Did Szollosi always have a buy-local philosophy?

10/8/2006

Eight bite-size Lemmon Drops to nibble on while waiting to see if any charges are filed in the Case of the Flying Red Bra:

  • Toledo City Councilman Frank Szollosi's grandstanding over the mayor not using Toledo Express Airport shame on Carty Finkbeiner for saving time and money by flying out of Detroit Metro! reminds me of a story from 1997.

    The Blade reported that Mr. Finkbeiner, who at the time was running for a second term, bought his political yard signs from an out-of-state firm. The tally was nearly $15,000.

    Mr. Finkbeiner's campaign manager said the decision to go with a Kentucky company was "basically a cost thing for us."

    Who was the mayor's campaign manager back then? None other than Frank Szollosi.

  • Speaking of interstate commerce, here's hoping the newly formed One SeaGate LLC an affiliate of insurer RVI Group Inc. of Stamford, Conn. gives its 32-story namesake acquisition the attention it deserves. One SeaGate is the jewel of Toledo's skyline.

  • If I didn't know better, the bright-and-cheery TV ads for "Ohio Learn & Earn" (Issue 3 on the Nov. 7 ballot) might lead me to believe that the scholarship program would be funded by the sale of apple pies rather than slot machines.

  • OK, statewide political candidates, your attack ads have gone from being funny to annoying. They're about a week away from becoming nauseating.

  • On Monday afternoon, after hearing news of the multiple killings inside an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, I tuned in to a local radio talk show.

    I was expecting the tone to be somber. Instead, rabid gun supporters were on the offensive. They said, mockingly, that the incident wouldn't have happened if the school had a "No Guns Allowed" sign on the front door.

    As I turned off the radio I had to, because I felt like I was somehow participating in the dumbing down of America I began to wonder how they would fare in this hypocrisy test:

    If "No Guns Allowed" signs don't work (that is, no one pays attention to them), is it safe to assume you have the same attitude toward Ten Commandments monuments on courthouse lawns?

  • Former co-worker David Allen, who lives in Southern California, passed on this Toledo tidbit:

    "The L.A. Times had an editorial last week about Huntington Beach sending a nasty letter to a T-shirt vendor in Santa Cruz about misusing the SoCal city's trademarked 'Surf City' slogan. The editorial mentioned that a Scottsdale, Ariz., smoothie company is named Surf City Squeeze, and that Toledo, Ohio, has a Surf City Car Wash."

    Yep, that's us a Midwestern surfer's paradise.

  • In doing a Google search for Toledo slogans, I came across some British humor on the BBC's Web site:

    "Toledo is a city in the state of Ohio, USA. It is also a city in Spain. The similarity ends at this point."

    The synopsis went on to say that Toledo nicknames include "Glass City, Home of the Mud Hens, Frog Town, the Black Swamp, and the second biggest city in Michigan."

  • According to the Web site theromantic.com, Ohio is the top state for Sweetest Day sales.

    As our 10th Sweetest Day as Ohioans approaches (I'd never heard of the day before moving here), I'm proud to say neither my wife nor I have contributed a penny toward the state's total.