Local

Thursday, August 18, 2022, 2:00 PM
Please join us for a discussion on how the fear of “The Great Replacement” has provided motivation for many heinous attacks on racial and religious minorities and what should be the role of religious communities in dispelling this myth perpetuated by white supremacist groups. 

 Join Religions for Peace USA Live! Via Zoom & Facebook.  

Register for the webinar here. 

If Columbus, Ohio had a free (almost) daily press, this essay would be published in Columbus Dispatch. But it does not. As many readers are aware, I am banned from the unedited Opinion page of our local USA Today/Gannett outlet because I expressed the truth on its own readers’ comments site. I called the Opinion page “muddled” and “uninformed,” which no one can deny. As a result, the “Opinion and Engagement Editor,” who had published my essays and letters regularly and accepted my advice, summarily banned me from its pages. This contravenes both the First Amendment and USA Today’s own thin Statement of Standards. Neither Dispatch nor USA Today/Gannett cares about that. The Opinion page makes it clear that truthfulness, facts, or clear English expression are not concerns.

According to members of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition, the SAFE Banking Act, as written, is not a safe bet to achieve fair and equitable access to financial services for those in the cannabis industry.

Please join us for another Cannabis Regulatory Deep Dive as our panel of experts shares their analysis of the SAFE Banking Act, why it would fall short of its goals, and recommendations to improve fair access to cannabis banking as detailed in their newly released paper, Not a SAFE Bet: Equitable Access to Cannabis Banking.

Learn More and Register

Panelists:
Cat Packer, Distinguished Cannabis Policy Practitioner in Residence, Drug Enforcement and Policy Center, The Ohio State University

Last October, The Free Press asked when, if ever, Columbus Division of Police Chief Elaine Bryant would discipline Deputy Chief Jennifer Knight for sustained charges of retaliation against Lt. Melissa McFadden.  

Read the complete story here: https://columbusfreepress.com/article/will-chief-bryant-keep-her-promise-and-hold-police-officers-accountable

In the ten months we have been waiting to learn of Knight’s discipline, McFadden has won a federal lawsuit against the city and the Division proving discrimination and retaliation involving other actions taken against her by Knight and others. McFadden will be promoted to Commander on August 19th, an event delayed due to the discrimination proven to the jury in the federal lawsuit. 

Now through August 31, 2022
"The Revolution Generation" documentary was created by the activist/filmmaker team Josh Tickell and Rebecca Harrell-Tickell, and is the follow-up to their previous documentary "Kiss the Ground,"

When you register you will receive a virtual link to watch the documentary anytime through August 31st. We plan to hold a discussion later this summer with young millennial activists. The film gives a roadmap for how today’s youth can revolutionize the political, social and economic systems that have exploited and failed them. This upbeat documentary explores “an alternate history” of the sweeping changes that lead to the world that young people are inheriting and paints a powerful, hopeful, and actionable picture of how today’s youth can solve the global climate crisis. 

Israel again preemptively attacked Gaza from August 5 until a ceasefire was brokered by Egypt and the UN effective late on August 7.  The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Occupied Palestinian territory (OHCHR oPt) confirmed a total of 46 Palestinian fatalities, including 16 children.  Additionally, it has been reported that 360 Palestinians were injured including at least 151 children, 58 women and 19 older persons.  The shelling damaged 1,761 housing units, 450 Palestinians have been internally displaced, and 8,500 people have been impacted by the damages. 

Three days of Israeli bombardment in Gaza killed at least 44 Palestinians, including 15 children. Since 2008, Israel has launched four major attacks on the Palestinian territory, killing around 4,000 people – one-quarter of them children.  This doesn’t include Gazans killed and injured by Israeli sniper fire during the Great March of Return (2018-2019). 

I ate a wonderful meal yesterday [8-12-2022] at Ranchero Kitchen, a Salvadorian restaurant at 984 Morse Rd. [just east of I-71]. That restaurant had been recommended to me several years ago by a friend; however, I am so rarely in that part of town that it had taken me quite a while to be able to actually eat there. One of the many organizations with which I am active had scheduled a "social event" 2½ miles east of Ranchero Kitchen so I decided to take Uber to Ranchero Kitchen, to eat there, and then to walk from there -- for about forty minutes -- to my "social event."

Ranchero Kitchen evidently used to have a website but now does not have a website [in spite of the fact that Google Maps says that they have a website]. There is a Facebook page that reportedly includes "menu, prices, and restaurant reviews" but I had not been able to find any of those things on their Facebook page. Someone, thankfully, has taken photographs of the extensive menu that is available at Ranchero Kitchen and has posted those photographs to Google Maps. I always like to be able to study a menu in advance of a visit to a restaurant.

The August Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon had the theme “Health, Housing and Hope - building a multiracial national movement.” It was on Zoom and live on Facebook.

Watch the salon video here.

Free Press Board member Mark Stansbery facilitated the salon, and introduced the first speaker, Bob Krasen of the Single-Payer Action Network (SPAN-Ohio). Bob talked about US legislation that would pay 100% of cost of full health care for everyone – HR 1976, Senate Bill 4204 – Medicare for All. The legislation has been held up because of powerful lobbyists, mostly Big Pharma and insurance companies, added Dr. Alice Faryna, also of SPAN-Ohio.

Only in Columbus, Ohio, can “ideas [be] considered for Downtown plan” without confronting the physical reality or the history of downtown. That, of course, is the Columbus Way. Historical and physical reality, including concrete, cannot interfere with fantasy or selling and buying.

If I didn’t know better, I would be surprised. But after all, this is Columbus, Ohio, with no identity and no history, no democratic governance, leadership, or urban expertise.  I wrote in December 2021 that “Columbus searches for its Downtown with historical, urbanist, and developers’ blinders,” and in January 2022 that “Columbus, Ohio, searches to be a city: The myth of the Columbus Way.”

Columbus, Ohio is also geographically challenged. This is the city that can’t tell the difference between the Short North and Greenwich Village or Near North Side of Chicago, the Convention Center and Times Square; the Scioto Riverfront and Boston Harbor, Lake Michigan, or San Francisco Bay.

Primary tabs

“Simply Living’s Sustainable Living and Garden Tour!,” hosted by Simply Living

Saturday, August 13, 10am-3pm [tour nine sustainable sites at your own pace]; Sunday, August 14, 2pm [at a solar and permaculture site in Galloway, Ohio]

Saturday, August 13, 10am-3pm

• There are nine stops on this self-paced tour.

• Tour sites are in these zip codes [43203, 43205, 43209, 43214, 43215, and 43235] and include residential homes, community gardens, and urban farms.

• A detailed map will be sent to all ticket buyers by August 8.

Sunday, August 14, 2pm

• A special guided tour by the owners of a solar and permaculture farm and residence in Galloway Ohio.