Ann Fisher on Fire

I don't often have a lot to say about any of the Dispatch's columnists, but Ann Fisher kicks some major booty this morning. Yesterday, the Ohio State Senate voted on a resolution supporting and welcoming Iraqi refugees. The original version of the resolution called out Ted Strickland by name, and was nothing but cheap partisan politics. Progress Ohio brought this to many people's attention. Then, somehow, it was agreed that the anti-Strickland language would be dropped, and the pro-refugee resolution passed unanimously. I have to admit, that's where I would have left it. Not Ms. Fisher:

For $50, they could register 150 refugees to assess their needs and find their families.

For $80, they could provide a tent for a family of five.

A cool $100 would pay for blankets, a cookstove and other basic necessities for a refugee family.

Anyone can donate online through the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. Go to www.unhcr.org for more details.

Easy as pie.

Unfortunately, it’s even easier to introduce a pompous Senate Joint Resolution that means nothing and then pontificate about it for 20 minutes.

...

One of the chief sponsors said Senate Joint Resolution 1 still was needed, however, to repair damage to Ohio’s reputation after Strickland’s remarks.

How about our state senators do something to repair Ohio’s reputation as a rust-belt state, as a dead end for college graduates, as intolerant of gays, as a prime dumping ground for out-of-state construction waste?

As for our reputation with refugees, the numbers tell the story.

Ohio is 10 th among the 50 states in the number of refugees who have been placed in the U.S. Most likely, we’ll welcome many more in years to come.

Take a bow, Ann. That's a home-run ball.

Things that make me nervous

I like the goals Ted Strickland has set for the state and his administration. I like the fact that things are actually getting done. I don't have a substantive problem with any of the following changes:

Governor-appointed Chancellor of Regents
Governor Appointed Oversight Board and Administrator for BWC
Potentially increased role for State Board of Education (42% appointed by Governor)
Having a Governor-Appointed board suggest judges

His ideas have a tendency to be lumped together as "more government control" or "more state control," but in general, most of Ted's proposals only seem to shift control within the State Government apparatus to create a larger role for the executive branch generally, and the governor's office in particular (A possible exception is the hospital construction proposal which was apparently floated but has failed to generate much press).

I don't tend to be a fan of strengthening executive branches. Even when I like the Executive and am not such a big fan of the legislature. I'm glad that Ted's not afraid to wield the power of the office, and one can't have things multiple ways, so as I said, I have no real problem with any individual shift. It's the pattern that makes me a tad uncomfortable. Hopefully, I'll look back at this post someday and mock myself.

There's a new Ohio Civil Service Employees union blog

In a great example of serendipity, I went hunting for state and local labor blogs as part of my redesign last month, and OCSEA, the largest union representing state employees, started a blog about a month ago. It was new, and I'm not a member, so I wasn't sure how appropriate the link was at the time, but I subscribed to their feed and it's one of the most consistently interesting things in my reader every day. I would recommend checking it out.

And if you know of other blogs like this, drop me a line.

BuckeyeStateBracket

For those of you who truly do not care, I apologize for invading yet another domain of your lives. For the rest of you, If you think you can fill out the best men's tournament bracket in the Ohio Blogosphere, there is a free group on Yahoo called BuckeyeStateBracket.

To join in go to the game page (you'll need a Yahoo ID if you don't have one), click join group, and join group# 42919, using the pa s sword 'bonobo'

You can start making picks as soon as the NCAA announces the field of 65 on Sunday.

If you can't say something nice...

After spending all of my weekend on-line time making or almost making irritated-to-enraged comments on other blogs instead of posting here, I'm left without much inspiration. Believe it or no, most of the time I don't particularly care for being irritated. Sometimes I enjoy a bit of righteous indignation, but I like to save the expression of that for targets that... well for GOP-aligned political figures, generally.

So after several encounters I have an internal alarm go off that demands me to introspect upon the question: "Is it actually the case that 80% of the 80% of people who aren't simply irritating all of the time are suddenly and simultaneously irritating, or are am I just being an irritable jerk?"

The great thing about this kind of introspection is that no matter the answer, you're distracted enough for long enough that the question becomes moot.

Here's hoping.