Feature

The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) earlier this week unanimously voted to urge the Ohio State University administration not to renew its lease agreement for an on-campus Wendy’s due to the company’s failure to commit to the Fair Food Program, which provides verifiable human rights protections to farmworkers in its supply chain.

The Fair Food Program is “the gold standard for enforcing human rights in the U.S. agricultural system,” declared the USG.

Pioneered by the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the social responsibility program has been adopted by some of the biggest fast-food chains and supermarkets in the world, including McDonald’s and Walmart, and has a track record second-to-none for eliminating longstanding farm labor abuses ranging from forced labor to sexual assault. 

Wendy’s is the last fast-food giant to reject the Fair Food Program. during a pandemic no less. According to the CIW nearly 90,000 meatpacking workers, food processing workers, and farmworkers have tested positive for COVID-19, as food and agricultural workers have suffered the highest COVID-19 death rates of workers in any occupation. 

It wasn’t a big ask, thought Michael Doody who runs the endangered Kossuth Street Garden. Can the City of Columbus facilitate a meeting with the Salvation Army, which held the land’s deed, so it can understand his vision for the garden?

He wanted to present his plan to the Salvation Army but was not getting a response, so he asked the City of Columbus to help get that meeting.

But city development employees scoffed, telling him, “The city does not get involved in the sale of private land.”

“I said, ‘Really?’” recalls Doody, a southside activist who since 2007 has turned the garden into an anchor for the Southern Orchards neighborhood on the southside of Columbus. “I bet I could come up with a dozen cases if I speak to zoning reform advocates in this city. The city was involved in private land in the Short North. They gave private owners tax abatements to build in the Short North.”

All Doody wanted to do was make an offer to the Salvation Army so to show them his plans.

On the longest night of the year, when Saturn and Jupiter connected in the galaxy, on the South Side of Columbus, a couple of dozen people gathered together at the Kossuth Street Garden to their Winter Solstice Event.

Kossuth Street Garden director Michael Doody posted on his Facebook page that the Winter Solstice is “The Return of the Sun” in the Inuit Tribe. The Garden was lit with Luminaries to bring light to the Garden. The approximate two dozen attendees each held a candle to commemorate those who we lost this year. The purpose of this year’s Winter Solstice Event was to honor the Frontliners of the COVID-19 Pandemic, and to fight to keep the Kossuth Street Garden alive.

The Kossuth Street Garden, in the Southern Orchards Neighborhood in South Columbus is the target of re-development by developers. The South Side Area Commission and the Southern Orchards Civic Association both approved the Zoning Variances for development on the site. In January, the Garden will head to the City of Columbus Division of Planning and Development.

Not unsurprisingly, the so-called Trumpster “patriots” plan armed demonstrations in Washington D.C. and at all state capitol buildings this week, according to reports.

This is a good time to review Ohio’s updated “stand your ground” law, which the Republican-besieged Statehouse pushed to get passed during the summer of social justice.

Remember, “stand your ground” is how George Zimmerman, when he was playing his favorite make-believe game “biased cop,” got away with murdering Trayvon Martin.

When Gov. DeWine recently signed Senate Bill 175, he made it legal for Ohioans, if they feel threatened, to shoot and kill in nearly all places, not just their residence or vehicle.

The law also abolishes the “duty to retreat” or try to get away first, meaning “a person has no duty to retreat before using force in self-defense,” as stated in the law.

Stand your ground is what justified gun-fighting in the Old West.

The combination of over-policing by officers who weren’t raised or reside in our community has proven deadly for decades and made Columbus the current epicenter to one of this nation’s most important social justice movements ever.

Many activists and African-Americans were already in the know, but what many others learned in 2020 is that certain neighborhoods of Columbus are over-policed. And in too many situations by officers with no roots to Columbus who were raised in rural Ohio to have prejudices against the community and many of those who live here.

“Are you aware how many black children fear and hate the police?” asks De-Escalate Ohio’s director Cynthia Brown, whose nephew Kareem Ali Nadir Jones was shot and killed by Columbus police in 2017. Police body cam footage shows the white officers did not have good reason to approach Jones who was unarmed, and when they did, they overreacted.

According to Brown, just 20 percent of Columbus police live in Columbus. The Ohio Supreme Court removed any residency requirements roughly five years ago, and before that an officer could live in any neighboring county.

As 2020 finally comes to an end, many publications are releasing their annual “best and worst” lists, but in a year marred by such tragedy, is anything worth celebrating? Many are simply summing up 2020 with terms like “please end” or “go away,” or letters such as “WTF,” “SMH” or “JFC.” Here in Ohio, there were at leasta few silver linings in a very dark year, but since the good doesn’t always outweigh the bad, we’ll just remember 2020 as “one of those years” and hope for better days in the Buckeye State ahead.

THE WORST

- COVID-19 - This is a no-brainer, as the coronavirus pandemic killed thousands of Ohioans, destroyed the economy and completely disrupted our way of life. Ohio wasn’t the same without the sporting events, concerts, music festivals, county fairs, restaurants and other amazing activities (usually filled with thousands of people!) that make Ohio unique. And while our state was hailed for “getting it right” back in March, we slowly slipped into the same downward spiral that several other states did because thousands of Ohioans didn’t take the virus seriously, killing thousands of others. I mean, WTF.

Here we are, on the cusp of 2021. Thank the Goddess. COVID has been dominating our lives since March. We all know someone who has died because of the pandemic. It has changed our lives in ways we don’t even know yet. It has been devastating for the whole world!

And then there’s DT, our drama queen of a president. He is acting like the man-child he is, resisting reality and stoking the fires of division to save his own ass. He continues to hold “super-spreader events,” not wearing a mask or encouraging his followers to wear them. He is in denial about the results of the election. He’s never been told “no” and he’s never lost anything. He’s acting out like the spoiled child he is, refusing to concede the election. All of this is very alarming and stressful. What are we to do?

The Law of Attraction says “That which is like onto itself is drawn.” In other words, “what we resist, persists.” What we are fearful of is drawn towards us and what we celebrate is also drawn to us. We are the creators of our lives with our thoughts.

Take a deep breath, many of us are getting through this year with our feet still on the ground, albeit in our living room’s makeshift office.

That’s no big surprise coming from Free Press fans, a dedicated and determined bunch of community-minded progressives who are passionate about their careers.

Now consider our community’s growing foster kid population, you might think it can’t get any worse for a child to not be with their parents on Christmas.

But the reality is, Franklin County Children Services (FCCS) for decades through its Holiday Wish programhas gone above and beyond to make these kids have the best holiday season possible. And if it wasn’t for FCCS some of these kids in group homes waiting for placement to a foster home would have no Christmas at all.

The FCCS “Children’s Fund” donation portal is here. Pictured above are gifts purchased this year for FCCS foster kids.

Most Free Press readers are familiar with Ohio House Bill 6, the infamous $1.3 billion electric ratepayer bailout of FirstEnergy’s nukes and coal.  And the bribery and racketeering scam revealed by the FBI last July, implicating FirstEnergy in illegally funneling money to legislators and later into opposition to a signature gathering campaign that would have overturned the bill.

There has been a lot of publicity, anger, and citizen outrage directed at the legislature to repeal House Bill 6 since the scandal broke. Yet the legislature, which took only 96 days to pass the bill, somehow cannot act on repealing House Bill after 145 days—until now.  

https://davidswanson.org/have-a-blessed-pearl-harbor-day/

One of the holiest days of the year is fast approaching. Are you ready? Remember the true meaning of Pearl Harbor Day!

The U.S. government planned, prepared for, and provoked a war with Japan for years, and was in many ways at war already, waiting for Japan to fire the first shot, when Japan attacked the Philippines and Pearl Harbor. What gets lost in the questions of exactly who knew what when in the days before those attacks, and what combination of incompetence and cynicism allowed them to happen, is the fact that major steps had indisputably been taken toward war but none had been taken toward peace.