Mark Knows It All

I decided a long time ago that no one knows better than me what I want for Christmas. So each Christmas I buy for myself a gift for my wife to give to me that I will be sure to love. This year, it was a digital DVD camcorder. I saw it on QVC, and said to her that is what you can give me for Christmas. I ordered it, and gave it to her to wrap and to put under the tree along with an appropriate card expressing her sentiments of the season. I dutifully acted surprised on Christmas morning when I opened it up. How did she know that is exactly what I wanted? But like the bloom off the rose, I sat down yesterday to try to learn how to run thing. I knew I was in trouble when the instruction “booklet” was the size of War and Peace . And it was in three languages: Spanish, French, and English. And it had lots of charts, especially to explain what kind of disc to buy that would work with the dang thing. Then I then had to make sure it was compatible with my DVD player that is attached to my tele...

"It snowed last year, too; I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea." Dylan Thomas Here's hoping the whole world sits down and has a cup of tea. Merry Christmas from The Mangie Family

For those of you who refuse to believe that when you vote a certain way, you get the whole package, consider this article reprinted without permission from the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the most liberal newspapers in the United States. There are always those who know what is good for you, and they will go to any lengths to insure that you follow their dictates. If we get a national health insurance plan of the sorts that is being proposed by several of the presidential candidates, what San Francisco is trying to do will be just a small sample of the government tyring to get into your refrigerator. Food Police may seem like a joke now, but just wait. TAX IT AND THEY'LL DRINK MILK Tuesday, December 18, 2007 We heartily agree with Mayor Gavin Newsom that soft drinks, loaded with high-fructose corn syrup and caffeine, are unhealthful. But there is also something unhealthful about a politician's attempt to selectively target one source of calories for a new tax - the ...

From time to time, I have written about Seraphim, the community chorus in which I sing. Choral music has always been my passion. I have either sung in and/or directed choirs since I was 14 years old. My high school music teacher left me to direct the 9th grade mixed chorus in front of the curtain while she prepared the A Cappella Choir behind the curtain on performance nights. For 4 years of high school I accompanied the chorus and she taught me how to direct the music. I was hooked. I am an OK musician with a better than average choral baritone voice. I can play the piano and organ, but most of it is faking as my fingers don’t want to go where the music says they should. I should have practiced my Schirmer exercises. But it is enough to enable me to assist in a meaningful manner those who truly know what they are doing. What people don’t understand about choral music is it is possible to get the same effect athletes describe as an endorphin rush. To be blunt, you can get high. It does...

My apologies to those of you not from around here as I lament the passing of another local institution. Youngstown, Ohio, has always been a self contained area with its local newspaper, and numerous radio stations, and three local television stations representing affiliates with the major television networks. It created a cocoon of sorts, as we were, and still are, totally insulated from the news in the rest of the state. Akron, for example, has its own newspaper, but no television stations. The folks there watch the Cleveland stations. My in-laws are from Mansfield, again with no television stations. They watch stations from Cleveland and Columbus. Not us, we watched, and watch, all things local. Ohio newspapers have always been statewide, with folks all over the state reading the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Toledo Blade, the Columbus Dispatch, and the Cincinnati Enquirer. But not here in Youngstown. We read the Vindicator, and for the most part, only the Vindicator. When I went to Oh...

Today Mitt Romney gave his speech about faith. It was intended to quell issues relating to his Mormon religion. He made his point that no religion, including his own, would stand in the way of his doing what was right for America. But the speech was much more. I am not a Romney supporter. But I know a good political speech when I hear one. Romney gave today what will go down in political annals as the definitive statement of Faith in America. It is a topic that politicians are hesitant to address. It is a topic that has been lost in this era of political correctness. It is a topic that goes to the root of the lost values that we so sorely need restored to gain back the soul of the country. He said in part: “Perhaps the most important question to ask a person of faith who seeks a political office, is this: Does he share these American values — the equality of human kind, the obligation to serve one another and a steadfast commitment to liberty? They are not unique to any one denominati...

These past few weeks have been particularly difficult for me for a number of different reasons. So I was feeling a tad put upon when a friend of mine, Richard, told me about a musical event in which he was a participant. He thought I might want to attend. It was held at the Butler Museum of American Art during the lunch hour this past Wednesday. Richard is a music aficionado of sorts, and likes to compose modern classical music. He belongs to an organization affiliated with the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University whose purpose is to foster and develop various artists with this type of talent. The event was designed to showcase their original compositions, performed by students from the Dana School. It was a dreary day, and my mood was not the best. My wife encouraged me, however, to attend the recital, saying I should do something for myself. As lunch approached, I left the office early and drove to the north side to watch the performance. When I got to Butler, I was su...

OK, it is the time of the year to get a little OCD about my SAD. For you sane people, that means being Obsessive Compulsive about my Seasonal Affective Disorder. Last year I first addressed the issue that December 21 isn’t the be all and end all for those of us with this particular affliction. We looked at such issues as sun rotation and tilt of the earth. Now it is time for just facts. I have saved on my favorite places the US Naval Observatory website for determining the rising and setting of the sun for Youngstown, Ohio, so I can track the progress. Now, there are two things one has to be concerned about. First, the rising of the sun. This year, the sun continues to rise later and later until December 31 where it stabilizes at 7:48 AM. It continues to rise at 7:48 AM until January 10, where it begins to rise a minute earlier every few days. It will be February before the sun rises as early as it is rising as of today, November 26. HOWEVER, even as we speak, we are close to the botto...

I don't think this would be allowed to be read in our schools today. I hope that you enjoy it. The George Washington 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation: Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor -- and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness." Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be -- That we may the...

When was the last time you experienced hard times? I don’t mean life’s daily challenges. We all have days when we wonder how we are going to make ends meet. How are we going to pay for the new furnace? How are we going to pay for our retirement, or our kids college education, or for the car repair? When was the last time you actually had to make a sacrifice? I don’t mean the annual church “every member canvass” where we are told to sacrifice for God, or giving up a new television so we can take a vacation, or writing a check to the local food bank, or buying a less powerful computer. I believe that there isn’t one of you reading this that can really remember true hard times and sacrifice. Because in the United States, we haven’t had any for a long, long time. If you CAN remember times of true hardship and true sacrifice, you are at least 70 years old, and then it's a stretch. Throughout our history, America has faced times of severe hardship that helped build the character of the n...

This winter's movie viewing list covers the gambit from mob movies to baseball to opera. Not all of the following are masterpieces of film making, but they are all on my favorite list for entertaining movie watching. Get out your HDTV, your Blue Ray player, and non-chemical popcorn, and have fun. White Christmas (1954) - I can hear the groans from here. Ohh Nooo!!!!. But on a snowy December night cuddling with your honey, it don’t get much better than this. Start with a great Irving Berlin score. Add Rosemary Clooney when she still had a figure, and Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye yukking it up. Put in a dash of nostalgia for when and where you first saw it plus years of Christmas memories, and you have the feel good movie of all time. C’mon now…everybody sing: “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas….” I can’t hear yoooouuu. Risky Business (1983) – Makes you want to quit your job and be a pimp. Who knew how weird Tom Cruise would turn out to be when we first saw him making big bucks with...

Do you ever feel like everybody is out of step but you, but then think they all can’t be wrong, so it must be you? For your consideration, I give to you the Trans-Siberian Orchestra which opened its Christmas Tour right here in Youngstown, Ohio, at the Chevy Center. For four performances, the TSO packed them in, selling out all performances. Given a capacity of 6100 seats, that means 24,400 people saw the TSO this past weekend, including yours truly. For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra was formed in 1996 by some extremely talented musicians whose roots were in heavy metal rock and roll. Their goal was to broaden the appeal of heavy metal rock music to a larger audience by adding elements of classical, R&B, and pop music. They expanded the core of the band by including several keyboard guys, numerous guitarists and bass players, and vocalists, including a large contingent of back up singers. In addition, at each venue, they supplement the gro...

Hold onto your hats. Here is Mark’s Fearless Year In Advance Presidential Election Pick. Every four years I get an adrenaline rush as I anticipate the Olympics and the Presidential election. And this year, it comes early, as each of the states cuts in front of the other to sanctify its influence in the choice of candidates. Make sure you vote before going to Midnight Mass. The media is attempting to make the primaries a horse race, but I think most of the horses are trotting to the glue factory. Hillary is making the Dems and the main stream media orgasmic as they anticipate a woman nominee; qualifications be damned. She is a one term Senator from New York whose claim to fame as First Lady is that bureaucratic abomination called Hillary Care. The rest of the time she was putting out Bimbo eruptions at the same rate as the firefighters are putting out fires in Southern California. On the “R” side, is Guiliani. Because of this blog, I actually had to learn how to spell his name. If you w...

From the category of “be careful what you ask for 'cause you might get it", comes the story out of the Portland, Maine, whose school system is now dispensing birth control pills to eleven year olds without parental permission or notification. Maine law prohibits the school system from advising parents that their children are having sex, even if it is a felony not to report it the authorities....you figure it out. The only option available to the parents is opt out of the school health care system altogether. So if little Mary is injured, the school won't assist her. On its face, this is the single, dumbest, most irresponsible thing I have ever seen to come out of a school system....EVER. But it needs to put it context of several other stories that have been in the news as of late. On the one hand, you have the school dispensing birth control to 6th graders, which facilitates sexual activity. On the other hand, you have the school system in McMinnville, Oregon, which filed...

Have you noticed, lately, how hard it is to have fun? Whether going out to dinner on Saturday night or taking a two week trip, everything is sooo hard. My wife and I still enjoy going on vacations, but only to a degree. As a very tired wise man once said: “I can either go on vacation, or get ready to go on vacation. I don’t have the strength to do both.” Airport hassles, flight delays and cancellations are modern day travel nightmares. In Arizona, the TSA is now experimenting with a new x-ray machine that twirls you around while they look at your altogether, and I mean your altogether, in another room. Add packing at the front end of the trip and car rental hassles at the other, you need to rest up for a week after you get to where you are going. Then it is time to do it all again going home. I don’t like having to work so hard to have fun. Driving to a destination is even worse. Construction and dodging orange barrels is now permanent no matter what time of year. Freeways have been bu...

Every now and then I come across an editorial that can say it better than me. This speaks for itself. Good for Mr. Barone. (No. He is not related to Ray Barone) This is reprinted from the October 8, 2007, Real Clear Politics Web Site. You can reach it by the Links section of this blog. Ivory Tower Decay By Michael Barone I am old enough to remember when America's colleges and universities seemed to be the most open-minded and intellectually rigorous institutions in our society. Today, something very much like the opposite is true: America's colleges and universities have become, and have been for some decades, the most closed-minded and intellectually dishonest institutions in our society. Colleges and universities today almost universally have speech codes, which prohibit speech deemed hurtful by others, particularly those who are deemed to be minorities (including women, who are a majority on most campuses these days). They are enforced unequally, so that no one gets p...

Whenever you hear a government program glowingly described as “for the children,” hit the dirt and hold onto your wallet. Using kids as pawns is a tried and true political gimmick. You can hide all sorts of government “sneaky sneaky” under the guise of “we have to do it for the children”. SCHIP is the latest example of feeding misinformation to the American public by the do-gooders of this country, those who know what is best for you. SCHIP, the federally mandated State Children’s Health Insurance Program, is a truly needed and valiant effort on the part of Congress to provide health insurance to the kids of what are described as the nation’s working poor. Enacted in 1997, it was directed at those families who made too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but whose income was as such that it would put an “undue” financial burden on the family to purchase health insurance privately if not provided by an employer. As originally designed, it covered those families whose income was under 20...

Every now and then it is fun to dust off an old chestnut, and they don’t come any older and dustier than Lerner and Lowe’s Broadway tour de force, My Fair Lady . Pittsburgh was the opening salvo of a national tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of this melody filled classic, which premiered on Broadway on March 15, 1956. (Hard to believe, isn’t it?) This is a British production based on a British 2001 revival. It is “smashing”. When I was 12, My Fair Lady was one of the first albums I purchased when stereophonic sound hit my household. My grandmother had several 78 rpm records on which parts of the score appeared on what were early Broadway compilations. The problem is that over the years I have never seen a serious production of the musical. Mostly it went from barely mediocre community theater to perfectly awful high school productions. The music was sung ad nauseum by every choral group I ever belonged to, and we sang it badly. I reached the point where I wanted to shoot that old...

Reprinted without permission from the Cleveland Plain Dealer Merge Cleveland State and U of Akron? That's the buzz Posted by Janet Okoben September 20, 2007 23:42PM Categories: Education , Impact An idea to shake up the state's college system could combine Cleveland State University and the University of Akron and bring a medical school to downtown Cleveland. Some of the talk involves moving the Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy, known as NEOUCOM, from Portage County or expanding its Rootstown-based campus. • Compare the three schools. Combining CSU and UA would eliminate overlapping programs and administrative jobs, and the two schools would then function under a single leader. The two people with the ability to make these ideas happen, Gov. Ted Strickland and his higher-education chancellor, Eric Fingerhut, would not comment Thursday on what others familiar with the discussions say has a real chance of happening. Fingerhut is in the midst of de...

This is my Letter to the Editor in response to an editorial appearing in the Youngstown Vindicator in which Betram de Souza, Vindicator columnist, says Youngstown State University should become a satellite school of Ohio State. My apologies for those not from this area. Dear Editor: I am absolutely flabbergasted at Mr. de Souza’s editorial relating to Youngstown State University. First of all, this is the second news article I have seen where those attending the OSU/YSU football game were portrayed as a bunch of rubes seeing the big stadium and all the people for the first time. How insulting. My son is a senior in Youngstown State’s outstanding business school, which we chose over several other so called name schools after side by side comparisons in quality and accreditation. My wife and I are both Ohio State graduates. But I attended YSU for 2 years in addition to numerous hours of post graduate work. My wife got her Masters from YSU. I can tell you that the course work and quality ...

A friend of mine excitedly told me over lunch that he and his wife decided to do something special this past weekend. He got some wood and lit a small fire in the backyard. Then they sat and toasted marshmallows. I thought about for awhile, and realized that I haven’t toasted a marshmallow in 30 years, if not longer. S’mores are an even more distant memory. You just don’t do that with gas grills. What does one consider special today? When I was small, a second car was special. Ours was an old 1956 Plymouth with no carpet or radio. It had heat, and the heat was considered to be special. Of course, we had a one car garage, and could still walk to the bus line. In 1956, eating out was special. Once each month we would go to the Sunday buffet at the Pick Ohio Hotel in downtown Youngstown, or maybe to the Mural Room. From time to time we would go to Howard Johnson’s or to Shott’s on Market Street. But mostly we ate in. When fast food came down the pike, going to the walk up McDonald’s or ...

I have been writing this weekly blog for more than 2 years. I have tried to present thoughtful commentary on subjects that are important to me, take complicated issues and simplify them, and balance those with levity and hopefully funny stories about daily life in modern America. I have never, however, been so angry that words fail me. Pictured is the ad that appeared today in the New York Times. It is disgusting, and beyond my comprehension that anyone would want to run such an ad in these troubled times, or that the New York Times would accept it in the first place. It is sponsored by Moveon.org. That is the George Soros group. It demonstrates the total hate of America's left wing. Our troops are dying on the battlefield right now. What are these people thinking? This crosses the line when serious debate and thoughtful discussion are needed. Shame on Moveon.org, and shame on The New York Times.

September is here, and the catalogs be a’comin’. With only 14 shopping weeks left until Christmas, and Christmas in July on Home Shopping being over for more than a month, I started to shake when the Williams-Sonoma catalogue arrived in the mail today. By the way, did anyone see the Christmas Tree in a Pizza Box on Home Shopping? That Colleen Lopez babe whipped that sucker out of the pizza box by the twinkling star and I almost wet my pants. Pre-lit and everything. I digress.. Williams-Sonoma is a high end kitchen store found in most shopping areas outside of Mahoning County (we have Zabels). They have all sorts of wondrous contraptions to make your kitchen and cooking experience worth experiencing…not that anyone does much cooking these days. But the stuff really looks good on your granite countertop next to your Subzero Freezer and Viking Range. Or in my case, next to the white formica and Kenmore appliances. Goes with my vinyl floor. So this week I thought I would offer to you what ...

Today is Labor Day, and I am happy to say that some world organization is reporting what we already know. American workers are the most productive in the world. We work more hours here than in any other country. For each hour worked, we produce $35.00 worth of goods. That is second only to Norway, which produces $37.00 worth of goods for each hour worked. Hoorah for us. Now I know why we are so tired. By any standard, the American economy is humming along at a clip that my 1970’s economics teacher would have said was impossible. Our unemployment rate is 4.6%., both before and after the 9/11 recession, showing that this is the new norm. When I studied economics, I was told anything under 5% was considered full employment, and full employment was unachievable. So much for economic theory. To add to the mix, the rich may be getting richer, but so is everybody else. It has been fun watching the media try to grapple with the economy. First they said the figures were wrong. Then they said th...