Now Posting at Cleveland Examiner

The Examiner web platforms let people sign up to write on specific topics for (mostly) exposure and (a little) cash. I signed up to be the Cleveland Church and State Examiner. The spot was open and it's one of my strongest interests. And rather than bore all of you and the Akron Legal News audience with church/state all the time, I have a new platform for that stuff.

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So here's the deal. Pay, such as it is, is based on traffic (the site carries ads, especially of the smoking hot news reader telling you about Acai berry sort.) I will be posting links to my Examiner pieces here, plus my other social media stuff. It would be a big help if you would surf over and check them out. It's a great way to feed a starving blogger and (hopefully) be entertained and informed as well.

So far I have this piece looking at how Elena Kagan might view church/state controversies as a Supreme Court justice, this take on the Parma sex education controversy and, just up, a law wonkish piece on what we are talking about when we talk about Establishment Clause -- and other legal terms.

UPDATE: Links are fixed now.

Back Again

So the previously announced Spring cleaning took longer than planned and I wondered if blogging could ever fit into my schedule again. I still wonder, but people keep asking after the Pages. A couple of highlights: I got name checked by Ed Esposito at a Press Club event earlier this year, and the college friend who first glossed me "Pho" dropped the url in our alumni mag this month. So here's to one last push to get this thing going again.

There should be no shortage of material. Not only will races for statewides and Senate be tight, but locally the Ohio 16th (Boccieri vs. Renacci) will be a battle royal. And in the 13th Betty Sutton has an interesting challenger in Tom Ganley, though it remains to be seen whether he will actually do any campaigning.

And of course there are the usual topics around here: what the Supreme Court is doing to our Constitution, whether public education in Ohio can be saved, the latest net neutrality debate and various and sundry policy issues and occasional nods to culture and food.

Should be fun.

The first new substantive post appears immediately below.

Spring Cleaning

Wow, it's dusty in here. Dead links and old, old posts. I'm taking advantage of Spring Break to get stuff cleaned up around the house, and I'll do the same here. I've needed time to get a head of steam on blogging if I'm ever going to get back to it. And I keep being told that I should get back to it.

So I'll clean up a bit around here and try to add something shiny and new.

ODP Talking Junk about the Republican Senate Primary

The tasteful graphic above is from the Ohio Democratic Party website today. The link leads to a release riffing on an ABC News story about the Republican Senate Campaign Committee assuming a neutral posture in contested primaries in 2010. The presser notes:

COLUMBUS - National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Senator John Cornyn pledged yesterday that his committee would not spend a cent in a contested Republican Senate primaries or open seats as part of an effort to "ease some of the anger being directed at the party establishment."

By making this statement, Cornyn declared that national Republicans will not interfere in the contested U.S. Senate Republican Primary between architect of the Bush economy Rob Portman and wealthy Cleveland-area businessman Tom Ganley.

The original story in fact does not mention the Ohio race. And as of now the race isn't much of a contest with Ganley stuck in single digits. ODP may be rooting for a fight on the Republican side, but are unlikely to get one.

Still and all it's fun to see the party trying to stir up trouble. And with this I declare this week Senate Campaign Week here at the Pages. Which is to say, I am hoping to finally write up my impressions of the three candidates who have thus far appeared at the Akron Press Club (Ganley, Portman and Brunner) and prognosticate a bit about the race.

Vacation's Over

I didn't have that week of good blogging before heading out of town for two weeks, but we did have a fine vacation. We revisted Chincoteague Island again after going elsewhere last summer.

As is custom, I've brought something for you all. Here's the Chincoteague drawbridge at dusk:


And I shot this lovely couple on the beach:



I have much to catch up on, and so forward.

A Limited Return Engagement

This week is the week before our annual family summer vacation. Generally I have access to The Internets during vacation, but utilize it sparingly. We're in one of those unplanned and unannounced periods of blog silence which I'm ending now so as not to extend it to further absurd dimensions. As usual I don't have much explanation except that if I get out of the blogging groove for a few days it's hard to get back in. And it's really easy to get out of that groove in the kid-intensive summer months.

So I'm back for the time being. Of course I don't have much to talk about tonight. But starting tomorrow I'll get something substantive down.

Oh Dear Blog, I Have Neglected You So

It's time for a return. I haven't regained the fire in the belly to start blogging, but clearly it's time to fish or cut bait. Either this is going to work or I need to officially shut the Pages down.

To that end I've started updating the sidebars. Mostly this is about purging the blogs that have gone dark or at least have been quiet for several months. A few developments in the blogosphere during the period of my absence should get a mention. First, and most happily, Law Dork is back after his sojourn into the public sector. Ohio Daily and Buckeye State have each seen some changes in personnel. Closer to home a blog inexplicably called I Tire Akron sprung up, then went quiet (it's marginally more explicable in pictograph).

Some folks have emailed from time to time to alert me about new blogs they had started. I'll try to dig up those emails and check our those blogs, but if you are one of those people, this would be a good time to send a reminder.

OK, that'll do for a restart. Substance beginning tomorrow.

Announcements

• The series of posts on the legal road to Guantanomo has been postponed. I realized that it will cover material on the final and not all my students in the current class know of the blog. Happily, I realized this before hitting "Publish."
  
• Meanwhile I've hit yet another snag in my effort to get back to the blog. Just a bunch more stuff needed getting done.
  
• Also I hurt my back over the weekend, but I'm better now. You wouldn't think back troubles interfere with blogging, but they do.
• Romeo Crennell may be the worst Browns coach of my lifetime.
  

That is all.

The Legal Road to Guantanamo: An Introduction

With President-Elect Obama promising to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, we are on the verge of a national conversation on the matter. As my humble contribution in my humble corner of the internets, I will offer a brief history of the legal precedents that led up to the current morass. Beginning in the Civil War era, a series of Supreme Court decisions -- some franky sloppily decided -- helped get us where we are. And since my students are studying them, the work here does double duty.

A few caveats are in order. First off, there are plenty of actual experts out there who study this stuff full time. I'm not that guy. As such, I'll offer some basic outlines of the history, but don't expect the final word. Also, I'll be focusing on the legal side, but we all know some opinionating will sneak in. And of course if I actually finish this series, it may be my first.

All that said, we'll get started in the morning.

Tomorrow

I begin the day so early it won't be entirely accurate to describe it as morning. I'll be working voter protection all day and at some point staggering over to the Dem victory party. It's safe to say I won't be blogging, but will Twitter whatever, whenever I can.

About a Blog

Anyone who has frequented the Pages for longer than a year or so knows that summer is not my best time. With the kids out of school, summer is when I earn my lack of a paycheck. And this summer is more hectic than most as I've got a few projects going.

On top of all that I seriously jacked up my back over the weekend, so sitting in a desk chair long enough to blog is not high on my list.

All of which is to say apologies for the long absence and I will attempt to get back to a regular blogging schedule. Sometime.

In addition, some attentive readers might have noticed this post entitled simply "Mobile." That was me attempting to blog from my new smart phone. So far I haven't been able to do more than that. Needless to say, once we get that up and running I may be able to do more.

I've gotten poked on a couple of legal issues and haven't reached the end of the Brunner case yet. Given the apparently slow news week, those are my priorities for now.

Finally, I'm up for the Carnival of Politics this week. Submissions are trickling in. My plan is to compile tomorrow morning, so send submissions to OhioPolCarnival[at]gmail[dot]com for inclusion.

Have a good, sweltering Ohio July day.

Signing Off from Colorado

Today is travel day. We check out of our cabin, bum around Boulder for a few hours, then jump on a red-eye back to Akron.

The image above is from out last day in the park. This is pretty typical of the view you get from pretty much anywhere. In this case, across Sprague Lake, looking at some of the distant mountains to the northwest.

Advance thanks to those who will return to the Pages when we get back to a regular (for summer anyway) blogging schedule.

Heading for the Mountains

In the literal, not the beer slogan sense. The fam and I are headed for Colorado today. We'll have internet access (but not much time) until the sixteenth when we decamp from Boulder for a cabin in Estes Park where we'll have more time (but no internet access.)

So light blogging, then no blogging, then back to the usual routine of trying to blog amongst the demands of my lovely urchins.

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! Summer Vacation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After hearing the students at Kid T's school scream the above yesterday at the bell, I've made a mental note to open an Earplugs 'n' Tylenol concession next year.

What this means for my dear readers is a truncated blogging schedule. Of course T, who usually requires a pry bar to be removed from her bed at the appointed hour during the school year beat her usual wake up time by 15 minutes this morning, swamping the time I was hoping to get posts up.

Of course.

For those days that the kids actually sleep in, we'll have some posts in the morning, some nights I'll get stuff up, and otherwise it's catch-as-catch-can. Right now neighborhood kids are over and are not vandalizing my home at this moment. It think.

On top of this, the House of Pho will be heading out for vacation next Wednesday with extremely limited connectivity.

On the other hand, it's too hot for much beyond blogging today, so . . .

Blogging Through the Motions

This is how blogging has been for me lately:



(If you have no idea, start here. And no, I do know why this clip is subtitled in Czech.)

Why? Dunno. Part of it is, pace Jon Stewart, The Long, Flat Bataan Death March to the White House. Partly it's just that I'm tired, mostly by some health-related stuff that hopefully will resolve soon.

Bottom line, apologies for the lapse in quality and a promise to continue to work through it all.

Oh Yeah. I Have a Blog Somewhere

No, I haven't been updating the pages the past few days. You don't want to hear my excuses, so I won't bother. Here's what I can promise. I'm pretty much incommunicado tomorrow until after dinner. I have a little over two weeks before the kids are off school at which time blogging time is necessarily constricted. I'm working on doing something about that as well. In any event, I'll try to gear back up to get some decent content up starting tomorrow night

Light Posting Ahead

It's finals week at the U. I have tests to write and tests to grade, so posts will be even lighter than usual the next few days.

Temporarily Offline

My internet connection at home is functionally disabled. I can get dribs, but it's impossibly slow and all but the most basic web pages time out before loading completely. On the way to school I had to detour because of a large tree whose ice load had brought it down across a road, cutting a wire and cable tearing path. This may well be related to the problem, but in any event, I won't be posting from home until things are resolved.

And by the way, if your route somewhere takes you down Aqueduct, you may want to rethink.

I'm off to class. Later.

Still Working My Way Back into the Game

So yeah, I said I was back and over the past two days, not so much. Two thing. The first is again Thing-related.

The second: This was my turn at bat for the Ohio Carnival of Politics. Or maybe the CARnival of Politics this week. *snerk* As always a fine selection from around the state.

OK, time to make the donuts. Hopefully something substantive up tonight.

. . . And We're Back

So, um, I said I'd be offline for three weeks, right? Yes, that turned out far longer than I anticipated. Partly it was about The Thing that I was working on. The Thing will remain nameless for the time being because I am plagued by a superstitious fear of jinxes. But anyway, The Thing took a long time and wasn't done when I thought it was done and gave it to the person who kicked it back and said, among other things, that we needed a new Thinglet. And as soon as the first Thing deadline passed, I got a pile of papers from my class, so I was grading and Thing working at the same time.

And as a thin shaft of daylight appeared, an intestinal virus marched through the House of Pho, extending everything that much.

Anyway, I'm back now. If the past is an indication, it will take a while to hit blogging stride. But we'll get there.