Dave Menninger :: 2008

{ Monthly Archives }

September 2008

Rutherford B. Hayes Month!

October is Rutherford B. Hayes Month at Queen City Survey

In honor of Rutherford B. Hayes’s birthday on October 4, Queen City Survey has declared October as Rutherford B. Hayes Month. Throughout the month we will include a number of posts related to the 19th President and former Cincinnati resident.

Look for additional posts continuing the "Hayes in Cincinnati" series including looks at the Cincinnati Athletic Club, the Taft Museum, and the Mercantile Library for instance. We will also be making a trip to Spring Grove Cemetery to find friends and relatives of Rutherford B. Hayes buried there. I’d like to do a "Rutherford Road Trip" but I haven’t decided where to go or more importantly, when I can actually fit it in. We might even make another proposal for a location of the proposed Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial Statue.

In addition we will have photos of the Rutherford B. Hayes Birthday Party on October 4. The party is going to include cake from Servatii, "Un-Lucy Lemonade" Punch, party favors including the new and limited-edition "Raise the Rutherford!" t-shirt and Hayes themed party games including "Pin the Beard on Rud" which I think will prove most fun. I was going to make it a costume party but even I thought that was going overboard . . . and none of my friends would show up.

Stay tuned for all that and more the entire month of October!

2008 09 30

Raise the Rutherford
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Getting out the vote in Ohio

Posted by Ginny Hunt, Google Elections Team

As election day approaches on November 4, Google is working with state and local election officials across the country to make voter information as widely available and as accurate as possible. Today, we announced a big step forward in that effort with the State of Ohio.

Thanks to the leadership of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Ohio is the first state to make comprehensive voting information available through our U.S. Voter Info Guide, a searchable database of election information powered by Google Search and Maps.

In addition, when voters in Ohio do a Google search for “where to vote” or “where to register," they will be directed to maps.google.com/vote, where they can enter their addresses and find registration information, absentee and early vote details, and their polling place.

Our guide already includes voting locations for a number of states and the District of Columbia, and we are aiming to have voting information for all 50 states added by mid-October. We hope that this tool will equip voters with the information they need to make it to the polls on election day. Don't forget to vote!

2008 09 30

Elections
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Same-Day Voting Permitted In Ohio

You may recall hearing about a controversy regarding so-called "same-day voting" in Ohio. When the Republican-controlled legislature rewrote our election law, it created a five-day window during which people could both register to vote and cast their absentee ballot. Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has interpreted the law to allow people to do both on the same day.

The Ohio GOP disagreed with Brunner, and has filed lawsuits to prevent same-day voting. The courts have now ruled that Brunner is right and the Republicans are wrong.

Yesterday, the Republican justices of the Ohio Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, dismissed the lawsuit that sought to prevent same-day voting. Its order is available here. The Republicans also have filed suit in federal court seeking to enjoin same-day voting. United States District Court Judge George Smith (appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan) has issued an order (available here) deferring to the judgment of the Ohio Supreme Court, but requiring that observors be permitted to be present. His decision has been appealed to the Sixth Circuit, which will almost certainly order expedited briefing and rule quite quickly.

The upshot: if you are not registered to vote, you can both register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day from now through October 6. So can your family, friends, and neighbors. So pass the word and go vote.

The Enquirer's article (albeit with a misleading lede) is here. For up-to-the minute coverage of Ohio election litigation, check the Election Law Blog, based at the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University.

2008 09 30

Politics
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Read the Bill

The Sunlight Foundation is petitioning Congress to ask that whatever bailout bill they come back with is posted online for public review at least 72 hours before it is voted on:

“Sunlight believes all legislation should posted online for at least 72 hours before a vote to give lawmakers and citizens sufficient time to review and debate it, and this bill is no exception,” said Ellen Miller, executive director and co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation. “The failure of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 on Monday, September 29, 2008, is a case in point. The bill was posted online late Sunday afternoon, and voted on less than 24 hours later. That’s why we are calling on citizens to sign a petition to tell Congress to wait 72 hours between when the bill is first posted online and the actual vote.”

This is some serious legislation Congress is considering, and the taxpayers who may be paying for it deserve at least to have time to read it and take an educated position.

Click here to sign the petition.

2008 09 30

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Creating places that matter

This weekend, the City of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati chapter of the Urban Land Institute open convene the Building Valued Neighborhood Conference, a two-day open exploration of how form based codes can attract talent and develop "places that matter."

2008 09 29

Oakley
Mt. Lookout
Pleasant Ridge
Oakley
Columbia Tusculum
East Walnut Hills/O'Bryonville
East Walnut Hills/O'Bryonville
Columbia Tusculum
Hyde Park
Uptown
Over-the-Rhine
Northside
Downtown
Features
Quality Of Life
Mt. Adams
Talent
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Celebrate Banned Books Week!

John's written a great omnibus post pointing to several worthy celebrations of Banned Books Week all around the net:

Banned Books Week is really about two different, but related, things. The first of these, the focus of sites like Amnesty’s and the “Books Suppressed or Censored by Legal Authorities” section of my exhibit, deals with attempts to restrict who is allowed to speak about what matters to them. And in a lot of the world, the right to speak out is severely and violently repressed. The other day I added to my online books collection a number of titles from Human Rights Watch, which has many books, press releases, and other publications about grave threats to freedom of the press and freedom to protest in places like Burma, Chile, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Turkey, Venezuela, various Middle Eastern and African countries, former Soviet republics, and many other places around the world.
Americans enjoy a country with a much freer press than the countries above (and indeed, a freer press than we had in my grandparents’ day). We’re not perfect; our legal system does sometimes suppress legitimate expression, for a time at least, in the name of security, copyright, or “the children”. (And sometimes the threat of criminal violence can suppress books when the law does not.) It is worth remembering the important books that can be published thanks to the free press, and not to take them for granted.

Why Banned Books Week matters (Thanks, John!)

September 2008

Rutherford B. Hayes Month!

2008 09 30

Getting out the vote in Ohio

2008 09 30

Same-Day Voting Permitted In Ohio

2008 09 30

Read the Bill

2008 09 30

Creating places that matter

2008 09 29

Celebrate Banned Books Week!

2008 09 29

Proportional Representation: The Dean v. Jeff Berding

2008 09 29

Betts House - Museum Day

2008 09 27

Betts House - Museum Day

2008 09 27

Downtown Tour of Living

2008 09 27

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