Closing Tabs and Random Ten

This has not been a stellar blogging week as I've been working on a couple of projects. Actually that sounds more impressive than it should -- mostly I've been painting my porch.

I have been trying to keep up with stuff but haven't had much time to write. But here's what's clogging my browser today.

I've been remiss in failing to acknowledge Tim Russo's post at Plunderbund welcoming me back a couple of weeks ago. Tim and I have had our differences and probably will continue to do so, but his post was very kind.

I've been glued to the Rand Paul story. Ezra Klein (unsurprisingly) does the best job of explaining the enduring importance of his objection to an otherwise entrenched piece of legislation. BTW Rand's poll numbers are tanking.

Most of the faculty at my alma mater -- including some fairly outspoken conservatives -- signed a letter against the Virginia Attorney General's fishing expedition against a climate change scientist.

A double WTF from the Dispatch yesterday. Yes I was also puzzled by Jennifer Brunner's criptic email to supporters last week. But why was it news a week later?

An EdWeek blogger offers some vague and unsatisfying thoughts about the advantages of for-profit companies in education. Here's a question: If for-profit education can work, why doesn't it work in the one area where no government funds are involved -- high end private schools. When someone successfully establishes a for profit to compete with the likes of Old Trail and Western Reserve, I'll start to believe.

Happy to see California -- the other education superpower -- taking steps against the new Texas Christian Right Curriculum.

Interesting piece in The Straight Dope of all places about how some middle class neighborhoods in Chicago have rescued neighborhood schools.

Two pieces that attempt to sort out the hash Facebook has made out of its privacy settings.

Save the Internet has the breakdown of who in the Ohio Delegation signed the pernicious letter to the FCC against net neutrality.

Finally, Justice Scalia for one would be happy to have a new justice who had not been a judge -- well as happy as Scalia ever is.

Now here it is, your Moment of Ten:

1. "I Know," Dionne Faris
2. "Opinion," Nirvana
3. "The Boy with Perpetual Nervousness," The Feelies
4. "Discovering Japan," Graham Parker
5. "Po' Boy," Bob Dylan
6. "You Belong to my Heart," Old 97s
7. "Every Morning," Keb Mo
8. "Dippermouth Blues," King Oliver and the Creole Jazz Band
9. "Again," Alice in Chains
10. "Rocker," Miles Davis

Closing Tabs

Not much success in Day 2 of the Comeback. Too much end of semester grading. Too much writing work. Meantime, here's what I read on breaks but never had time to write up.

• The NRA Says Terrorists Have 2nd Amendment Rights Too. The kings of Gunnitistan are opposing attempts to flag people on the terrorism watch list to keep them from buying guns. The NRAites have always been the ultimate absolutists, but this is a lot even for them.
• Marc Dann, Convict. Former Attorney General Marc Dann plead guilty today to ethics violations, a sad coda to his hubris-riddled career. He's been fined and sentenced to community service. Which will be something new for him.
• Palin Flogging the Christian Nation Trope. The demi-Governor says the plan at the founding of the nation was to "create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandents, it’s quite simple." Yes, simple is one word for it.
• NYT on Charters Schools. The paper of record runs an extensive look at the latest studies -- including one from privatization-happy Hoover Institution -- showing that most charters do no better than the schools they replace, some do work, etc. Worse for charter honks, the ones that succeed are the ones that have lots of philanthropic support. Hmm. Education costs money. Whoda thunk? H/t Scene Mag.
• Some Big Words that mean Conservatives Are Close-Minded. I'm fascinated by the chatter about epistemic closure on the right. These tabs may stay open a bit longer; I may need to blog this yet.

Still lots of grading to do tomorrow, but things will clear up soon.

Post-Triptophan Randomness

OK, as usual to get back into blogging mode, I need something easy, something trivial, something . . . random.

Ran across this from xkcd in my Reader:


Which also frequently depicts the Random Ten experience for me. Take, for example, the current list:

1. Raconteurs, “Old Enough”
2. 3D, “Listen to the Radio”
3. Sixpence None the Richer, “Breathe Your Name”
4. AC DC, “Hell’s Bells”
5. Beck, “Peaches and Cream”
6. Social Distortion, “Cold Feelings”
7. The Jam, “Precious”
8. Five for Fighting, “Maybe I”
9. Dwight Yoakum, “Throughout All Time”
10. Alison Krauss and Union Station, “I’m Gone”

OK, yea, so I kinda like Sixpence None the Richer. I know I'm not supposed to. No doubt some of you are tuning up: they are bland MOR adult-pop that straddles the mainstream and Contemporary Christian markets. What's your deal Pho? Personally Leigh Nash's voice appeals and they come up with crazy good pop hooks.

Probably I wouldn't pay for it, but their weird crossover "Breathe Your Name" was a free promo download. It's exactly the sort of Christian pop song South Park sent up -- it sounds like a deeply romantic uptempo ballad until you dig into the lyrics.

Anyway. I've never liked it better than as a lead-in to "Hell's Bells."

Some thoughts on stuff:

I missed blogging on the lead up, but much thanks and kudos to both Akron City Council and Summit County Council for their votes for ordinances banning sexual orientation discrimination.

The big news today of course is the President's speech outlining the revised strategy for the Afghanistan war. I part ways with many of my compatriots on the left on this one -- and increasingly with Americans generally. Failure in Afghanistan would be devastating. I'm happy the President is willing to continue to pursue a successful resolution, notwithstanding the popular sentiment. More later.

In tomorrow's Legal News column I take on Stupak-Pitts. Again, more to follow.

I have an early start tomorrow, so that will have to do for tonight.

Randomosity: Resurfacing Edition

So, kids, you know how the public health folks are saying that you can get reinfected with H1N1. Well, they speak the truth. Happily the second time through has been shorter. And BTW I took the kids in for Akron's free immunizations yesterday. A well run operation and the kids have shown no ill effects.

Of course I could be part of the Obama-led conspiracy to overclaim the pandemic. You never know.

A few things I've been watching in between naps:

The courts considering the Rifqa Bary case have done what I consider the right thing. She is back in Ohio in CSB custody and living in foster care. Needless to say, the nutters watching the case are not pleased. In fact they have scheduled a rally in Columbus for next Saturday. If you want to see the minds behind Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch live on on day passes, there you are.

Buckeye State has been going through some interesting changes. I've had more than my share of disagreements with various proprietors of the blog (though not much with current head BSer David Potts), but I can't imagine the Ohio lefty sphere without it. I'm glad David is carrying on and ask that you continue to patronize his bloggage.

There are a lot of navel-gazing pieces like this about Whatever Shall the Republican Party Do? around -- have been since 06, really. And most of them follow the WMD logic that the thing that got Republicans into trouble is that they stopped being defined exclusively by orthodox conservatism. As a Democrat I should be happy to see such stuff, but as someone who believes first and foremost in political pluralism, I'm not. If Republicans define themselves solely in terms of conservative dogma they will remain a regional minority party. As such they will not provide much of a check on the inevitable excesses of liberalism. That's not good for anyone.

Oh, and they will be that much more destructive when they do take power.

I thought Akron had the gayest election ever last Tuesday, what with an out Lesbian city council person and an out gay muni judge elected. But apparently we were just part of a broader trend. Though the vote in Maine didn't go as well as hoped, it's pretty amazing that sexual identity was essentially a non-issue for so many candidates.

While I was out the crew at CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) dropped an email about their state-by-state database of government corruption. Here's Ohio's page.

I enjoyed the spectacle of Minority Leader John Boener (R-Darque Zone) claiming he was reading the preamble of the Constitution when in fact he was reading from the Declaration of Independence. OK, yea people make mistakes. But. 1) He hasn't sworn and oath to uphold the Declaration. 2) He has freely accused Obama of subverting the Constitution despite his apparntly limited familiarity with the document. And 3) If he HAD read the the preamble of the Constitution in the course of criticizing the health care bill, he likely would have choked on the part about promoting the general welfare.

OK, a few tabs closed. Now here's your moment of ten:

1. Alison Krauss and Union Station, "Bright Sunny South"
2. Dwight Yoakum, "Please Please Baby"
3. Bjork, "It Is Oh So Quiet"
4. The Beatles, "Lovely Rita"
5. Cibo Matto, "White Pepper Ice Cream"
6. Gorillaz, "Double Bass"
7. Matthew Sweet, "Winona"
8. Horace Silver, "Nica's Dream"
9. U2, "Desire"
10. Lucinda Williams, "Words"

Mostly Non-Viral Return Post

As you may have noted from my Twitter feed, I've been battling the flu for nigh on two weeks now. Don't know if it was swine or regular, but it certainly felt like the usual My head is finally clear enough for me to think about writing for public consumption again.

While I was sick I kept myself going in part by visualizing the anti-vaccine right wing yappers getting this thing. Because anyone engaging in that level of irresponsible asshattery deserves to suffer at least as much as I did. Of course I didn't pry the time out of my schedule to get the flu shot myself, but I won't parade that misstep as some great poltical statement.

To get things moving again, a quick random ten:

1. Yo La Tengo, "You Can Have It All"
2. Clint Black, "Muddy Water"
3. Elvis Costello, "Jump Up"
4. Duke Ellington, "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)
5. The Decemberists, "The Sporting Life"
6. Billie Holiday, "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"
7. Traveling Wilburys, "Dirty World"
8. Mountain Goats, "Lion's Teeth"
9. Akron/Family, "Creatures"
10. Mates of State, "My Only Offer"

Randomosity

I'm trying to blog daily but it's Friday night and I'm tired. So I'll let the MP3s do the talking tonight.

1. New Pornographers, "All for Swinging You Around"
2. Charles Mingus, "Open Letter to Duke"
3. Yo La Tengo, "The Story of Jazz"
4. Elvis Costello, "Less than Zero"
5. Shelby Lynn, "Life Is Hard"
6. Bela Fleck, "Blue Mountain Hop"
7. Jimmy Cliff, "The Harder They Come"
8. Bright Eyes, "Poison Oak"
9. Modest Mouse, "Bukowski"
10. Lucinda Williams, "Concrete and Barbed Wire"
    

See you tomorrow. Hopefully.

Norka Notes

A semi-regular round up of news and ephemera about our hometown.

TV on the Internet

AkronNewsNow has started a short Akron News video segment on the website (h/t Eric Mansfield who enthuses about the effort). Today's effort includes one substantive news story (Summit BoE staying open late for early recall voting) one feature (on Temo's Candy) and a sports story about the Aeroes. Given that local TV too often is little more than a parade of burning homes, it's not bad. Ohio.com's video capability has pretty much gone by the wayside since they did a great job with the airdock fire, so it's good someone is picking up the ball.

Changes at CVNP

John Debo, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park Superintendent, is stepping aside after 21 years to head a nonprofit that raises funds to support the park. He presided over the transition from National Recreation Area to National Park, has kept thing together through funding cuts and floods, and maintained what have to be tricky relations with the many many political entities that border the park. Cuyahoga Valley is one of the treasures of the region. Here's hoping we get another able Superintendent to continue the good work.

Goodyear Job Cuts -- It Could Be Plus Mal

Goodyear announced this week it got union approval for 120 job buyouts. Worse news: "The vote clears the way for a possible move of rubber-making production from Akron to Buffalo, N.Y., within two years." But we may be getting let off easy -- Amiens, France is losing 820 jobs.

Another Week, Another National Award

Akron -- where things suck so bad we have to recall the Mayor, you know -- has won another national award. This one is the City Livability Award from the US Conference of Mayors, awarded for the innovative plan to rebuild Akron Public Schools as Community Learning Centers.

DowntownAkron.com Tries Blogging

The Downtown Akron Partnership, the business consortium working to improve and promote downtown business, now has two blogs up. One is the DowntownAkron blog, and the other is about the GO -- for Get out of the Office -- intiative which encourages, well you can figure it out. So far one post each over the past week, but surf by and offer encouragement.

Chryssie Hynde Pretending Again

The Telegraph offers a rare interview with Akron native and entrepreneur Chrissie Hynde as she readies a new Pretenders release and a best of collection. Not much specific about Akron, aside from acknowledging Vegiterranean.

ESPN: Akron Football Is "Soft"

Penn State will host Akron, and for it's effort is being awarded with the title of second-softest non-conference schedule by ESPN columnist Bruce Feldman. According to Feldman, "Akron also is an OK opponent, but is still coming off a 5-7 season." Something to hold onto for the maiden season of InfoCision Stadium.

Random Thoughts on a Friday

Y'know what I really can't stand? When people use the word "literally" to mean "really." They apparently feel the need for an emphatic adverb but don't want to sound like middle schoolers so they misuse a perfectly innocent word. Yesterday on NPR coverage of the Cash for Clunker's bill I heard one interviewee observe that a similar program is "literally going gangbusters in Germany."

I thought, "Really? Cash for Clunkers is actually busting gangs?"

It metaphorically drives me up a wall.

Part of getting back to blogging has been getting back into reading blogs. On Obsidian Wings I found this takedown of the tendency of too much of the conservative punditocracy to paint Teh Left with one broad brush. Required reading.

On the other hand this Volokh post on Sotomayor's "wise Latina" speech. Though I disagree with some of the conclusions, it's a sensible, balanced reading of what Judge Sotomayor said and what it means.

In case you haven't noticed, Akron is rapidly becoming a university town. It's always funny to read the trolls on Ohio.com opine as to how that's a Bad Thing.

I meant this week to blog extensively about the recall and the Sotomayor nomination. I did not mean to write a zillion (OK, four) posts about gay issues, one way or the other, but I have. Happily I have the perfect musical coda for Unintentional Gay Week at Pho's Akron Pages:



h/t Lives and Times

Now here it is, your Moment of Ten.

1. Old Crow Medicine Show, "I Hear Them All"
2. Death Cab for Cutie, "Summer Skin"
   
3. Little Walter, "Blues With a Feeling"
4. John Coltrane, "Giant Steps"
5. Toots and the Maytals, "Louie, Louie"
6. Barenaked Ladies, "Home"
   
7. Dexter Gordon, "Stairway to the Stars"
8. Low, "California"
9. Robin, "Little Black Dress"
10. Bright Eyes, "Nothing Gets Crossed Out"
    

Friday Randomness

The kids are off school for the summer. This means that if I sleep in with them (as happened today) most serious blogging will have to wait until the evening.

The sting of the Caveliers' early exit from the NBA playoffs is a lot sharper as we watch our vanquishers unable to play with the Lakers. Safe to say that if Dan Gilbert is serious about bringing a championship to town, he's going to be doing some serious shopping this summer.

Apparently Chip Bok is "under fire" for another tasteless insensitive cartoon. If you don't mind be tasteless and insensitive, there's really no excuse for also being stubbornly unfunny.

I like Obama's speech. But for sheer entertainment value I prefer the handwringing in the conservasphere about how acknowledging that other countries a) exist and b) have a point of view is one step away from AONEWORLDSOCIALSISTISLAMICSTATE!!!!!!

Now here it is, your moment of ten:

1. Parliament, “Up for the Downstroke”
2. Modest Mouse, “The View”
3. A Tribe Called Quest, “Check the Rhyme”
4. Radiohead, “Wolf at the Door”
5. John Coltrane, “Syeeda’s Song Flute”
6. The Ramones, “Somebody Put Something in my Drink”
7. Wilco, “Hoodoo Voodoo”
8. Bjork, “Headphones”
9. Brooks and Dunn, “I’m No Good”
10. Elvis Costello, “Lipstick Vogue”

Random Weekend: Low Posting Zone Edition

This week is APS spring break, so Prof. W has taken Kids Z and T out of town. While the cats are away the mice will work his butt off on projects that wouldn't fly if the kids were around. Not to say I won't post, but I have about a dozen priorities head.

Now here it is, your moment of ten:

1. REM – “I Believe”
2. Nicholas Payton – “Concentric Circles”
3. Stan Getz – “Four Brothers”
4. Solomon Burke – “Get Out of My Life Woman”
5. Michael Frante and Spearhead “Light Up Your Lighter”
6. The Cramps – “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns”
7. Eels – “Flower”
8. Shriekback – “Lined Up”
9. Ramones – “I Don’t Care”
10. Dire Straights – “Telegraph Road”
    

Major college flashback time. The Shriekback song was our background track for a college radio show. Ramones, REM and Dire Straights were all favs, though for different reasons and different times of the day.

'Scuse me. I think I have a paper due.

Norka Notes

Bringing it back -- an occasional round up of things Akron.

First Energy Biomass Conversion -- The Akron-based energy company announced today that it will convert a Cleveland coal-burning plant to burn biomass -- basically farm waste. The conversion moves the plant into the (sort of) renewable and (sort of) carbon-neutral column.

Akron Film Festival Begins Tomorrow. Yes, we have one, and a pretty avant-garde fest at that. This year hosted at the Akron Art Museum. Films scheduled through Sunday. Yes, the festival is facebooking, not they are not tweeting.

Pizza Robber Shot. Preliminary indications suggest this could get ugly. It looks like a legitimate case of self-defense, but the dead robbers friends are making ugly noises around the neighborhood. Further thoughts from Eric Mansfield.

Why They're Called the Aeros. Goodyear is celebrating 100 years of work in aviation.

Dan Auerbach Solo Roundup. Half of Akron's Black Keys released his first solo album last month. A random sample of coverage of the recording from NPR, LA Times (I do believe that's the tressel over Memorial Parkway he's posing on), video on Rolling Stone, and because it involves The Black Keys, Australia. Also, Auerbach got raves for his South By Southwest set. By the way, it's really weird for me personally reading and writing about Auerbach. That recording studio he built in a house in Akron? It was my mom's house.

For my three or four readers who are also Whedonverse fans, sad news. Angel fan favorite Andy Hallett who starred as Lorne, The Little Demon Who Cried Apocalypse, has died at 33. Details on Eonline. (H/t Whedonesque) For those of you who understand, a tribute:



Yes, I believe I would choose that shade of green.

Return of the Randomness

In my ongoing attempt to get back to regular blogging, I'm trying to bring back things that worked in the past. Longtime readers may remember the Friday random ten posts -- ten songs randomly shuffled out of my MP3 player, along with some similarly random observations. So here goes.

1. Arcade Fire: “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations”
2. Beck – “Minus”
3. Bela Fleck – “Jamie Lynn”
4. Charlie Parker – “I’ll Walk Alone”
5. Meat Puppets – “Flaming Heart”
6. Bob Dylan – “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”
7. Clint Black – “Nothing’s News”
8. Mothers of Invention – “Take Your Clothes off When You Dance”
9. Peasall Sisters – “In the Highways”
10. Patti Smith – “Kimberly”

Of all the discs I picked up during my Nashville country phase (and Nashville country's early-90s period of not absolutely sucking), by far Clint Black's first two discs have best stood the test of time. They were informed by the real-life break-up of a long term relationship. Then Clint met and married D-list actress Lisa Hartman and his music went sappy and predictable. Lisa Hartman, the antimuse.

Some other stuff.

Of all the badness of Bobby Jindal's Republican reply to pseudoSOTU, one bit that got relatively little attention was his mocking of "Something called 'volcano monitoring.'" You would think that if any governor would understand the importance of monitoring potential sources of natural disasters, it would be the governor of Lousiana. But then he seemed to think that the sum of Katrina was all the government's fault.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne was in town this week for an Akron Roundtable appearance. He did a dispatch-from-the-heartland thing for his column previewing pseudoSOTU.

I'm working finally bringing the sidebar up to day. I've dropped attempts at a comprehensive Akron blogroll and am keeping that list (labelled "Locals") to people who I read fairly regularly. Along with the new linkety goodness, take away a favorable review to Blogger's newish blogroll feature. It's easy to use, easy to import feeds from my Reader and you get updates about the latests postings on the blogs listed.

I've been watching Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse." I think it's fatally flawed. Whedon's great strenghts are developing compelling characters, giving them great dialogue and watching relationships among them ebb and flow. Hard to do all that when the show is about people whose personalities get wiped and rewritten every show. Whedon in interviews enthuses about the episodes in the can, so maybe he's found the solution to the problem. Wait and see.

Top Chef wrapped up its season this week. SPOILER ALERT. Hosea edged out heavily favored Stephan for the title. Carla was going strong, but Casey from Season 3 was her sous chef and gave her bad advice which she unfortunately followed. Casey is now the first chef to choke away two titles. Imagine if Carla had asked her to chop some onions.

My best Google search referral this week -- and best in a long time -- "crocodile racing proponents."

Things Getting Back to Normal

We're back in Ohio, just in time to enjoy the lovely weather you have been keeping to yourselves. Also, the blog seems to be back. I deleted some sidebar code (thanks to Lisa Renee for the tip in comments) which appears to have done the trick.

A few trims and ends.

Last night during Michael Phelps's (first) medal ceremony, the Star Spangled Banner recording was cut off. Prof. W noticed it happened just at the phrase "Land of the free." Yep, we're in China.

NY Times on how the DiMora/Russo scandal could affect Obama in November. The article quotes my friend and colleague Dave Cohen as well as Subodh Chandra and Dr. John Green.

It is literally a cold day in August. Maybe that explains why I agree with Bad American.

The gun control community is reeling from news that a longtime apparent activist was apparently an NRA spy.

Notes on the mortal coil: RIP Bernie Mac and Isaac Hays. Best wishes to Paul Newman and family.

The best of many law blawg posts about the legal implications of the Hamdan verdict.

I'm not doing this. I want to be second to know Obama's VP pick.

Over the week we spent a fair amount of time on the boardwalk in Wildwood, NJ. One of the cheesy souvenir stores sold signs. Notre Dame Fans Parking only, etc. The no parking signs tried to include a witty line about what would happen to violators. The signmakers missed the boat on the party signs. The violators get punished by the mascots -- people who park in the Democrat stop get "kicked" and violating Republican parking gets you "squashed."

Why not be really political? Why not invoke and/or mock the caricature of each party? Democrat Parking Only: All others will be taxed. Or Republican Parking Only: All others will be water boarded.

Feel free to improve on the effort in comments.

This Probably Could Have Been Phrased Better.

From today's Dispatch story about Ohio possibly resuming executions:

New Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the former dean of the Moritz School of Law at Ohio State University, could face an execution before she leaves office following the Nov. 4 election.

Either Ohio instituted a harsh, post-Dann zero tolerance policy or one got by the editor.

Norka Notes, 6/6/08

I'll try to do this at least occasionally. But as always, no promises.

So here's what's going on in The City Formerly Known as Rubber:

Jeff Coryell notes the ABJ piece on dropping property values, including a haste-inspired goof by me. The drop county-wide is one percent; the drop in Akron is four percent. The full version on the website now includes a map showing what you would expect -- drops in Akron and most of the southern suburbs, and increases in the northern subs, led by Hudson.

All of this is, by the way, still better than the double-digit drops on the coasts, mostly because we didn't have the speculative bubble around here pushing values up to unsustainable levels.

Speaking of money and Akron, TechRepublic notes that Akron is among the cities where IT professionals can command the highest hourly rate (happy birthday, K.)

Cuyahoga Falls School Board member (and blogger) Kellie Patterson has sued the board she sits on to compel the board to follow Ohio's open meetings law. Kellie explains her lawsuit on her blog.

PETA, whose basic philosophy seems to be that looking exhbitionistically goofy is always more important than actually improving life for animals, is nagging Kent State over a live golden eagle mascot. No word on how they feel about Zippy.

But seriously, I wonder how they feel about protecting the lives of jellyfish. PETA is generally anti-zoo, but the big ticket at the Akron Zoo this weekend is a jellyfish exhibit. Jellyfish pose something of a challenge to the bright-line rules PETA tries to draw. There's little morally meaningful difference between a jellyfish and, say a kelp bed.

At any rate, the jellies exhibit looks good and opens to the general public tomorrow.



One of the big tickets

Norka Notes

I've been neglecting the blog's middle name. Some catch-up gleanings from around the city:

Eric Mansfield, who gave his last Akron newscast last week, is guesting for WAKR's Ray Horner tomorrow and Monday. You can catch Eric from 5:30 to 9:00 a.m.

The Thirteenth District's Betty Sutton is among the many many Hillary supporters who have publicly endorsed Barack Obama.

The Summit County Board of Elections has rented off-site space for early voting. Apparently it is so popular that the traffic interferes with other Board operations. As a result of a quirk in state law, the Board can only open one early voting walk-up location, so you will not be able to vote at the Board.

The Beacon Journal is reporting tonight that area property values have fallen about one percent over the past year. Given the picket of real estate signs around here, it could be much worse.

The Innerbelt is closing while they install a towpath bridge. From the ebag:

As part of the construction of the Cascade Locks Bikeway in downtown Akron, the City of Akron will close a portion of State Route 59 (Akron Innerbelt) to traffic starting Monday, June 9th at 9:00 a.m. through Sunday, June 15th at 8:00 p.m. Route 59 Northbound will be open to the Dart Avenue Ramp to Mill Street.

Traffic will be detoured around the closure from that exit, via Dart Avenue, Mill Street and Main Street. Southbound traffic will be directed off of S.R. 59 onto Rand Avenue using the W. Exchange Street / Cedar Street exit and then back on to S.R. 59 just north of West Exchange Street.

Akron is in the running for a Bridgestone tech facility. Here's the POV from our rival, Murphreesboro, Tennessee.

United Way of Summit County is looking for participants for their annual Docs to Rock event. If you are a doctor and you, well, rock, sign up.

Finally, Akron has always been one of those towns that gets name checked by humorists as shorthand for something typically flyover. An example from HuffPo: Straight Man Accidentally Sees Sex and the City, putatively about a tragic mishap involving a local Home Depot employee.

Clearing the Tabs

A few notes about what lingers in open tabs, but won't make it into full fledged posts.

Last Tuesday a Senate committee grilled execs from high tech companies about their complicity in China's censorship of the internet. The headline raises the possibility of new legislation which I doubt will happen, particularly this year. Steven Dell loudly pushed for Bush after Kerry took on the issue of outsourcing in 2004. Given that Chinese dissidents do not vote in our elections, I don't see Congress risking the wrath of people who, in the modern version of the old saw, create pixels by the trillions. Still, it is good that Congress is at least showing an interest.

I'm only halfway through this transcript of a Pew Forum program on religious voters and the 2008 elections, but it's definitely worth the time. If nothing else, it's notable for taking on the subject without the participate of U Akron's Dr. John Green.

Paul makes a good point about the election. Obama is beset by as many opponents as Hillary Clinton is. She has Chris Matthews, but he has Rush Limbaugh, etc. (I would add to Obama's list much of the bloghersphere, led by the egregious Taylor Marsh, plus the knuckle-draggers who keep forwarding the Muslim emails.) But Obama doesn't whine about it. He doesn't send emails to contributors stoking their sense of injustice either.

The Pages have featured some breathless dispatches about the promise of nanotechnology in the past. There are downsides -- there always are. One is that nanotubes may act like asbestos fibers in the lungs. This is more a manufacture problem than an end consumer problem. Once nanotubes are incorporated into an electronic device, they are unlikely to get out. The problem on the manufacturing side is that nanotubes are, well, really really small, so workers need some pretty high-end filtering equipment to remain safe.

A poll-watching, number crunching blogger I've not heard of before has an interesting piece about whether Jews are "drifting to the right" politically. One question left open by the post -- are secular and religious Jews heading in opposite directions? In other words, are Jews acting like pretty much everyone else? (h/t Ezra Klein)

Finally John Spinelli ePluribus Media put together an Ohio politics crossword puzzle. A decent puzzle master lives for unusual four-letter words (think esne, ibis and oort), so I'm a natural at 26 down.

I'm Back. Did I Miss Anything

Ninety final grades, a catch-up nap and a working lunch later, I'm more or less back on the job. Just a quick look at the Google Reader and -- Holy Sh!t.

So elsewhere with you if you haven't been keeping up on the Dann drama. A few quick, and fairly obvious takes. Apologies for anyone who has said the following elsewhere; I'm not entirely caught up on blog reading:

• Dann's offer to resign if the IG doesn't investigate pretty much confirms that there is something worth investigating.
• It also confirms that Dann's overriding concern is to soften his landing. Rumors have been circulating about Dem politicos shopping him to big law firms (who, funny thing, aren't interested in acquiring a foul-mouthed, ill-tempered colleague with zipper problems and an outsized sense of entitlement. Huh.)
• Dann's most likely concern now is his law license. He can be impeached for grossly mismanaging the office and failing to correct violations of Federal fair employment laws, but none of that is likely to get his ticket punched. Whatever the IG finds on his computer might.
• The other side of this is the rumors that Dann is threatening to reveal where other bodies are buried if the fading chimera of a soft landing fails to materialize. That's pretty much the only hole card he has at this point. Time will tell if it's enough to motivate the Dems . . .
• And regardless of whether it does or not, the R's have a lot to say about all this and it's in their interest to see this drag out, unless Dann has maps of some of their bodies as well.
  

A couple other bits. Hearty congrats to Jeff Coryell for being named to the Democratic convention's State Blogger Corps.

Good analysis of Hillary's West Virginia blow-0ut and what it means from John Dickerson.

I'm up for the Carnival this week and am already way behind schedule, so better get to it.

What I Would Be Blogging About if I Had Time to Blog

The semester is winding down, so my workload is amping up. I have a ton of papers to grade before tomorrow so my class has them to study for their final.

So, with the possibility that I will not get to everything and may not get to anything on my To Blog list, here's the quick version

• Alex Arshinkoff won and won big in the vote for control of the Summit County GOP. ANN has a liveblog plus audio posted of the event, with some nice tidbits, including anti-Wayne Jones lapel pins. The vote is over, but the bloodletting has just begun. If Alex accomplishes anything other than exacting revenge upon those who opposed him, I will be surprised.


• Speaking of ANN, I'll get around to responding to the ANN critics who commented on this post. I agree that ANN isn't what ohiodotcom is yet, but they are moving in opposite directions. ANN is starting as a website with web functionality and building credible content within that framework. Ohio dot com is starting as an e-version of a dead tree paper and trying to make the web fit that paradigm. If ANN is able to catch up, that will be why.

• Women's Voices Women's Vote, a group supposedly unaffiliated with any campaign was behind a series of robo-phone calls that looked a lot like voter suppression. They have apologized and offered explanations (for whatever reason, I got an email from them.)
  
  Either they were involved in some extremely clever and subtle voter suppression aimed at likely Obama supporters, or they were extraordinarily incompetent. In any event, people like Jill Zimon who was a candidate for their Best Woman Blogger contest are getting unwarranted crap for having promoted the group. If the worst of the allegations turn out to be true, then among other things, WV² used a bunch of bloggers to build net cred. We should be outraged, but not at the bloggers.
  
  Jill has a pretty good roundup of posts on the subject.
  

• Susie at BlueOhioan has left blogging because politics has gotten too "toxic." Normally I don't call people out as they are leaving but, seriously? The woman who called Obama a "petulant little snot" worried about the toxicity of politics? Toxic is as toxic does, Susie. If the kitchen is too hot, fine. But could you please turn off a couple of the burners you lit before you leave?

• The Dann drumbeat rolls on. ModernEsquire has been the most out front as new allegations. I want to see Dann gone as much as the next guy. But there is no clear path to getting rid of him short of the next election. I hope Redfern and Strickland are working behind the scenes to persuade him to step down into some sort of soft landing job. In any event, everything we know about the guy indicates that calling him out publicly as some have advocated will just make him dig in deeper.
  

• And yes, I have more to do on the Supreme Court voter ID case. And plenty more besides. Let's just say I'm OK with the semester ending.