The Republic from Columbus, Indiana • Page 8

The Republic, Columbus, Friday, December 27, 2013 A8 HE recently concluded Christmas shopping season served as an expensive lesson in shopping techniques for owners and operators of retail businesses. The teaching tools were a number of incidents that saw a considerable amount of money and merchandise flow into the wrong hands. Judging by the most recent incident, some merchants obviously got the message. On Dec. 1, four Indianapolis residents were arrested on the southeast side of Columbus on forgery charges, accused of buying merchandise at five stores in the Columbus area with counterfeit money.

On Dec. 10, a Columbus resident was arrested in Indianapolis along with two other individuals when police discovered counterfeit $100 bills in an apartment along with weapons and drug paraphernalia. On Dec. 18, a Clark County man was arrested and accused of passing counterfeit $100 bills in a Columbus store. In one respect, the most recent arrest is a direct aftereffect of one of the earlier incidents.

It took place a day after The Republic carried a story on the exploits of the four Indianapolis residents who used the bogus bills to purchase thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from four area stores earlier in the month. It was at the fifth store that a cashier became suspicious of the bills handed over for the purchase and notified a supervisor, who in turn called police, steps which led to the arrest of the four individuals and recovery of the goods purchased at the other stores. That arrest also spawned an investigation into suspected counterfeiting activities at an Indianapolis apartment, where a Columbus man and two others were arrested almost two weeks later. The publicity about the Dec. 1 arrest focused attention on the need for stores to be more vigilant in handling large amount currencies, and that knowledge was utilized by at least one cashier and proved the undoing of the suspect who was arrested after a foot chase.

Incidents such as these are rare, but many retail stores go to great lengths in training cashiers to be extremely wary of large bills, especially during busy periods, such as the holiday shopping season. That the bogus bills were spotted at two of the stores is somewhat reassuring. That one of the arrests was made after the earlier incidents were given considerable publicity shows that the lesson was well-learned. Chuck Wells Publisher Email address: Harry McCawley Associate Editor Email address: shall endeavor to make our paper the champion of the people of Bartholomew County and we shall advocate, irrespective of political considerations, all measures that have for their object the good of the community. In short, we hope to make our paper such as no intelligent person in the county can do Isaac T.

Brown, Founding Editor, 1875 Tom Jekel Editor Email address: Bogus cash incidents prove to be costly lessons CONTACT YOUR LAWMAKERS State Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, District 41, Ethics (chairman), Commerce and Economic Development (ranking member), Insurance and Financial Institutions, Pensions and Labor, Tax and Fiscal Policy. Contact: Senator.Walker@iga. in.gov or 317-232-9400 or 800-382-9467. State Sen.

Johnny Nugent, R-Lawrenceburg, District 43, Committees: None. Contact: Senator. or 317-232-9400 or 800-382-9467. State Sen. Brent Steele, R-Bedford, District 44, Agriculture and Natural Resources; Corrections; Criminal and Civil Matters (chair); Civil Matters Subcommittee; Ethics; Insurance and Financial Institutions; Financial Institutions Subcommittee; Judiciary; Probate Code and Trustee Subcommittee.

Contact: Senator.Steele@iga. in.gov or 317-232-9400. or 800-382-9467. State Rep. Milo Smith, R-Columbus, District 59, Elections and Apportionment (chairman); Select Committee on Government Reduction; Family, Children and Human Affairs.

Contact: or 800-382-9841. State Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, District 69. Contact: h69.iga.in.gov or 800-382-9841. U.S.

Rep. Luke Messer, 6th District Muncie 107 W. Charles Muncie, IN 47305. Phone: 765-747-5566. Fax: 765-747-5586.

Richmond: 50 N. Fifth Richmond, IN 47374. Phone: 765-962-2883. Fax: 765-962-3225. Man wants to give belongings to blood relative HE story of Matthew planned gift to the Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum is heartwarming.

But at the same time, a measure of sadness associated with it. Matthew is a Columbus native who is now an airline pilot based in Milwaukee. His mother is Barbara Jo King, a former religion columnist for The Republic who still lives in Columbus. Sometime next year he plans to come to Columbus and hand over to museum supporters some of the personal effects that once belonged to Leslie Woods, a former Columbus resident who served with the U.S. Army during World War II and was killed in action during the final days of that conflict.

hoping that someone who was a lot closer to Leslie Woods a blood relative will come forward to claim those materials. The sadness is that despite months of extensive searching, he has yet to find such a person. only link to Leslie Woods is through a marriage more than 50 years ago. stepmother married grandfather. Prior to that union, the woman now known as Marie Pope had been married to Gordon Woods, the father of Leslie and an older son named Frank.

Leslie was born in Peoria, but his family moved to Columbus when he was five years old. He attended Columbus schools and worked at the Hamilton Manufacturing a forerunner of Dorel Juvenile Group, and Columbus Auto Supply Co. He entered service in 1942 and was eventually assigned to the European Theater. He served with the 78th Lightning Division and on March 23, 1945, was killed in a German counter-attack in Belgium. He was buried in a military cemetery in Belgium, but in 1947 his remains were returned to Columbus and his father.

He was re-interred in Garland Brook Cemetery. Sometime in the early Gordon Woods died at the age of 55, and he was buried alongside his son. Following the death of her husband, stepmother kept many of her personal effects. She died in 2000, and belongings were passed on to Matthew. The belongings have no monetary value photos of Leslie in uniform, the telegram informing his father that he had been killed in action, his Purple Heart certificate but they all might have a far deeper personal value to a blood kin, even descendants of a blood kin.

Leslie is of no blood relation to me, searched by many methods for his next of Matthew said last week. of my own family members are really involved in genealogical research and helped me, but so far we had any The main search centered on brother Frank. The trouble is that Leslie would be 92 today had he lived. was an older brother and would be well into his 90s if he were Matthew said. his children would likely be in their 60s or Matthew believes strongly that belongings deserve better than to be discarded.

Absent discovery to this point of a blood relative, he began considering alternatives. He found one in a museum dedicated to an area he became familiar with as a child. grew up playing at the old Air Base and was an he recalled in an email to Gordon Lake, a staff volunteer at the Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum. Gordon responded that the museum and its board of directors would be happy to take ownership of the materials. Assured of a repository for Leslie effects, Matthew still holds out hope that there is a family member somewhere who will come forward and claim the materials.

Leslie Woods might be a complete stranger to such relatives, but at least he will be with family. Harry McCawley is associate editor of The Republic. He can be reached by phone at 379-5620 or email at UBMITTED PHOTO Pfc. Leslie Woods, shown in his Army uniform, grew up and attended school in Columbus. He was killed in action in the last days of World War II.

Harry McCawley ONGRESS is winding down its historically unproductive session with a small flurry of activity. a welcome change, but so long overdue that it possibly make up for what should have been accomplished on Capitol Hill this year. The problem is that, for too long, members of Congress have been working hard at everything except the one thing they should have been working hard at: legislating. been so unproductive that actually threatened our world standing and our domestic well-being. To be sure, they are moving incrementally.

Gridlock is breached but not broken. The likelihood is that Congress will pass a defense bill. It reached a small-scale budget agreement that undoes a bit of the damage caused by the sequester. It is finally starting to work through a list as long as your arm of judicial and executive-branch confirmations, but only because Senate Democrats decided they had to change the rules if they wanted to fill long-unfilled government appointments. Yet the list of what Congress done is sobering.

no food-stamp reauthorization or waterways construction bill. It passed a one-month extension to the farm bill, but that falls far short of the certainty this crucial economic sector needs. no lasting solution to the debt ceiling problem. Almost nothing has been done about the fundamental gap between taxes and spending. It has left unemployment benefits unresolved, immigration reform unresolved, tax reform unresolved, and action on climate change unresolved.

This lack of productivity makes me wonder if Congress can address truly hard challenges without a crisis before it. Mind you, some legislators take pride in how unproductive Congress has been. They argue that the less the government does, the better. But given pathetically low standing in the polls, clear that most Americans agree. They like incompetence, as their response to the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act suggests, and they really like people who dodge their responsibilities, which is what ineffectiveness amounts to.

Unlike many members of Congress, Americans seem to understand that things that ought to be done are not getting done and that there are real costs to inaction. in a competitive race with China for world leadership; and whether we like it or not, others around the globe are comparing our two governments. The attractiveness of the American model is under challenge, and our political dysfunction is a serious handicap. As the Wall Street Journal put it recently, a superpower that sure it can fund its government or pay its bills is not in a position to lead. And because problems getting addressed, others are stepping into the breach at home, too but with less transparency, less accountability, and less flexibility.

The Fed is doing the heavy lifting on the economy. The Supreme Court is essentially legislating. Executive branch agencies are trying to handle massively difficult challenges through executive orders. State and local governments have decided that even on issues they truly address effectively, like immigration, on their own. When asked about all this, congressional leaders tend to blame the other house, arguing that done their best but the other side has bottled up their efforts.

All I can say is, finger-pointing is not an excuse, an admission of failure. A responsibility is to enact legislation, not just get a bill through the house of Congress he or she controls. Legislating is tough, demanding work. It requires many hours of conversation about differences, commonalities and possible solutions. It demands patience, mutual respect, persistence, collegiality, compromise, artful negotiation and creative leadership.

Especially when Congress is so divided. Yet when Congress meets only episodically throughout the year, when it often works just three days a week and plans an even more relaxed schedule in 2014, when the House and Senate give themselves just one overlapping week this month to resolve huge questions of public policy, you can only come to one conclusion: not really willing to work hard at legislating. A last-minute flurry of bills offers hope, but going to take a lot more work to convince the country that Congress knows how to live up to its responsibilities. Lee Hamilton is the director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University. A former Columbus attorney, he was a member of the U.S.

House of Representatives, representing 9th District for 34 years. Congressional finger-pointing admission of failure, no excuse for legislative inaction Lee Hamilton.