Send your thoughts on candidates Daniels, Hastings and Mikkelsen to me at: roryeryan@gmail.com or just stop me on West Main Street around 5 a.m. most mornings. I’ll be the guy with the broom.

Consumers are supposed to install the mercury filled compact fluorescent lamp in place of the standard bulbs. Now, I'll admit to having been called a dim bulb a time or two. But hasn't the EPA warned us of the hazards of mercury? What, pray tell, are we supposed to do if we break a couple of these CFLs? Call in the Haz-Mat unit? Are the meth-lab Haz-Matters licensed in mercury removal, too?

Safety and Service Director Ralph Holt said this week the city is still open to negotiations with the townships – in spite of the notice to cancel services. While that is an apparent contradiction, it’s also a reflection on the difficult economic climate that affects all of us.

What reasonable choice does Gov. Kasich have? Sure, he could raise taxes on a state that’s losing citizens and congressional seats almost as fast as it’s been losing jobs the past four years. (Let’s remember that Ohio’s unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in January 2007. It was 9.3 percent by the time the last governor left office.) The last four years have resulted in more private-sector job losses and more Ohioans leaving for states like Indiana, Texas and Florida.

Let’s face it, all federal, state and local government entities that have not made spending cuts comparable to all those cuts made in the private-sector households of “unorganized taxpayers” across America ought to be ashamed of themselves. So should any taxpayer – unorganized or otherwise – who allows this travesty to continue.

Alydar and I then headed due east for about 200 feet. We made a diagonal northeasterly turn that left me in the backyard of the Thompson Funeral Home. Which, I thought, was a good thing. Or, convenient, anyway, because I was about to die. It’s also where Seattle Slew and I parted company. When this horse hit East Main Street, it was Brother come to Jesus. He’d found the Lord. Or at least a familiar highway on his road home. I kid you not, he hit the Secretariat Gear about three strides onto Route 124 and opened up a 20-length lead on me.

'We have been working on this project for several months; first locally with Dan Smith and now with Jim Cameron and Phil Milazzo. We are working to do everything we can to convince Mr. Milazzo and PAS Technologies that Ohio is the place for these proposed expansions. We have a ready, willing, able and skilled workforce, strong work ethic, as well as strong areospace growth potential, considering our close proximity to the Airpark in Wilmington is just 17 miles north of us.' – Commissioner Shane Wilkin

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has taken some initial steps that indicate he’s serious about real reform. But those aforementioned unions are working overtime to derail his efforts. Of course, they have the triple advantage of time, money and organization. While their professional time is spent lobbying our lawmakers, most of the rest of us are too busy working – or looking for work – to realize our ox has been sired, until the calf arrives.

After all, country song titles and lyrics are written, philosophically, about real life’s trials and tribulations, ups and downs, heartaches and heartbreaks – and rednecks. Put all that together and there’s got to be a Perfect Country and Western Song Title.

As someone said online this week, "Meet the Press" host David Gregory sounds like the whining little brat who keeps asking his parents for a cookie before supper and keeps getting the same answer. Poor boy.

If Andrew Dice Clay is still alive, maybe he could roll 7 the hard way for us without crapping out. Didn’t Drew Carey lose his show? How busy could he or Pauly Shore be? What about Dennis Miller? His tenure on Monday Night Football was shorter than Frank Caliendo. Then there’s Al Franken. He can’t be doing anything worthwhile these days. (Isn’t he in Congress, though?) Enough said. If we can’t get them, Tim Allen and Bob Saget might make for a great mayor/safety service director tandem, now that their respective sitcom kids are almost 50.

“‘Our great nation is facing a crisis in part because the government’s out of control, and it’s particularly out of control with its spending,’ Gov. Pawlenty said. ‘It’s going to take us into a deep hole even further than we already are. And I hope we can get consensus on that. But our team, the ones who just got elected to the majority of the Congress, and all the other conservatives and Republicans, said: ‘Look if you elect us this time we’re actually going to do this stuff.’ Well, now we’ve got to do it.’”

The initial reporting of the Arizona shooting left me thinking of a great quote from one of my favorite writers, P.J. O’Rourke: “I’m not a liberal, so I’m not an expert on things I know nothing about.”

'You can argue whether the decisions they made were the correct ones or not, but you cannot argue that they failed to make tough decisions – unpopular with some – but they were needed.' – Judge Kevin Greer

Simply put, there are anticipated expectations of journeymen newspaper columnists to put these annual resolutions on paper (or online). And it’s pretty much been that way since Gutenberg and moveable type. In the past two decades, I’ve penned more New Year’s resolutions columns than I can recall. The one thing I do remember is this: For each and every resolution I’ve ever made, I’ve broken all of them and 10 others I thought about making.