The media and the damage done
Two Toledo women lost their jobs this week as a result of interacting with newspapers.Crystal Dixon and Joanne Wack have seen their careers and lives altered in ways they could not have imagined when May began, and while neither of them are exactly v...

The Price
I am not the first to note that free speech is not free, and I will not be the last.When I chose the newspaper profession and decided to focus on column writing, I could not have anticipated the risks. During this 15-year journey, I have received l...

To V or not to V
Jon Stainbrook is in the news, and I'm contemplating a vasectomy.My wife and I are expecting our second child in a few weeks, after years of being told we would be unable to conceive. I will be 42 this year, which means pushing 60 when our sons g...

The state of the media
The Internet is the first vehicle that has expanded media's capabilities while simultaneously threatening its future. Telegraph, print, radio and television allowed news reporting to incorporate technology but remain, in theory, in the hands of...

We could be heroes
Why do bad things happen to good people?That question has been asked since the first caveman was killed by a random falling boulder, but when Jerry Anderson asked it, there was special resonance to the query. Anderson hosted the April 15 Pizza-Cole...

Peter Pan on the hook
For nearly 42 years, I have watered and fed my Peter Pan complex with great care. Keeping some brain space reserved for youthful indulgence has been a great benefit to me as I've traversed the Valley of the Shadow.My preoccupations have not bee...

Gay rights and wrongs
One of the great blessings of my life is the consistent, long-term presence of many friends. There are three very important people who have been in my life since first or second grade. More than a dearth of blood relatives makes those people my famil...

Interview with the Mud Hen
As the Toledo Mud Hens prepare for another campaign on the diamond, Toledo Free Press arranged a conversation with the baseball club's venerable mascot, Muddy Mud Hen. In person, Muddy exudes much of the silent charm he exhibits in photographs....

Black and white and red all over
This happened a few weeks ago, and I've been circling around it, trying to decide the best approach to discussing it. No words seem satisfactory; recalcitrance is shaky mental ground to stand on when attempting to raise a heavy rhetorical subje...

Lions and Joeys and Dukes, oh my
Working in media, I'm accustomed to dealing with jackals and hyenas, but it was disconcerting to be surrounded by singing and dancing ones.At a Saturday performance of “The Lion King” at Stranahan Theater, the audience was lost in the swirl of da...

Garbage in, garbage out
He'd be the first to tell you it doesn't happen very often (I'd be the second), but John Robinson Block and I had something in common last week; we both played a role in facilitating the production of garbage.Block, the editor in chief of...

Ghosts of the Pantheon
The news that two more Downtown businesses are closing is scary. Diva's Restaurant and Ken's Flowers join a list of recent casualties which includes Durty Bird, Bellacino's, Quiznos, Salad Galley and that little complex called COSI (Con...

A night at the Opera
I recently enjoyed my first experience listening to the Toledo Symphony Orchestra at the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle. In a subsequent conversation with TSO President and CEO Robert Bell, we talked about the acoustics of the Peristyle shell. Sittin...

‘Recon (Carty's song)'
(Sung to the tune of “Rehab,” with apologies to Amy Winehouse)They tried to go Downtown to recon but he said, “No, no, no”They're Semper Fi/But he said, “Goodbye, you go, go, go”Now we're on CNN/But he said he'd do it againThey tried to...

There will be milkshakes
Young hipsters like Matt Sussman will have undoubtedly discarded it by the time you read this, but a wonderful new phrase is ping-ponging through the pop culture zeitgeist. In Paul Thomas Anderson's Oscar-nominated script for “There Will Be Blo...

Killer performances
“I got a story, ain't got no moralLet the bad guy win every once in awhile.”— Billy Preston, “Will It Go ‘Round in Circles”Warning: Movie plot spoilers follow.Happy endings are appreciated, but a good fictional villain can shake things up on a mo...

A Glass City political fable
Once upon a time, there was a Glass City. It was nestled near a great and generous lake, and its people were good people, with a few notable exceptions.For many years, the kingdom was run by donkeys. Many of these donkeys passed their power down th...

A little night musing
Like most people who live and work in the Toledo area, I have spent much time admiring the city's crown jewels. The Toledo Zoo, the Toledo Museum of Art and the library system have been interwoven with my life. To that list, I would add UT, the T...

The boy who ruined Christmas
Our 18-month-old son, Evan, caught a virus in late December. On Christmas Day, we spent several hours in an emergency room while doctors monitored his fever, which at one point hit 105 degrees.It was the first time he's been sick enough to warran...

A 'Titanic' anniversary
I cried the first time I saw “Titanic.” At the opening credits. I also cried the second, third, sixth, 12th and 17th time I saw it.How fast can 10 years melt away? It was 10 years ago, Dec. 19, when James Cameron's “Titanic” debuted. As pop cultu...

‘Dr. Strangefink, or How Carty Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Columbia Gas of Ohio'
Last week, Toledo Free Press broke the story about Columbia Gas of Ohio needing to relocate its Toledo headquarters while it conducted an environmental study under its current building.With 135 jobs at stake, the utility company is meeting with var...

Magic and loss
Anthony Diaz survived a nightmare Nov. 28, but I wonder if he'll ever again be fully awake.For many years, I have stubbornly clung to the edict that the holidays should be a tragedy-free zone. For those few weeks between Thanksgiving and the Ne...

Postcards from Florida
Notes from Thanksgiving vacation, 2007:For most of our visit to South Florida last week, the sun was pleasantly intense, with temperatures in the low to mid 80s. We enjoyed hours in the water, ocean and pool, and our 18-month-old son took to the H2...

... and baby makes four
Twice, my wife and I have been told we are physically incapable of having children, and twice, spermatozoa and egg have combined to give the big finger to the medical community. With our first child, a son who is now 18 months “old,” every twist and ...

Banking on food
Have you ever been hungry?I do not mean average hunger, like the stomach rumbling just before lunch, or hunger for dinner after a long drive home. These are pedestrian, everyday hungers.Maybe you have fasted for medical or spiritual reasons; my obser...

Electile dysfunction
If comedy really does equal tragedy plus time, then one day Toledoans will be able to laugh at their Nov. 6 voting results. “Tragedy” may seem like a hyperbolic word, but in politics and government, extremes are the norm, and fortunes can fall faster...

Curses!
Language, songwriter Laurie Anderson said, is a virus. As a lover of the sometimes awkward but always competent English language, I revel in the infectious spread of new phrases and the reinterpretations of old words.What “sick” means to my generatio...

Scary Toledo costumes
Q. Why do demons and ghouls hang out? A. Because demons are a ghoul's best friend! Sure, you can go to your Halloween party dressed as a witch or a pirate or a vampire. Those are time-tested costumes, and there's nothing wrong with a classic....

Letters to the editor
To Michael Miller:I saw your segment on Fox's “Rant and Rave” last night. That camera really does add 10 pounds, doesn't it? Try laying off the cookies.TONY S., SylvaniaDear Tony;Yes, the camera adds 10 pounds, but that first 290 is all mine....

Sex, lies and groceries
How does one obtain a sociology grant to study human behavior? All I need is enough cash to park myself at a local grocery store for a few hours each day to observe people interacting in the aisles of frozen foods, produce and dairy products.In Was...

Two dull and crazy guys
“The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.”— Ralph Waldo EmersonIsn't evil supposed to be seductive? The siren c...

Left flat by tire store
I love a good customer service story. It's a sad commentary on the state of customer service that ordinary care measures often seem extraordinary, but I've long since abandoned any hope for consistent competence and minimum pleasantries.Googl...

... One more time
I'm not interested in recounting the train wreck Britney Spears' personal life has become, but I did feel empathy for her as I read about her recent performance on MTV's Video Music Awards. I found a video of Britney's “Gimme More” on...

A hero in Harlan
As the war in Iraq trudges toward its fifth year, its human numbers are growing too large to retain clear meaning. Focusing just on American losses, can you picture and empathize with 27,000 wounded U.S. troops? Do you understand the impact of 3,800 ...

Wikipedia Scanner traces edits made by local media
People living through a major societal upheaval are the least qualified to judge its historical context. We can discuss the impact and radical changes the Internet has wrought, but it will be generations before our era can be adequately and objective...

Evan by the Numbers
There is no mathematical formula to raising a child, but those about to jump into this most full of full-time gigs might want to know some of the basic statistics for the universal equations.Child: Evan Michael Scott Millern Age: 14 monthsWeight: 2...

Sportsmanlike conduct
The greatest lessons of my life were not learned in a classroom, or a workplace, or at the knee of a parent. The standards and practices of my character were forged in the crucible of the dirt and grass football fields of my junior high and high sc...

Wagging the dog
Editor's Note: Last December, when Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner and his wife Amy adopted Scout, a dog from the Assistance Dogs of America Program, Toledo Free Press interviewed the dog about life at One Government Center. Scout agreed to an Au...

Saturday night at the movies
There are a lot of minor habits one forgoes when a baby arrives. For my wife and me, a weekly excursion to the movies became a quickly forgotten routine as we adjusted to the June 2006 arrival of our first child.Evan provides hours of entertainment a...

Moral cubism
As I settle into middle age, I like to think the Rubik's Cube that is my life requires far less twists and turns to maintain color-coded equilibrium than it did 10 or 20 years ago. But there are still moments when someone will reach in and jumble...

Common ground
It's an interesting summer for live music in Toledo. In addition to the dozens of venues that promote local acts, such recording artists as Peter Frampton, Ying Yang Twins, Pat Benatar, Bob Dylan, Gin Blossoms, Sheryl Crow, Moody Blues, Steely Da...

Nursery rhymes updated
One of the great ironies of parenthood is that while one's responsibility and maturity qualities must grow exponentially, one's intellect is challenged by the most mind-mushing nonsense imaginable.My introduction to children's music and v...

Church bells and dust bunnies
Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner called this week, unhappy with our July 1 story about Thomas Morrissey's recall effort hitting the 5,000 signature mark. The mayor did not contest the story, and was well represented in the article by spokeswoman Kat...

‘Toledo tunes' takes flight
I do not know how to capture momentum, but I recognize the sensation of forward motion and I know how to capitalize on it.Last month, I wrote about Toledo's musical legacy. In addition to such unflattering songs as “Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio...

The nine Cs of leadership
I have been immersed in the audio book of Lee Iacocca's “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?” I am a fan of Iacocca's direct, salty way of communicating his ideas, and if you are even mildly interested in the future of the United States, I recom...

Tony's swan song
Hollywood, Fla. — HBO's “The Sopranos” ended unresolved with a silent black screen, but just a few hours before the June 10 finale, a colorful cast of characters celebrated the show with a bang.The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywo...

Songs in the key of Toledo
Two weeks ago, I wrote about Toledo's musical legacy. In addition to such unflattering songs as “Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio” by Randy Sparks, Elvis Costello's “Toledo” (“Do people living in Toledo/Know that their name hasn't traveled ...

One
One year ago, my wife Shannon and I were counting the final few days to the birth of our first child. As I recall, she was counting them more fervently than I was; although she endured pregnancy with the same grace and patience that defines her chara...

Through Toledo
    Toledo's legacy in song ain't exactly “New York, New York.”    There is the infamous “Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio” by Randy Sparks, an unflattering portrait of boredom and condescension. “You ask how I know of Toledo, Ohio/Well, I spen...

Conversation in a movie theater
    There shouldn't be any conversations in a movie theater, once the house darkens, the movie starts and suspension of disbelief is required. There are approximately six hours of car, soda and TV commercials before the feature begins; can't ...

Thinking outside the box
Even though I do not live within its borders, I call Toledo home. I spent the first 30 years of my life in and around Toledo. I am a product of its public school system and its university, and if you find that fact scornful or worthy of derision, you...

Rest in peace, H-Dog
Art is wondrous and insidious. Wondrous in its ability to transport one into previously unimaginable worlds and times, with characters as real and multi-dimensional as flesh-and-blood humans. Insidious in its ability to transport one into previously ...

Under the cover
She left a voice mail saying she works in University Hall at UT, but she left no name or contact number. That means she was looking to vent, not open a civil conversation.She was distraught over last week's Toledo Free Press cover, a photo illust...

Trail to the chief
Sometimes, even as we dodge super-size boulders rolling through our lives, a grain of sand under one's heel can be a distraction. Ever since the early-February cancellation of a concert at Gator'z, a club near UT, I, in the back of my mind ...

Contempt for court
I was driving back to Toledo from a funeral in Lapeer, Mich., April 11, through a slushy rainfall that slowed traffic and coated my mood like a blanket of heavy, wet wool. When my cell phone began ringing, I was hoping for news to lighten the day, bu...

Leonidas' boot camp
As our son Evan chugs toward his first birthday, that bantam infant we brought home from the hospital is morphing into a walking, talking toddler. In the first few days, he could not hold his head up and drooled like he was clearing Niagara Falls fro...

Let's do lunch
Last week, while vacationing in South Florida, I enjoyed a few meals outside in the warm spring air. The ocean breeze caresses the senses and the distant chatter of gulls, swimming kids and motors cutting through saltwater contribute to a feelin...

Take it on the run
Last Tuesday, WXKR 94.5 FM hosted singer Kevin Cronin and bassist Bruce Hall of REO Speedwagon for a live acoustic session at Caper's Pizza Bar in south Toledo. REO Speedwagon provided several songs to the soundtrack of my junior high school year...

Happy birthday, but ...
When we launched this enterprise on March 16 two years ago, we heard from a lot of nay-sayers and doom-cryers. To be honest, we still do. And while I cheerfully admit that celebrating a start-up company's second birthday is dangerously close to...

The choice
The mean streets of Toledo pale next to the violence and desperation of such areas as Anacostia near Washington, D.C. and Opa Locka in South Florida, but a 15-year-old boy can still find plenty of trouble in our city.Without a father in the home, i...

Try Jobe as an adult
Call Judge James Ray's office at (419) 213-6717 and tell him, as civilly and as firmly as possible, that this community will not tolerate light-handed treatment of killers — cop killers in particular.It's the difference between six years a...

Blog this
Of all the cultural advancements attributable to the Internet, blogging is the most revolutionary. The democratization of media that blogging represents confused and irritated traditional media thinking at first, but as the long-term impact of media ...

We close our eyes
2:15 p.m., Feb. 13, 2007:  I knew I had made a potentially fatal mistake, but the wheel was turned, my foot was committed to the gas pedal, and there was no turning back. I could see the semi rolling closer as my car's wheels spun in the wet snow...

Ying Yang yanked
Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's office sent this serio-comic masterpiece of a news release Feb. 1:“Concert in UT neighborhood canceled to preserve peace”:“Concerned about overwhelming potential for disorder in a Toledo neighborhood adjacent to the Unive...

Keep drafts from chilling polls
I've always been grateful for the lack of a military draft in our country. I'd be a failure in the armed forces. I'm not a big fan of authority, I move slower than the first Pentium chip, camouflage clothes make me look like Swamp Thing&#...

Stockholm in the rearview mirror
It's not accurate or fair to use the geographical terms “Toledo” and “Northwest Ohio” as if they are interchangeable, but the two are inextricably linked. You may be riding high in Perrysburg or Rossford, but you must understand the impact Tole...

Recalling Finkbeiner
This can be a short read: If you believe Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner has the right to physically block members of the media from his public announcements, you and I are never going to agree on this topic, and you are free to turn the page. Good luc...

i, podfather
Since the birth of our son Evan six months ago, what little sleep I've managed to wring out of my nights has been punctuated by dreams of pacifiers.I'll dream I'm in a Tim Burton version of a Mario Brothers game, but instead of gold coi...

Conversation with a dog
This Christmas, Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner and his wife Amy adopted Scout, a dog from the Assistance Dogs of America Program. According to the City of Toledo Web site, Scout has accompanied the mayor to work each day at One Government Center. Be...

God is dead, revisited
Forty years ago, on a black cover branded with crimson words, Time magazine asked its readers, “Is God dead?”As Christmas marks the dichotomy of recognizing Jesus by flashing MasterCard and Visa, the article merits revisiting to test its relevance po...

Celebrities behaving badly
2006 will be marked as the year Big Brother caught up with American celebrity. The invasive Internet, especially video warehouse YouTube, allows us have-nots and nobodies to replay the screw-ups of the rich and famous over and over and over.Want to s...

Flakes on a plane
The Uncertainty Principal, which states that an object being observed is often altered by the presence and method of the observer, does not seem to apply on airplanes.I have seen more aberrant human behavior on airplanes than I did in such extreme ...

O.J. on my mind
My life has intersected with O.J. Simpson twice. The recent announcement that Simpson is ringing in the holidays with a book and TV interview, “If I Did It,” in which he discusses how he would have committed the killings of his ex-wife Nicole and h...

Catching up with holiday friends
Some holiday legends transcend religion. If you celebrate any of the common December traditions, your experience will include the who's who of Frosty, Rudolph, Grinch, Scrooge and the Little Drummer Boy.This season of remembrance and reflection...

Bombastic, but fairly painless
There's an art to writing, but I've never labeled myself an artist. An artist is Spielberg or Poe or Lennon, someone who shatters and recasts the definition of human experience through imagination and expression. There are celebrities in To...

Garbage in, garbage out
I was taught to respect my elders. Four decades of life experience have shown me it is important to have a variety of mentors and experienced people in one's life. Theoretically, older people, such as Jim Leyland, Wilfred Brimley and Yoda, are gr...

Glass City bargains on eBay
EBay is the greatest tool for wasting money since the U.S. government. You can find just about anything there, if you are willing to pay for it. Collectors who used to have to scour garage sales and classified ads and conventions can log on, search a...

Halloween costume suggestions
The early snow may be the scariest thing we'll see this October, but with Halloween racing at us like a jack-o-lantern thrown by the Headless Horseman, it's time to start thinking about Halloween parties and costumes.Last year, I wore a white...

Seth, ignored and forgotten
Osama bin Laden and his buddies are wasting a lot of time and resources plotting to kill Americans. If they stopped to look at the big picture, they would see we really do not need their help. As the AP reported:• Oct. 2: A gunman took about a dozen ...

Censors dangerous, not books
There have been countless books banned in this country, but in honor of Banned Book Week, here are 10 cases that strike me as the most outrageous. You could argue that banning any book is outrageous, and narrowing it down to 10 is like asking how man...

Forgiving Gerald Robinson
How wonderful is the human heart, and its capacity for forgiveness? No matter how heinous and outrageous the behavior, there are some people who can rise above judgment and offer an olive branch of understanding and absolution.After the 1981 assassin...

Words to live by (in Toledo)
The following nominees have been submitted to Merriam-Webster in consideration for 2007 dictionary inclusion.Entry: bad•ver•tis•erDefinition: Business that contractually obligates itself to print advertising agreement, then defaults on payment.Usage:...

From the Heitz to the lows
Sept. 11, among many, many, other things, is the birthday of former WTOL anchorman Jeff Heitz.For nearly 30 years, Heitz was a local news stalwart, a paragon of the old-school, no-nonsense journalist. I never remember him consenting to goofy promotio...

A pirate looks at 40
My 40th birthday is three months away, like a shimmering vision of land on the ocean horizon. From here, it is impossible to tell if the land will be soft and welcoming, edgy and harsh, or even if it is truly land at all. It could be a mirage.A co-wo...

Ghost in the machine
That was Dennard I saw in Pittsburgh. Dennard Summers was designed by nature to stand out. He was exceedingly tall, Paul Bunyan tall, with skin as black as Joseph in Paul Simon's song “Under African Skies.” He was fiercely intelligent, but nature...

Naming names for the arena
As if choosing a name for Toledo Express Airport isn't enough of a challenge, now the Powers That Be are seeking a corporate sponsor for the Downtown arena.You know, like Enron Field.Fifth Third Bank has generated tremendous publicity with the ...

Putting the boar in billboard
“What an asinine idea, starting a petition to put you on a UT billboard. There are lots of people more deserving. You're a typical member of the privileged class, an overfed egomaniac who thinks he's entitled to even more attention and wea...

Witness to Downtown Toledo
On a recent Friday morning, on a walk from Fort Industry Square to the Toledo Edison Plaza, I stopped at a crosswalk beside a man in a dark blue suit. It was during the recent heat wave that melted shoes into the sidewalk, but the man, who was just...

Magazine cover reveals real boobs
The magazine cover pictured on this page is a serious intellectual litmus test. If you feel the picture on the cover is “gross,” “outrageous,” “shocking” “disgusting” or “sexual exploitation,” you are:1. Entitled to your opinion.2. Wrong.3. Develop...

An airport by any other name
K100 morning personalities Gary Shores and Harvey Steele are pursing an idea to honor Toledoan Danny Thomas. The duo, with support from City Council President Rob Ludeman, would like to rename Toledo Express Airport (motto: “The second-fastest way ...

Better safe than Suri
    One month into fatherhood, my wife and I are struck by two major changes (amongst the 72,000 minor ones) in our lifestyle. The first is changing diapers 567 times a day, but I promised a reader I would never, ever resort to writing about that.If ...

The fast and the spurious
    The closure of the I-475 exit that leads Downtown extends my daily drive by about 15 minutes each way. My usual course is to exit U.S. 23 onto Monroe Street in Sylvania and take it back to I-475 at Talmadge Road. It's not a super-hyper-major ...

Patriots practice uncivil liberties
My first lesson in politics was delivered with a welt-raising smack.Sometime in early 1973, I was at a neighbor's garage helping paint poster boards. I was 6, so the images of a large boot kicking a caricature of President Richard Nixon, wi...

Toledo could reach for glory of Olympic rings
Sometimes, the universe drops its cloak of mystery and reveals answers so glaringly obvious, one would have to be dumb as a bag of Paris Hilton's hammers to miss them. As Toledo and Lucas County struggle with a leadership malaise, an opport...

Father's Day gift from Evan
    By the time we brought Evan home on Father's Day, he had inspired a cycle of emotions so intense and over-whelming, it was difficult to believe he was less than 48 hours old.It was a textbook delivery, beginning with my wife's calm voice ...

Stains in the halls of justice
It's been a while, but in late 1984, while I was walking in the attic of a decrepit South Toledo apartment building, my right leg plunged through a rotted floorboard. I spent about 30 minutes trapped, right leg caught in the floor up to my knee, ...

Carty plays monkey in the middle
    The honeymoon is over. Mayor Carty Finkbeiner did not have a good spring; it began with reports of his potentially illegal efforts to retain long-gone TPS Superintendent Eugene Sanders and the Costco/Bass Pro controversies and ended with a dust-u...

Mud Hens welcome dirty birds to nest
Editor's Note: This week's column contains adult themes, such as drug use, promiscuity for profit and at least two Bill Clinton jokes. You've been warned.There's no better family activity in Toledo than a Mud Hens game at Fifth-Thir...

Phone records reveal local dynamics
Toledo Free Press has been given access to several hours of phone conversations recorded by the National Security Agency. The following excerpts provide insight to the political process in Northwest Ohio. We promised Sprint we would not reveal the so...

A visit with Maybelle
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens," Maybelle said. She could not remember who said that quote, but as she turns 91 this week, Woody Allen should forgive her for the lack of attribution. I me...

Walking for wishes
There are more good-cause charities and non-profit organizations than any one person can reasonably support. Every disease, disability and misfortune has a fund or program to help the people who struggle every day with hardships and challenges that s...

Ignorance is a father's bliss
I do not indulge in them as often as I used to, but occasionally, I enjoy a good cheeseburger. I once interviewed Wendy's founder Dave Thomas, and he told me the simple reason he chose a cameo picture of his daughter for the chain's logo (and...

Carty, in shades of gray
Remember the story about the three blind men in a room with an elephant? One, feeling the trunk, thinks he has a snake. Another, holding the ear, believes he has a fan. The third, touching a thick leg, is convinced he has a tree. Only after putting t...

Moments in time
There are moments in life that announce themselves as towering memories even as you experience them. Elements of time, place, people, emotion and awareness converge in a thunderbolt that slows perception and imprints images in the brain one frame at ...

Opening Day is top-shelf event
Talk about social studies! The Club Level at Fifth Third Field on April 5 was a who's who of Northwest Ohio business, politics and society. The hallway along the doors of corporate suites was packed, an elbow-to-elbow stream of people making thei...

Nuts and Reinbolts of phone calls
"[Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's] chief of staff, Bob Reinbolt, did not return calls yesterday." — The Blade, March 8, 2006 "Robert Reinbolt, Mr. Finkbeiner's chief of staff, did not return a call yesterday about the situation." — The Blade, Apr...

Road rage advertising
In 1896, there were only four cars registered in all the United States. Two of them collided with each other in St. Louis. Those odds are exponentially worse today. I am not indulging in hyperbole when I say this is the worst era for driving civilit...

Rocked by rape
I read and process a lot of news. The result is that I allow every imaginable human atrocity to enter my eyes and ears, settle in my brain and become part of me. After 20 years of constant exposure to news, my emotional news-reaction core is as numb ...

Chewing the fat (I wish)
Note to readers: This week's column is a personal account of one man's battle with obesity. If you are looking for more complex geo-political commentary, I recommend James Wolcott's essay on George W. Bush's use of military uniforms i...

Living with terrorists
The water was clear and warm. The ocean tide supported me as I floated in the sunshine, drifting along the beach behind my oceanfront apartment building. I was relaxed, almost dozing, when I felt a sharp scrape along my right shoulder. With thoughts ...

Everybody loves Michael
TO THE EDITOR, You suck. Why do you give space to Bob France [sic] and Reed [sic] Allbeck [sic] instead of better writers? I could write better opinions than they do, and be more fair. I wouldn't let my personal bias get in the way of my opinion...

Toledo looks to the river
What a tremendous plan this is: a 45-page study, commissioned by the mayor and city council from Environmental Planning and Design in Pittsburgh, to explore and develop the Downtown riverfront. "Toledo Looks to the River" incorporates politicians, de...

Parenting made easy
I have reason to believe taking care of a baby will be easy. I've seen proof. During the first 39 years of my life, I visited Babies "R" Us exactly one time: with my wife, picking up a gift for a friend's baby shower. It wasn't a good or...

Angel is the centerfold
That's misleading. She was no angel, and she's not a centerfold. But my blood did run cold when I saw her picture. A former East Coast roommate e-mailed me a Web site link Friday. The subject of the e-mail was "Miller! You know her!" I cli...

A taxing situation
"Imagine what your taxes buy/We hardly ever try." — Sting, "Another Day" I'm no anarchist, but the arrival of the W-2 forms in the mailbox always focus my attention on how much money the powers that be siphon away from me and my future. Yes, I...

Throwing my weight around
My wedding anniversary is 3/17, so I consider those numbers lucky. But at my last doctor visit, 317 was my weight. Gaining weight is like falling in love with the wrong person; it happens before you realize it, and it's very difficult to extric...

A close shave with the media
My barber finishes my haircut with a hot-lather shave. He places an old-fashioned straight razor to my neck and shaves away the hot shaving cream, stubble, errant hair and a millimeter of skin. While he is holding the razor, I make it a point to rem...

The difference a year makes
As Toledo Free Press begins its second volume of publication, it's fair to take stock of what has been accomplished so far and measure what lies ahead. Because we live in the epicenter of this new tradition, it's not possible for us to be co...

Planning for Baby New Year
I'm six months away from being a father, but already I'm cycling through a brand new range of anxieties. My wife and I are expecting our first child in June. From the beginning, a lot of what we've heard from doctors and nurses has been ...

A savior's birth, sponsored by Coke
When I see you and offer an enthusiastic "Happy holidays!" I'm not trying to start a debate about the state of Christianity. I've always meant "Happy holidays" to encompass the corridor from Thanksgiving to New Year's. Lately, when I off...

Angel's memory offers hope
Angel and John Wood should be celebrating their 24th wedding anniversary Dec. 15. But on Oct. 17, 1999, one day before their son's 14th birthday, Angel was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver. A drunk hit-and-run driver. There are endless...

Nazis suck
At least the bad guys have the courtesy to let us know who they are. Their white hoods and swastika-emblazoned brown shirts are warning signs for the rest of us, like a diamondback's rattle or a cobra's fanned hood. "Hey," these uniforms say...

Hurricane victims seek holiday help
SOUTH FLORIDA -— The trees are massive, towering, with inconceivably intricate bundles of roots that once sank yards into the tropical soil. They lay on their sides, their invincibility stripped away, tossed aside like splintered baseball bats. The ...

Eyes on reasons to be thankful
NEW DELHI — A woman died in a Calcutta hospital after ants ate one of her eyes as she was recovering from a cornea operation, media reports said Nov. 15. Gauri Chakraborty, 55, had complained of terrible pain after the operation at a state-run hosp...

Tested by technology
Arthur C. Clarke once said there are moments when magic and technology become indistinguishable. Election Day 2005 brought that home for me, with polar-opposite experiences. Early in the day, my wife Shannon and I heard the heartbeat of our 7-week-o...

Carty must focus on economy
If the earth had cracked open and swallowed the Toledo Museum of Art last Wednesday, Toledo's business community would have plunged into a multi-generational paralysis. A reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rudolph|Libbe was an uber-wh...

Cartoons dying for public service
Do Smurfs bleed blue? The answer may be found in a new TV commercial produced by UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund. The ad, intended as a fundraiser in Belgium, opens with the Smurfs cavorting around a campfire. Birds fly by and rabbits ...

The ghost of Radio Raheem
In August, when Toledo Free Press first reported about the tensions between Thomas Szych and people he referred to as gang members, there was not much comment about the story. A week after the article ran, Szych e-mailed me to say that since the spot...

Spicing up the mayoral race
Ford vs. Finkbeiner is not exactly the Thriller in Manilla. It's more like the Yawner in Tijuana. We know Carty. We know Jack. This race is the political equivalent of choosing from the McDonald's menu; we know exactly what we're going t...

Husbands passing is titanic loss
Talk about a power couple. Jennifer Carter is an accomplished explorer, the first woman to visit the wreck site of Titanic. Her husband, Joel Hirschhorn, was a composer and two-time Oscar winner. It crushes me to have to use "was" when referring to ...

West request denies right to rap
Editor's Note: This column incorporates slang as defined by the Bay Area Hip Hop Dictionary. Good luck! Hip-hop superstar Kanye West must be out the frame. He recently decreed white people should only use certain slang terms when they become out...

Beat the clock for customer service
I'm the first one to complain about the breakdown of customer service, one of the byproducts of the slow death of civility. It's only fair to record a recent positive experience. While parked in a long line of backed-up traffic on I-75 last ...

Disappointments under the big top
It's probably uniquely American, and unquestionably lame, to be nostalgic for a shopping mall. Friday, a visit to Woodville Mall left me struggling to find a new way to echo Tom Wolfe's sentiment that you can't go home again. It has been...

Sex and the Glass City
They're attractive, intelligent, employed women, with all the right things in all the right places. They're also single, and puzzled by it. I joined the three of them for lunch last week. It took about 30 seconds before I felt like the gay ...

Ebony and ivory between the yellow lines
He asked me not to use his name, another sign of his modesty. He is the morning attendant in the parking garage I use Downtown, and he is as friendly and helpful a person as you are going to meet in this age of graceless customer service. He is a ma...

‘Community Voices' meetings planned
When Toledo Free Press began publishing almost six months ago, the gist of our mission and promise was this: We offer a voice for people who normally find themselves ignored, intimidated or misinterpreted by the media. This approach has allowed us ...

Thoughts from the middle of the road
Randy Newman's “He Gives Us All His Love” strained through the car speakers as I approached the red light on Bancroft. I've heard the song, the closest thing to a hymn Newman has ever written, scores of times. But it struck me for the first t...

Nickname invokes Rockets' red glare
A recent thread on ToledoTalk.com questioned whether the University of Toledo's nickname, Rockets, could be considered offensive. As the sports world debates the taste of such names as Braves, Indians and Ragin' Cajuns, a ToledoTalk poster as...

Sweet home, Lake Erie West
If enthusiasm and dedication could be bottled, Jerry Jakes could deliver a six-pack to every home between Detroit and Toledo. Jakes is director of Lake Erie West, an organization with the mission to “develop a shared vision and sense of community th...

Art attack raises blood pressure
We give the most complicated concepts perversely brief, three-letter names: God. Dad. Mom. Fun. Sex. Art. If these elusive entities carried labels as long as their definitions are fluid, spelling bees would be mind-punishing marathons. Art p...

Scenes from the mall
Malls are a great place to observe the evolution of America's slow demise. From restaurants to movies to department stores, there is simply no better place to observe the meltdown of the melting pot. A recent afternoon at a local mall provided a...

Field joins zoo, museum as class act
Toledo designated hitter David Espinoza struck out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, allowing Norfolk to escape with a 3-1 victory over the Mud Hens. Espinoza trotted to the dugout, undoubtedly expecting jeers and boos. But the crowd...

Carty makes race worth running
Carty Finkbeiner is nuts. He's also a visionary, a man of utter conviction and purpose. He envisioned restaurants on the riverfront, a baseball stadium smack in the middle of Downtown, a return to the strong-mayor form of city government. And wh...

Answering letters to the editor
Mr. Miller, I wonder if you are a religious man. Given the fates of some of Toledo Free Press' columnists, I hope you carry a St. Christopher's medallion. Steve, Toledo Dear Steve, I know what you mean. First, Bernadette Noe gets caught in t...

The Tom and Katie Diaries
TOLEDO, 3018 A.D. — The following manuscript was found in the cornerstone time capsule of  Finkbeiner Coliseum, which was constructed in 2009. Sept. 12, 2005 - Dear Diary, Tom finally met my family today. We all gathered in Toledo, and Tom say...

Brothers, from South Toledo to South Florida
The South Florida sunshine fought through Tropical Storm Arlene this weekend like an alien punching its way out of a doomed astronaut's chest. It left messy streaks of muggy air and patchy humidity that clung to skin like tendrils of seaweed. Sou...

Decency redefined by clothing choices
Sunday, at an area Meijer store, a man in line ahead of me wore a T-shirt that read, “I Got Sum Poosie,” in big letters over pictures of two female models wearing outfits that make Christina Aguilera look chaste. The shirt advertised an “energy drink...

Empathy for the devil
The front page story in The Blade makes things look bad. Very bad. Other papers run stories, accented with the same speculation. Only two or three people know the full truth, but suddenly, everyone's an expert. He used to be respected, envied in...

Teaching standards buffeted by hot air
It has been said that a good teacher is like a candle, which consumes itself to light the way for others. But selflessness, which used to be a taken-for-granted teaching characteristic, seems to be flickering in a windstorm of political and financial...

Why The Force will be with me, always
My father was an alcoholic with a tendency to disappear for weeks at a time. My mother was a depressed shut-in with a tendency to beat my brother and me. Neither of them had the imagination required of film fans. In May of 1977, I was 10 years old...

Warrick: Zoo is ‘Jeep plant' waiting to happen
"The media created this mess — NOW FIX IT!!!!!!!!!" That is the closing line of a letter I received this week from an anonymous group of people who claim to be employees of the Toledo Zoo. The letter was mailed with nearly 50 evaluation forms from a...

Wallowing in excess‚ far from the dumps
When I grow up‚ I want to be a Golden Corral franchise owner. The Golden Corral Buffet and Grill‚ for the uninitiated‚ is a miracle of culinary excess. My friend DM Stanfield calls it “a fat man's amusement park‚" and after visiting the restauran...

Super Bowl Show Was No Surprise
How will the NFL top Super Bowl XXX? It doesn't matter who plays next year; it really didn't matter this year. New England beat the Lions, right? I‘m sure somebody beat the Lions this week. What will the NFL and its broadcast partner do for...

Own the Book
Order "Lighting the Fuse," a collection of 60 columns by Michael S. Miller, for $12.95, including shipping within the continental United States. This is a limited edition quality paperback first published in Sept. 2001. Books will be signed at your ...

About the Author
Michael S. Miller was born in Cleveland in 1966. The story of his evolution is being chronicled in the upcoming novel, "American Smartass." Michael lives in Tecumseh, MI, near Ann Arbor. He is currently on staff with The Daily Telegram of Adrian, on...