4, THE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2014 27, 2012 THEHARRISON HARRISON PRESS, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER
OPINION
LETTERS
GUEST COLUMN
Cooperation saves man’s life Editor: There are heros in this community who deserve to be recognized. Those people selflessly and heroically saved a man’s life. On Wednesday, Dec. 4 at the Harrison Community Center our father went into cardiac arrest. Luckily, there were some remarkable brave people there who immediately responded. The family extends a heartfelt thanks to all who helped. In particular, we especially are thankful for Shawn Meyer, an off- duty fireman who immediately began CPR, and to Megan Rudolph, Harrison High School’s sports trainer, for also administering CPR, and Barb Foley, Harrison and Whitewater Elementary school nurse, for helping revive him. Together, they worked to resuscitate him and and their efforts absolutely saved his life. We are grateful to our friends Carol and Tom Borgemenke who initially got help for him, stayed with him during the incident and offered their support. Also many thanks to Tracy Borgemenke and Becky O’Brien for getting help. The family also thanks the Harrison Fire Department, the Police Department, and responders for their quick actions. We are grateful to those working at Harrison Mercy on Dec. 4 who helped him as well. Please know that we are forever grateful to each of you for your part in saving his life. We recognize that other people played a part in helping him and we also thank you. God bless each and every one of you and may you all have a blessed holiday season. With much gratitude, The Riley Family Harrison, Ohio 45030
Parade participants aplenty Editor: The Harrison Recreational Committee thanks the following for helping to make our annual Christmas Parade and Tree Lighting a success: Harrison Home Bakery, Russ Radcliffe, Dan Losekamp, Dale Weber, Steve Minges, Knights of Columbus, Babler Allstate Agency, Walt Schunk, Scott Kercheval, Jason Hollowell, and Amanda Purdy, students of Harrison Jr. School and Harrison High School choirs, Karen Schweinfest and the members of V.O.C.E. Also, Pastor Jeff Duerler and members of Life Springs Church, Dana Ross, Toby Smith, Rusty and Leslie Smith, Joe Awad and the Harrison Press, Harrison Merchants, Christmas Vendors, Harrison Fire Department, Harrison Police Chief Chuck Lindsey, Harrison Police Department, Harrison Street Crew, Harrison High School Marching band, Harrison Historical Society, the parade entrants, Jim Robertson, Mayor Joel McGuire, and all the families who came out to enjoy the parade and tree lighting. A special thanks to the following members of the Harrison Recreation Committee: Tom Pack, Mary Faith Roell, Kim Vogelelsang, Christy Tepe, Sally Kerr, Patty Van Cleve and Kandi Jaeger. These seven make sure that every event is the best it can be. It is our hope that all had an enjoyable time! Jean Wilson Harrison Recreation Coordinator
Families depend on Hubert Editor: Once again, the Hubert Company graciously donated time, effort, and community commitment to sponsor over 40 Junior School families for the Christmas holiday. We are fortunate to have the Hubert Company as our business partner, and appreciate all it does to make this project successful. Thank you, Hubert, for making the holiday brighter for so many of our students and their families. Connie Acra Harrison Junior School Counselor 9830 West Road Harrison, Ohio 45030
Guest columnists sought
The Harrison Press always is eager to publish the opinions of our readers regarding local, state, national and international issues and topics. It’s easy. Type your column and email it to jawad@registerpublications.com. Include your name, general living location and phone number for questions and confirmation. Call Joe Awad at 513-367-4582 with questions, or just to chat about an idea.
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Joe Awad, Editor Donna Metzger, Chip Munich, Sales Representative Gene McCann and Dale McCann, Publishers Emeritus The Harrison Press is an independent weekly newspaper devoted to the interest of Harrison and the surrounding area. The Harrison Press (USPS 236-100) is published each Wednesday by Register Publications, 307 Harrison Ave., Harrison, Ohio 45030.
Congress finally kicking in to gear Congress is winding down its historically unproductive session with a small flurry of activity. To be sure, they are moving incrementally, Gridlock is breached, but not broken. The likelihood is that Congress will pass a defense bill. It reached a small-scale budget agreement that undoes a bit of the damage caused by the sequester. It is finally starting to work through a list as long as your arm of judicial and executive-branch confirmations, but only because Senate Democrats decided they had to change the rules if they wanted to fill longunfilled government appointments. Yet the list of what Congress hasn’t done is sobering. There’s no foodstamp reauthorization or waterways construction bill. It passed a one-month extension to the farm bill, but that falls far short of the certainty this crucial economic sector needs. There’s no lasting solution to the debt ceiling problem. Almost nothing has been done about the fundamental gap between taxes and spending. It has left unemployment benefits unresolved, immigration reform unresolved, tax reform unresolved, and action on climate change unresolved. This lack of productivity makes me wonder if Congress can address truly hard challenges without a crisis before it. Some legislators take pride in how unproductive Congress has been. They argue that the less the government does, the better. But given Congress’s pathetically low standing in the polls,
it’s clear that most Americans don’t agree. They don’t like incompetence, as their response to the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act suggests, and they really don’t like people who dodge their responsibilities, which is what Congress’s ineffectiveness amounts to. We’re in a competitive race with China for world leadership, and whether we like it or not, others around the globe are comparing our two governments. The attractiveness of the American model is under challenge, and our political dysfunction is a serious handicap. As the Wall Street Journal put it recently, a superpower that isn’t sure it can fund its government or pay its bills is not in a position to lead. And because problems aren’t getting addressed, others are stepping into the breach at home, too — but with less transparency, less accountability, and less flexibility. The Fed is doing the heavy lifting on the economy. The Supreme Court is essentially legislating. Executive branch agencies are trying to handle massively difficult challenges through executive orders. State and local governments have decided that even on issues they can’t truly address effectively, like immigration, they’re on their own. When asked about all this, congressional leaders tend to blame the other house, arguing that they’ve done their best but the other side has bottled up their efforts. Finger-pointing is not an excuse, it’s an admission of failure. A leader’s responsibility is to enact leg-
LEE HAMILTON
islation, not just get a bill through the house of Congress he or she controls. Legislating is tough, demanding work. It requires many hours of conversation about differences, commonalities, and possible solutions Especially when Congress is so divided. Yet when Congress meets only episodically throughout the year, when it often works just three days a week and plans an even more relaxed schedule in 2014, when the House and Senate give themselves just one overlapping week this month to resolve huge questions of public policy, you can only come to one conclusion: They’re not really willing to work hard at legislating. A last-minute flurry of bills offers hope, but it’s going to take a lot more work to convince the country that Congress knows how to live up to its responsibilities. Lee Hamilton is Director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years
INSIDE SCOOP
Sure to come in the New Year
Always enjoy the psychic predictions that abound at this time of year. Came across one on the internet that was put forth by BBC psychic, Christian Dion. Guess JIM he came up with his nom-de-guess ROBERTSON while looking at a bottle of perfume and extending the “r” into an “n”. Real attractive too. Long hair, a suggestion of facial hair and gauges in his earlobes. Seems to be a bit of a Brit. I don’t care about his UK predictions other than he fears for some sort of terrorist attack in London. Scotland should give up its ambitions of independence. The Torries are making a mess of everything and the Labour party will ride to the rescue. Various problems with members of the royal family, Prince Charles in a scandal, his mum the Queen shouldn’t make any long term plans. In America, where our “royalty” is in the entertainment business, he says that Lindsay Lohan will be back in front of a judge. Duh, really went out on a limb on that one. Taylor Swift will fall from her
perch. Beyonce, a rocky year ahead professionally and personally. Oprah cleans up her network and resumes her place as the queen of all media. Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio enjoy professional success but both have down years romantically. FOX news gets fed up with Bill O’Reilly and sends him packing. Hillary announces she is running for President. Another real stretch. Putin and Russia make a total mess of the Olympics. Major problems at the World Cup in Brazil including a surprise longshot winner. And always one of my favorite predictions, a clear UFO sighting, possibly involving the International Space Station, forcing a government admission that aliens have been watching us and can’t believe how badly we humans behave toward each other. Well, klatu verada nicto to you too. Scientology begins to unravel from the inside. Sorry, Tom. Another empire unraveling will be that of the Kardashians. Has everybody finally sickened of upscale “trailer trash”? Who is Jodi Arias and why should I care if she gets her comeuppance? Money markets will be down. Price of gold drops. Immigration riots in the streets. No, not here, but in the UK.
The little troll in North Korea after killing off his uncle and ex-girlfriend will take a lower profile for 2014 even if his buddy, Dennis Rodman comes to visit. So much for Christian. The one truly funny thing he said was that if you watched episodes of Duck Dynasty and old I Love Lucy episodes that after awhile they appear similar. By the way Jodi Arias was convicted last May of a pretty grisly murder of an ex-boyfriend in Arizona. The jury was unable to reach a life or death decision at the time so now a new jury will be tasked with just the penalty phase of the trial. So it could be an up or down year for her, as in thumbs up or thumbs down. On a more personal note, Happy New Year and stay warm. According to the Farmers Almanac it’s going to be a cold winter. That should give all of you soup hoarders time to stock up. If a little grey guy with big eyes shows up at your door in February and offers to disintegrate the snow on your walk with his ray gun, take him up on it. Jim Robertson is a longtime Harrison resident, a member of Harrison City Council, and a weekly columnist for The Harrison Press.
HYLELITES
Ambitions; adverbs that just don’t suffice One of the most denigrated words in the English language (at least by writers who write about such things) is hopefully. Usually it stands there all alone and interjects pleasant thoughts, but that’s not what adverbs are supposed to do, at least that’s what Sister Mary Leopolda taught me. It’s not that these writers aren’t hopeful, though, just nitpicky. I’m a nitpicker myself, but I try to be hopeful as well, particularly when it comes to the final week or days of the year (unless you are a mail subscriber to this newspaper, in which case, I hope you had a nice New Year’s celebration). Being a positive person in a mostly negative world can be difficult. When you constantly hear or read what is wrong with our world and the people in it, it’s easy to get caught up with the problems without focusing on the positive. At one time in my life I tried to be as well informed about national and world affairs as possible, but as I get older it is easy for me to understand why people no longer bother. It’s one reason why I stay away from
some of the all-news cable channels. For one thing, they disguise news for opinion, which is dangerous. For another, it no longer seems possible to get two views of the same story. Contrasting opinions are what make for BOB HYLE great stories and I love the fact that we don’t all agree with each other on certain things. But we have moved too far away from disagreeing with each other to pure hatred, particularly when it comes to our political leaders. I don’t believe our current president does everything right and I never believed the one before him did everything wrong either But it seems clear that there are many among us who disagree. We have people baiting each other on hot-topic points of discussion and once those opposing views are stated you are either labeled a hater or a fool. I’m not sure where the following term came from (Google mostly gives
credit to the rapper Ice-T), but it has a lot of meaning: Don’t hate the player; hate the game. In 2014 I wish we could make some steps in that direction. It’s likely we’ve come too far to turn back in the next few years, but that doesn’t mean things can’t eventually improve. This country has slowly moved on from many bad periods that some people felt would never change. So for 2014, my goal is to stay away from some of the hate that engulfs us. It will be hard, because you find it in a lot of places. Please don’t mistake disagreements or annoyance with hate. Disagreements are what makes our society better, at least if we try to find common solutions. Annoyances come with reaching a certain age. There are some things that none of us can change. But that doesn’t give anyone an excuse to quit trying. Collectively we can be a better neighborhood, a better city, a better state and a better world in 2014. Hopefully. Bob Hyle covers sports and writes a weekly collumn for The Harrison Press.