A story of hope, from chaos

I was heading to meet with the owner of Service Spring Corporation. Roads were out because of the tornado that had swept through Wood County, destroying the high school and killing six.

As I finally approached the company, where I was scheduled to take a plant tour, I slowed. Buildings were torn apart and there were huge heaps of rubble and uprooted, ancient trees strewn about. A steel I-beam was twisted like a piece of licorice and bent in half. One building was standing, but parts of the siding were stretched and distended or missing altogether, some patched with plywood.

I called the owner, Mike McAlear. He's a tough, barrel-chested guy whose card doesn't say "President & CEO." Just CEO. He gruffly told me he didn't need to cancel the visit, and told me come around to the south side of the building.

Service Spring makes springs for garage doors - everything from the spring that helps you raise the door of your attached two-car garage to the giant industrial doors in places of heavy manufacture. His company can make one or ten thousand, and they fill most orders the day the come in - but not from inventory. They make tens of thousands of different springs on demand from specifications stored in their computers.

The tour was fascinating, and debunked the myth that manufacturing is dead in Ohio. Service Spring has skilled workers who make a world-class product.

Mike and his eldest son told me they were back in production less than 72 hours after the tornado hit.

That's the hope for Ohio - people like the ones at Service Spring - people who work hard and don't give up, who take the hard knocks and push back even harder.

There's lots of people like that in Wood County. Up the street, hundreds of people were picking up junk off the lawn of the high school that had been devastated.

I asked Mike if he was insured.

"Yeah," he said, looking around at the chaos.  "But that doesn't make up for what you spent your life building."

I remember reading that the State of Ohio's Department of Administrative Services canceled a project to link the state's computer systems after spending millions of dollars. They just gave up. If a tornado hit DAS, they wouldn't have a damage assessment complete by Labor Day.

I'm proud of what Mike McAlear is doing in Milbury, Ohio. And I've met many more like him, all across the state, in towns large and small. In their work ethic, ingenuity and courage lies the true strength of this great state.

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Posted by Administrator on Jul 10, 2010

First Through the Door

"First through the door" is a phrase you understand in law enforcement.  It means the lead guy in a tactical assault - the one who is most in danger from the bad guys on the other side, who are probably armed.

The guy who's first through the door is respected for his courage and guts, a leader whom other men are willing to follow.

In Afghanistan, the bad guys on the other side of the door are always armed.  They're ready to die - and sometimes, they're waiting for you.

They were waiting for Sgt. First Class Sean Clifton when he hit the door on a special ops mission.  The firefight tore him to ribbons, but his team mates made pickup and got him out.  On May 19, he told his story to the Delaware County Criminal Justice Association - a story of courage, teamwork and a very long road to recovery.

I was sitting next to one of my best friends, a fellow prosecutor with three sons in the service, including a Green Beret.  Sgt. Clifton's story and powerpoint slides were not for the weak of stomach.   How must he feel, I wondered, imagining his own sons in harm's way?  ("Proud," he told me later.)

As we celebrate our independence and freedom this Independence Day, I'm remembering Sgt. Clifton's story.  Most of us never personally pay the price of liberty, but it is not the natural condition of humanity and is never the result of happenstance.  The price is paid in a coin that knows no fluctuations in value and is pegged to fixed price - call it the blood standard.

Sgt. Clifton is trying to raise awareness for the Wounded Warrior Project. 

Please check out the website at http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/?gclid=CIufo7vdzaICFcl25Qod7TEJxw and consider a donation there if you are able.

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Posted by Dustin Pyles on Jul 03, 2010

Memorial Day 2010: The Meaning of a Phrase

"Don't call me a hero," Bob Allerding told me. "The heroes are back there on the beach. I helped bury them."

It was in 2001 or 2002, and Bob was sitting on the couch in my living room. The World War II veteran, who'd stormed the beaches at Normandy, had come for dinner. We were listening to him tell us what it had been like.

He minimized his role, of course. And he kept coming back to those who'd waded into the line of fire with him and fallen.

Later, after he'd gone home, we talked. We owe that man and those he served with everything.

I was thinking about "'Ding" on this Memorial Day. He's gone now. We hear a lot of talk about men and women who "paid the ultimate price."

That phrase - "the ultimate price" -- doesn't say what it needs to.

What it means is that all the joy and all the love between that warrior and his wife and children and family and friends is crammed into a tiny capsule of time. Decades of triumph, loss and comeback, of work and meaning ...all of it compressed into a microscopic speck of immeasurable value, all of it spent in a moment for duty.

That's the ultimate price.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted by Dustin Pyles on Jun 01, 2010

A "shovel-ready" program: Hamilton County Gets $6.7 million for War on Obesity

The federal government thinks you're too fat, so they're giving your money away to bureaucrats to make it easier for you to eat right and exercise.   In the name of stimulating the economy, Congress is stretching Constitution's Commerce Clause farther than America's collective waistline.

The press release announcing the grants said that the money "will provide communities with the resources to create healthy choices for residents."   

The notion that either the federal government or local communities can "create healthy choices" is an amazing idea.  Choices exist as a function of liberty, which is not created by government.  

In this case, we already had healthy choices, not created by the federal government.  Reach for an apple instead of the Doritos.  Get up off the couch.  

The press release went on to say that the federal money will create choices by "increasing availability of healthy foods and beverages" and "improving access to safe places for physical activity."  How, precisely, this will work, and why it is the business of the federal government, is left unsaid.  

Hamilton County received a $6.7 million grant -- part of $230 million in stimulus funds shoveled out to 30 communities around the country for the obesity war.  (Who knew that the obesity war was "shovel ready"?)   Hamilton County got the only Ohio grant - begging the question of whether the rest of the State is sufficiently trim for the taste of the Department of Health and Human Services.  

The obesity war is part of a program called Communities Putting Prevention to Work. The CPPW also includes $30 million for the media - to "foster effective and hard-hitting prevention and wellness messages and advertisements."

Now, it's a good idea to be fit.  It's just not the federal government's job to make us so.  Perhaps more importantly, we're out of money.

This is going to be paid for with borrowed money, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  We've got enough pseuo-wars going on, but let's start one more: What American needs now is a War on Debt.    

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Posted by Administrator on Apr 04, 2010

Ken Blackwell: Dave Yost "Shares and Lives Our Values"

CONSERVATIVE ICON KEN BLACKWELL ENDORSES DAVE YOST FOR AOS

(Columbus) Ken Blackwell today endorsed Prosecutor Dave Yost for Auditor of State.

"Dave Yost is one of us -- a man of integrity who shares and lives our values and convictions," Blackwell said. "He knows that the government is reaching too far into our lives and too far into our pockets - and with his record and his experience, he has the tools he needs to fight for us."

Blackwell is an icon among Ohio social conservatives and has often been the standard-bearer for people disaffected with the moderate wing of the Republican Party. "Ken Blackwell, like Barry Goldwater, was conservative long before it was cool to be conservative," said Gene Pierce, a conservative political analyst. "Like Ken, Dave is pro-smaller government, pro-life, pro-family and pro-tax cuts. There should be no argument from Ohio Republicans about Dave's heartfelt commitment to a conservative platform of government."

Blackwell won the Statewide Republican Primary for Governor in 2006. "Ken anticipated and led the 'No More RINOs' movement," Pierce added. "His endorsement will speak volumes in this primary, when people want true conservative leadership."

Prosecutor Yost welcomed the endorsement. "I've known Ken Blackwell for years, and he does not speak lightly, or for the sake of convenience - he's always about what he believes to be right. I am humbled and honored to have his strong support."
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Posted by Administrator on Mar 11, 2010