Blogging

Not long ago when the Toledo Blade allowed comments on articles, I wondered to myself how long it would be allowed to continue without some type of moderation, because to be honest, some of those who commented there made some of the really insulting comments made here that I let stand seem like compliments. In Sunday’s column by Jack Lessenberry, it addresses in part why the ability to comment was removed:

There was a lot of talk and blog comments about Jon Stainbrook when he took over as chairman of the Lucas County Democratic Party, but realistically very few did more than just talk about it. Which is kind of the status quo for our county, people complain, they get all irate about a person for a short time period and then? Nothing happens. Over in Summit County, some of the membership in their county party were not happy with leadership, even though the vote won’t happen again until 2010? They are taking action.

This week’s Conklin & Company on WTVG with Lee Conklin focused on Housing, Ben Konop and Take Three, Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop was the first guest. The first focus was on the two commissioners and why all three can’t get along, with the budget being the most recent example. Ben said the budget issue was simple to him, there will be less public safety, no sheriff’s class and less patrols with the budget spending money on things like windows, selected raises, he took issue with the priorities. He felt crime tends to go up when the economy is in failure.

If you have not yet watched the video from the December 16th Toledo City Council Meeting, a few parts of the meeting had what I would call “Moments of Merit” that were not reported on in the media. I’ve put some of the topics discussed in bold to make skimming easier for those of you looking for something specific. One of these surrounded the vote for the Agenda Item:

Expenditures to Lucas County for criminal justice services & incarceration costs, $6,594,498 G.F.

This year it is more possible than before to be able to stay informed with what some parts of our government is doing when it comes to transparency. In some scenarios the information is not available as quickly as the ideal time frame would be, but it’s better late than never for those of you who want to learn more.

Looking back from December of last year to this year, here are the top ten posts as far as visitor numbers for 2008, number ten was a tie:
Karyn McConnell-Hancock reported missing…
Have more to say on the Karyn McConnell-Hancock saga?
Why was Jessica Utovich wearing p.j.’s in the condo in the first place?

This week it was my turn to do the honors in putting together the Carnival of Ohio Politics Last Carnival of 2008 which was a great year for many of us; we saw some friends quit blogging and made some new ones. I hope you head over to enjoy this week’s submissions from some of Ohio’s best bloggers.

Marianne Ballas was on Conklin & Company on WTVG as the first guest to talk about how the financial troubles facing the Big Three had affected car dealers. She felt the restructuring will work because GM has new patents, new technology ready to go to market, all they need is the money and then we will see a new GM. Because of the financial market, the credit crunch everything stalled.

About a month ago I, along with several other local bloggers and some local politicians were interviewed by JC Reindl, for the Blade, the result of those interviews can be read here, Bloggers give Toledo a World Wide voice and forum for local issues.
JC did a nice job with the article, we talked about such a huge variety of topics I wondered what the end result would be.

This morning I did something that’s unusual for most of my Saturday’s, I got up extremely early to attend the Toledo City Council retreat that was scheduled for this morning at 8:00 a.m. Things got off to a bit of a late start but the following Council members were in attendance for the whole retreat which ended around 12:15; Mark Sobczak, Joe McNamara, D. Michael Collins, Tom Waniewski, George Sarantou, Wilma Brown, Lindsay Webb and Betty Shultz. Mike Craig, Phil Copeland and Frank Szollosi were there for some of the discussion they had prior commitments.

Like most, I was subject to grand aspirations in my youth. Hockey player, astronaut, scientist, actor, and teacher were all on my list at one time in my life. I even thought that I had a calling to be a Catholic priest until the implications of a life of chastity managed to penetrate the raging hormones controlling my body at the time. One thing that remained constant through all of those periods however was my desire to be a writer.

It was my turn to put together the submissions for this week’s Carnival, which got a bit of late finish due to my pie baking tasks. Like the pies however, it is hot and hopefully filling fare for those of you who venture over to read this week’s edition. Similar to my kitchen, you will find a variety of posts to meet your tastes.

Light posting alert for the next few days, my oldest daughter got in last night and I’m doing the whole “mom” thing of cooking for everyone for tomorrow. If you’d like to use this thread as a place to share what you are thankful for, I hope you do so. For those wondering about the Carnival? It should be up after I get done making pies…

I read this over on Jason’s blog, “Rowsey Blog”, where he writes this is More “Proof” of Our Failing System of Education.

Last time we had fun with finding YouTube clips of your favorite songs, so this time I thought we’d go with classic movies. It may be a bit more of a challenge as far as finding a video clip, but some are out there, as an example the trailer to one of my favorite classic movies, “12 Angry Men”:

Nice job with this week’s Carnival of Ohio Politics by Boring Made Dull that includes a quick YouTube video on the “Ten Principles of Economics” that I can finally watch since I have dsl again! (Yeah! ) I really recommend watching the video if you can, it might just change your life.

I’m not picking on the blogger who posted this, since all he was doing was posting what was sent to him, but as I was reading King’s Right Site and the Action Alert that a Diane Stover who is the Northeast Ohio Values Voter director, sent out and is the topic of several blogs out there, focusing on their belief that Kevin DeWine does not support the moral issues of the base of the Ohio Republica

Notes taken from this morning’s Conklin & Company on WTVG where Lee Conklin’s guests were Keith Wilkowski for the first segment, then Lori Hauser from COSI for the second segment and for Take Three, Schylar Meadows and Troy Neff. As always this is a rough transcript not an exact word by word transcript of what was stated, done to the best of my typing abilities while they were talking. (I miss my DVR )

He’s planning on starting covering the event live at 10:00 a.m. Visit him on Swampbubbles here if you want to follow along what he is seeing/hearing.

This was sent to me via email by Micah, who has a great local blog, Lucas County Choppers asking if I would post this, which I am and that those of you who read the blog considering attending and/or telling others about Alex.

The following post was written as a guest post for us by District 11 State Senator Teresa Fedor:
After months of partisan lawsuits and years of nasty attacks on Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio Republican Party has finally tipped their hand. Ohio Republicans are trying to destroy our election system just to win an election.
In fact, the Ohio Republican Party has declared war on Ohio’s bipartisan voting processes.

Considering the amount of attention the allegation that someone at a McCain/Palin rally yelled “Kill him” in reference to Obama created in the media and the blogosphere, you’d think that reports from Secret Service including interviewing other people who were there, uncovering that there is no evidence that was true would also get media attention, but it’s not. Only a few media outlets are reporting:

It was my turn to put together the Carnival of Ohio Politics for this week and if you like me earlier did not know what a Triakis tetrahedron is? You’ll learn that quick fact as well as enjoying some great posts from some of Ohio’s best bloggers.

A person who I am grateful to be able to call a friend, Maggie Thurber, was today awarded the American's For Prosperity (AFP) Blogger of the Year award. Maggie's efforts in so many areas are in fact worthy of such praise.

With so much focus on Biden debating Palin, I thought this video flashback moment to 1984 might interest you. Especially if you note how we are talking about some of the same issues today as we did in 1984 and note the debate format. Curtsy to CSPAN Junkie.