The GOP response last week to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland’s belatedly coming to his senses on responsibly healing a crippled state budget reminds me of how many Republicans at the state and national level are opportunistic party hacks (and/or fanatical anti-government ideologues). Their sense of the public welfare doesn’t move a millimeter past the idea that taxes are bad, no matter what they’re paying for.

The Athens County Democratic Party sternly endorsed a no-tolerance stance with regard to its chairwoman Monday night. While applauding party chair Susan Gwinn repeatedly, the Dems’ Central Committee drew a firm a line in the sand:

By God, the party will not tolerate Gwinn stepping down from her post while she’s under indictment.

Well, our governor has gotten us into a fine mess by his refusal to consider tax increases to solve the continuing state budget crisis.

The crisis got ever more complicated on Monday when the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the governor/legislature’s slot-machine plan is subject to a citizen referendum. At the very least, this means that the state’s $50.5 billion budget is in limbo until Dec. 20, the deadline for an opposition group to come up with enough petition signatures to force a referendum in November 2010.

The story arose so suddenly this summer that I didn’t have time to properly digest it, nor, I’m guessing, did many Athens residents.

The lead paragraph for our June 25 story read, “In a stunning turnabout, the city of Athens is now actively pursuing the purchase of most of the site of the biggest proposed development in recent city history.”

My response was, “What?!” with another question coming close behind: “Who decided to make this momentous decision, affecting city taxpayers in multiple ways, with virtually no public input?”

Some quick thoughts to fill this four or five inches of fallow space:

• Sheriff Pat Kelly is making a mistake in taking the case of the alleged police-dog threatener to the Athens County grand jury (see story in this issue). Just about everybody in the county thinks the case is ludicrous, even if the construction worker hollered a threat directly at the police pooch. Even the Athens police chief questions the prosecution, though that might have as much to do with territorial concerns as the appropriateness of using the state law in this manner.

Welcome back to town, Ohio University students. And hello again, our regular “townie” readers (I can use that term with affection, since I are one).

I’m going to talk about change today in this column. Don’t you think it’s time to retire the penny coin, and put more dollar coins into circulation?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love dogs. My favorite beagle just moved out to New Mexico and I’m severely distraught about that. And for God’s sake, my favorite character on “True Blood” is Sam the bartender/border collie.

But I also like humans, and at the risk of riling up dog lovers (and dogs), I still believe that an ordinary human’s life is worth more than an ordinary dog’s life. (However, I understand perfectly if a dog takes the opposite position on this matter.)

This ongoing health-care debate has been making me so angry lately that I’ve had to quadruple my blood-pressure pills. Well, I’m exaggerating, but it does royally tick me off to see what I consider ignorant people being manipulated into angrily opposing reforms that would replace the current inefficient, costly and inhumane system.

There’s that concept “anger” again.

Athens County Prosecutor Dave Warren wants to throw the book at an Ohio University student who allegedly “provided” Eric S. Hansen with the magic mushroom (psilocybin) that he ingested at some point before falling/jumping out of a fourth-floor dorm window on April 28.

Hansen died after hitting the ground below Weld House on OU’s South Green.

Word has it that the Republican Party is encouraging state Sen. Jimmy Stewart, R-Albany, to run against Zack Space in the 18th Congressional District in 2010. He recently told Roll Call in Washington, D.C., that he planned to make his decision soon.

This could make for an interesting general election race between moderates, except that Stewart, in order to win his party’s nomination, probably will need to transform himself into the sort of red-meat conservative that wins Republican primaries.