Saturday, May 12, 2012 12:31:02 AM
I’m not sure when I started checking the obituaries on a regular basis, but it is now a monthly fact of life to lose someone I know. Thanks to the Medina County Life website, a daily recap of the departed is a click away. I scan them because in my profession it is my duty to render service for a husband, a wife, their kids, a business partner, someone’s creditor, or worst of all for the parents of a child.
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Wednesday, March 14, 2012 1:34:55 AM
As embarrassing as it is to admit, I have been manipulated by others. Sometimes it was as simple as a big smile and a hug around my leg from my 3-year old when he wanted a cookie. Earlier in life, one girlfriend learned that slipping into a pair of red pumps guaranteed my slavish obedience and compliance. Until now, the worst manipulation I endured came at the hands of a realtor, a home inspector and a homeowner who colluded to sell me a house with a leaky roof. That ended up in court, and taught me to say “caveat emptor”, and them “Uncle”.
But, for sheer cunning, stealth and manipulation, my hat is off to the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and the politicians who bend to their will in order to lap up the largesse of their overflowing coffers. These organizations have learned better than any other collective bargaining entity in the history of mankind how to use every electoral trick to keep the trough full for their members and friends.
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Monday, March 5, 2012 6:18:09 PM
public union pensions
Public employee pensions are promises made by people who never have to fulfill them. Pension fund managers are the promise-keepers. They balance risk and return by using demographics, life expectancies, and asset allocation to provide paychecks for life.
Public employees expect a comfortable retirement after a period of service. Their pension plans are about to have train wreck. According to StateBudgetWatch.org, “at its current level of tax collection, Ohio would need to devote 8.75 years of tax revenue to pension funding simply to catch up on already-made promises.” Forget funding for roads, education, Medicaid, or ANY other program, including new state employee benefits and salaries. The pension monster needs all your money, Ohio.
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Saturday, February 25, 2012 3:38:28 AM
presidential election politics
Welcome, dear voters to primary season,
Candidates, throw aside logic and reason!
A trendy haircut and a pulse qualifies,
Tell me my favorite election year lies.
Government-shrinkers and policy-wonkers,
Waxing bombastic from Oakland to Yonkers.
If B.S. were ballast, our boat would capsize,
Piling on whopper election year lies.
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Wednesday, January 4, 2012 1:54:56 AM
Sally wanted to own a lemonade stand in her neighborhood. She chose a spot close to home so she could carry her folding table, sign, beach umbrella, her cooler and other supplies in a wagon. She picked a busy corner, but located the stand away from the road so that it would be safe for her customers. Near the corner, a new home was under construction, and she hoped to sell cold drinks to the thirsty workmen. She blended a recipe that her grandmother agreed was just the right mix of tart and sweet.
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Wednesday, December 14, 2011 8:41:22 PM
Capitulation is the result of an individual, a group, or an entire country reaching a point of despair and surrendering their point of view, their way of life, or, in the case of these United States, our national sovereignty.
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Tuesday, December 13, 2011 7:06:37 PM
money, drugs
Do I use drugs? Yes, if a doctor prescribes it and only then with great reluctance if I cannot get a safer, all-natural substance to cure my ailment. Drug TV ads have never influenced me to seek help for depression, sleeplessness, erectile dysfunction, baldness or restless leg syndrome. This is a syndrome worthy of a pill? There are millions suffering with twitchy legs? Apparently, people have too much time, money and health insurance on their hands, despite the 43 million citizens purportedly uninsured.
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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 6:34:30 PM
religion, christianity, christmas
If you’ve started this column thinking that this will be a screed bemoaning the loss of Christ and his message at Christmas, head to the letters section while you still can. If the frosty fictional festival is replaced with the 12 Days of NASCAR or Santa and Rudolph are superseded by Obama and Pelosi, and Christmas morning finds us at the Waffle House instead of God’s House, what would really change?
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Sunday, November 20, 2011 5:21:10 PM
protestors, occupy wall street
The Occupy Wall Street movement has generated enough headlines and screen time that most of us have seen the tent cities and protesters, heard the sloganeering and chanting, then watched the police pepper-spray apparently nonviolent people as they exercised their First Amendment rights. Oh, you missed that between reruns of Law and Order? Wake up and watch your liberties fading, citizens!
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Saturday, November 12, 2011 1:41:50 PM
childhood obesity
Sometimes I wish my children were ignorant lumps whose loftiest ambition is to be first in line when the latest first person shooter arrives at GameStop. That would leave my evenings free from the stress of hearing the nonsense being peddled to young minds full of mush in Brunswick Schools.
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My Opera
