Cincinnati Endorsement Compendium

Update (November 15th, 2009): The link below doesn’t seem to be working; so, on the off chance that anyone is still looking for the election results, you can find them here instead.

Update (November 3rd, 2009): A local news station offers running tallies of today’s election results.

If you happen to be a Cincinnati voter, and if you’re planning to vote in this fall’s off-year elections (coming up next month, Tuesday, November 3rd, polling places open from 6:30 a.m to 7:30 p.m.), at least if you’re like me, you’re wondering, How am I supposed to choose among all these candidates I don’t know anything about?  If you occasionally listen to the radio or watch TV or read anything even somewhat related to current events, it’s easy to have an opinion every four years or so about the presidency, etc.  Unfortunately, unless a candidate aggressively mails me multiple fliers about himself (which one of them is doing two of them are doing!), I find it more difficult to form an opinion on Mr. Smith J. Smithson of North Avondale, not only because I’ve never heard of him, but also because the areas of public policy he has “positions” on aren’t things like war and abortion but things like how the city should collect unpaid parking fines and whether the public schools should continue “CGCS benchmarking”, which I’ve also never heard of.

Probeklinge

I recently bought a Merkur old-fashioned safety razor from Vintage Blades (I’m not getting anything from either of them, I just thought this was funny), and the “sample blade” came wrapped in helpful advice (“After shave rinse only – do not wipe !”) and friendly assurances in five languages.  My favorite was this one:  “Please try this magnificient [sic] stainless steel razor blade.  You will be enthusiastic !” 

Yes, Marriage Is worth Defending

Even from a Non-Christian Perspective

“Should We Defend Marriage?”

I’m sympathetic to the libertarian argument (made by many, including many Christians) that the state should completely get out of the marriage business.  From this point of view, we can avoid all the rancorous public fights over same-sex marriage, etc. if we can all agree that it’s not the government’s business whether a given couple (or group, in the case of polygamy or “polyamory”) is “married”.

Ultimately, however, I’m inclined to disagree.  Even judging only by non-religious utilitarian criteria, I think the state should recognize—and (if only by recognizing) encourage—marriage.