The New Organizing Institute wants to help progressives be organizers, or better ones than they already may be. And NOI will be in Ohio in less than a week - check it out. (Although one of the deadlines has passed and the other is approaching, I've got the number and e-mail of the person to contact if you're interested in attending - just e-mail me or leave a comment and I'll e-mail you.)
Here's more:
The New Organizing Institute is a unique grassroots program that trains young, technology-enabled political organizers to work for progressive campaigns and organizations. The Institute was created by experienced online organizers to fill an urgent need in progressive politics.
The mission of the NOI is:
To train and support a new generation of technology-enabled campaigners.
We are seeking to fill an urgent need among progressive campaigns and organizations. Right now, they're hitting a brick wall when trying to fill new online organizer or Internet director positions. A network of talented, sophisticated and experienced operatives simply does not exist in the field of online organizing the way it does in the established areas of field organizing, fundraising or campaign management.
The organization has done trainings in Michigan, DC, Oregon, and Colorado. Now, the group is comint to Ohio, and subsequently, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, among other locales they hope to visit. Here's the lowdown from the original announcement:
Read More »Just in case people can't come up with enough reasons on their own why John McCain is not the choice for women, ABC News reports on how one Texas oilman, Clayton Williams, who is a McCain supporter slipped up:
ABC's Rick Klein reports: Sen. John McCain on Friday abruptly cancelled a Monday fundraiser that had been scheduled at the home of a Texas oilman, after ABC News contacted the campaign inquiring about a verbal blunder the Texan made during an unsuccessful 1990 campaign for governor. Clayton Williams stirred controversy during his 1990 campaign for governor of Texas with a botched attempt at humor in which he compared rape to weather. Within earshot of a reporter, Williams said: “As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
McCain's campaign is on the record for nixing the event due to those comments:
McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said the Monday event was being cancelled, given the offensive comments. He said he could not yet say what McCain would do with donations brought into the campaign by Williams. "These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time this event was scheduled," Rogers said. He added that Williams apologized for the comments back in 1990, but he said that does not excuse them.
But, there's one more thing, from the ABC item:
Williams told the Midland Reporter-Telegram recently that he had already raised more than $300,000 for McCain and the fundraiser to be held at his home in Midland. Williams said that he needed to help McCain raise money to stop an Obama campaign that would enact “socialist” policies if elected to office.
Really now? Tracy Russo of Rural Votes has this suggestion:
It’s not enough that Senator McCain cancels an event because the media got wind of it. It’s not enough. Senator McCain should publicly reject and denounce this man. He should donate every single dirty dollar that this man has raised for him - all $300,000 - to an organization working to combat rape in our society - like RAINN or RVA. And he should apologize immediately and completely to his female supporters for daring to entertain the thought of keeping company with this despicable, disgusting individual. Rape isn’t something that’s funny, it’s tragic. It’s a blight on all of society. Women should be able to trust Senator McCain to recognize that, and to do the right thing.
I completely agree. Cross-posted at Writes Like She Talks and The Moderate Voice.
Multiple Ohio blogs have posted entries in a foreign language today:
- American Pink Collar (French)
- Bad American (Polish)
- bitter-girl :: musings (German)
- Blogesque (Korean)
- Blue Bexley (Dutch)
- Blue Ohioan (Korean)
- Bring Ohio Home (Czech)
- Bring Ohio Home (German)
- Buckeye State Blog (Italian)
- Glass City Jungle (Hungarian)
- Gloria Ferris (Spanish)
- Ohio Daily Blog (Croatian)
- Pho's Akron Pages (Vietnamese)
- Plunderbund (Redneck)
- Rowsey Blog (Spanish)
- The Chief Source (Spanish) at The Point
- The Daily Bellwether (French)
- Tim Ferris (French)
- Writes Like She Talks (Portuguese)
And it's been noted that maybe, to some people, surfing from blog to blog and being unable to understand most of the posts (until you go here for the translation of each one) proves the point that Ohio and maybe even the United States should standardize, through legislation, the language most of us use and which is already being used by the state and federal goverment: English.
Why would we want our governments to do that?
Because everything we try to read otherwise is pretty incomprehensible and that's exactly what we want to avoid. It's torture to stare at something and not have any idea whatsoever as to what it says, what it argues, what it tells you to do, what it tells you not to do.
Sounds logical, right?
Wrong.
Why? Why is that logic wrong?
Because those of us reading this blog and those blog posts are primarily native English speakers. Of course blog posts in Polish, German, Croatian, Korean and so on look like gobbledyguck to us.
So what's the point of this little demonstration?
To non-native English speakers, blogs - and so many other forms of communication that native English speakers take for granted - look like nonsense. How does it feel, going to the most familiar places you know on the Internet to gather information about the day, about issues and policy that matter, about breaking news and urgent messages, and find that the shoe is on the other foot: you can't understand a word, you can't glean even the essense of what's being communicated?
What kind of humans would legislate torturing literally hundreds of thousands of fellow Ohioans that way?
Here's a list of the Ohio state senators on the State and Local Government and Veteran Affairs Committee, which appears to be the one that has HB 477 right now. Please contact them and let them know how you feel about HB 477.
Gary Cates (R)
Chair
Teresa Fedor (D)
Ranking Minority Member
Democrats:
Republicans:
Timothy J. Grendell
Vice Chair
I was so four-letter word nervous that I had to sit on my hands!! See where writing letters to the editor, op-eds AND BLOGGING can get you!? Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me along the way, and that includes several folks at Progress Ohio - not the least of which are Dave Harding and Brian Rothenberg who have been very supportive (and toughened me up!).
Send up to three links to blog posts you've written about Ohio and politics by tomorrow night, Tuesday, 1/15, 9pm to ohiopolcarnival AT gmail DOT com and voila - you've made Ohio political blog history.
Please feel free to spread the word and keep the posts coming.
100 posts in the 100th edition is the goal.
Thank you!
I've written about The White House Project for over a year now. It's a group that:
aims to advance women’s leadership in all communities and sectors, up to the U.S. presidency. By filling the leadership pipeline with a richly diverse, critical mass of women, we make American institutions, businesses and government truly representative. Through multi-platform programs, The White House Project creates a culture where America’s most valuable untapped resource—women—can succeed in all realms.
And now its signature training program, Go Run, is coming to Ohio.
Go Run is a weekend long training dedicated to equipping you, the future candidate, with the skills to run and win. The training aims to demystify the political process and inspire a richly diverse group of women in to the leadership pipeline. Go Run provides the nuts and bolts of running for political office by focusing on areas like communications, fundraising, and campaigning - skills you can use in your work and in your community up to the day you decide to run!
When: The weekend of June 6-8, 2008
Where: The Riffe Center and the Hyatt in Columbus
Link to application is here.
Have questions? E-mail me, leave a comment or contact Faith Winter at fwinter@thewhitehouseproject.org or call 303-871-6779.
But most importantly, if you're a woman, think about applying yourself, or asking or convincing other women to apply.
Enormous props to the group of Ohio women and White House Project folks whom I've gotten to know over the last few months in the effort to get this training here.
No less than Ellen Goodman and the time, money and effort of the Shorenstein Fellowships at Harvard have examined the "new gender gap in news media and the Internet." Why? Because people often ask about why there seem to be more male political bloggers than female.
Other bloggers, including well-known female political bloggers like Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake, don't see the disparity:
There's plenty of sexism in the blogosphere, don't get me wrong, with a strong dose coming from the right wing and an even stronger dose coming from the "why don't you link to me" crowd on the left. But this "there are no women in the blogosphere" whinge is deeply sexist and insulting to those of us with two X chromosomes who work all day at this and what we've managed to achieve. And none of these articles have included the perspective of any of the women listed above, or those of other successful female bloggers like Digby, Pandagon, TalkLeft or Taylor Marsh.
Today, Catherine Morgan of Informed Voter posted a list of more than 100 women political bloggers and blogs. It's completely nonpartisan (I'm there, Lisa Renee's Liberal Common Sense is there, and so is Mary Katherine Ham of Townhall and Michelle Malkin) and includes many new to me. Big kudos to Morgan for putting this list together. I don't think I've ever seen one like it before.
Dipping deeper into the sea of blogs? This list is another good place to test out the temperature.
Cross-posted at Wide Open and Writes Like She Talks.
For Immediate Release
August 23, 2007
Contact: Councilman Zachary Reed
216-410-5734 or gregoryd100@hotmail.com
TAX REFERENDUM GROUP ANNOUNCES DRIVE-THRU PETITION
SIGNING
LAST CHANCE TO SIGN PETITIONS
Your last chance to put the sales tax issue on the
ballot by signing a petition will be Saturday, August
25, 2007 from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm.
Come join the putitontheballot.com volunteers at the
following drive-thru locations:
• Main Cleveland Post Office, 2400 Orange Avenue,
Cleveland, 44101
• Lakewood Post Office, 1475 Warren Road, Lakewood
44107
• Cleveland Heights Post Office, 3 Severance Circle,
Cleveland Heights 44118
• Cuyahoga County Administration Building, 1219
Ontario Street, Cleveland 44113
On July 26, a .25% sales tax increase was passed for
Cuyahoga County. The tax goes into effect October 1st
(for 20 years) unless 46,000 signatures of registered
Cuyahoga County voters are submitted by 4:30 pm
Saturday, August 25, 2007.
If the citizens of Cuyahoga County want to vote on
this issue they must turn out and sign the petition.
Tim and Gloria Ferris
Put It On The Ballot Team
But the governor's pronouncement shouldn't have surprised anyone. And certainly not the PD's editorial board, given that its OPEN staff wrote this over a year ago.
I don't know Ted Strickland. I've only met him a handful of times, although two of those times were fairly up close and personal, via his Meet the Bloggers debate with Bryan Flannery and an off-the-record conversation I had with him following that debate - a conversation that included the topic of gambling.
But, from the MTB debate transcript, I give you the current Ohio governor's very first stated position, during his campaign, on the record, about gambling in Ohio [the context of my one word question, "Casinos," is that we were doing a free association/lightening round kind of thing to elicit answers]:
Jill Miller Zimon: Ok. Casinos.
Ted Strickland: Do you want me to go first, Bryan?
Bryan Flannery: I can go, if you want.
Tim Russo: Nobody wants to touch that one!
Ted Strickland: It is a question that I get frequently. I don’t believe that casino gambling represents the future economic… Ohio’s economic future. I approach this matter, not from a moralistic point of view. You know some people see gambling as sinful or not sinful. I am fairly libertarian in the way adults can choose to spend their recreational dollars, but I am also aware of the detrimental effects that casino gambling brings to a community or to a state. So I am not a candidate for Governor who is enthusiastic about casino gambling.
Tim Russo: Would you support legalized casino gambling in this state in any way?
Ted Strickland: I would not be an advocate for it. If it appeared on the ballot and the people voted for it, I wouldn’t have the capacity to veto that. So I believe that’s the only way that casino gambling could become a reality in Ohio, if I were Governor, for the people to say we want it through an initiative.
Gov. Strickland's current moves are completely and totally consistent with that stance. And anyone who wants to spin the current moves, will do so. But those of us who were there, who care about and respect the record of what was said at the debate and have followed what Gov. Strickland has done, and not done, on this issue, know:
Gov. Strickland made a politically savvy and internally consistent statement about his feelings on the issue of gambling. That statement represents the major league cognitive dissonance that arises from being the leader of a state whose people may want something different than what the leader wants. And the leader can take this way out, for those who choose to see it that way - him included - if he wants.
But he's never not defined that way out before.
This is the psychology of Ted Strickland's campaign, of his win and of his governorship. And in today's climate, with the way most people feel torn about issues - social, economic, personal, legal, environmental - this psychology plays to each of us. Forget how the MSM repeats over and over that people are more polarized than ever. That's wrong. People who do PR and marketing and construct messages - whether political or otherwise - want to force us to label, they want us to think we're looking at a polarized population. And, I'll admit, quickly clinging to a label that seems to make sense is quick and easy.
But it's not enough. Labels rarely are. We are in the age of nuance, no matter how deep you have to look to find it (that just means people have been intimidated into burying it, ask any moderate anything - as in, Republican or Muslim or Jew for that matter - about that) and this governor knows that. (It's also why Ken Blackwell lost miserably.) And it's why his approval ratings are so high.
Wisely, Ted Strickland and those around him have aligned his beliefs and abilities with voters' sentiments. And they've done a damn good job. Spinners can spin all they want, but believe me now and hear me later: it doesn't make a bit of difference to many voters in Ohio because for every issue about which they feel conflicted, someone - either Strickland or someone on his staff - has read that conflict and is putting it into the equation that results in how Strickland responds.
So far - that formula has responded with the flexibility necessary to keep Ohioans happy. What it really needs to do, at least within the next 9-18 months, is show tangible results in our economy and education system if it wants to 1) help elect a Democratic president and 2) stick around beyond one term.
Cross-posted at Writes Like She Talks.
----
According to this article in today's Akron Beacon Journal, State Rep. William Batchelder worries about HB151.
Why?
A little something, oh, like - its impact on Ohio and Ohioans. How novel.
Let's start with the knowledge not possessed by one of the bill's own sponsors, a lack of knowledge that sours the fact that the bill even got out of committee, as well as gives rise to Batchelder's concern.
From the ABJ:
The Iran divestiture bill, sponsored by state Reps. Josh Mandel, R-Lyndhurst and Shannon Jones, R-Springboro, has received intense scrutiny in recent weeks following revelations that many of the most prominent international companies that employ thousands of Ohioans were on a list of firms marked as having financial ties to terrorist-supporting states like Iran.
Mandel said the bill has been narrowed to requiring the pension funds to divest from specific energy sector industries such as gas, oil, and mining, but broadened to now include the Sudan.
I must insert here that, the bolding of "revelation" is mine. As a writer, I know that revelation has an extremely specific meaning and implication for the one using it: he or she is most definitely hoping that the reader will make a very specific inference: didn't know it before, wasn't told before, is now being disclosed, when, before, it hadn't been.
Let's continue:
Don't you think knowing how many companies doing business with the Sudan that will be on that list is something you would want to know before passing the bill out of committee? Kind of like how Mandel and Jones should have known that they owned GE stock, from which the pensions would be required to divest, before they introduced the bill in the first place? (Mandel has since sold his stock.)Mandel said the number of international companies was whittled from more than 170 to 19 currently conducting business in Iran.
He said he did not know how many companies doing business with the Sudan would be on the list, but those firms are not limited to the energy sector.
What's even more odd is that, thanks to my asking some questions of actual legislators and staff, I know that freshman legislators are particularly and specifically lectured on being careful about sponsoring and co-sponsoring bills - precisely because amendments can make morph them into something other than what the legislator thought they were when they started out. Mandel's lack of knowledge about which companies are affected should be a red flag that he's more committed to the ideology behind what he started out with, no matter the specifics, than he is to providing the best stewardship of Ohioan's lives. Way too reminiscent of the Bush administration and its war policies for my liking.
State Rep. William Batchelder, who, by the way, is chair of the House Insurance committee, a committee upon which Josh Mandel serves, might almost wish that he could remain in the dark, according to this info from the ABJ story: Read More »
Read the news story here (as opposed to the splog accounts) from the Cleveland Jewish News.
A few points that elected officials who favor school choice never seem to address in these crowd-drawing, media-ready, splog-perfect occasions that highlight, legitimately, the successes in charter school experimentation:
1. There's a name for it, for what ALL charters need to do and should be, but aren't and are therefore the ire of Ohio taxpayers. But neither the news report nor the splogs indicate that this name was uttered, urged or emphasized by State Rep. Josh Mandel or House Speaker Jon Husted.
Can you spell a-c-c-o-u-n-t-a-b-i-l-i-t-y?
Maybe they did mention it - maybe they didn't. I wasn't there and I couldn't find any other news reports of the rally beside the CJN's and this one in the Plain Dealer. But they should be making sure that they do mention it and that that mention makes it into news reports. Because otherwise, they are being disingenuous as to how Mom and Dad's school choice money is actually being spent, and planned on being spent by the Ohio legislature to which they were elected.
2. The CJN writes this:
Mandel echoed Husted’s sentiments and explained that he believes in school choice because “education is a key component to bringing back the Cleveland area, Northeast Ohio, and Ohio as a state.”
He added that during his campaigning days, he heard from parents afraid to send their children to schools such as Glenville. “It rings loud that the decision should be in the hands of Mom and Dad, not a politician or bureaucrat,” he told the cheering crowd.Okay.
So justify this for the same Moms and Dads:
Link Read More »
The authorization for Title V abstinence-education grants expires at the end of June, and those on both sides of the sex-education debate agree that the $50 million-a-year mandatory-spending program — which draws an additional $37.5 million match from the states — stands little chance of winning an extension from a Democratic-controlled Congress.So much for that "gain of $1.6 million" for Ohio in federal dollars, and the value of re-inserting 500K to draw it down via the Ohio budget bill.
My recommendation? Take that $500K out now and use it elsewhere for goodness sakes since we now know that the Fed money won't be available. Duh.
H/t to Feministing. Cross-posted at Writes Like She Talks.
Not necessarily a smoking gun, but it is amazing how little I can find about this failure of our state to address an issue that's been known to be up and coming for more than a decade. Again cross-posted from WLST, the GAO report, which you can read for yourself here, says it all, in graphics and words.
See all those dark circles and more than a tiny bit dark circles? Those are all the states that are ahead of Ohio in wireless 911 service as of January 2006. You can read the GAO report about states' efforts to provide wireless 911 service here. I wrote about this topic yesterday and am re-posting a comment left by David Potts of Left of Ohio:
I'd just be happy to have 9-1-1 at all. I live in Monroe County (directly North of Washington County) and we have to dial a 10 digit number for the local volunteer fire department (they also have an ambulance). If they don't have anyone on duty we then have to call another 10 digit number for another service farther away. Last November we had to call an ambulance and it ended up being over 30 minutes between the first call we made (of two) and the time one actually arrived (at the wrong house).
This fact is thoroughly unacceptable to me and should be to all Ohioans. Then, a little while ago, I read this in the Columbus Dispatch:
The Associated Press reported in November that up to half of the calls made to 911 centers were coming from cell phones, but only eight of Ohio?s 88 counties, including Delaware and Union counties, had the capability to pinpoint locations using satellites. Another 15 had the less-accurate tower-triangulation system. Only Oklahoma was rated worse than Ohio in its ability to track emergency cell-phone calls.
In 2005, the state legislature approved a 32-cent-per-month state tax on all wireless telephone numbers, administered through the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. That tax raised $24.8 million in 2006, said Shawn Smith, the commission?s 911 coordinator.
The phone companies and the PUCO each keep 2 percent of the money for administrative costs; the rest is disbursed to county treasurers based on the number of cell-phone accounts billed to addresses in those counties, Smith said.
Franklin County gets about $2.9 million a year, and has received $4.3 million since the tax was created in 2005, Smith said. Counties can use the money for equipment, software and training, but "they have to tie it back to wireless 911," he said.
Sixty-six Ohio counties have received funds; the others have been delayed mainly because their local police and fire departments can?t agree on how to divvy up the money, Smith said.
The tax expires at the end of 2008, Smith said.
"If it were to be extended, the state legislature would have to do it," Smith said. "The way it stands today, the counties would have to find other funding sources to cover their ongoing costs."
Now, this isn't just a question of where Franklin County or any other county is going to find nearly $3 million if and when that surcharge expires. But according to this April '06 report from the GAO, (pg. 14-15) only four states collect lower surcharges than Ohio's 32 cents, and 13 states, as of that report, charged more than $1.00, up to $3.00, with another nine states charging 75 cents to 90 cents for a total of nearly half the states charging at least two and a half times what Ohio, the seventh most populous state in the country, charges. Just because our state might be shrinking in size doesn't mean the more than 11 million still here don't need services.
Totally unacceptable. Download the report to get even more perspective on the position the Ohio legislature's failure on this issue, from 1996 until December 2004 has placed Ohioans.
I'll be emailing both my state rep. Josh Mandel who is the Vice Chair of the Public Utilities Committee (PUCO oversees the 911 service), and my state senator Bob Spada who is on the senate's Energy and Public Utilities committee. How convenient, huh?
Feel free to contact your representatives to find out if they're going to renew the surcharge that will otherwise expire in August of this year and plunge Ohio's increading number of cell phone users into a "can you hear me now" black hole.
Read More »I don't know the answer to that question, but if anyone is left from 1996 through 2004 (when the GA finally passed a 32 cent surcharge, effective 8/05), they should feel free to speak up. Those gone, because of term limits or otherwise, it would be even nicer if you'd come forward. My search for the history on this turned up very little. Here's what I've got, cross-posted at WLST:
Gee, who do you suppose got us into this fine mess this time, Ollie? From the Plain Dealer:
Dial 9-1-1 on a cell phone in Northeast Ohio and most other areas of the state, and the dispatcher probably will need help locating you.
Ohio lags far behind the rest of the nation in implementing the technology to pinpoint the location of distressed cell-phone callers.
Only 10 states offer worse coverage, according to a report by the National Emergency Number Association.Hmmm...according to the Plain Dealer article:Only 14 of Ohio's 88 counties -- about 16 percent -- can identify where a cell-phone call originates. The national average is 60 percent.
Ohio waited longer than most states to figure out a revenue source, leading to implementation delays, said Patrick Halley, the government affairs director for the National Emergency Number Association.When did they realize that they needed to help Ohio's 911 dispatchers and what did all their deep-thinking, waiting and caution produce? From the PD:
Money from a 32-cent surcharge that the state added to cell-phone bills two years ago fueled the advance. The dimes and pennies collected through the fee added up, generating the millions of dollars now paying for costly new equipment at call centers.But guess how long the Ohio General Assembly has been ruminating? From WTAP, Parkersburg, W. Va:
[My emphasis] Keep reading...Washington County 911 Coordinator Mike Cullums says, "In some of the larger counties in Ohio there is a serious concern because they're losing wire-land surcharge fees rapidly to cell phones."
Cullums says there is concern for all Ohio counties in the future, because come next August, the surcharge fee on cell phones might not even exist.
"It took seven years for the Ohio General Assembly to approve the 32 cent fee and it has a three year sunset provision in it. So that's our biggest concern in Ohio, is trying to make sure it stays in place."
Cullums says Ohio's surcharge fees only cover equipment and software. Law enforcement agencies foot the bill for labor.
Read More »
According to this piece in Politico, three Congressional members are doing it. Why not Ohio's?
Old Washington hands say that making this kind of detail available for all to see is akin to political suicide, offering opponents rich ammunition on any number of issues. In an age where "gotcha" attack politics is the norm, where sound bites are manipulated out of context to harm or hijack someone's message, it's not surprising that there is a great deal of fear among congressional staffers we've talked to about making the day-to-day work of members so open and available to scrutiny.
However, as Thomas Friedman argues in his best-selling book, "The World Is Flat," "Whatever can be done will be done by someone, somewhere." It's just a matter of whether you do it, or it's done to you. In an age where cell phones can take pictures anytime, video cameras are at the ready in the hands of the everyday population of citizens and millions of us have blogs, the comings and goings of members of Congress and whom they meet with is going to be recorded in some form anyway.
Since some of this information will be wildly inaccurate and as such, potentially damaging, why not stay ahead of the curve and make sure that the "real" information gets out there first? At least that much can be controlled.
In the end, regardless of how political enemies or the press might distort this information, members of Congress have a responsibility to their constituents to inform them of how they are spending their time. Let's face it, they work for us, and just like lawyers, doctors, factory workers and many other employees elsewhere who have to account for their time, members should "punch a clock" and let those whom they work for know what they are (or are not) doing and how they are spending our money.
I couldn't agree more. Who from Ohio will step up first?
The NPR initiative, This I Believe, is always looking for quality submissions. I know from the posts I read by Progress Ohio members that there are some beliefs and bases for the beliefs that should be shared with that larger audience - you can do it!
Here is where to go to make a submission. If you want a sounding board, email the Oped and Letter group members or anyone you like. But don't doubt that you can do it. If you can post a comment or a blog entry, then you're already writing about what you believe.
Freelance writer and author, Catherine Orenstein, teaches seminars on how to write opeds. Read about the classes here. Sounds familiar. Except that her seminars can cost up to $5000.
She garnered this attention from the New York Times. The basis for the seminars, something anyone who reads papers knows:
Whatever other reasons may explain the lack of women’s voices on the nation’s op-ed pages, the lack of women asking to be there is clearly part of the problem. Many opinion page editors at major newspapers across the country say that 65 or 75 percent of unsolicited manuscripts, or more, come from men.
The obvious solution, at least to Catherine Orenstein, an author, activist and occasional op-ed page contributor herself, was to get more women to submit essays. To that end Ms. Orenstein has been training women at universities, foundations and corporations to write essays and get them published.
How successful is her approach?
Over the past 18 months several hundred women and men (though in fewer numbers) have taken the seminar, which can cost a group up to $5,000, Ms. Orenstein said (although she has also donated her services). She has not kept records, but said about two dozen former students have sent her clips of their published essays to say thank you. Suzanne Grossman at Woodhull didn’t have comprehensive statistics but said that the first pilot session for a dozen women at a Woodhull retreat produced 12 op-ed articles. (Some participants wrote more than one.)
Interestingly, the article goes on to describe one session that she conducted with women from SheSource, a resource I love: it provides names of women who are experts in their fields and the aim is to get more women on the talking head shows and, of course, in the bylines and on the opinion pages.
We are going in the right direction - it's always nice to have that confirmation.
Governor Ted Strickland's first act upon assuming the helm of Ohio was to limit gifts to administration employees to items, food or beverages under $20.
Now, Governor Strickland has extended and finalized those rules and more. From Ohio News Now:
People doing business with the state must sign a statement that they won't break ethics laws and many government officials, employees and appointees will receive ethics training under Gov. Ted Strickland's latest reform plan.
The new rules finalized Friday are an extension of the Democratic governor's first executive order, signed just after he took office in January, that limited gifts to everyone in his administration to trinkets, food and beverages under $20.
All state employees who report to the governor must comply with the new policy, which will be released to state agencies Monday. The policy doesn't apply to state employees who serve under other elected officials - such as the secretary of state, auditor or treasurer.
The article details more specifics that you can see after the jump.
Interestingly, however, there's no mention of how compliance will be enforced nor what sanctions will be levied for those who fail to comply.
Read More »
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