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By Nobel Peace Prize Watch, April 28, 2022

Honorable Prime Ministers of the five Nordic countries, Magdalena Anderson, Mette Frederiksen, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Sanna Marin, and Jonas Gahr Støre

The war in Ukraine once again shows that the world is like a city with brutal gangs constantly roaming the streets, looting and fighting with loads of heavy weapons. No one will ever feel safe in such a city. The same applies at the international level. No amount of weaponry can make us safe. No country will be safe until also neighboring countries can feel safe. The present international system is broken, to avoid future wars we need deep reforms.

Today is Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). It marks the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. Each day, as we hear more and more horrible stories about the Russian invasion and learn about Ukrainian refugees,

I cannot help but think about my great-great-grandfather, Shlomo Schwarz (1852-1944). During the pogroms of the 1880s, he fled his home (in what is now a town in Ukraine near the Polish border) to find a better life here in the United States. Within his lifetime, the Nazis exterminated more than 6 million Jews and others who they deemed "the other." Today, please take a moment to read this very uncomfortable essay about my experience at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

"Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

I truly wish these words of Ike, uttered seven decades ago, were no longer quite so relevant. Perhaps what he should have called it was a “cross of irony.”

Just in time for the primary election on May 3, Homebound Entrepreneurs Against DeWines is putting its quirky political ad “Meet Mike DeSwine” on TV news channels around Ohio this week, while the PAC’s second ad “Tax Hike Mike” will be heard on conservative radio stations across the state by the weekend.

The PAC’s launch video “Meet Mike DeSwine” –– which debuted earlier in April –– received thousands of views on social media and featured the voices of Morgan Hughes from #SaveTheCrew and comedian Corey Ryan Forrester. The "Tax Hike Mike” ad slams Governor DeWine for keeping Ohio’s gas taxes high and features narration by podcaster Ben Kissel.

Wednesday, April 27, 7pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

This bill has passed the House and is already before the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee now. They could hear it at any time. We need to act now! Join us for a discussion on what the bill will do, why the secrecy, and how it can affect every Ohioan.

H.B. 434 states that its proposed activities are an essential governmental function and that it addresses matters of public necessity. It repeals the Ohio Department of Health’s authorization to regulate and oversee entities dealing with radioactivity.

Eight of the bill’s 14 pages are taken up creating a convoluted process for getting board members onto the Nuclear Development Authority.

As if this were not enough to ensure that the public will be shut out of involvement and oversight of activities, today’s amendment would move the Authority under the auspices of the Ohio Department of Development.

Bringing back memories of the 1992 Rodney King trial, thirty years later almost to the day, a jury in Ohio’s federal court failed to convict the Columbus police officers guilty of 23-year-old Henry Green’s 2016 murder. In fact it was the second time in a month a mostly all-white jury refused to find Columbus police liable in the death of an alleged suspect, as was the case for former Vice cop Andrew Mitchell when he was on trial for killing Donna Dalton.

News reports about the April 26 verdict reveal much too brief and outrageously misleading accounts of the incident that led to Green’s death.

On Spectrum News, a reporter discussed the recent trial and lauded its verdict, lamenting the suffering of poor brave police officers in the city who have to confront such street violence. What’s more, those in attendance this week believe an overwhelming police presence within the federal courtroom possibly intimidated jurors.

Part One

The shame of the city

What happened to the University District?

The area adjacent to The Ohio State University in the middle of Columbus, Ohio, was once a distinctive, mixed neighborhood of owner-occupiers and their boarders and renters in small, scattered, private rooming houses and single-family homes. Over several decades it was transformed into the dominance—numerically, culturally, socially, politically, and economically—of large, for-profit landlords with young-adult student tenants. For 18 years I’ve been co-owner of a 107-year-old, architect-designed house in the district whose history partly reflects this transformation; it morphed from dual-family to multiple student renters and back to single-family status. The 2021-22 period crystalizes the 40-year history of this landmark neighborhood’s decline.

Concerned Ohio River Residents (CORR) recently completed soil sampling near the Austin Master Services oil and gas waste handling facility in Martins Ferry, OH and had the soil sent to Oak Ridge Laboratory in TN, a certified governmental testing facility for radiological analysis. We shared those results at a press event on April 4th. The samples were taken along the public roadway in front of the main gate of the facility, and compared to the background samples taken at a park and cemetery about a mile away, the results were over 10 X's background level radiation. Compounding the problem is the fact that before the radioactive waste facility came to town, the site was an old steel processing facility that released millions of tons of pollutants into the environment for decades. This facility is within 1,000 feet of the nearest pumping wells for drinking water for Martins Ferry, Bridgeport, and other communities.

Monday, April 25, 2022, 5:45 PM
We had bad weather luck twice, so now we have a shelter! It's the first shelter, near the parking lot when you first arrive at Whetstone.  Bring a snack or drink to share. We will chat and hang out, but also have a meeting. Comment in this event if you have things you'd like added to our agenda.  Location: Whetstone Park, Shelter 1.  Facebook. 

Sunday, April 24, 5-6pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

UUJO’s Environmental Justice Team presents “Connecting the Dots” on Sunday, April 24, focusing on community gardens in rural and urban Ohio and their impact on food justice, access to healthy sustainable food, resilience, and mitigation of food deserts.

Pam Roberts, Executive Director of Together We Grow Gardens, will share resources and ideas for creating community gardens that provide greater equity and food justice. Come and share your successes and questions about community gardening!

“Connecting the Dots: Planet, People, Power” was launched by UUJO: Unitarian Universalist Justice Ohio in September 2021. We meet monthly to provide a platform for issues of environmental justice along with actions that can be performed during each meeting. Our monthly topics are driven by you and the immediate areas of environmental injustice that you are confronting right now.

RSVP for this event by using this link.