If the City Manager Runs the City… Who Exactly Are We Electing?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how city government actually works, not how it’s explained in civics class, but how it functions in real life.

Take a city like Steubenville.

We have a city council made up of seven members. We have a mayor. We have a city manager. We have full-time police and fire departments that constantly need funding for equipment, training, and staffing, along with neighborhoods that need representation and real attention.

And like a lot of taxpayers, I keep coming back to one simple question:

Who’s actually in charge here?

Because from the outside looking in, it feels like everyone has a title, but nobody has clear responsibility.

In our system, the city manager runs day-to-day operations. They oversee departments, budgets, and execution. For all practical purposes, they are the CEO of the city.

The mayor? Mostly ceremonial. Runs meetings, represents the city at events, and breaks tie votes. Which raises an uncomfortable question: could those duties be handled another way and save taxpayers money?

City council approves budgets, passes ordinances, and hires the city manager, but they don’t run departments or manage operations. They create laws, yet they aren’t responsible for enforcing them.

So when residents see police officers needing equipment or firefighters asking for resources, frustration builds quickly. Taxpayers naturally wonder why solutions move so slowly when so many elected officials are involved.

And that’s where confusion turns into distrust.

Because when something goes wrong, responsibility becomes blurry.

Residents blame the mayor, who doesn’t control operations.
Council points to administrative limits.
The city manager, the person running daily operations, isn’t elected by voters.

Everyone holds authority, yet no one appears fully accountable.

To be fair, this system wasn’t created by accident. The council-manager model was designed to prevent corruption and political favoritism (unfortunately, these still exist) by separating politics from administration. The idea was simple: let professionals run the city while elected officials set policy and represent the people.

On paper, it makes sense.

But in smaller cities facing tight budgets and aging infrastructure, the structure can start to feel disconnected from reality. Essential services fight for funding while residents struggle to understand who is responsible for fixing problems.

And maybe that’s the real issue.

We elect council members to support, represent, and solve problems within their wards and neighborhoods. If residents don’t see that happening, it’s fair to ask why those positions exist at all.

The question isn’t whether these roles should exist…. it’s whether the people holding them are visibly leading, communicating, and owning decisions.

Because government works best when responsibility is clear.

Right now, many residents are left wondering:

If the city manager runs everything… who exactly are we electing?

And more importantly, who answers when things don’t get done?

Pet Peeves — The Sequel Nobody Asked For

Every once in a while I revisit my list of daily irritations, mostly to confirm that I haven’t become irrational… and unfortunately, the evidence suggests I have not. The world simply keeps providing new material.

My newest pet peeve?
People who know exactly what needs to be done… and simply choose not to do it.

At the restaurant, every storage room, prep room, and office door has a sign that clearly reads: “KEEP SHUT.” Not hidden. Not vague. Not written in ancient hieroglyphics, however, sometimes written in Spanish! Big, readable, impossible-to-misunderstand English.

And yet, without fail, doors are left wide open like we’re hosting a grand tour.

This isn’t a training issue. It isn’t confusion. Everyone knows the rule. They walk past the sign, open the door, do what they need to do… and then apparently lose all memory of how doors work on the way out.

What fascinates me isn’t the mistake, everyone forgets sometimes. It’s the consistency. Different people. Different shifts. Same result. It’s as if responsibility evaporates the moment someone crosses the threshold.

Running a business teaches you a strange truth: the hardest part isn’t big decisions. It’s getting people to do small, obvious things repeatedly.

My second pet peeve lives online.

When I post a rant, a blog, or ask for information, there is always an army of people ready to offer advice…. many of whom clearly didn’t read the original post or the twenty comments explaining the situation already.

Now, some advice is genuinely helpful. I appreciate thoughtful input. But a large portion feels less like helping and more like an assumption that I somehow arrived at adulthood incapable of basic reasoning.

Somewhere along the way, social media created the belief that reading something requires responding to it. Whatever happened to simply thinking, “Interesting,” and continuing to scroll?

Yes, I could avoid the irritation by not posting at all. But I don’t believe the solution to annoyance is silence. Sharing thoughts, experiences, and even frustrations is part of being human.

Still, I can’t help but wonder when we decided that every opinion requires an audience and every audience member requires a microphone.

The Obstacle Course We Call Healthcare

There comes a point where frustration stops being quiet.

The healthcare system, the one that’s supposed to help people heal, feels less like support and more like an obstacle course designed to wear you down. Every step forward requires another form, another referral, another approval, another wait. And somewhere along the way, it starts to feel less about patients getting better and more about systems staying profitable.

When you live with constant pain and very few answers, something else begins to creep in: exhaustion. Not just physical exhaustion, but mental exhaustion. The kind that makes you question whether continuing to seek help is even worth it. When every door feels locked and every appointment feels like starting over, hope becomes harder to hold onto.

I’m not famous. I’m not wealthy. I’m just a regular person trying to get medical care…. and that shouldn’t make access harder. Healthcare shouldn’t feel like a privilege reserved for people with status or endless resources. Yet too often, patients feel processed instead of treated, scheduled instead of seen.

Getting in front of the actual physician you were referred to feels increasingly rare. Physician assistants and layers of gatekeeping have become the norm, leaving many patients wondering where accountability lives. Who owns the outcome when care feels rushed, delayed, or disconnected?

Why does it take weeks or months to schedule imaging or labs that doctors themselves say are necessary? Why does every answer require three more appointments? Patients aren’t asking for miracles…. they’re asking for clarity, urgency, and compassion.

Right now, healthcare feels less like healing and more like survival inside a system too complicated to navigate while you’re already hurting.

And maybe that’s why people are angry.

People don’t expect perfection from healthcare. They expect effort, urgency, and humanity. Until those become priorities again, the loudest symptom patients will keep showing up with isn’t illness, it’s anger.

From Sting Operations to Subscriptions

How the internet changed prostitution laws

There was a time when the rules felt simple. If someone stood on a corner negotiating sex for money, that was prostitution. If explicit photos were being sold or traded in the wrong context, charges like pandering or promoting pornography weren’t far behind. The lines felt clear, enforceable, and, at least from a law-enforcement perspective, logical.

Then the internet showed up, kicked the door open, and said, “What if we changed one tiny detail?”

Welcome to the legal gray zone where street crimes became digital businesses.

The Old Rulebook: Money + Sex + Contact = Arrest

Traditional prostitution laws were built around a very specific formula: payment in exchange for a physical sexual act. That physical encounter was the cornerstone. Remove the contact, and suddenly prosecutors had a much harder case to make.

Back then, enforcement was straightforward. Officers needed an offer, an agreement, and an exchange tied directly to in-person activity. The crime wasn’t sexuality…. it was commercialized physical sex.

Simple equation. Easy to explain to a jury.

Then Technology Changed the Question

As phones gained cameras and the internet became everyone’s second home, something shifted. People began exchanging explicit material digitally. At first, law enforcement tried to fit this behavior into existing statutes… obscenity laws, pandering charges, promotion offenses.

But those laws were written for a world of magazines, video stores, and physical distribution networks, not individuals operating from their living rooms with a smartphone and Wi-Fi.

The law wasn’t prepared for content creators.

The Legal Pivot: Service vs. Content

Here’s the technical, and wildly important, distinction:

You cannot legally pay someone for sex. But you can legally pay to view adult content created by consenting adults. It feels like semantics, but legally it’s the line between a charge and a business model.

Prostitution involves hiring a person to perform a sexual act with you.

Subscription platforms sell access to media. (Despite the media being sexual acts) The transaction becomes entertainment, not participation. The buyer isn’t contracting a sexual encounter; they’re purchasing digital content.

It’s the difference between hiring a performer privately and buying a movie ticket.

Same themes. Completely different legal category.

Why Platforms Survive

Modern content platforms operate inside a carefully constructed legal framework:

Performers verify age and consent.
Creators act as independent contractors.
Payments are processed as subscriptions or tips.
The platform distributes media rather than arranging meetings.

The moment someone crosses into arranging real-world encounters for money, the protection disappears. That’s when old-school criminal statutes come roaring back to life.

Technology didn’t erase the law, it simply walked around it.

Why It Feels So Contradictory

For anyone who worked enforcement before the digital boom, this evolution feels backwards. Behavior that once triggered arrests now runs through credit card processors and tax forms.

But the law doesn’t regulate morality. It regulates definitions.

And the definition changed from selling access to your body to selling access to your content.

Same human impulses. Different legal framing.

The Bigger Picture

What really happened wasn’t society suddenly becoming more permissive. It was innovation exposing how narrowly laws were written. Legislators aimed at street-level activity decades ago never imagined a world where individuals could broadcast globally without ever leaving home.

The result is a strange modern reality: the marketplace didn’t disappear, it digitized.

And once it became media instead of meetings, it gained constitutional protections that old vice laws were never designed to touch.

The internet didn’t legalize prostitution.

It rebranded parts of it as entertainment and the law treats those two things very differently.

Which leaves us in today’s bizarre moment where the same behavior that once happened under neon streetlights now happens under ring lights… complete with receipts, subscriptions, and customer reviews.

Progress, contradiction, or loophole?

Depends which side of the badge you used to stand on. I remember when someone sent a video of people performing a sexual act and went to jail for it. Today, that same act earns someone millions of dollars.

Welcome to Social Media: Where Everyone Talks and Nobody Listens.

Social media is a lot like Peter Parker’s famous lesson, with great power comes great responsibility.

At least, that’s what it started as.

For me, social media was originally about connection. Keeping in touch with friends and family. Networking. Creating group pages where coworkers, relatives, and communities could actually communicate and help each other. It felt useful. Positive. Almost… wholesome.

Then the pages multiplied.

“I’m From This Town” groups. Neighborhood watch pages. Crime alert feeds. Jeep groups. Toyota groups. BMW groups. Hobby communities. Local discussion boards.

And honestly? Most of them began with great intentions. Need advice on a vehicle modification? Ask the group.
See a safety issue in your neighborhood? Share it.
Want to warn people about a hazard or help someone solve a problem? Post it.

Simple. Except somewhere along the way, the problem stopped being the platform… and became the people using it.

Now, genuine questions are labeled stupid. Helpful posts get mocked. Someone trying to inform others gets buried under sarcasm, criticism, and outright bullying. Half the comments are people tearing someone down, and the other half are arguing with those people.

We’ve somehow turned community spaces into digital food fights.

Tone doesn’t translate well online. Humor gets mistaken for insults. Sarcasm becomes outrage. Someone is always offended, someone else is always furious, and the modern battle cry has become “FAFO”, usually typed by someone who has probably never confronted anyone face-to-face in their life.

Let’s be honest: most keyboard warriors wouldn’t say a single word in public. The confidence only exists behind a screen, drinking a diet Dr. Pepper.

And yet, here’s the irony, we’ll all keep using social media.

Some of us use it for genuine connection. Some to share experiences, journeys, and photos. Some to learn. Some to help.

But understand this: even your happiest moments… your vacation, your success, your progress, will attract negativity.

Not because you did anything wrong.

But because jealousy and boredom are powerful motivators for people whose biggest adventure is scrolling through someone else’s life.

Social media didn’t change humanity.

It just gave everyone a microphone.

The Appointment That Sent Me Back to Square One

After consulting four different physicians regarding ongoing cervical spine issues, surgery was recommended as the best course of treatment. I was referred to the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute in Morgantown and felt hopeful that I was finally moving toward relief, despite the long drive.

The appointment began positively. I was seen early, and the physician assistant carefully reviewed my symptoms, history, and treatments I had already attempted.

However, my interaction with the surgeon was unexpectedly discouraging. Despite prior medical opinions and MRI findings showing severe narrowing, spinal stenosis, and a bulging disc placing pressure on a nerve, I was told, “this isn’t that bad.” The pain I experience is constant and debilitating, affecting daily function and quality of life.

When I asked questions seeking clarification, I did not feel met with empathy or clear explanation. My shoulder pain was redirected toward orthopedic causes, and ongoing arm pain and hand numbness — present continuously since before September 2025 — were described as something to monitor “if it persists.” At this stage, persistence is not the issue; this has been an ongoing condition for months.

Rather than discussing why surgical recommendations differed from multiple previous evaluations, the plan shifted toward additional testing, including a nerve study of my hand. This left me feeling that my cervical spine concerns were not fully addressed.

I understand that medical opinions can differ, and surgery should never be taken lightly. However, patients facing serious decisions deserve thorough explanation, compassion, and acknowledgment of the impact chronic pain has on daily life.

I left the appointment feeling discouraged and back at square one, now facing significant insurance and financial barriers to pursuing care elsewhere.

Confusing Attention With Relevance

Why Social Media Has Turned to Sh*t (Even Though Many of Us Still Use It for Good)

There was a time when social media actually meant something. People shared ideas. Businesses connected with customers.

Conversations, actual conversations happened.

Now?

It’s a digital carnival of noise where attention is mistaken for importance and relevance is buried under a pile of fake outrage, staged videos, and algorithm-chasing nonsense.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking “Is this valuable?” and started asking “Will this get clicks?”

And that’s when everything went sideways.

Attention Is Not the Same as Relevance

Let’s clear something up that social media desperately refuses to understand:

Getting attention doesn’t mean you matter. It just means you were loud enough, absurd enough, or annoying enough to interrupt someone’s scroll.

“Look at this!”

“Watch till the end!”

“Most people can’t answer this!”

“How many dots do you see?”

None of it is insightful. None of it is meaningful. It’s mental spam.

Attention is cheap. Relevance is earned.

But relevance takes effort, honesty, and God forbid, thought. So instead, people chase the fastest dopamine hit the algorithm will hand them.

Algorithm Farming: The New Side Hustle Nobody Admits

Let’s call it what it is: algorithm farming.

Posting content designed solely to trigger:

comments – arguments – outrage – emotional reactions

Not because the creator believes it. Not because it adds value. But because engagement equals visibility, and visibility might equal money.

“How many dots do you see?”

“If you believe this, unfollow me.”

“Only idiots disagree.”

It’s not conversation, it’s bait. And millions of people take it daily.

The worst part? The algorithm doesn’t reward truth, intelligence, or usefulness.

It rewards:

anger – stupidity – division – repetition

So guess what rises to the top? Fake Videos, Fake Reactions, Fake People

AI voices. Scripted “random” encounters. Influencers pretending they just discovered something groundbreaking that’s been common knowledge since 1998.

Everything feels staged because most of it is.

We’re watching people perform authenticity for engagement, while real experiences get buried because they’re not dramatic enough to trend.

Reality doesn’t scream. Clickbait does.

“If You Voted for ___, Unfollow Me”

This is where social media fully jumped the shark. Instead of discussion, we get ultimatums. Instead of nuance, we get tribal warfare.

It’s not courage. It’s not conviction. It’s insecurity disguised as a moral stance.

Shutting down conversation isn’t strength…. it’s fear of being challenged.

And ironically, the people screaming for tolerance are often the least tolerant of disagreement.

Why This Makes Social Media Miserable

Most of us didn’t sign up for this.

We joined to: promote our businesse – stay connected – share ideas – learn something new

Instead, we got force-fed outrage, nonsense, and fake urgency.

The problem isn’t that social media exists. It’s that it’s been optimized for engagement at the cost of sanity.

And your brain feels it. That constant low-level irritation? That feeling of being talked at instead of talked to?

That’s not you aging into irrelevance. That’s you recognizing bullshit.

The Quiet Truth

There are still people using social media the right way:

creators – small business owners – educators – thinkers

They’re just harder to hear over the noise. Social media didn’t turn to shit because people stopped caring. It turned to shit because attention became more valuable than integrity.

And until relevance matters more than reach, the loudest voices will keep winning, regardless of how empty they are.

If you’re exhausted by social media, congratulations. It means you still have standards. And in a world addicted to clicks, outrage, and fake importance, that alone makes you relevant.

Things I’m Supposed to Accept… But Don’t

We live in a world where inconvenience is enforced immediately, but accountability moves slowly… or sometimes not at all.

There are things everyone pretends make sense, and I’m not buying it anymore.

Ladies and gentlemen, I keep being told everything I’m about to mention is normal. That it’s just how business works. Just how people are. Just how the world is.

Today I’d like to submit a simple argument: normal is not the same thing as reasonable.

Let’s start small.

It is apparently normal to drive fourteen miles down the interstate with your turn signal on, passing exit after exit, never turning. At some point you stop wondering if it’s accidental. Eventually, everyone else just adjusts, drives around the confusion, and moves on.

That’s what acceptance looks like. Not agreement …. exhaustion.

Now let’s talk about business.

Every business depends on basic services like trash pickup. You sign a contract expecting a service, not a lifetime membership. Shop around, find a better rate, try to make a smart financial decision, and suddenly leaving becomes nearly impossible.

Cancellation windows, automatic renewals, clauses buried deep enough to require a legal team and a flashlight. Contracts so complex David Blaine couldn’t escape them.

A service confident in its value doesn’t need traps to keep customers.

And then there are issues that stop being frustrating and start being serious.

We are told justice is blind. We are told accountability applies equally. Yet time and again, ordinary people face immediate consequences while powerful people seem protected by delay, influence, or silence.

Justice loses credibility the moment people believe status changes outcomes.

We fine ordinary people instantly.

We bind businesses with contracts they can’t escape.

We tolerate daily dysfunction without question.

And when accountability approaches the powerful, suddenly patience becomes endless.

Maybe the issue isn’t confusion.

Maybe we understand perfectly, and we’ve simply been told long enough to stop objecting. I don’t accept that anymore.

And if questioning that makes me unreasonable, then maybe reasonable isn’t the standard we should be defending.

The Biggest Scam in America – Health Insurance

Let me explain modern healthcare as I experienced it today.

I drove nearly two hours through fog and black ice to see a specialist approved by my insurance. Two hours gripping the wheel, hoping the roads stayed clear enough to make it there safely. Two hours because I was told this was the provider I had to see.

The appointment lasted six minutes.

Six.

It took longer to walk across the parking lot than it did to discuss my condition, my pain, or the questions I’ve been carrying for weeks. I left with more uncertainty than answers, more frustration than relief, and the same pain I arrived with, just now paired with exhaustion and irritation.

And somehow, this is considered acceptable healthcare.

I am told I cannot be seen by a qualified provider forty minutes from my home because of “coverage rules,” yet a two-hour drive is apparently reasonable. Risk, fatigue, weather, missed work, and physical strain don’t factor into decisions made behind desks by people who will never meet the patient affected.

This isn’t healthcare. This is logistics management disguised as care.

Government oversight and insurance bureaucracy have turned treatment into a maze where the patient is the only one expected to sacrifice time, comfort, and safety just to receive the bare minimum of attention. Every step requires approval. Every approval requires justification. Every justification feels like begging for permission to get better.

Meanwhile, pain doesn’t wait for paperwork.

Illness doesn’t care about provider networks.

And healing certainly doesn’t happen on a six-minute timer.

Remember “55 Strong”? Lately it feels more like “55 Weak.” What exactly are West Virginia teachers paying for? Because years later, many are still asking the same question: what was actually fixed? The strike ended, but the healthcare problems never did.

Patients were promised stability. What they received was confusion, denials, and longer drives for shorter answers. And a PEIA Benefits Tier that doesn’t even make sense to those trying to explain it.

And then comes the moment that perfectly sums it all up.

The doctor asked if I had any questions.

That may have been a mistake.

Because when you spend hours traveling for minutes of care, questions come with opinions. Real ones. Honest ones. The kind that don’t fit neatly into appointment time slots. I’m still not sure whether patients can be banned from hospitals, but apparently asking direct questions about your own health makes people uncomfortable. And unable to be answered.

What’s most frustrating isn’t just the inconvenience, it’s the message underneath it all: efficiency matters more than outcomes, policies matter more than people, and distance on a map matters more than continuity of care.

Patients are told to be patient. To trust the system. To accept delays, denials, and decisions that make no practical sense.

But after today, I’m done pretending this system is functioning the way it was intended.

Because when getting treatment feels harder than being broken, something is fundamentally wrong.

Where Are the Chinese Food Commercials?

I’ve been alive almost 53 years.

I’ve seen commercials for everything. Pizza chains fighting like they’re in the octagon!

Burger joints slow-motion dripping cheese.

Red Lobster pushing their new boil like it’s the best thing you’ll have on your plate.

Sonic advertising to me for decades… even though the closest one is in another zip code, time zone, and possibly dimension.

If it’s edible, I’ve seen a commercial for it.

Except Chinese food.

Seriously. In nearly five and a half decades of life, I have never once seen a dramatic, cinematic, 4K, slow-motion General Tso’s chicken commercial.

No announcer saying,

“THIS SUNDAY… ORANGE CHICKEN.”

No hibachi chef flipping shrimp into a model’s mouth during the Super Bowl.

Nothing. And yet… Every town has at least one Chinese restaurant that has been there since Jimmy Carter took office.

They don’t advertise. They don’t rebrand. They don’t introduce a “NEW Buffalo Teriyaki Crunch Wrap.”

They just exist. And somehow, they are always busy.

Meanwhile, Pizza… Pizza chains behave like they’re running for office.

“$6.99! Limited time! Vote Pepperoni!”

Chinese restaurants? “Number 12. Ready in 15 minutes.”

That’s it. That’s the marketing campaign.

My Theory

Chinese food doesn’t chase you. It waits.

You don’t see a billboard and suddenly crave lo mein. It hits you randomly on a Tuesday night at 8:47 PM.

You’re tired. You don’t want to cook. You open the fridge. Nothing speaks to you.

And then it happens. You whisper it.

“Egg rolls.”

And five minutes later you’re ordering enough food to feed a family of six and pretending it’s “for tomorrow too.”

The Quiet Confidence of Fried Rice

Maybe that’s the secret. Some foods scream for attention. Others just quietly dominate.

No commercials. No jingles. No celebrity endorsements.

Just consistency, speed, and that little soy sauce packet you can never open cleanly.

And honestly? I kind of respect that.

The commercial should be thousands of spicy mustard packets multiplying quietly in junk drawers across America.

Just sitting there. Waiting.

Whispering….. “Hey… how’s some vegetable lo mein sound?”