Did You Miss Me?

Sorry for the silence over the past few days. I ran out of time to do my usual "Out for a Few Days" post. The family and I did a roadie to DC. We stayed in a luxury hotel (compliments of Prof. W. having some business there) that will remain nameless -- charge me ten bucks a night for internet access and you get no love on the Akron Pages.

Seriously, I would gladly trade the marble-appointed bathroom, complimentary personal coffee service and 350 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets for Corian, Mr. Coffee and a free hook-up. That's just me.

More's the pity because our three-day jaunt could have generated a week's worth of posts. As it is, I'm working on a couple of highlights.

In the meantime, a couple items to note.

Peppermint, who is a leader in the Battle for Highland Square, posted her misgivings about the new agreement on my post. She's pretty much right about everything, but see my reply.

Today's news bring three of the least surprising headlines I've ever seen in a single day:
New Year Could Bring Economic Changes (AP)
Utah Theater Cancels 'Brokeback Mountain' (Yahoo)
Medicare Snags Hurt Poor (BJ head to this NY Times story)

BJ Public Editor Mike Needs is looking to recruit "younger people who are occasional newspaper readers" onto his readers' panel. I seriously think it would be of great benefit to both media to have a blog reader or two on the panel. Not being a "younger" person myself, unless he means "younger than Mike Needs," which I doubt, I take myself out of the running. (And my suggestion would be "do this on a blog.") You, younger Akron Pages reader, you know who you are. Sign up.

Tim at Buckeye Politics asks rhetorically what Chris Redfern's proposal to limit pay-to-play in University Trustee appointments is good for. Josh Michah Marshall has the answer:

As a political party, you can't run on corruption if you're not running for reform. But as near as I can tell there is no Democratic reform proposal in Congress. Maybe this or that representative or senator has some proposal, but nothing that the opposition party in any way, as a whole, has gotten behind.

One proposal is not enough, but hopefully it's just a start. Recall that part of the Republican sweep in '94 was the House Banking scandal, and that the Contract with America was in part a response. Yes, all that was arguably contrived. The point is that Marshall's argument is equally valid on the state level -- Democrats need a plan for change if they hope to wrest the state back, or even to make inroads. Simply carping about Noe without a plan of reform will be taken as opportunistic politics as usual.

Anyone have the next reform proposal? Tim? Anyone?

All that should be enough to get the ball rolling again.