Ohio Cities Top List of Most Affordable Housing Markets
September 6, 2008
Business Week just released the top ten list of cities across the United States that have the most affordable housing markets. 4 of the top ten cities listed were in Ohio. They include Youngstown, Toledo, Dayton, and Akron. To read more about this story, go here.
Newest Edition of the Carnival of Ohio Politics
July 30, 2008
The Carnival of Ohio Politics #128 is up and ready for your reading pleasure courtesey of Jill Zimon Miller of Writes Like She Talks. Jill always does a nice job editing all of the entires, but you really should check out her blog. She is a great writer and always has very thought-provoking topics that she discusses. Her blog is one that I read several times a day and there is always something new an interesting!
Franklin County to the Rescue
July 21, 2008
This article about from the Columbus Dispatch details plans by Columbus and Franklin County to help bail out citizens that are facing forclosure. The idea is to help keep people in their homes and to also go after some of the predatory lenders that may have been somewhat deceiving when they lent money in the first place.
A statistic in the article that I was unaware of is that “Ohio’s foreclosure rate was sixth-highest in the nation last month.” That’s pretty amazing. It is never good to be in the top ten for such bad things as human misery.
For me this is somewhat of a tough call so I am asking for your opinion. Is it fair for the government to spend large amounts of money to help borrowers, many of which never had the means to buy the house in the first place? I know that $3 million may not sound like a lot of money, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. On a side note… isn’t it crazy when we are so numb to hearing numbers in the millions and billions that we just kind of shrug our shoulders and not think twice about spending that amount of money?
I do feel sorry for people in these situations. Many cannot afford the houses because the the crippled economy. What do we do to help?
U.S. Marshalls Round Up Fugitives in Central Ohio
June 14, 2008
According to an article in the Dispatch, 157 fugitives of justice were recently rounded up in central Ohio under a sweep known as FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally).
The Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000 created regional task forces to be led by U.S. marshals to locate and apprehend fugitives. The Adam Walsh Protection and Safety Act of 2006 empowered marshals to help local jurisdictions track down sex offenders who fail to register.
Of the 1,000 felons FALCON authorities searched for last week, about one in five was a wanted sex offender, Jones said.
Congratulations to a job well done!
Latino Festival Back Soon to Columbus
June 7, 2008
As today is my birthday, 32 years old, I won’t be doing much blogging today. But as a Spanish instructor, I found this article about the Latino Festival and thought I’d write a post about it.
This year the festival will be dramatically scaled back. It will take place June 20-21 in downtown Columbus but will reduce hours that will last from only 5-11 pm. There will be a concert the second night by Los Huracanes del Norte and Lucero Terrazas.
Another first is the admission fee that you will pay to enter. On the first night, attendees will pay $1 to enter, but on the second night the cost will rise to $30.
The organizers claim this is a necessity due to rising costs. Is it another local sign of a troubled economy?
I know I won’t pay the fee to attend the second night and I bet many others feel the same. This may serve to be the beginning of the end of this festival.
A Culture of Harassment in the State of Ohio?
June 5, 2008
From the Dispatch:
At least four Franklin County deputies have made working at the Jackson Pike jail intolerable for their subordinates, an internal-affairs investigation has found.
The four men work together on second shift. They are variously accused of hurling insults and office furnishings, sexually harassing female deputies and coercing new recruits into demeaning behavior, offenses that are grounds for suspension or dismissal, the investigators said.
Is this sounding familiar to anyone else? It seems like day after day you open the paper and some governmental entity in Ohio is getting caught harassing its employees.
The second-highest-ranking, Sgt. Matthew Worthington, 35, was suspended with pay last month after he was found to be intimidating subordinates who were cooperating with the investigation against him, which includes charges of sexual harassment.
The other two, Cpl. Charles Davis, 34, and Deputy Mickey Casper, 29, were among those who coerced new recruits into playing leapfrog and acting out the songs I’m a Little Teapot and Ring around the Rosie in the Franklin County jail in front of at least 15 people, including supervisors, civilians and an inmate. Gunn and Worthington also participated, the investigation says.
That is quite a punishment, isn’t it? Suspended with pay = a free vacation.
The Fraternal Order of Police will represent the accused deputies, Jim Gilbert, president of FOP Capital City Lodge No. 9, said.
Very disappointing with regards to the Fraternal Order of Police. Why must we always protect our own?
It’s time for the citizens of the state of Ohio to get sufficiently angry with these groups of people and demand that they clean house. Sexual harassment is a very serious offense, no matter what some men might tell you.
More Bad Economic News For Ohio
June 4, 2008
From the Dispatch:
A bad year for Ohio workers just got worse.
General Motors said yesterday that it will close its sport-utility-vehicle plant south of Dayton in Moraine, one of four plants the company is shutting down in North America.
The move, which will cost Ohio roughly 2,400 jobs, is an exclamation point in a year of grim job news.
Ohio lost 19,423 jobs to mass layoffs in the first three months of this year, the greatest first-quarter loss this decade.
More recently, the bad news has continued to come in waves, from the sudden demise of Skybus in early April to last week’s word that ABX Air could lose thousands of jobs in Wilmington because it no longer would provide services to package shipper DHL.
The worst might be yet to come. In all but one of the last eight years, the most layoffs happened in the fourth quarter.
It seems like no job is safe anymore.
Worthington Kid Pleads Guilty To Terrorism Charges
June 4, 2008
From the Dispatch:
Christopher Paul already has been portrayed as a member of al-Qaida who worked with terrorists abroad and came back to central Ohio to train them at home.
But until Paul pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court, details of how he went from being a typical kid in Worthington to a man who wanted to wage “holy war” on Americans weren’t plentiful.
FBI Special Agent Tisha Hartsough outlined more than a decade of help that Paul provided to terrorists as Paul listened quietly in U.S. District Court.
After the list was read, Paul agreed that he’d done all those things, then pleaded guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. He’ll probably spend 20 years in prison.
The agent’s summary seemed to show that the 44-year-old Paul had become a trusted member of al-Qaida.
It was a stark contrast to what relatives and friends have said about Paul, who was born Paul Kenyatta Laws and graduated in 1983 from then-Worthington High School.
Family members have said publicly that Paul was not guilty; friends and acquaintances said Paul grew up an easygoing boy who volunteered at the high-school office, was a gymnast on the school team and graduated from Columbus State Community College.
But according to the FBI’s Hartsough:
Paul, who had converted to Islam in the late 1980s, first went to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the early 1990s. He trained there to join a “holy war” and became a member of al-Qaida.
He then stayed awhile and “fought with other mujahideen in Afghanistan” and then later with the Islamic fundamentalist movement in Bosnia.
During this time, Paul put together a “master list of contact numbers for senior al-Qaida leadership and other radical Islamic fundamentalists and operatives worldwide.”
FBI agents found the list in a raid of Paul’s apartment on Riverview Drive on the Northwest Side, where he was living when arrested in April 2007.
In January 1997, two members of al-Qaida faxed Paul to ask him to find them a “true group and place to make jihad,” the FBI information shows. In 1998, he took a local group of men to Burr Oak State Park near Glouster, Ohio, to teach them the terrorist training he had learned.
The FBI agent also hinted that Paul’s dropping of the Muslim name he had adopted was part of his plan.
“Preparing to travel overseas again, on February 3, 1999 … defendant obtained a passport in the name of Christopher Paul after defendant had claimed ‘water damage’ to his old passport in one of his other aliases.”
Authorities speculated that Paul thought a more conventional American name would draw less suspicion.
Within a few months, Paul traveled to Germany to train others in explosives, Hartsough said. The group he was training planned “to construct bombs, car bombs and similar devices to be used against Americans while they vacationed at foreign tourist resorts.”
Paul listened to the list without much expression, speaking occasionally to his attorneys. Afterward, he didn’t dispute the allegations.
“Is there anything she said that was incorrect?” District Judge Gregory L. Frost asked.
“No, sir,” Paul told the judge.
Frost said he’ll wait for a presentence investigation to be completed before he decides whether to accept a sentencing recommendation.
The recommendation that Paul receive 20 years in a federal prison was an agreement among Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robyn Jones Hahnert and Dana Peters and defense attorneys Don Wolery and James Gilbert.
Paul is the third central Ohio resident to plead guilty to working with terrorists. Iyman Faris is serving 20 years in prison; Nuradin Abdi is serving 10.
What causes a kid from an affluent area of Columbus to take up arms against the U.S.?
Would Obama Write Off Ohio?
June 1, 2008
Governor Bill Richardson was recently quoted as saying:
“If we win these three states [New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado], plus the traditional Democratic base, (Obama) is president,” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told Washington-based media group Politico last week. “If John Kerry had won these three states and lost Ohio as he did, he would’ve been president.”
That would total 19 electoral votes while Ohio has only 20.
It seems like that could be a very risky strategy on Obama’s part, don’t you think? It would also be a slap in the fact to Ohio voters who have come accustomed to playing a larger role in the selection of the President of the United States.
Perhaps Richardson is realizing what most Clinton supporters have been saying…Obama lost many of the states that he would need to win to win the general election.
Ohio State University Making An Effort To Help Abandoned Pets
May 31, 2008
It really makes me angry to think of people that are cruel enough to abandon animals to the streets to fend for themselves, or to be killed by cars or other animals. For disclosure purposes I must tell you that my wife and I are huge animal lovers and have recently rescued a kitten that was abandoned that we found on a busy street in the middle of the night and was very underfed.
Even though I spent 6 years at Ohio University, I never knew that college kids leaving for the summer was a major source of animal abondonment and abuse. I’m not sure if I simply hadn’t given it much thought or because I didn’t know anyone that had done this horrible act.
I congratulate the Ohio State University for being proactive to deal with this problem. According to the Dispatch, the university created a new program to provide temporary shelter for these animals until permanent homes can be found.
College students looking to leave their pets behind as they leave Columbus for summer break will have an alternative this year.
A group of Ohio State University students has teamed with the Capital Area Humane Society to provide homes for unwanted pets.
Too often, students leave pets behind in empty houses or apartments, or they release them into the streets, said Jodi Buckman, executive director of the humane society. She said the shelter receives more calls about abandoned animals in campus-area neighborhoods at the start of summer break each year.
Yesterday was the last day of classes for the spring quarter.
“We really want to help students do the right thing for their pets,” said Ohio State sophomore Pamela Bollinger, one of the team leaders for the Safe Summer program. “We want them to realize that there are options.”
Veterinary students in the OSU Shelter Medicine Club are promoting the program through a mass e-mail to all students, as well as on fliers and a Web site.
The humane society will house and care for animals at its shelter until a family can be found to adopt them.
“We are essentially the destination shelter,” Buckman said.
The humane society’s shelter has no limit on the number of animals it can take at one time, Buckman said.
When students contact program members, they will discuss options for their pets, Bollinger said.
She said her group is willing to help students with any type of pet: “We are not going to be judgmental.”
The students will work with the College of Veterinary Medicine to transport the pets to the animal shelter, Bollinger said.
Any students interested in working with the Safe Summer program to find a home for their pets can e-mail the group at safesummer@ osu.edu.
Congratulations to Ohio State for this wonderful act of kindness.
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