Jay, if you really want to help ...

When people are elected to public office they seem suddenly blessed with infinite knowledge that the rest of us lack. This could be the reason that State Representative Jay Hottinger choses to teach us about ways we can become involved in our kids' education and about the perils of the Internet.

His wisdom, for instance, inspired him to instruct us recently that "You should never allow your child to arrange a face-to-face meeting with anyone they meet on-line without a parent present at the meeting."

We didn't know that, but now we have it from an elected official so we will not forget.

Come on, Jay. Fer God's sake, get with the program. Tell us, for instance, what goes on behind the scenes at the state capital. Tell us why taxes are so high. Tell us how votes are purchased by lobbyists. Tell us who's trading what kind of influence in order to get what. Get to the good stuff.

But most of all, tell us why you're not out front as an Ohio lawmaker on making this state safer for students by requiring schools to bus them as suggested in my recent essay "School busing should be mandated."