I Know it's Going to be Tough in Columbus but...

... Go Penguins!

The Personal Savings Rate...

...is low.


According to this chart from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, the second quarter of 2007 saw the personal savings rate drop to one half of one percent. That troubles me. The economy is in a shambles right now and the quick fix used in the past few years, getting people out to spend money in the retail sector, may not work this time.

Adjustable rate mortgages are raising house payments and in some cases forcing people into foreclosure. Interest rates on credit cards and their balances have been steadily rising. Gasoline is still near $3.00 per gallon. Milk is more than $3.00 per gallon. Employees are being asked for more and more to finance their health insurance. It's not hard to see that just making ends meet is getting harder so a falling savings rate isn't surprising.

I really don't have a solution to this problem. I saw the statistic and it floored me that 1% is the best savings rate the country has had since 2005. To me, that says a lot of people are living on credit cards with balances they can't pay off and making their way to pay day cash advance places more often than they would like.

Is anyone else concerned? I would really like to hear from some people about what they think some solutions are.

One for Sorrow by Christopher Barzak

One for Sorrow is the debut novel of local author Chris Barzak. It is an engaging coming of age tale split in its setting between rural Trumbull County and Youngstown, Oh. Readers are drawn to Adam McCormick, a lonely fifteen year old whose family life is slowly unraveling because of his parents constant bickering. The closest person he has for a friend is Jamie Marks, another boy who has difficulty fitting in at school or at home. Life changes dramatically when Jamie is murdered.

Chris Barzak successfully captures the feeling of growing up in rural, northern Trumbull County. There is an isolation out there, created by the open spaces between the homes, that gives rise to a certain kind of strangeness. Youngstown and Warren may have violence due to gangs and drugs but if you head north up Route 7 the violence becomes more casual. Barzak's descriptions of bullying in high school hallways is dead on. As class sizes grow smaller, the kids to be picked on stand out more prominently to those who will get their jollies by pushing them into lockers or picking on them through class. Trumbull County does not yield a lot of homicides but it is a place where there is an undercurrent of bad feelings that constantly threatens to break through. Homicides that do take place there are strange and often more brutal than necessary. Barzak seems to be working through some issues related to at least one high profile murder from the 1980's.

As Adam deals with the death of Jamie, he begins a journey of what it means to be alive. It is easy for him to lose himself with his friend's ghost, giving more and more of himself to keep him close but before long he realizes that there may not be much left of himself. His trek takes him to Youngstown and Barzak does a throughly good job of describing the city. Here, it is the Youngstown that is familiar to everyone, warts and all. From Adam's entrance across Gypsy Lane, to Stambaugh Auditorium, down to YSU and on to the South Side via Market St., Barzak shows us the good and the bad. Both the city and rural Trumbull County become characters in the story as they are described in rich detail.

In the end, Chris Barzak delivers a novel that explores adolescence with honesty. No matter where you grew up, you will be able to empathize with Adam's struggles as he comes to terms with his family, his friend's death and his place in the world.

Step Up For This Child

Someone knows who shot an 18 month old infant in the Michael J. Kirwan Homes in Campbell Sunday morning. Somewhere in the Valley is a person who is not acting like themselves, who is watching the news when they ordinarily wouldn't, who is a little more interested in this story than they should be.

Someone knows who this person is. Chances are, the shooter is running their mouth more than usual or being more quiet than they normally are. They aren't showing up in their usual haunts or they've disappeared completely. Maybe the shooter came right out and admitted their guilt to you.

If you know who this person is you need to call the Campbell police right now.

You need to do it because this gunman shot a baby in the face. The reason for committing the crime doesn't matter. It's irrelevant whether the shooter meant to hit the child or not. He did.

You need to speak up because this 18 month old child can't do it for himself. He can't point a finger and accuse someone of hurting him. You are an adult. You have the responsibility to speak up for those who cannot defend themselves. This child wasn't doing anything more
dangerous than lying in bed when a bullet tore through the wall of his home and slammed into his face.

Whoever you are, we need you to speak up. You have to do the rest of us a solid. We don't want a man on the street who will shoot children and skulk away, confident that no one will ever point a finger at him. It's your responsibility because the rest of us don't know what you know. Tell us who it is and we'll take care of the rest.

Campbell Police: (330) 755-1411

Baby Got Back In Walmart

Politics have been so serious lately and I haven't had time to post like I normally do, so here's a video from You Tube. It may be the 7 years I spent working in retail drudgery but I find it refreshing that overweight teenagers are pulling pranks on Wal-Mart. The best part? The security guard at the end doesn't even have his shirt tucked in.

It Turns Out That Political Parties Are The Problem With America

Click here to read the rest of this intelligent, well thought out article detailing how politics have become more like a sporting event than a way to govern. I've tried to make this point several times but this article nails it on the head. The author correctly identifies why governing this country has become less about representing the people who live here and more about servicing party ideology. Here's a sample:

The biggest problem in America today is not George W. Bush, but he does give it a face. The biggest problem in America today is that the party line has been drawn over our lives, drawn down the center of the nation, drawn through our homes and families. Rather than Republicans and Democrats agreeing on a vision of America but disagreeing on the means to achieve it, the two parties point their fingers, call their opponents names, and declare the other side unpatriotic. The Republicans are running on a platform of “the Democrats will destroy America”, while the Democrats do practically nothing at all, proud to not be Republicans. And we, the people, call them leaders. We, the people, elected them. We, the people, make their jobs easy because we, the people whom they have sworn to serve, don’t question them.

It's worth another three minutes of your time to finish it and get yourself worked up a little bit. Click here to read the rest.

Liberals Shouldn't Let Anyone Else Define Them

Because I am tired of working for candidates who make me think I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe, Sam. I'm tired of getting them elected. You all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said liberal means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on communism, soft on defense, and we're going to tax ya back to the stone age, because people shouldn't have to go to work, if they don't want to. And instead of saying 'Well, excuse me, you right-wing reactionary xenophobic homophobic anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, leave it to beaver trip back to the fifties,' we cowered in the corner. And said 'Please Don't Hurt Me'. No more. I really don't care who's right, who's wrong. We're both right. We're both wrong. Let's have two parties, huh, what do you say?


That's Bruno Gianelli from The West Wing and he speaks the truth. Somewhere along the line liberals in this country let the right wing cheerleaders define what it means to be a liberal. They spend hours a day on the airwaves arguing both sides of a position and in doing so, define the argument without actually having the argument. They talk about agendas and conspiracies as if we all get together on Wednesday nights for bowling and plotting.

What conservative commentators miss is what makes most people liberals in the first place; acceptance. Whatever your particular brand of liberalism believes, we believe we can make room for you. Liberals believe that a diverse party can best address the needs of an entire
society. You can be old, young, black, white, rich, poor, gay or straight and find common ground with other liberals. Inclusion is what we do best. The next time you see a Democratic presidential debate look at the faces of the contenders. The middle aged white guys are all fighting for third place.

Which is why Liberalism can't be pigeon-holed by absurd statements like, "liberals believe". We believe in lots of things. We believe some liberals are on the fringe and go too far, we believe that some liberals are too conservative and are really Republicans in disguise. Most of all we believe that our own particular brand of liberalism is really just common sense and the sooner everyone else understands that the better off we'll all be.

Liberals tend to be progressive in their approach to problems. We believe that kids who get a free lunch if they need it do better in school. We believe kids whose parents can't afford health insurance should receive assistance from the state. We believe smaller class sizes allow teachers to focus on individual students. We believe that kids who are the beneficiary of these services grow up to be educated, productive citizens.

Most importantly, Liberals (like me) believe in personal responsibility. We are all responsible for the mistakes we make. That doesn't mean a helping hand can't be offered but it does mean that at some point each of us has to examine our lives and decide how we want to live. Each of us must reject the notion that life is somehow fair. Successful people make their own opportunities. They do it everyday by striving for good grades, working hard at their jobs and being the best parents they can. Success doesn't have to mean earning heaping mounds of money (although that seems like a nice way to live). Success can mean nothing more than living happily in the life you build with the friends and family you have.

Anyway, that's what Liberalism means to me. The next time Limbaugh, O'Reilly or Hannity tell you differently, turn the dial. They don't come to the meetings and bowl with us so they really wouldn't know.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why America Needs to Explore Space

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has a very nice article in Parade Magazine titled "Why America Needs to Explore Space". Tyson has been interviewed on the Discovery Channel concerning how technology will affect the world in the next few decades. His most compelling argument is what exploration means to America.

But there remains hope for us. You can learn something deep about a nation when you look at what it accomplishes as a culture. Do you know the most popular museum in the world over the past decade? It’s not the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Uffizi in Florence or the Louvre in Paris. At a running average of nearly 9 million visitors per year, it’s the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., which contains everything from the Wright Brothers’ original 1903 airplane to the Apollo 11 command module. Visitors value the air and space artifacts this museum contains. Why? It’s an American legacy to the world. But, more important, it represents the urge to dream and the will to enable it. These traits are fundamental to being human and have coincided with what it is to be American.

In this article, Tyson succinctly explains how America benefits from the investment it has made in space exploration. His strongest point is how space exploration draws upon all disciplines of science to succeed yet returns those investments many times over. Life in America is infinitely improved by exploring space.