Will we come back — plans are afoot. The Board of the University has agreed to “convey” the campus to the Alumni, and the Alumni Association has been busy organizing a new Board of Trustees, and under the sponsorship of the Great Lakes Consortium, negotiations on the $$$$$$$ are underway. There is a conference at Earlham this month focused on long term planning, envisioning the 21st Century Antioch, which hopefully will come up with a master plan. Quite soon all 17 thousand of us Antiochians may become the “owners” of a down at the heels campus, about 50 million in working Capital, and one hell of a tradition. As you can imagine, there are 17 thousand of us somewhere in the world, and 17 thousand ideas of how to recreate the place. But it is going to be hard to accomplish. First step will be to hire a President who can deal with “the culture”, can raise money, and has the strong program development and administrative skills to put what needs to be put back together, but also can focus everyone on common goals. Then we need an agreed master plan benchmarket to available finance, and with time-lines. A Faculty needs planning and hiring — and a curriculum developed in association with a probable new faculty. But moving on this is underway. I suspect about 2010-11 Antioch will be ready to admit new students.

I was elected to two terms on the Alumni Association Board between the late 80’s and 90’s, so made many trips to YSO gradually watching the decline of the College, and the failure of leaders to deal with reality. So I was not surprised with the closing, but that doesn’t mean I was not very sad about it. There are about a hundred of us in Minnesota, and we have another meeting scheduled for Early November.

Anyhow, while I was driving down for all those Alumni Association Meetings, I also visited around Kettering and Dayton, trying to get a full picture of things. I am from the generation of Antiochians who were more beat or bohemian, Pre-Hippy, and certainly not the Pierced Generation — but the distance between Kettering and YSO was always huge.

I think I have met your cousin, Barbara Roberts. I went with Barry Hollister to an AFSC meeting in the late 80’s when I was in YSO for another meeting. I was fairly involved with AFSC back in the 60’s, just leaving YSO about the time the Dayton Office was established. But yes, AFSC would be a good group to do some “observing” of election details. (Except the Pentagon and Homeland Security have them on various “lists” and all — Driving to a Quaker Meeting is about like Driving while Black.)

In the mid 60’s, as the SND’s were changing their ways, I took my former teacher and a couple of her friends to YSO for an afternoon — when they first could leave the convent for just enjoyment. We hiked out to the waterfalls in the Glen, had lunch, walked around campus, and then went to a play. The SND’s had been “told” the place was so subversive they really should be frightened of it — but I think what changed them was the Library. It was the Hippy Generation — so the scene was hundreds of hippies on chairs and even sprawled on the floor deep into the books, and a little pot being smoked on the steps out front. Sadly that kind of day was an “adventure” for them, at least as of that time.

Anyhow, I still say it is interesting so many like minded and similarly experienced landed in this space in the blogosphere.

That area is such an interesting mix of people. On the WPAFB part. I have
four retired uncles who were engineers/not sure of the titles at WPAFB. One of them actually did work on in flight refueling with pilots. These uncles are all in their late 70’s early 80’s. (just able to talk about some their work at the base) They were all against the invasion of Iraq.

My cousin Barb Roberts who has been the director of American Friends in Dayton for going on 30 some odd years would stand outside of the base gates (I went to D.C. like most of us) protesting the Vietnam war as our relatives would drive into the place for work
http://groups.google.com/group…..a2d13c9f24

Check out this angle on what is taking place with Dewine/Ohio/shaving off votes.
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2…..hio-judge-
issues-tro-against-ohio-secretary-of-state/

Hey Leen, I took a peek at the Greene Co.Board of Elections link, and who should be on that board — the son of one of my favorite Professors — Don Hollister. His Dad Barry, died a couple years back, but he was Political Science Professor at Antioch — More of an International Relations sort than an American Government and Politics type, but a good soul, and a weighty Friend in Yellow Springs Meeting. Barry Hollister took leave from Antioch during the 70’s and established the Friends (Quaker) International Mission at the UN — and along with one of our History Professors, made and then pushed the nomination of Jimmy Carter for his Nobel Peace Prize. (Barry Hollister and Irvin Abrams worked in the British and American Friends Post WWII projects in Europe, and were the survivors of the team of American Quakers who had won the Peace Prize in 1947. Former winners are given great weight in nominations, so while it took them ten years, they carried Jimmy Carter on to Oslo. (It is a not so secert Quaker conspiracy to negotiate peace in the Middle East, and Jimmy did a third of the necessary deal with Egypt. — thus his prize.)

Anyhow, Don should be a very level headed and above all “Fair” member of the BoE in Xenia, he follows in his father’s tradition of being a strong resolver of conflicts. Funny, I was just thinking of Barry Hollister this morning when they announced this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner. Listening to him describe the high politics of a nomination and a successful very under the covers campaign was very revealing. I am pretty certain Don Hollister would be one of the Democrats on that board. He ran a couple of times for County Commission, which is a non-partisian election, but always ID’ed with Democrats.

To make such a request so near a national election conveys the implication of serious wrongdoing or a material malfunction in the state’s machinery of voting, putting the results of the election into question. So would such a request by the local USA or from Main Justice.

Given the article’s explicit lack of specific questions about wrongdoing or faults in the machinery of voting, the request is clearly partisan. It appears to be another bite at the apple from Republicans who feel they deserve one, having lost their original legal challenge to Golden Week registration/voting.

“Lots” of voices may have called or e-mailed the sheriff to complain, but that does not mean they were from Ohioans or that the complaints were founded on reasonable suspicions. They might as well have been complaints about crop circles in the sheriff’s yard, somehow made in two inch-high Kentucky blue grass instead of fields of wheat. That doesn’t support his request, as the county’s chief law enforcement officer, to “round up the usual suspects” via taking a peek at the information on their confidential voter registration cards.

http://www.co.greene.oh.us/BOE/
651 Dayton-Xenia Road
Xenia, Ohio 45385
Office Hrs Mon-Fri – 8:00 am – 4:30 pm
Phone: (937) 562-7470 or
(937) 426-1779 ext. 7470
Fax: (937) 562-7477

The next meeting of the Greene County Board of Elections will be held on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. The public logic and accuracy testing of the voting equipment will be held at this time. All meetings are held at the Board office located at 651 Dayton-Xenia Road, Xenia, Ohio.

Anyone in the neighborhood of Sheriff Fisher interested?
Video the Vote

http://www.videothevote.org/