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History in the Hills: What’s in a name?

I come from a long line of men in my family called Paul. My name is Paul, my father and his father, too. My wife and I made it a point to name our son Paul as well, extending the tradition well past the 100-year mark. Maybe if he is blessed with a son at some point in the future, he will continue the tradition, but there is no pressure. Who knows what the future will bring? I enjoy looking back through family history, not only mine but others, too, and seeing how names change with popularity. The year I was born in the 1980s, the most popular boy’s name was Michael, and the ...

Guest column/Ramaswamy has the right focus for governor

In 2012, I was invited to a conference held by the Milton Friedman Institute in Indianapolis. The institute invited 20 or so legislators from around the country to discuss school choice issues and how much progress had been made to that point. Like most conferences, we heard from a variety of speakers, one of whom was Tony Bennett (not the singer and not the basketball coach), the superintendent of education from the state of Indiana. Bennett oversaw the institution of educational reforms including expanding school choice options for then-Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Bennett made a ...

Interesting numbers

Among the things that happen when you are away from your desk for an extended period of time is that there is a lot of mail and e-mail that needs to be sorted out. There were several interesting items delivered to the office during the last couple of months, including some annual reports. Like every similar submission, they offer a lot of information about things that are happening around us. Among those was the annual report on Ohio’s concealed-handgun licenses, which offers some insight into our region. State Attorney General David Yost’s report on the gun licenses showed ...

Musk’s American Party could be interesting

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is about to form a new third party after announcing his plan on the social media platform X, which he owns. It is registered with the Federal Election Commission and is expected to focus on two or three U.S. Senate races and about eight or 10 House seats in the 2026 election cycle. Heading up DOGE and wielding a chainsaw as he slashed one government program after another, Musk, before his fallout with President Trump, was dubbed the first buddy after pouring millions into Trump’s campaign war chest. In the previous elections, he had supported ...

Restore the power of the patent to win tech race

The United States is falling behind in the global race for technological leadership. China now leads the U.S. in 37 out of 44 critical technologies. This includes fields that will define the future, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and advanced manufacturing. If we’re serious about keeping pace with China, we must restore the legal foundations that once made America the global leader in high-tech innovation. That means passing legislation like the bipartisan RESTORE Patent Rights Act. By strengthening inventors’ ability to stop the proven theft of their ideas, ...

Reminded how I omitted something last week

Last week, my column was written a little differently than those you have read these past two years. It wasn’t written how I usually express myself in this little corner of the paper. Yet, it was still something personal about my life. And it was still being able to share some of those little moments which I believe we all have in common. Either way, it was different. Maybe that was a good decision, or maybe it was an awful one. I can never be quite certain. I was explaining to a friend of mine who doesn’t read the paper what my column was about. I told him how the radio ...