Opinion
OCTOBER 28, 2012
Publisher’s statement
I
Heavy levies
t is not practical, logical or fair to give a blanket endorsement to every levy on the ballot. Nor is it logical or fair to dismiss every one of them without careful consideration. Toledo Free Press strongly endorses two levies on the ballot: O Mental Health & Recovery Services Board of Lucas County: Service demands are outpacing this important organization’s resources. It has shown fiscal responsibility by eliminating nearly $3.2 million in programs and cutting staff levels by 20 percent, yet risks a nearly $1 million deficit in 2013. More than 24,400 people were served by the MHRSB this year, with needs increasing. It has submitted a strong and responsible strategic plan and has worked to deliver on its mission to “cultivate a high quality, efficient and accountable network of community assets dedicated to reducing the impact of mental illness and addiction.” This levy would cost $30.62 per year for the owner of a $100,000 home, according to the Chamber of Commerce. O Lucas County Children Services: Under the consistent and resourceful leadership of Thomas F. Pounds Executive Director Dean Sparks, LCCS has actually reduced the amount of its levy millage. “If it doesn’t end up passing this time or next time, that’s going to affect direct services for kids, services we contract for,” Sparks said. “We spend $350,000 for substance abuse services. Child advocacy contracts would be in danger, mentoring and tutoring for children would be in danger, not to mention there would be a significant layoff of our staff.” Other levies deserve your consideration. Michael S. miller Scott J. Savage, president of the Board of Park Commissioners, argues for the Metroparks: “Metroparks enhance property values and make communities attractive places to live and do business. The Metroparks play roles in education, environmental protection and the overall ‘livability’ of our region.” The 0.9-mill levy would replace the 0.3-mill levy that expires at the end of its 10-year term Dec. 31. If passed, the 0.9-mill levy will require renewal in 10 years. This levy provides the funds for the Metroparks system’s land acquisition, improvement projects and park operations. The Toledo-Lucas County Public Library is placing a 2.9-mill levy on the ballot that if passed will replace and increase its 2-mill levy, which is due to expire at the end of this year. The current 2-mill levy has been in effect for four years. The proposed levy will require renewal in five years, said Clyde Scoles, executive director of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. With a total of seven levies on the ballot, voters face tough decisions. Not all the organizations on the ballot have made a strong case. Perhaps this jamup at the polls will cause some groups to think twice before they again pile on voters with this many requests on voters at one time. O Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.
n A3
LIGHTING THE FUSE
T
Lebanese Blonde
In one amusing and brief interlude, when the protagooledo is a city of great character and great characters. Its history and legacy is one of promise, potential, nists do visit the old country in Lebanon, they field quesdisappointment and eternal optimism. Its sprawl pre- tions about Toledo: “Has Toledo subway trains? How do vents the cohesive identity of more famous cities but also en- you like to eat in Ohio, the lamb or only the beef?” In “Lebanese Blonde,” Toledo represents that atmocourages the growth of enclaves of specific cultures. In Joseph Geha’s new novel, “Lebanese Blonde,” ($24.95, sphere of hope and slow resignation. Geha uses geography The University of Michigan Press) Toledo is as much a char- to set the boundaries for readers, evoking the “straight shot acter as it is a setting; Geha magnificently captures the feel up I-75 to Detroit,” Perrysburg to the south, Sylvania to the of the city through a steady and unobtrusive weaving in of west, “East Toledo, across the Maumee.” He is even more specific about the Toledo microits mundane daily details. cosm, setting scenes at Mercy Hospital The novel is set on the edge of Amerand mentioning Front, Water and Summit ica’s fireworks-laden 1976 Bicentennial as, streets. Oak Openings makes an appearacross the globe, Lebanon became engulfed ance, as does the red-light night life along in the explosions of sectarian civil war. It Monroe Street. follows two immigrants who use their fam“The North End is an old neighborily’s funeral home in what was known as hood,” Geha writes. “The curbs are set high Toledo’s “Little Syria” — “Mulberry, Supethe way they are to make it easier for a rider rior, Ash, Huron, Locust, back around to to dismount a horse. There are stretches Erie, Galena and Buckeye and Champlain” of Champlain Street near the Buckeye — to smuggle hashish into the country. Brewery where you can still see creosoteOne of the more potent strains, “Lebanese Michael S. miller soaked wooden paving blocks from the last Blonde,” is named in reference to the Lebanese immigrant women who would dye their hair blond century. In some places you have to watch out for trolley tracks left over from the olden days.” to fit in with Americans. Geha knows the sites Toledoans hold dear. When a war Geha knows the territory well (the neighborhood, not, to my knowledge, the drug trade), having moved to Toledo’s refugee “cousin” arrives in Toledo, his family takes him Little Syria as a 2-year-old in 1946. He attended St. Francis straight away to two primary destinations. First is the Toledo de Sales High School and graduated from the University of Zoo (where the “TZ” on the iron gates are joked about as an Toledo (which would have been Toledo University then). Arabic reference to “teezee,” meaning “my ass”) where they Geha is also the author of “Through and Through: Toledo marvel at the elephants, polar bears, gorillas, big cats and Stories,” a 1990 collection of stories about his life growing camels, just as we do today. The next stop is the Toledo Muup in Little Syria. He is currently a professor emeritus of the seum of Art, where, again, just as many do today, some of the works are appraised and dismissed with an “I coulda done creative writing program at Iowa State University. The novel is rife with references to life in Toledo, many that myself!” Geha even remembers the old museum coffee of which evoke nostalgia even as they highlight “some shop, with “glass-topped tables along an open walkway beneath a bank of skylight windows. You were supposed to feel things never change” elements of Toledo. One of the novel’s most powerful passages is its opening, like you were in an outdoor European café.” The characters in “Lebanese Blonde” walk up Monroe in which a patriarch who brought his family to America urges fellow immigrants to let go of drams of moving back Street to catch the bus, listening to Tigers baseball games on transistor radios tuned to WJR. They see Hopalong Casto Lebanon in favor of assimilating into the States. “They never came here to stay. Yousef stressed this. They sidy movies at the Mystic Theater on Bush Street. They hear came here to take the gold back with them and live out their commercials for Highland Appliance in West Toledo. They days like pashas. … ‘But,’ he would add, ‘the first step away watch Channel 13 for cop shows and Channel 11 for news. Geha’s lucid prose manages to be unsentimental when takes you all the way.’ So that in the end, who remembers the old country? … You rolled up your sleeves instead. You it needs to be, even as it measures out a clear nostalgia for learned the money first, then the language. ‘America grasps a lost way of life. And Toledo, as it does for so many of us, provides the you by the ankles of your children!’ … That trip back to the old country you were planning to take in five years? ‘Before background, inspiration and heartbreak. At 6 p.m. Nov. 8, Geha will sign copies of “Lebanese Blonde” you know it, ten years. Before you know it, fifteen!’” Even for those who made the pilgrimage back to the old at the Franklin Park Barnes & Noble, 4940 Monroe St. O country to die, “In the end your children will send for your body, have it boxed up and brought back to America to be Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com. buried. Your dust, now American dust.” Thomas F. Pounds, President/Publisher tpounds@toledofreepress.com
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