Last week I saw a little African-American girl who looked to be about five years old walking with, I assume her mother. I then saw other young African-American girls entering an elementary school. They appeared to be between five and eight years old.

They were normal little girls. Running, laughing and looking happy to be going to school. They were of different hues of color, some short and some tall for their ages. They wore normal clothing for children their age. Most of them had something else in common. They were wearing fake hair. Hair that was long and almost for some, touching their backside. Hair that they had to brush out of their eyes as they ran to enter the school doors. Hair in styles that made them look like little women. Hair that clearly wasn’t their own.

Ohio’s environment and the planet would be more peaceful and green if Dennis Kucinich was in charge. That was his message when the former Cleveland mayor, former U.S. Congressperson and former presidential candidate spoke Saturday, April 1 at Columbus’ 5th Annual Move to Amend statewide conference. Kucinich’s keynote was entitled “Ending Corporate Personhood and Money as Speech.” He touched on several environmental and social justice issues that could be changed if the Move to Amend movement was successful in passing a Constitutional amendment to reverse several U.S. Supreme Court decisions during the past century and thereby firmly establish that corporations are not people and that money is not free speech.

Kucinich held up the March issue of the Columbus Free Press as he referred to Harvey Wasserman’s article “Ohio’s Crumbling Nukes Face Judgment Day” about the attempt to have taxpayers bail out Ohio’s nuclear power plants. He described Free Press Senior Editor Wasserman as “one of the foremost citizen activists anywhere on nuclear issues.”

A Noise Within’s uplifting Man of La Mancha is arguably one of the best shows in town. Based on Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th century novel Don Quixote, this musical with book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh, La Mancha became one of Broadway’s immortal masterpieces, with the 1965 production winning five Tonys (including Best Musical and for its peerless star, Richard Kiley), running for 2,328 performances, with four revivals on the Great White Way.

La Mancha’s well-deserved success is due, in part, to its exquisite songs that are so beautiful this music could teach larks how to warble. But the music, lyrics and plot also perfectly captured that sixties idealism which subsequent musicals, such as Hair, would likewise come to express. Not long after Dr. King’s lofty “I have a dream” speech, Don Quixote sang about his “Impossible Dream”, wherein the aging, noble knight pledges:

Anti Gorsuch Counter Rally
Thursday, April 6, 1-2pm
Ohio Statehouse
Trump administration is calling for a pro Gorsuch rally at the Columbus state house tomorrow at noon. That means he is worried about the confirmation and our strong counter-rally will send Portman a strong message!

Micro-plastics, the EPA, Fracking: You Choose! with Dr. Lanno
Thursday, April 6, 7:30-8:30pm
Backstage Bistro, 503 S Front St, Columbus, Ohio 43215

In a world rife with 24/7 breaking news alerts, chaos in politics and fearful citizens, a tonic can be the healthy foods coming from our community gardens in Columbus.

Kossuth Street Garden has been operational since 2007, bringing social justice in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables and community involvement to a food desert on the near south side of Columbus. This is an area just south of Nationwide Children's Hospital that is third in the nation in black infant mortality rates and is in transition from blight to hope.

The site has a rich history. At one point it was the site of a slaughterhouse in this former predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Men and women liberated from Nazi concentration camps walked to work into the kosher sections of the slaughterhouse. It then became a produce warehouse and which was torn down in 1996.