Scott Bremner         

Like the dull but persistent “thump” of a holiday hangover, the responsibilities of a new year are now achingly upon us, and while a combination of aspirin, water and temperance can ease the former, curing the latter will take more work.
So with that in mind (and cold towel in hand), here’s a small sample of what to fix in 2006:
• City Finances-Few who have seen the news in recent months need to be told that one of the top priorities for the community is correcting city finances. The city of Erie is dangerously close to being listed as a distressed city, which would give Harrisburg controllers the right to decide how money should be spent here. And don’t sit in your suburban split-level too smugly. No area can survive if the heart dies, and complain all you want ye Millcreekians, Harborcreekers and Edinborites. The truth is, as Erie goes, so goes this corner of the state.
• Engine of Economics-We’ve heard a lot lately about the importance of a community getting its act together in terms of economic development, the need to gather resources in one place to give a visiting company owner the so-called “one-stop shopping” experience to know exactly what an area offers in sites and plans and economic incentives. While the Erie region moved significantly in that direction in recent years, that movement seems to be disintegrating. One effort, the C-Cubed group chaired by former Mayor Filippi and former County Executive Schenker is not being supported financially. New County Executive Mark DiVecchio is talking about a county-led economic push and the Regional Chamber-Convention and Visitors Bureau is going through something of a management shake-up. That doesn’t much like the “one vision-one voice” thing.
• Regional Asset Funding-an on-going issue is how to fund regional assets like the Erie Zoo, which exists in the City of Erie but benefits thousands of nearby residents. The recent City budget woes brought the issue into stark relief. The City could no longer afford a one hundred thousand dollar payment to the Zoo, so the Zoo had to close for the winter months for the first time ever. Just because an asset exists in one community doesn’t mean that it’s fair for that community to bear the brunt of that support. As we move to regional 9-1-1 and explore regional fire service and other broad-based initiatives, let’s figure out a way to fund regional assets with regional assets.
• Big Picture Projects-Some of the largest “Big Picture Projects” to come down the pike in a long time will see significant movement in 2006. Tops among them are two initiatives. The first would expand the runway at the Erie International Airport, a must for continued growth as a passenger and cargo center. The second is the construction of a Bayfront Convention Center and accompanying hotel, what is seen as a key engine for the tourism component of the local economy. Neither of these projects is actually in need of outright fixing, but both have had monumental fits and starts in previous years and the Convention Center hotel faces a lawsuit from other hoteliers. These projects are worthy of this list for the sole reason that they are critical enough that we should all keep an eye on them so that they don’t stray yet again in the year ahead.
There are many other things that need fixing in the year ahead, including my waistline. But just addressing these four issues alone seems like a year’s worth of work, and succeeding at any of them would help secure all of our futures in the years to come.

What does it take to make a grown man cry? For this battle-hardened reporter, all it takes is a trip to the movies to see the latest kid cartoon.
Think I’m kidding?
With two small girls still in tow, I’ve seen most of what comes out of shops like Disney and Pixar these days.
That makes me something of an expert on kid flicks, but where they are experts is in the art of manipulating emotion.
Who could forget when Simba’s dad dies in The Lion King at the hands of the wicked Uncle Scar?
Or when girlfriend Nala wonders aloud about the lost potential in Simba when she sings,
“Why can’t he see what I see? The king I see inside.”
Excuse me a second, kids, Dad has something in his eye.
Then there’s Ice Age when the Woolly Mammoth sees cave drawings of how humans killed his parents.
The camera zooms in as the eyes grow larger and fill with tears.
I have to visit the restroom, kids. Be right back.
There’s the look on Nemo’s face when he hears that his never-leave-the-corral-reef father traveled across an ocean battling sharks and gulf streams just to find him.
There’s the look of awe on the faces of the Incredible children when they see their parents fight as superheroes for the first time, an image far removed from the middle class dweebs the kids believe their parents to be.
Excuse me, I have to pick something up off the floor here for a minute, wait, I mean tie my shoes, yea, that’s it.
Advances in computer graphics have turned animated features into real works of art these days. But the real artistry, like any other movie, is in connecting to the human element.
Check one out when you get the chance. But don’t forget the hanky.

What follows is a cautionary tale of the folly of buying happiness, of believing that most of our problems can disappear in the stroke of a check.
Sixty-six year old Bud Post of Venango County died this week. His life would have been a small town footnote were it not for the hand of fate that led Post to draw winning lottery numbers worth 16 million dollars.
How many of us believe that in that moment Post held the ticket to happiness, that what would follow would be a life rich in nectar and honey and devoid of the struggles that challenge most of us?
Post’s life is proof that the path to a fulfilling existence is not so simple.
It started with his landlady, who claimed that she pitched in for the tickets that Post bought and was therefore entitled to part of the pot. That led to several years of court battles, which ended with the courts giving the woman about a third of what Post won.
Then there were the wives, all six of them, the last one finally moving out after deciding that the reality of living with Mr. Post did not fulfill her dreams of life with a rich man.
Post’s brother was convicted of trying to kill him, and while brother killing brother is as old as the Garden of Eden, you’d have to believe that the money was somehow in the middle of the rancor between the Post brothers.
Bud Post also had no tools with which to handle that kind of money, spending, giving and getting swindled out of cash at a rate that would alarm a Rockefeller.
That led to further court proceedings and even bankruptcy filings. When Post died, his total wealth to be split between 9 children, 3 stepchildren and 44 grandchildren was less than a million dollars.
I will never forget the image of the Post mansion left empty by repo men, everything taken, from the furniture to the chandelier in the front lobby.
There is no greater monument to the hollow life that can exist within gilded walls.
Money is money and while it certainly creates opportunities it carries its own peril as well.
There are winners in life and there are losers, and the travails of Bud Post is proof that determining who is who goes far beyond a winning lottery ticket.

Pittsburgh Penguin Hall of Fame star Mario Lemeiux has the heart to play championship hockey.
He just doesn’t have the heart to play it anymore.
It’s not that he’s lost the love of the game or his skill to play.
His heart has literally lost the ability to compete.
I should know.
I’m being treated for the exact same thing.
What we share is something called Atrial Fibrillation, AF to the med folks.
It’s an electrical problem where the current that is supposed to shoot straight down the heart in that classic thump-THUMP instead dances across the top of the ventricles more like a thumm-thumm-thm-thum-THUMP. It reads like five heartbeats instead of one making the heart work a lot harder and faster to pump out the same volume of blood.
One of the medicines that is given for that is called Cardizem, which works to slow down your entire system to keep the number of beats per minute under one hundred. It’s a great medicine for rapid heartbeats but as you can imagine slowing down your system has the strong side effect of fatigue.
When I was on Cardizem I could get exhausted just sitting at my desk.
I couldn’t imagine standing up let alone chasing professional athletes half my age around an ice rink.
I have no idea what Lemeiux’s doctors are doing to treat him, but I have a sneaking suspicion that what finally made up his mind was not his heart but his legs.
After a brief procedure several weeks ago my heart is back in a normal rhythm and I am off the Cardizem.
Most hearts that go into AF at some point will do so again, so it is a situation that must be monitored for the rest of my life.
The condition is rarely fatal by itself but if untreated can lead to an increased risk of clots and stroke and premature wear-and-tear on the heart muscle.
But there’s also no reason to doubt that with treatment Mr. Lemeiux and I can both lead long, active and productive lives.
Mario Lemeiux is a classic combination of persistence, skill and grace, his will to play overcoming crippling back pain and even cancer.
Now it’s time to take care of that body that threatened to desert him but also gave him his greatest successes and opportunities.
He owned the game from the ice. Now he’ll have to do it from the owner’s box.