because there was already one in place that was more than adequate. I’m not on a crusade to shutter racetracks and slots and games of whatever the hell they are. And I’m not on a crusade to shutter or create more strip clubs. But I hated my legislators wasting even one minute on an issue that they had JUST DEALT WITH less than eight months before. Stoopid waste of my taxpayer time and money.
Oh – so – the short version? I decided to put the shirt on and be cute about it.
Q: So, now what?
A: Another great question – so glad you asked. Ya got me. I’ve been asked by no less than four different people if, when I decide to run for elected office, could they be my campaign manager. I guess now I’ll have a real test case scenario to give them re: damage crontrol.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:35 pm July 30th, 2007 in Politics | 5 Comments
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Jul
30
I haven’t sough out corroborating evidence to backup this post about Ryan’s experience with the Issue 3/legalize gambling/bring casinos to Cleveland and slots to racetracks Ohio Learn and Earn campaign’s petition signature drive last summer, but I do recall reading, I think in the Toledo Blade maybe?, that there were some problems with OLE not paying people after November’s ballot loss. I can’t find a link at the moment.
Read Ryan’s post anyway and decide:
Truth or fiction? Let’s hear some chiming in. And also, don’t forget to ask: who knew what, who was responsible for what and who should feel ashamed of themselves (not because of the issue itself, but because of how poorly those how wanted to make it succeed treated or allowed others to treat other human beings; making peace with yourself because you worked for OLE is a different post).
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:16 pm July 30th, 2007 in Politics | 10 Comments
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Jul
30
All women blogging carnival #8, Elizabeth Edwards speech at Blogher
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I’ve been trying to get myself more involved in the BlogHer community, to learn how I can contribute and what I can learn there. I made some efforts to get to their ’07 conference which was this weekend in Chicago, but in the end, it didn’t work out (Bloggapalooza, husband business trip, kind of started too late re: putting together a presentation/submitting info that I’m interested). But I crusade often for more women bloggers around here – particular in the political arena, and I see involvement in Blogher as possibly a way to learn more about what I can do to feed the pipeline.
One way I found this evening is the All Women Blogging Carnival, which you can find here for this week for the #8 version to which I’ve contributed. Take a look – see what you think.
And a bonus – a seven part podcast of Elizabeth Edwards at BlogHer today.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:33 am July 30th, 2007 in Politics | 3 Comments
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Jul
30
[updatedx2] Bloggapalooza 2.0 Meta-post
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Trying to bring together the posts about Bloggapalooza 2.0:
Bob Rhubart’s Blog
Brewed Fresh Daily
Buckeye State Blog
Pho’s Akron Pages
Right Angle Blog
Word of Mouth
George’s Flickr set
Others there who hopefully will write, in no particular order:
Carrie Callahan of Carrie Callahan
Chas Rich of NEO Babble
Bill Callahan of Callahan’s Cleveland Diary
Eric and Joseph of Plunderbund
Jeff Hess of Have Coffee Will Write
Gloria Ferris of Gloria Ferris
Tim Ferris of Tim Ferris
Wendell Robinson of Wenblog
Peter Chakarian of Joyrides for Shut-ins
Jim Eastman of Music on Your Pizza
Jack Ricchiuto of jack/zen
Henery and Muley of Word of Mouth (though I didn’t meet them, boohoo!!)
Anthony Fossececa of Blue Ohioan
Roger Bundy of Cleveland Equanimous Philosopher
Nonbloggers included Anastasia Pantsios, my husband, some other spouses, significant others, bloggers’ kids, band mates, friends of bloggers and, of course, just folks looking for music and commeraderie. I did not meet Hunter Morrison but I was told and have read that he was there. I did get to meet BFD commenter (and blogger??) Douglas Craver and Anna, and that was neat. I’ll write more about it this week, I’m sure.
I’m sure there were others I didn’t even see or remember seeing.
Come ya’ll – let’s have some reviews!
PS – What is the one thing truly, truly wrong with the list of attendees I remember?
THERE’S ONLY ONE OTHER FEMALE BLOGGER ON THAT LIST!!!!!!!!!!
I hate that.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:44 am July 30th, 2007 in Politics | 8 Comments
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Jul
30
Remains of the Day, 7-29-07
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Yes, I gerrymandered the timestamp.
1. This post, with an article about how the Jewish National Fund, which I’ve always known as “that group that plants the trees,” is being torn apart in regard to whether or not land on which they plant the trees can be sold to Arabs, is very disturbing to me because I am not sure how I feel. But I think I’m not sure how I feel, because the different positions disturb me. Isn’t that what disturbances do? This article from Ha’aretz explains more.
2. So, if we’re identifying 28% of travelers as terrorists, does that mean we have any more terrorists among us? I didn’t think so. Then are we really doing this the right way?
3. The Women’s Campaign Forum is another group (like EMILY’s List and The White House Project) that seeks to get women into the political leadership pipeline. She Should Run is a proejct of the WCF that seeks readers/citizens/you nominate 1000 women that WCF will then ask to run. Here’s a DIY guide if you think you’d like to run. And here’s where you can nominate someone for the 1000 women to be asked.
4. There’s nothing new here about women and work, but it’s still mildly interesting to read about other people’s experiences, no matter how small a niche they might represent.
August, you say?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:42 am July 30th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jul
29
This Ohio State dorm room door is on the cover of today’s New York Times Education Life issue. The online version of the issue has a slideshow of more dorm doors. I remember my dorm room doors well. Probably have pictures of them somewhere too.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:56 pm July 29th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments
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Jul
29
"Who’s a Nerd, Anyway?"
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That’s what’s asked in today’s New York Times Magazine. Here’s an excerpt:
While the word “nerd” has been used since the 1950s, its origin remains elusive. Nerds, however, are easy to find everywhere. Being a nerd has become a widely accepted and even proud identity, and nerds have carved out a comfortable niche in popular culture; “nerdcore” rappers, who wear pocket protectors and write paeans to computer routing devices, are in vogue, and TV networks continue to run shows with titles like “Beauty and the Geek.”
…
Nerds are not simply victims of the prevailing social codes about what’s appropriate and what’s cool; they actively shape their own identities and put those codes in question.
So nerds are…activists?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:26 pm July 29th, 2007 in Politics | 6 Comments
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Jul
29
Repost re: Feagler appearance today
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I posted this before and am posting again since the show is on at 12noon today (and I swear, only because people get angry with me for not telling them):
Here’s the line up for today’s Feagler & Friends:
Newsmaker: Cleveland City Councilman Michael D. Polensek. The veteran Cleveland politician became international news when he wrote a letter to a Cleveland teen calling him a “crack-dealing piece of trash” and “dumber than mud.” The teen’s mother is threatening a lawsuit, but public reaction to the letter has overwhelmingly favored Polensek’s tough stance against what’s seen as a growing culture of disrespect. Polensek, who’s served the eastside Ward 11 for a quarter-century, has written similar letters in the past.
Roundtable: Mark Naymik, politics reporter, The Plain Dealer; Jill Miller Zimon, freelance journalist, blogger; Greg Saber, reporter, WTAM 1100.
Polensek’s Letter: The roundtable will continue discussion of Polensek’s letter and the public reaction to it.
Sales Tax: The Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners has approved a quarter-cent increase in the county’s sales tax to pay for construction of a new downtown Cleveland convention center. That, in turn, is expected to lead to development of a Medical Mart which is supposed to provide a steady stream of visitors to the new convention center. Opponents have objected to an additional burden in a county which already has the state’s highest sales tax and to the fact that it’s being imposed without a popular vote.
New Direction for Cleveland Schools: Cleveland school officials formally announced this week the opening of five single-sex schools; two for girls, two for boys. In addition, the Ginn Academy will serve as a school for at-risk boys. Glenville High School’s successful football coach, Ted Ginn, Sr., will direct the school. CEO Eugene Sanders also announced a new dress code requiring all students to wear conservative clothes in solid colors with collared shirts. Sanders also guaranteed that Cleveland third-graders three years from now will have reading skills on a par with third-graders around the state.
A Different Debate: It was mostly the same look: a line of Democratic candidates, each at his or her own podium, answering questions about issues of the day. But this time, the questions all came from ordinary people via the popular Internet video site YouTube. The debate itself elicited little new from the candidates, but it demonstrated the growing populist power of the Internet. It might also have demonstrated growing political interest in the 18-to-34 age group, more than 400,000 of whom watched the debate on CNN.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:01 pm July 29th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jul
29
Five fave books of all time meme
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Carole tagged me and I’m in a lazy daze this morning after a multitude of events yesterday so I figured, why not?
Here are the parameters, as Carole suggests:
Please pick your Top Five books of all time, and tell us why you like them so much. Are there books you find yourself revisiting? At some point in your life did you find a book so enthralling you had to read it from start to finish without putting it down — even if that put your entire life on hold for a day? You can use any criteria for favorite books and the only thing I ask is that you describe why you like the book so much. Personally I think it’s only a slightly difficult exercise because narrowing it down to five might be tough. Of course you can take some creative license and make the list longer 
***When you post, please come back here and link to your blog. You can post this on any blog ‘home’ you choose, but please come back and link to it here so we can all find it more easily and also see what books we should add to our reading lists!
****Please tag or meme a few people after you are done so we can learn about them too.
1. Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
This volume of reflection by Charles Lindbergh’s wife was given to me by a college roommate with whom I share a lot in common, and not so much in common. She served in the Peace Corps in Morocco while I was on a volunteer program in Israel. She’s now the program director at the Starbucks Foundation and her partner is from Cleveland originally. My friend gave me this book sometime around when I’d returned from Israel and she from Morocco in the mid-1980s. I didn’t really know what I was going to do, once back in the States, and was traveling around visiting friends all over the country, watching some get married, some go to graduate school, some live overseas.
This book demonstrates that even what might appear to be the most settled of lives or people rarely is, at least not to the person living the life. What’s truly amazing is how universal, through time and generations and materialistic changes, the observations and frustrations Lindbergh voices are. Which is why it’s on my night table with two of the other books on this list.
2. Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather
This book is another one given to me by a friend while I was in Israel. I was there for a year after I graduated from Georgetown on Sherut La’am. So I went from being immersed among people of the Catholic faith and surrounded by all its accessories, to being surrounded by Judaism and a not quite modern era Israel. The friend who gave me this book very coincidentally is a woman who, as a girl, had been at summer camp with me in the early and mid-1970s. We flew on the plane to Tel Aviv from NYC, next to each other and a few others on our program, for hours and didn’t realize that we knew each other, until our names were called off on the bus, where we were sitting next to each other, at the Tel Aviv airport, and I recognized her last name.
The madrichim of my program thought I wasn’t adjusting well to the country because I kept to myself a lot (hard to believe, hm?) and spent every weekend with my Orthodox relatives, soaking up their culture. They actually tried to send me home and I insisted that they didn’t know squat about me (much longer story, not for this post) and I continued on and did just fine.
This friend simultaneously gave me the book and, without my knowledge, contacted the madrichim to say that she feared I wasn’t doing well (you know the E in the MMPI test? for extrovert? This friend was an E to the max. Me, not as much). The book definitely helped me more than the madrichim, and the friend and I are still in touch once in a while.
Now – about the book: Prather is a bit of a pop psychologist in the manner of the 70s – think of Leo Buscaglia if you are old enough to remember him. But rather than chapter length examinations of the self and relationships to others, Prather’s book is almost like a series of blog entries in the diary format – intensely personal, sometimes arrogant, sometimes vain, too honest to read, casual, embarrassed. The whole gamut. And what I love about the book is that unconsciousness in the writing – you know you’ve thought these things too, but can’t imagine that you’d ever write them down. Well – Prather did.
3. Love Poems by Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton’s poetry is fearless – in both her self-exposure and how she exposes others. I believe that’s what’s at the root of her appeal: a rawness, that you cannot deny no matter how much you might want to. And so, when I’m feeling in a mood that is so powerful that even I can’t get through it to write how I’m feeling, Sexton’s poetry is there to let me exhale those emotions. This particular book contains, no surprise, love poems that can be read as superficially or deeply as the reader needs. Another fantastic quality of her work.
4. The Republic (see here also) by Plato
I have no idea how many copies I owned of The Republic during college and as a result of a few classes I took at Yale while I worked there, but Plato’s views and reviews of the political happenings of his time, and the harmony and dissonance in social contracting formed the basis of nearly every set of liberal arts classes I took in college, and I never minded re-reading this book. I still love the allegory of the cave (I mean, I really love that stuff), Apology and Socrates’ analysis behind defining “justice.” It’s hard for me to even limit what I love about Plato to this one book or those three concepts because truly, nearly all of what Plato wrote I could read over, and over, and over.
Why? Because Plato’s work is as relevant and needed now as it was 2300 years ago. We may look to our country’s founding fathers, but Plato is the foundingest father of them all, in many ways. He took the time, along with Socrates and others of that era, to write down and discuss and debate the hard stuff. Sure, I’m ignoring the near utter exclusion of women from these dialogues. That’s a whole nuther thing. But as philosophical underpinnings that still define the limits and unexplored ways in which we can expand and improve our lives together? Nobody did it better.
5. Oh the Thinks You Can Think (you can play audio there) by Dr. Seuss
This last title was given to me in 1984 by a two-time college roommate who remains a very close friend of mine. Coincidentally, she and the friend who gave me Gift from the Sea both live in the Pacific NW now. This book became the opening tune for the musical Seussical. My kids love this book and I actually need to get a new volume because the 20+ year old one given to me is starting to disintegrate. Being told I “think too much” or overthink everything or overanalyze is something I’ve gotten used to over the last 35 or 40 years – yup, since I was a kid. I could tell stories about being told that. But obviously I never considered it a criticism so serious that I needed to abandon the behavior. I appreciate Dr. Seuss reinforcing my commitment to thinking any think I want.
Tagging (some of these are obvious choices, deal with it): Wendy Hoke, Jeff Hess, Lisa Renee (you can do it on Liberal Common Sense if you want rather than GCJ), Gloria Ferris, Jason Sonnenshein (did I finally spell it correctly? I got lazy and didn’t search my emails to check).
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:35 pm July 29th, 2007 in Politics | 3 Comments
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Jul
29
1. I don’t understand why in the world this blogger would pluck out what I wrote about my son and mash it into this post – it makes no sense to me. I wish, if he really wondered what I meant about “clinically speaking” re: my son’s IQ range being in the profoundly gifted category, he’d just have asked me before thinking I’m a nasty parent who thinks her kid has no more sense than tree bark – that blog author’s words, not mine.
2. Thanks to the reader who left a comment about this Columbus Dispatch article about the help given to and/or sought by Shannon Jones and Josh Mandel as they pursued HB 151 (divestment from Iran and Sudan, by five of Ohio’s pension funds).
3. Bloggapalooza was great. More tomorrow. Hey – is this the first time the PD has published the phrase “Meet the Bloggers”?
Eyes wide closed.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:10 am July 29th, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
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Jul
28
I’d never heard of Dr. Alan Zimmerman until about 2o minutes ago. This month’s edition of my synagogue’s newsletter (the one I used to edit but don’t anymore) includes one of Zimmerman’s Tuesday Tips, within my shul’s president’s column.
The “tip” offers a re-mix of advice, the kind we give to others and others often give to us, that we pay attention to for a while but often forget in the times we need to be implementing the advice the most. I’m often turning away from Zimmerman type folks (just sounds too hokey, even for a social worker), but sometimes we all need a reminder.
Here’s a link to the entire tip and here’s the collapsed version that I hope will make you read more:
=> 1. Slow down.
Are you racing through life … from one activity to another? Do feel more like a human do-ing than a human be-ing? If so, then you need to consider my second step.
=> 2. Reflect.
Without reflective time, you’ll charge through life and charge through your career. You may make it to the “top,” but at some point, you’ll look back and wonder whether the trip was worth the price. You may even find that you’ve climbed the ladder of success, but the ladder was propped against the wrong wall.
And once you’ve taken time to reflect, you need to …
=> 3. Do it.
I challenge you to act like a postage stamp. As one person said, “The only usefulness of a postage stamp is in its ability to stick to one thing until it is completed.”
And as you follow this third step, to do it, don’t forget the fourth step, and that is …
=> 4. Give.
When you slow down a bit, when you reflect on all the things that are worth doing, and then do them, don’t forget to give something to others.
…
And one of the simplest ways you can do that is through your expressions of appreciation. Say “Thanks” for everything that person does for you … large or small.
Not really anything you probably haven’t read or thought of before, but still, good to remember.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:07 pm July 28th, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
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