Archive for February, 2012

My problem with Black History Month

February 29th, 2012, 3:17 pm by David Trinko

Today marks the last day of Black History Month. Every year since 1976, the country celebrated it. Quite frankly, this month drives me crazy.

It’s time we accept and acknowledge that black history is our history. Irish-American history is our history. Chinese-American history is our history. It’s all our history.

This crossed my mind as I looked at the powerhouse lineup of stories appearing in The Lima News’ Reminisce section, which looks back at local history:

Lima Giants: ‘We only want what is due to us’

Lima Police Chief William Kennedy Davenport

Always giving back: Estella Cooper

Growing up in Greenfield Heights

Building a dream

Supervising a post office: Lowell W. Baker

Every one of these stories is important to Lima’s history, not just because it involved black people but because it involved our local culture. Davenport was a transformative figure in the Lima Police Department’s history. The Lima Giants were one of the few professional teams in the city’s history. Lowell Baker brought a state-of-the-art postal system to Lima.

These are all important because they’re important. It’s a shame people think they should be set aside to be highlighted during February, instead of fitting in wherever they naturally belonged in our history.

Posted in: Pop culture | 3 Comments »

Column: By the numbers, candidates talking about the right things

February 27th, 2012, 12:10 pm by David Trinko

Sometimes in all the chatter around an election, it’s easy to lose track of what the candidates are really talking about.

Allow the wonderful world of math to help. They’re talking about budgets, services and funds.

It’s not as sexy as jobs or taxes, but it’s what all the candidates for commissioner in the region actually wrote about in their candidate questionnaires, which appear in The Lima News today and continue to appear on LimaOhio.com through the March 6 primary.

How can I be so sure? I counted.

To be completely honest, I let an Internet site, wordcounter.com, count for me. While I read every word in our election special section before we printed it, I didn’t count them all. I plugged in the words written by the candidates — all 4,767 of them for the two contested Republican primaries for the Allen County commissioners’ seats — to see which root words came up the most.

Once you toss the obvious words such as a, Allen, county, the and year out, certain words popped to the top: budget (64 times), service (40), fund (36) and work (32).

It’s interesting, as the top four words were different back in the 2010 primary, when tax, plan, govern and economic popped to the top.

These trends aren’t unique. If you look at the most popular words used by candidates for commissioner in Putnam and Van Wert counties, they also spent a fair amount of time talking about money issues. Van Wert County candidates did spend a bit of time talking about the business climate, but they’ll soon learn what they can and can’t do about that.

If you were to believe your ears at the Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce debate of commissioner candidates, they’re talking about talking. Communication is the key to all other things, they said.

I started thinking about this whole topic when Bob Ulm, a veteran reporter for Maverick Media, said at the debate he heard commissioner candidates talking about communicating better for decades. In the last six years since I’ve been involved in candidate forums at The Lima News, I’d have to agree. Everyone thinks they’re going to come into office and fix everything by talking about it more.

With their word selections in their questionnaires, I’m happy to see they can at least identify what they’re able to talk about in those conversations. In most cases, they are things they can control. They might love it if some laws changed or an influx of business came to them, but there’s relatively little they can do about that.

The reality is politicians at this level can only do so much, and most of it revolves around moving money from one pot of money to another.

We’re in such a unique situation in both Allen and Van Wert counties, with two incumbents deciding it’s time to quit. We’ll have new faces and new ideas at the table, deciding how to spend that money in the future. How the candidates would do it pops to the top when you look at their word choices.

In the one race, Paul Basinger repeats words such as budget (16 times), service and resident (11) and must, work and office (seven each). Dennis Fricke chooses words such as work (12) and board and high (seven each). He also used school eight times, but that reflected his current experience. Cory Noonan chooses budget (17), must and fund (14) and work (10).

In the other race, Jay Begg turned to budget (10 times), fund (nine) and service (eight). He also used fair eight times, but most of those references were to his current job. Lynn Mohler jumped right to service (10), budget and develop (nine each) and economic (six).

To show some introspective self-evaluation, the words most often used in this column include word (13 times), talk (11) and times (10).

If the candidates stick to doing what they’re talking about doing, perhaps we’ll finally be able to elect leaders who understand what they can and cannot do.

Posted in: News • Politics | Post a Comment »

Focusing on where you are

February 25th, 2012, 9:00 am by David Trinko

One of my Lenten sacrifices this year is to not look at my Blackberry when I'm with my family in the evenings.

Technology is a wonderful thing, keeping us connected with people who are thousands of miles away from us. Unfortunately, sometimes it also builds distance between those who are just a few feet from us.

I’ve noticed I spent a lot of time looking at my phone when I get home from work each night. The marvelous gizmo keeps me updated on what’s happening at work or with my friends scattered across the country. But sometimes I’m so focused on what that new email or status update says, I might be missing out on what my wife or my children are saying.

No more. I’m drawing a line. One of my Lenten sacrifices this year is to stop using my mobile phone when I’m with my family.

It sounds easy enough, but being connected really feels like an addiction. I struggled through the first two days of this promise. When there’s a perceived lull in your evening, it’s so easy to grab the phone from its holster and see what’s happened in the world since you last checked.

I’m amazed at what I’m learning about my children and their new daycare and preschool, though. And I think they’re liking the extra attention. They don’t feel as if they have to compete for my attention with absolutely everything else in the world.

Will I falter and look once in a while? Absolutely. But I’ll continue to fight that urge and focus on where I am and who I’m with.

Posted in: Pop culture • Religion • Technology | Post a Comment »

Dropping the ol’ spare tire

February 24th, 2012, 2:54 pm by David Trinko

Automakers' efforts to improve fuel efficiency may make it harder on consumers who end up with a flat tire. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

We all want to drop the ol’ spare tire. We think it’ll make us more efficient and full of pep, right?

So when carmakers started dreaming up ways to improve the fuel efficiency of their vehicles, they dropped the ol’ spare tire too, quite literally.

In a press release, AAA said many vehicle manufacturers dropped spare tires from new vehicles to help get to new fuel efficiency goals of 29.7 mpg for the 2012 model year and 34.1 mpg by 2016.

According to AAA:

A spare tire and related tools can weigh more than 40 pounds. Removing this from vehicles is a weight-saving change that doesn’t add cost to the vehicle.

Quite the opposite, it lowers the cost and unfortunately makes it less safe. After all, having a spare tire helps us all when there’s a blowout.

We should’ve seen this coming. After all, it’s been years since a car came with a full-sized spare tire. Few things irritate me more than taking the time to change a tire to the spare, only to see it’s the “doughnut” tire which can only go 50 miles or so.

AAA suggests drivers find “run-flat tires,” which can run short distances without air, or bring an emergency sealant and inflator kit with them. It’s also important to replace that sealant after five years or after it’s used, as it becomes less effective with age.

It’s a good reminder that when the government rushes through changes and forces companies to reach imaginary goals, the customer ends up as the one stuck on the side of the road without a spare.

Posted in: Energy • Politics | Post a Comment »

Report: 12 percent of Ohio kids live in high poverty

February 23rd, 2012, 6:06 am by David Trinko

Map courtesy of kidscount.org

The number of Ohio children living in areas of high poverty is 12 percent, according to a new study released today by the Kids Count Data Snapshot, by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. (Read more here.)

That’s a pretty startling number all by itself, but it’s really shocking when you consider that’s a 60 percent increase since 2000.

According to the study:

Research indicates that as neighborhood poverty rates increase, undesirable outcomes rise and opportunities for success are less likely. The effects of concentrated poverty begin to appear once neighborhood poverty rates rise above 20 percent and continue to grow as the concentration of poverty increases up to the 40 percent threshold.

This report defines areas of concentrated poverty as those census tracts with poverty rates of 30 percent or more because it is a commonly used threshold that lies between the starting point and leveling off point for negative neighborhood effects. The 2010 federal poverty threshold is $22,314 per year for a family of four.

In general, most of the Midwest fell in the 10 to 15 percent area. It’s not as bad as some places in the South with traditions of poverty problems.

The organization has its own ideas on how to chip away at this problem:

Promoting community change efforts that integrate physical revitalization with human capital development.
Leveraging “anchor institutions” to build strong, supportive communities for children and families.
Promoting proven and promising practices in the areas of work supports, asset building and employment.

I’m not sure there’s any value in working on the second two until you hit the first one pretty hard. Unfortunately, many people living in poverty are living in generational poverty. We need to figure out how to break the cycle before we start investing huge chunks of money into areas of poverty.

And by we, I mean the private sector. Frankly, the private sector and the economy succeed when low-income individuals pick up meaningful work at reasonable pay rates.

Some of this is based on policy decisions too. Not to harp on how great Indiana seems to be doing, but I’d note its high-poverty rate of 8 percent is lower than much of the country. And frankly, the two states aren’t that different, aside from its pro-business approach.

What would you do to correct this problem?

Posted in: Education • Jobs | 2 Comments »