Mark Knows It All

I have always overdone it at Christmas. At one point in our lives, my wife and I would put up five Christmas trees, including a brown one with orange lights and orange bird ornaments. It actually was my favorite tree, but a bit much. As the years have gone by, so has our motivation. Add that to being just plain too pooped to pop, we have cut back a lot. Of course, cutting back is a relative term…and for the most part our house still looks like it has barfed Christmas, not to mention a completely filled cabinet of Christmas CD’s! This year has been marked by significant losses in my family, the latest happening at 7:30 PM yesterday, Christmas Eve. It is hard for people from large families to “downsize.” As my family has died off, or moved away or moved on away from me by choice, this is the first year I face the holidays without an extended family…just us chickens, so to speak. I am fortunate that I have a great wife and son. I also have great in-laws who will be visiting us this Sunday...

Do you understand the importance of freedom? If you think you do, try to express it in your own words. Having difficulty? I am not surprised. The word Freedom is ingrained in us and our culture at an early age. We are Americans. Of course we are for freedom. Okay, then! Tell me what it is. Webster’s Dictionary defines “freedom” as follows: “The quality or state of being free: as a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b : liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence c : the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous." If we are a free people, can anyone explain to me what is going on today? It is with disdain and concern that I watch the mentality in our country today. How much freedom are you willing to give up…and for what? Let’s start with the health care proposal in the Senate. If it passes, the government will then tell the health insurance companies what kind of insurance ...

This is the season of Advent. It’s a peculiar time in the church calendar because although it marks the beginning of the church year, the lectionary readings assigned to Advent for the first two weeks focus on Christ’s second coming, and then morphs into anticipation of his birth. The Feast of Christ the King celebrating Christ as the all triumphant King of the universe, falls on the last Sunday of the liturgical year, right before Advent. The Advent readings almost act as an epilogue to the church year looking at the end times, and the origin of times. I am the Alpha and Omega… Included in the story mix of end times and Old Testament Messiah prophecies, we hear the story of John the Baptist, Matthew’s voice in the wilderness. This leads, in turn, to many ministries using this as a teachable moment, a time for new baptisms and baptism reaffirmation by those already baptized. This past Sunday, my church did just that. The baptismal font is set up right in front of the altar so all can w...

I was sitting at Panera’s in Austintown the other day, when I noticed a local politico chatting with one of the area’s elite. It was obvious that the politico was pitching the community pillar for some iron (cash) for an upcoming election. The pillar, himself, was a retired gentleman; but still prominent in the community. The discussion was rather loud, so it was hard not to overhear. (…and I am nosey), when the retired community pillar asked the politico: “Are you Swedish?” I almost spit the hazelnut coffee right out of my mouth. That, my friends, is the ultimate Mahoning Valley question! What are you? The politico was taken aback as his name wasn’t even close to being Swedish. I thought maybe German. And I have known the retired guy for years and years…and he is about as “Mediterranean” as they come. But in this town, inquiring minds want to know. That is just how it is! When my wife and I first moved back here in 1975, she was continually asked “What are you?” She had no idea what f...

Nothing is more American than a good old fashioned auction. I have attended many auctions over the years, but I viewed them as kind of a novelty, being from the city and all. I remember going to my first auction in Kalida, Ohio, when I was in law school at Ohio Northern University in Ada. This was small town America just east of the Indiana border…the heartland personified. We bought a beat up old table for a buck, and refinished it. We still use it today. My brother used to buy a cow at an auction each year at the Canfield Fair. The poor bovine was the project of some 4-H’er, and was born to grace my brother’s dinner table as pot roast or strip steaks. He got his picture taken with the cow after he bought it. Then hung the picture in his dining room…the founder of the feast so to speak! He gave some of the meat to me. I didn’t like it. These pampered cows were 100% grain fed, and massaged. The meat had a different taste to it, and was loaded with fat. Put the burgers on the grill and ...

It’s that time of year again. There are only 49 shopping days to Christmas. The carved pumpkins are just getting tossed out with the garbage. Halloween candy is getting stale in the cupboard. Kraynak’s has been operating its Christmas Tree Lane for several weeks already…it’s Kraynak’s time of year!!! And my mail box is being deluged with catalogues. This year Christmas won’t be near as much fun because nobody has any money. But that makes looking through the catalogues that much more enjoyable as one yearns for the go-go days of the tech bubble, then the housing bubble, then the oil bubble. Pop goes the bubble!!! Maybe one day when the Republicans are back in office, we might be able to afford to buy something again. But I digress!! One of my favorite catalogues is the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue. The first time I saw it I thought they were selling Nazi memorabilia. But to my delight, I found it is a high end gadget catalogue with something you can’t afford for just about everybody o...

This past election, while the rest of the country was pondering issues of health care and governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey, and that whacky 23rd Congressional District race in upstate New York, my family and I were concerned about a more mundane race to fill the unexpired term on the Canfield Township Board of Trustees. My son was a candidate…and lost the race after a great campaign. I have been politically active my whole life, but always viewed local township politics, be it Boardman or Canfield, as somewhat of a yawn. When Alex and I decided last January that he should give this race a go, we knew nothing about the township political landscape or issues other than the sitting trustee, who was appointed after a cronyism scandal, told the local paper that he didn’t know what he wanted to do as trustee. He turned out to be a nice guy...but looked vulnerable. So Alex and I set out to learn what makes Canfield Township tick. What we found is the old adage “all politics is loca...

My wife and I went looking for autumn this past weekend, and we found it in the Laurel Highlands. What a beautiful place, and only 2 ½ hours away. Located is Pennsylvania southeast of Pittsburgh, I mostly knew this region through the signs we saw on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on our way to somewhere else. We visited the outskirts of the area on a trip to Ligonier two years ago and fell in love with the place. This year we jumped head first in the heart of the region. The main artery through the Laurel Highlands is Route 40, better known as the National Road. This was the first federally funded road built around 1811 beginning in Cumberland, Maryland, to all points west. The toll booth is still there. Although parts of Route 40 are now freeway, the old road is maintained for those looking for scenery instead of speed. As beautiful as Route 40 is, the true heart of the Laurel Highlands is State Route 381 (merging into State Route 711 north to Ligonier), and its smaller tributary roads, wh...

A trend that has been happening in the United States for quite some time has accelerated in the Obama administration. That trend is the establishment of a new elite. Conventional wisdom believes that it is the fat cat wizards of Wall Street that have made all the money these past 8 years. That is true to an extent. But the more interesting story is what has been happening in the middle class. Just who are the new elite? Union members and government employees! No matter how you slice and dice it, in the mass making of manufactured goods the American worker cannot compete with the Chinese guy making a $1.00/hour working 12 hours per day with no benefits. The same goes for India. This has decimated our manufacturing base and destroyed union jobs. It is easy to point the finger at government policies for the mass exodus of jobs from the United States, but mostly the problem is folks who prefer to buy $8.00 Chinese made blue jeans instead of $30.00 American made blue jeans. Those folks walk...

It’s time to say enough. Over the past several weeks I have linked to various videos showing indoctrination of our children by left wing elements of our education system. I have also written extensively about the bias of the press. For awhile, the press feigned independence. But they have stopped that now. The pro-Democrat/anti-Republican stance of NBC, CBS, CNN, and to a lesser degree ABC is now generally accepted. It shows in their abysmal ratings, and in the stellar ratings of Fox News. But just in case you have any doubt left, watch this: It shows young students from the Ron Clark Academy singing the praises of health care and Obama on CNN. They can’t sing about Jesus. They can’t say Merry Christmas. But they can sing praises to Obama, and on national television. It is sick. It is propaganda. It is dangerous. It needs to stop. Obama is NOT the Messiah. He is the President of the United States. The man is servant of the people. Not the other way around. One should always respect th...

I truly believe that the Mahoning Valley will be the growth center for Ohio for the next ten years. The reason is clear. The rest of the state, for that matter the nation, is going through what we went through 30 years ago when the steel industry collapsed. More people lost their jobs in the Mahoning Valley in the years following 1977 than are currently employed by General Motors nationwide…and there was nobody there to help us. Over the past 30 years, although the area has continued to lose established large company manufacturing jobs, the area has done an outstanding job at establishing a highly diverse small business base which has held its own during the current recession. There are approximately 3500 new call center jobs in the area. It has become a warehouse/distribution center. A local specialty pipe manufacture is expanding. Several technology companies have moved into the area or have been “homegrown” in the business incubator/tech center downtown. While cities like Toledo and...

Over this past week I had an occasion to attend a business meeting with a friend of mine with an eye to doing some business out of town. The meeting was in Pittsburgh. Since my friend lived on the way, I picked him up at his lovely condominium located in Columbiana County. It is gorgeous unit in a beautiful development. I have known my friend for quite awhile, and he is a mover and shaker. He started his career in Chicago, which his hometown. Staying with the same company, he was transferred to the Cleveland office, then to the Youngstown office, then retired and moved to Columbiana. He flies back to Chicago on a regular basis to visit his family, but he is one of us now. It struck me, as I walked through his gorgeous home, that is amazing how he started in Chicago, and ended up Columbiana. I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense. I like it here, and I like it here a lot. He does, too. That’s why he stayed. The point is, isn’t it funny where we end up…and how we got there? I think it w...

I have always been a proponent of legalized gambling in Ohio. As I watched other states build casinos, I wondered how Ohio could let gambling revenue leave the state. Our budget is in shambles. Our schools are in need of funds. Our libraries are closing. The demographics of the state, especially in southern Ohio with its strong fundamentalist bent, tend to stack the deck against gambling initiatives. Initiative after initiative has gone down to defeat in Ohio. They are now trying it once again. This time, the constitutional amendment would allow one casino each in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, and Toledo, with the state revenue being shared equally by all of Ohio’s counties. The Cincy casino will be located close to an area decimated by job losses, numbering in the tens of thousands over the past 5 years with the closing of Airborne Express and numerous auto manufacturing plants and its attendant suppliers in the Dayton area. The promise of 35,000 jobs is almost too good to pass up,...

Two things happened to today which spells trouble for the Democratic Party as it currently exists. Van Jones quit as the Green Jobs Czar, and Jim Traficant had a welcome home party attended by 1200 very Traficant loyalists. What does a black man from Oakland, California, and Jim Traficant have in common? Nothing, and that is exactly my point. Let’s start with Van Jones. For those of you who watch NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN…you probably don’t know that Van Jones was the radical extremist among us. If you want to know what a President’s policies are or will be, look at the people he surrounds himself with for advice. Van Jones is a black activist whose past is stunningly radical. He compared George Bush to a crack-head; he stated overtly that he was a communist; he stated all the wealth should be given to Indians because America took their lands; he blindly supported a black cop killer; and signed a letter of support for the 9/11 Truth group which claims Bush was complicit in the 9/11 attack...

If there is one constant in the life of the Mahoning Valley, it is the Canfield Fair. For the most part, it looks the same today as it did when I went for the first time over 50 years ago. If there is change, it is slow. No technology here. It might not be the largest county fair in the country, but my guess it would be close to the top of the list. Even when attendance is down, the figures are staggering. What is even more interesting is that it is smack in the middle of the rust belt, and is adjunct to what is thought to be an industrial area. Who grows corn here? Well, a lot of people. The northeast quadrant of Mahoning County may be industrial, but the rest of it is about as rural as one can get, and so are the adjoining counties. 11,600 acres of Mahoning County land grows corn, producing 1.4 million bushels/year. I have mixed feelings about the fair. In this area, it is the traditional end of summer. For students, it the last fling before school starts. It is alternately beastly h...

Do you remember the movie Deliverance? What a great flick, and one that gave me nightmares for many nights. I can remember that dead hand shooting out of the lake at the end of the movie like it was yesterday. Although Dueling Banjos is still one of my favorite tunes, I never watched the movie again. Once was enough. Of course, nothing like that can happen around here…bein’ all urbanized and everythin’…or can it? I must have led a fairly sheltered life when I was kid because my family rarely drove south (or north for that matter) for any family trips. We tended to drive east or west. It was only after my friend moved to Steubenville that I discovered the beauty of the Appalachian part of Ohio. West Virginia is just about 30 miles away…so Dixie is just 30 minutes down Route 11. It was originally part of Virginia, after all, and they owned slaves there clear to the end of the Civil War. Between here and there lies Columbiana County. It is a beautiful part of Ohio, with stunning views and...

Jim Traficant has been in the news lately as he will be returning home in September after his unfortunate incarceration. I read all sorts things about the man in the Vindicator. He certainly is unpopular with certain Vindicator columnists. The radio commentary seems to be mixed. And no one knows what the impact will be on the local political scene when he gets back. The Scrappers scrapped a Traficant Release Night. But the welcome home dinner seems to be close to sold out if not sold out entirely. I only voted for Traficant once. I thought he was an embarrassment to the community. He certainly got this area some notoriety, lots of it bad, from his bad hair and television tirades. No one, including me, condones any illegal behavior while he was in office. As a lawyer, I certainly question his judgment on his decision to represent himself in his last legal entanglement that ended up with him in jail. Not a good thing!!! But in light of what has been going on in Congress, I have been thin...

My wife is a gardening dynamo. She loves to get out and dig in the dirt. Some of the plants and shrubs around my house have been moved so many time they keep teeny tiny bags packed right next to their stems. “Taking root” is not an understood concept among our fauna population. That being said, we take great pride in our back yard. It backs up to small woods which we have landscaped. It has a lot of old growth trees and shade, so getting anything to grow means manipulating branches and scarce sunlight to hit just where you want. It is a continual work in progress. I am always amazed at how the garden grows. It is fairly bleak and glum during the winter. Because of falling branches and trees, many of our new evergreen plantings have been damaged. It really shows in the winter. But the critters love them so we leave them alone. At the beginning of March, I look at the barren yard and wonder will anything grow this year. Then comes mid-March, and the little shoots start to poke their head...

What does one do with Andy Warhol, aka Andy Warhola, aka Andy Varchola? Such a talent! Such a life! Such a perversion!! This past weekend my wife and I visited the Andy Warhol Museum, operated by the Carnegie Museums, on Pittsburgh’s north shore. It took us about 2 ½ hours to get through the thing, and mostly wife told me to get that look off my face. Let’s start with the facility itself. Costs $15.00 per person to get in (not worth it) unless you are over 55 making the cost $9.00 (worth it) or a member of the Carnegie Museums…free and worth it!! It is in the old Volkwein’s Music Publishing Building on the north shore. There is a parking lot cattycorner with a $6.00 fee unless there is a sporting event at either the baseball or football stadiums about 3 blocks away, then the fee goes to $12.00. The museum occupies the top four stories of the seven story building, with offices and restoration facilities occupying the bottom three floors. Elevators are available to get you the top. There...

This past weekend some friends of ours asked them to join them at the Mount Carmel Festival at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. They picked us up, and my buddy took Market Street downtown driving through Youngstown’s South Side, and the Uptown district. It was pitiful. Outside of government buildings, a random well fortified convenience store, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Buildings, it was void of much of anything. Empty storefront was followed by empty storefront. Scary people walked on the sidewalk. Sitting on the stoop of one vacant building was a lady dressed in pink…obviously stoned out of her mind. It was fairly depressing. Looking at this mess, it struck me why I am a conservative. Youngstown has an unemployment rate of about 12%. Right now, it is a little higher than usual, but not by much. Since the mills closed in the late 1970’s, our unemployment rate has always been high. What is disturbing is that many of these folks are not only unemployed, but unemployable. They have b...

I was raised Roman Catholic, and my wife was raised Lutheran. Back in 1972 when we got hitched, mixed marriages were still frowned upon, and we were met with raised eyebrows by skeptical family members. My cousin telling my wife that non-Catholics are heathens and going to hell is one example. My wife’s uncle telling me the only good fish-eater is a dead-fish eater is another…so much for the ecumenical spirit. Looking for common ground, my wife and I stumbled across the Episcopal Church and found a home. I loved its rich and beautiful liturgy and music, while its protestant attitude was comfortable to my wife. We attended an Episcopal Church for the next 28 years. It is a relatively small United States denomination (2.1 million members) with its roots in the Church of England, separated by revolution. It believes in apostolic succession (the laying on of hands in an unbroken chain from St. Peter). Because of the American Revolution, the Church of England refused to consecrate American ...