Columnists
NewsBenjamin J. MarrisonSunday(This column is occasionally written by other editors of The Dispatch)Marrison Benjamin J. Marrison has been editor of The Dispatch since November 1999. He joined the newspaper after nine years at the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, including three years as its Statehouse bureau chief. He also worked at The (Toledo) Blade. If a fatal shooting happens in your neighborhood, should you be able to find out who is charged with pulling the trigger? If a young man is wounded in your neighborhood during a shootout with (March 12) You ask the questions, and we provide the answers. • Some readers called early Friday to question our choice of Page One photos. Why would we choose a photo of Olympic skater Sasha Cohen falling when we (Feb. 26) If your caller ID shows you're getting a phone call from The Dispatch in the next few weeks, don't be surprised if the person on the other end of the line is Joe Blundo or Mike Harden. Don't fret. They're not making sales calls. Our popular (Feb. 5) It is an innocent question, but a loaded one when asked of a newspaper editor. "What are your favorite things in The Dispatch? " The land mines are buried not in those features an editor mentions, but in those he leaves out. The question (Jan. 29) Mike HardenTuesday, Thursday and SundayThere is no fence around In Essence, though I have rarely written about presidents, prime ministers or the prime interest rate. I hope the subjects that intrigue me will also be of interest to the newspaper’s readers.Harden Columbus native Mike Harden began writing In Essence for the Dispatch in 1983. A collection of the best of his columns, titled ‘Road Songs,’ was published in May. Favorite links Country wisdom has it that, if you drop a frog in a pot of hot water, it'll dance a frenzied jig trying to escape. Plop it in a pot of cool water and then slowly raise the heat, and it'll sit contentedly till the water boils. Yesterday, Attorney (March 16) Max Barry couldn't have planned a better time to release his latest novel, Company. His story, which takes place mostly within the unfriendly confines of Zephyr Holdings Inc., features oddball cubicledwellers similar to those found on the NBC (March 16) Almost a week before the buzzards began their fabled return to the roadkills of Hinckley, in northeastern Ohio, more than four dozen of the winged Dumpster-divers took up residence in a tree line across from a Pickerington assisted-living facility. (March 15) WOODSTOCK, Ohio Sunday morning, between last call at the Woodstock Inn and the first thunderclap of a predawn deluge, Harold Clevenger set out to put an exclamation mark at the end of a 30-year stint delivering The (March 14) Ah, sweet nostalgia. It is the flaming hoop through which we compel history to leap so that it might fit memories as porous as Swiss cheese. Forgive me, but I just can't help being overcome with dewyeyed (March 12) Favorite column “Did good,” Wallace said when asked, hypothetically, what words he would have were the visitor at his bedrail not a Yankee journalist but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (April 12. 1998) Ann FisherWednesday and FridayFisher Ann Fisher has worked at The Dispatch since 1997, first as a reporter, then editorial writer, then State Editor. Her twice-weekly column started in October, 2005. She also covered the Ohio Statehouse for eight years for The Blade of Toledo. Her columns will tend toward public affairs with a spin, touching on national, state and local issues equally. Favorite links State officials were asleep at the wheel when the Bureau of Workers' Compensation doled out $50 million to invest in rare coins. Now that they have been awakened by the stinging kiss of scandal, they've hired a private company to audit how (March 15) The first sentence in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien compares the different sorts of underground retreats: the dank and nasty sorts popular with earthworms and the dry and empty crannies without chairs or food. Then there's the hobbit-hole, "and (March 8) Schools are good places to connect new students and newcomers with the history of a community. Assigning names that relate to local history is a first step. The Olentangy district, leery of catchy but meaningless building monikers, wants to (March 6) There's a law that covers what Delaware County officials did to Susan Hollenbach. The Ohio Revised Code calls it intimidation, a third-degree felony. Delaware County taxpayers and lovers of justice everywhere should not settle for the $335,000 (March 3) Semantics are everything. Just ask the straight-talking woman who manages and directs programs at the Martin Janis Senior Center on 11 th Avenue. In fact, ask Betty Leffingwell almost anything. Chances are she has thought about it or will, (March 1) Favorite column
John SwitzerSundayJohn says: “My favorite subjects range from Ohio history to natural history to humor to slices of every day life to the natural procession of the seasons, mostly obscure things that other columnists ignore. I want my column to seem as if I am talking to a neighbor over a back yard fence. I want to be a part of a reader’s morning coffee.”Switzer Switzer has been with The Dispatch since November 1966 and has been writing a daily column for two decades. Before becoming a columnist, he covered the courts, both county and federal, for a decade. I always get a kick out of how central Ohioans react when the news media hype an approaching snowstorm. They clean stores out of milk, bread, beer and snow shovels. Then some (March 12) LifeJoe Blundo / So To SpeakTuesday, Thursday and SundayBlundo Joe Blundo has been at The Dispatch since 1978. His columns are a mix of humor, human interest and information. He often examines "Columbusness," the pecularities that make the city such an amusing place to live. Favorite links College is a time to find out who you are and what you're capable of, a time to show the world what you've learned. It's a time to demonstrate to your professors, your peers and your family, sometimes without help and (March 16) Mickey the poodle is diabetic. I didn't know that this was even possible. The robust canine digestive system, which seems to operate on the principle that (March 14) Bud Simpson has so much to say, he started his own newspaper to say it in. It has a press run of about 50 copies, loses money every week and boasts a single out-of-state subscriber. So I can call it a national publication," he remarked. (March 12) Despite stress fractures in his feet and his marriage, Steve Vaught keeps walking. Vaught, 40, weighed 410 pounds when he left San Diego last April on a quest to lose weight and find a new direction in life. He planned to walk to New York. (March 10) The greeter at the Hoggy's restaurant in Grove City looked a little green around the eyes. Ah, this must be the location of the monthly meeting of the Facepainter's Guild of Central Ohio. When the face-painters gather on the first Wednesday (March 9) Favorite column
ArtsBarbara Zuck / ArtbeatSundayArtbeat offers provocative discussions of current developments, issues and trends in the arts as well as musing essays on various artists (musicians, dancers, actors, architects, writers), art forms and performances.Zuck Barbara Zuck holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Michigan and is as devoted to her farm (shared by three horses, 14 cats, two dogs and a husband) as to the arts in Central Ohio. Afew weeks before Vladimir Spivakov was scheduled to appear with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra early this month, a telephone in Columbus started ringing. The calls are nothing new for Anna Svirsky. Whenever a noted Russian musician or dance (March 15) During the quest to renovate the Southern Theatre in the late 1980s and '90s, the rallying cry was acoustics, acoustics, acoustics." Groups such as the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, Chamber Music Columbus and the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra couldn't (March 12) The Columbus Symphony Orchestra staged "A Celtic Celebration" last night at the Ohio Theatre and, though the crowd was a tad sparse, Celtic spirits and sounds filled the air. Conducted by Albert-George Schram, the pops event got the jump (March 11) The Ohio Arts Council has extended the search for a new executive director, and longtime leader Wayne P. Lawson who was to have retired March 1 has agreed to stay in the position through March 31. The search committee, led by trustee Barbara (March 8) Leaders of Opera Columbus remain optimistic that the financially strapped company has a future. "A lot of stuff in the arts happens on hope, and that's how we get in trouble," spokesman Willi Grove said yesterday after a board meeting Friday (March 5) Favorite column
InsightJoe HallettSundayAs senior editor, Hallett has the freedom to roam, but his columns often deal with politics and public affairs.Hallett Joe Hallett joined The Dispatch in 1999 as politics editor. Before then, Hallett was chief political writer for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland for three years and Statehouse bureau chief for The Toledo Blade for 12 years. Ted Strickland was 5 when the old hillside house on Duck Run near Portsmouth caught fire in the middle of the night and his 13-year-old sister, Jean, scooped him into her arms and ran like hell. Out on the gravel road, Orville Strickland pulled (March 18) CLEVELAND Continuing his quest to court religious leaders, Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell bought lunch for more than 70 black pastors in Cleveland yesterday, hoping to match his success with mostly white leaders of (March 15) CLEVELAND Terra Mack, a resident of one of Ohio's poorest housing projects, need only take a short walk to find her way to another world, virtually any world. Mack, 26, and her 20-monthold son, Teron Smith, wandered to places previously unknown (March 14) BOWLING GREEN, Ohio Throwing down the gauntlet for this year's midterm elections, White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove lambasted Democrats last night as hostile to the economic and national security values of Americans. Rove defended (March 12) Any baby boomer who grew up in northwestern Ohio remembers that elementary and high-school classrooms were much more crowded in September than (March 12) SportsRay Stein / The MailboxSundayStein Ray Stein was named sports editor during the spring of 2003. Ray: I echo the sentiments of others who wrote about minimal press given to OSU basketball versus football. I am an OSU grad and have attended and followed both football and basketball for 50 years. I realize the dollars generated by football (March 12) Mr. Stein: What is the matter with everyone in this town? Columbus is often criticized for caring only about the Buckeyes. However, this basketball season proves Columbus cares only about OSU football. Wednesday, the OSU men won at least a (March 5) Like every other varsity boys basketball coach in the suburbs, Sam Davis of New Albany makes it a habit to check in from time to time on the youngsters in the middle-school programs. Those players are a coach's future, and it can be comforting (March 4) Ray: The O'Brien suit and the NCAA probe cannot be compatible. If O'Brien was not guilty of a violation of contract then, it would seem to me, no violation of NCAA rules occurred. If O'Brien did violate his contract and an NCAA violation did (Feb. 26) Stein: There is only one way to describe the outcome of the Jim O'Brien case justice. This is the least the court system could have done for him. O'Brien was run out of town. Because of the university-led witch hunt that resulted in his (Feb. 19) Bob HunterMost Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and SundaysHunter DAYTON Thad Matta was answering a question in the Ohio State locker room when the thought died suddenly. "Oh, my God," he said. "Did you just see that? Northwestern State just beat Iowa." He stared (March 18) DAYTON Everybody wants to know the same thing. Why, when the Buckeyes have been shooting threes as if the object were to hit the rim, the backboard or the wide-open spaces around the basket, are they so insistent on shooting them until their (March 17) The top eight players in the upcoming NHL entry draft are "real good," Blue Jackets president and general manager Doug MacLean said on his weekly radio show. Realistically, eighth is as low as the Blue Jackets, currently fifth from the (March 17) INDIANAPOLIS Want to know what the Buckeyes' chances of making a nice run in the NCAA Tournament are? Flip a coin. The answer you get from Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington might be every bit as good as any you're going (March 13) INDIANAPOLIS Terence Dials and Marco Killingsworth don't hate each other. At least that what's they said when they were asked. Now, if the verb had been different. "Despise," maybe, or "loathe" . . . "Naw, I don't even know the kid," Dials (March 12) Todd JonesJones The announcement of Temple coach John Chaney's retirement yesterday served as brief grist for the ever-churning sports mill. Chaney, 74, deserves better than to have his farewell be a (March 14) Ohio State doesn't have to look far to get reacquainted with the NCAA Tournament. Other schools in Ohio and the neighboring, basketball-mad states of Kentucky and Indiana can help the Buckeyes become familiar with the joys of March Madness. (March 12) They don't talk about the pain and loss much anymore, now that the horrible winds have passed and the floodwaters receded. Hurricane Katrina will always be part of their lives, but so will this Senior Day a day when Ohio State can earn its (March 5) What the hell difference does it make? He gets in the end zone, doesn't he? Fourteen seconds, I don't know." Vince Lombardi, when asked how fast Paul Hornung ran the 40-yard dash (Feb. 26) he three divisions of time past, present and future converge in the form of a distinct No. 3 on a black Chevy. Five years have passed since that car (Feb. 19) BusinessRon Carter / It's Only MoneySunday"It's Only Money" covers a variety of personal-finance topics. Carter also predicts market performance for the upcoming week -- with mixed results.Carter Assistant Business Editor Ron Carter joined The Dispatch in 1994. He has been writing “It’s Only Money” since 1999. Carter worked for Cox Newspapers in Springfield and Dayton for 15 years before joining The Dispatch Dominion Homes has reduced the amount of money it can borrow from banks to reflect the smaller number of homes it's building. The Dublin-based home builder said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing yesterday that it has renegotiated (March 17) Favorite column
|
|