The Columbus Dispatch 07/30/2011- Larry Larson

Michael Arace commentary: Whatever it was, it worked for Larson

Saturday, July 30, 2011 03:04 AM





The Columbus Dispatch



Larry Larson is retiring to California to be near his stepdaughter and her family.



Columnists

Michael Arace

Bob Hunter

Rob Oller


The WTVN radio website has a video tribute to Larry Larson, who is retiring to California to open a new chapter in his life. Midway through the video, one of Larry's colleagues, John Corby, says: "You started, you didn't know anything about radio. You ended, you don't know anything about radio."



There is a glowing ember of truth in this good-natured barb.



Larry has spent the past 20 years reading the morning scores over our car radios and reporting from the Horseshoe, Nationwide Arena, Value City Arena, Muirfield Village, wherever there was a game. Most notably, he has been the voice of fall Friday nights, running down high-school football scores far and near.



He is known as Mr. High School Sports. He is more like Uncle High School Spirit. Either way, he is a stylistic nightmare. He barks through the speakers like a hoarse camp counselor. He sounds like Don Pardo in intensive care, or like a high-school football coach.



Of course, he was a high-school football coach, as well as a teacher and athletic director, before he went into radio. And he did not truly go into radio. He assumed it. Somebody pointed him at a microphone, and he did Larry. He picked up his yellow legal pad, put a smile on his face, opened his mouth and assaulted us with enthusiasm. Who needed to know this business? If the job was to sound as un-phony as humanly possible, well, Larry has filled that bill since he came into this world, on July 27, 1943.



He was raised in the shadow of the 'Shoe and, save for the few summers he spent in New York City when his mother was trying to make it on Broadway, he has lived his entire life in Columbus. It has been quite a relationship.



Larry touched thousands of young lives during his 32 years as a teacher/coach, mostly in the Grandview Heights system. He moved easily to radio, if not journalism. If you have ever heard one of his motivational speeches, you understand his power (and you have an inkling how little Grandview went 9-0-1 in 1979).



Larry has for the past 20 years mentored select high-school student-athletes and sent them forth to spread positive messages to younger children. It also has been his habit to tutor high-school and college students who were interested in broadcasting. More often than not, he had a student in tow at whatever big event he was covering.



Lori Schmidt of WBNS (97.1 FM) got her start tagging along with Larry. So did Kelsey Webb of the Morning Zoo crew on WNCI (97.9 FM).



"He has just blessed so many people," Webb said. "I don't know anyone more deserving of some good fortune than Larry Larson."



Larry's wife of 25 years, Jeannie, lost a wicked fight with cancer in August 2008, and Larry's world has been atilt ever since. Ultimately, he felt compelled to leave his hometown and settle in southern California, to be near his stepdaughter, Liza; her husband, Glenn; and their 6-year-old son, Jack.



"Liza is the closest thing to Jeannie that I have left," Larry said. "For nine months, I have known it was the right time to go. There is also something to be said about going out on top."



Larry will sign off from WTVN (610 AM) at the end of his Sunday morning sports show, of which he is co-host with Dave Maetzold. Larry's last three scheduled guests, in order:



• Dario Franchitti, whom Larry counts among his favorite interviewees. The international jet-setter/Indianapolis 500 champion shares a wonderful rapport with the Chuck Taylor-wearing/bowtie-clad Mr. High School Sports. Seriously.



• Dave King, the former Blue Jackets coach and Larry's erstwhile jogging mate. The two forged a friendship during those early years of NHL hockey in Columbus.



• Faith Washington, Reynoldsburg High School All-America hurdler, who once said to Larry, "Track is just like life. There is a starting line - and there is a finish line."



Larry said, "I have had a wonderful, wonderful tenure here. And now, in the parlance of Faith, I am on to the next event."



Michael Arace is a sports reporter for The Dispatch.



marace@dispatch.com

SamKat postscript:  My family and I enjoy the great honor of being friends of Larry Larson.  Our son Jeff first knew him through Jeff's and Larry's experiences at Grandview Heitghts where Jeff has taught for the last twenty-some years.  We each met him at various sporting events, mainly at Grandview.  I enjoyed further privilege in interviewing Larry for my second book: "Acquaintances With Integrity".  I was so impressed with Larry's coverage of high school sports when we arrived here from Portsmouth Ohio, I wished for him the job of Sports Information Director for my alma mater, the University of Kentucky.  It would not have been right for this true Columbus Ohio boy who walked the oval and campus of Ohio State with his grandfather as a young child and a young man.

  There becomes a few man-love situations for the straights of our lives and Larry becomes one for me.  I so appreciate what he has done for all athletes in this area.

Go west, young man, and enjoy the rest of your life!

Federal judge throws out atheist law suit vs. Gov. Perry

Case against Perry, 'Response' dismissed

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 7/28/2011 3:15:00 PM

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed to block Texas Governor Rick Perry from having a role in an upcoming prayer event in Houston.


U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller on Thursday afternoon ruled that the group of atheists and agnostics that filed the suit, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, did not have standing to sue. The plaintiffs argued that Perry's day of prayer and fasting would violate the Constitution. The event, called The Response, is scheduled for August 6.


Perry defended the event, comparing it to President Barack Obama's participation in the National Day of Prayer. He said "my prayer is that the courts will find that the First Amendment is still applicable to the governor."






Story continues below ...




Should elected officials have the right to call for prayer?







Kelly Shackelford of Liberty Institute tells OneNewsNow the plaintiffs filed the suit because they simply do not like the event and the fact that the governor had said complimentary things about it.


"Just because your feelings are hurt, you know, welcome to a free country," the attorney responds. "So [the judge] threw the thing completely out -- which we agree there was no basis for the lawsuit .... [T]his really horrible attempt to shut down speech and prayer and religious freedom has been completely rejected."



The Foundation also asked the judge to stop Governor Perry from speaking in any favorable way towards the prayer event, block him from endorsing it, or encouraging people or to even say it is a good thing.


"In fact they wanted him specifically to give a remark distancing himself from this prayer event," Shackelford continues. "And so the idea that they were asking a federal judge to enjoin a sitting governor from saying something positive about prayer shows how extreme this was."


Perry has invited other governors and Christians throughout the U.S. to join him to pray and fast for America on August 6 at Houston's Reliant Stadium.

House approves and Senate rejects - Newsmax.com

Debt Ceiling Crisis: Economist Warns 90% Stock Market Crash. See Evidence.



Newsfront Tags: US
Debt
Showdown House Approves Debt Bill; Senate Rejects It Two Hours Later

Friday, 29 Jul 2011 07:00 PM

Forward Article WASHINGTON — In an unforgiving display of partisanship, the Republican-controlled House approved emergency legislation Friday night to avoid an unprecedented government default and Senate Democrats scuttled it less than two hours later in hopes of a better deal.



"We are almost out of time" for a compromise, warned President Barack Obama as U.S. financial markets trembled at the prospect of economic chaos next week. The Dow Jones average fell for a sixth straight session.



Lawmakers in both parties said they were determined to avoid a default, yet there was little evidence of progress — or even significant negotiations — on a compromise during a long day of intense political maneuvering.



The House vote was 218-210, almost entirely along party lines, on a Republican-drafted bill to provide a quick $900 billion increase in U.S. borrowing authority — essential to allow the government to continue paying all its bills — along with $917 billion in cuts from federal spending.



It had been rewritten hastily overnight to say that before any additional increase in the debt limit could take place, Congress must approve a balanced budget-amendment to the Constitution and send it to the states for ratification. That marked a concession to tea party-backed conservatives and others in the rank and file who had thwarted House Speaker John Boehner's attempt to pass the bill Thursday night.



"Today we have a chance to end this debt limit crisis," Boehner declared, his endgame strategy upended by rebels within his own party.



But the changes he made to the House GOP bill further alienated Democrats. And they complicated prospects of a compromise that could clear both houses and win Obama's signature by next Tuesday's deadline.



At the other end of the Capitol, Senate Democrats rejected the measure without so much as a debate. The vote was 59-41, with all Democrats, two independents and six Republicans joining in opposition.



Moments later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., unveiled an alternative that would cut spending by $2.4 trillion and raise the debt limit by the same amount, enough to meet Obama's terms that it tide the Treasury over until 2013.



Reid invited Republicans to suggest changes, saying, "This is likely our last chance to save this nation from default."



The Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, accused Democrats of "rounding up 'no' votes to keep this crisis alive," and noted the House had passed two bills to raise the debt limit and the Senate none.



The House, eager to return the Senate's favor rejecting the Boehner bill, set a vote to reject Reid's proposal on Saturday. The Senate set a test vote for shortly after midnight on Sunday, a middle-of-the-night roll call that underscored the limited time available to lawmakers



At the same time Reid appealed for bipartisanship, he and other party leaders accused Boehner of caving in to extremists in the GOP ranks — "the last holdouts of the tea party," Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois called them.



Republicans conceded that the overnight delay had weakened Boehner's hand in the endgame with Obama and Senate Democrats.



But the Ohio Republican drew applause from his rank and file when he said the House, alone, had advanced legislation to cut deficits, and that he had "stuck his neck out" in recent weeks in hopes of concluding a sweeping deficit reduction deal with Obama.



Boehner's measure would provide a quick $900 billion increase in borrowing authority — essential for the U.S. to keep paying all its bills after next Tuesday — and $917 billion in spending cuts. After the bill's latest alteration, any future increases in the debt limit would be contingent on Congress approving the constitutional amendment and sending it to the states for ratification.



"With conservatives insisting on the addition of a balanced-budget amendment requirement, Speaker Boehner's bill will now cut, cap and balance" federal spending, said Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona as Friday's scheduled vote approached.



The White House called the bill a non-starter. Press secretary Jay Carney issued a statement that called it a "political exercise" and said congressional leaders should turn their efforts to a compromise that Obama can sign by Tuesday.



The developments occurred one day after Boehner was forced to postpone a vote in the House for fear the earlier version of his measure would suffer a defeat. But by forcing a delay the conservative rebels upended the leadership's strategy of making their bill the only one that could clear Congress before a default and win Obama's reluctant signature.



"Everybody acknowledges that because of the dust-up yesterday we've lost some leverage," said Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, an ally of the speaker.



The rebels said they were more worried about stemming the nation's steady rise of red ink.



Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La., a, a first-term lawmaker, issued a statement saying his pressure had paid off.



"The American people have strongly renewed their November calls of bringing fiscal sanity to Washington. I am blessed to be a vehicle driving their wishes to fruition," he said. "This plan is not a Washington deal but a real solution to fundamentally change the way Washington operates."



Administration officials say that without legislation in place by Tuesday, the Treasury will no longer be able to pay all its bills. The result could inflict significant damage on the economy, they add, causing interest rates to rise and financial markets to sink.



Executives from the country's biggest banks met with U.S. Treasury officials to discuss how debt auctions will be handled if Congress fails to raise the borrowing limit before Tuesday's deadline.



But Carney said the administration did not plan to provide the public with details Friday on how the government will prioritize payments.



The day's economic news wasn't very upbeat to begin with — an economy that grew at an annual rate of only 1.3 percent in the second quarter of the year.



The Dow Jones industrial average suffered through a sixth straight day of losses, and bond yields fell as investors sought safer investments in the event of a default.



At the White House, Obama cited the potential toll on the economy as he urged lawmakers to find a way out of gridlock.



He said that for all the partisanship, the two sides were not that far apart. Both agree on initial spending cuts to take effect in exchange for an increase in the debt limit, he said, as well as on a way to consider additional reductions in government benefit programs in the coming months.



"And if we need to put in place some kind of enforcement mechanism to hold us all accountable for making these reforms, I'll support that, too, if it's done in a smart and balanced way," he said.



That went to the crux of the conflict — his insistence that Congress raise the government's borrowing authority by enough to avoid a repeat of the current crisis during the heat of the 2012 election campaigns.



Republicans have resisted, accusing him of injecting purely political considerations into the debt limit negotiations.



But Boehner's failure to line up the votes for his legislation Thursday night seemed to embolden Democrats.



Obama asked his 9.4 million followers on Twitter to send tweets to Republican lawmakers.



"The time for putting party first is over. If you want to see a bipartisan (hash)compromise, let Congress know. Call. Email. Tweet," Obama wrote in a tweet, signed "-BO."



Editor's Note: 50% unemployment, 90% stock market drop, 100% inflation. See the Evidence. Click Here





© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

More ways to share... Mixx Stumbled LinkedIn Vine Buzzflash Reddit Delicious Newstrust Tell my politician Technocrati Share: More . . . Email Us
Print
Forward Article Special Links: Doctor Shows How to Accurately Test Your Thyroid at Home

Cure High Blood Pressure Without Drugs, in 8 Weeks

Get the US Navy SEALs Cap for This Summer, Just Pay Shipping


WASHINGTON The White House is dismissing the latest debt-ceiling bill from House Speaker John Boehner as overly parti . . .


Read more on Newsmax.com: House Approves Debt Bill; Senate Rejects It Two Hours Later

Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!
 
SamKat note:  I do not support o's re-election and wish we never had him as our president!