Editor's Blog

Check out this fun video and blog entry from Richard Jaeggi—about cleaning the astroturf on Ellsworth Drive.
—ed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41ltzLBskJI

A few weeks ago my family was lamenting the horribly dirty state of  Silver Spring's downtown green space, AKA, the Turf. I was complaining about my failed attempts to persuade local officials to clean it.

My daughter, uninterested in sharing my high dudgeon, made a brilliant suggestion.  "Why don't we clean it ourselves?"

In a stroke: from powerlessness to power. Of course we could clean it ourselves— and have a good time to boot.  So we teamed up with our friends the Karn/McDonagh's, put out a call for assistance  on the list serve, and showed up on Saturday with brooms and trash bags.

As if by divine intervention, on the very Friday before our clean up, the Red Shirt Brigade was moved to do a thorough clean up of the turf, which made our  jobs much easier. Big thanks to the Red Shirts.

This movie is a little vignette of that pleasant afternoon on the Turf.

Posted by EB at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kevin Zeese wrote the following response to the Voice editorial endorsing Ben Cardin (see below). I will do my best to answer him (though we are in the final moments of the election). But I thought that in the meantime Zeese has a right to express his point of view and rebut our editorial.
— ed.

While I am disappointed to see you endorse Ben Cardin you obviously have the right to endorse who you want. But, to publish false and inaccurate statements is not appropriate:

YOU SAY: "He has repeatedly advanced measures that would de-escalate the violence in Iraq and undo the damage that the U.S. has wrought there."  How do the following votes by Ben Cardin support that claim:

Continue reading " Guest Blog: Zeese responds" »

Posted by EB at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Tom Perez and Rob Richie

After Maryland finally finished counting ballots after its September 12th primary, the finger pointing about responsibility for that day's chaos at the polls began in earnest. Dozens of polling places failed to open on time, others opened without their voting machines working, new electronic pollbooks kept crashing and after polling hours were extended for an hour in two major counties, even more problems developed based on many pollworkers not learning of the extension or how to handle it.

With critical elections for nearly all of Maryland's highest offices expected to be closely contested on November 7th, the Keystone Cops nature of the primary elections was all the more troubling—and sadly reflective of the state of affairs in our elections nationally. Not only did inept election administration cause hundreds of people to lose their right to vote entirely and frustrate thousands more. It increased community distrust in the basic functioning of our democracy at a time when participation is more important than ever.

Continue reading "Guest blog: Good elections require accountability and transparency " »

Posted by EB at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Folks are still submitting their analysis of the primary. The following comes from well-known civic leader Charles Wolff.

Voters Align with Civic Community Positions
by Charles Wolff, Montgomery County Civic Federation Historian

Analysis of winners and losers in the County’s primary elections last month tell a mostly cheerful tale for us in the civic movement, in stark contrast to what happened in 2002. Voters apparently gave high priority to major issues that we have worked hard against for years—money in politics, overcrowded schools, inadequate transit, and the imbalance between road capacity and development.
Campaign Funds

Continue reading "Guest blog: Voters Align with Civic Community Positions" »

Posted by EB at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Takoma Park City attorney and longtime pol-watcher Tom Gagliardo has submitted this assessment of the State Senate race in District 20. I was looking for analysis from someone who was a Ruben supporter. Tom provides that here. —ed.

Some quick and dirty thoughts on Raskin v. Ruben

Ida couldn't change the fact that she was an incumbent when the mood was anti-incumbent, or that she is 77 years old in a culture which devalues age, or that she has been in office 32 years when either alone or in combination with her age translated to many as "time for a change".

So could she have won?

Continue reading "Guest blog: Some quick and dirty thoughts on Raskin v. Ruben" »

Posted by EB at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Landscape architect, soccer coach, and poet (who knew?) Byrne Kelly of Takoma Park sent in this ode to Jamie Raskin. Like bards of old, Byrne recited his poem at Raskin's victory party. Got any photos or other interesting paraphernalia from the primary, send them in. —ed

Continue reading "Guest blog: A tickin and a taskin for Professor Raskin" »

Posted by EB at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night, I got this message from Bill Kules, who maintains the B.F. Gilbert neighborhood Association e-mail list. Please add your voting experience. We have a reporter working on this story, so please send me your name and contact information if you are willing to be a source:eric@takoma.com. —ed

At least 40 voters had to cast their ballots on scraps of paper after poll officials turned off the electronic voting machines and ran out of paper ballots tonight.

Shortly after 8:00 this evening, as I waited in line at our polling place, the Takoma Park Elementary School, poll workers announced that they had been instructed to stop using the electronic voting machines at 8:00 pm and switch to the provisional paper ballots.

Continue reading "Guest blog: Voting fiasco in Takoma Park—I tried to vote" »

Posted by EB at 07:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)