Feature
Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio (PPGOH) has finally unionized after a card count in which 65 percent of eligible employees voted to unionize on Thursday, February 7, 2025.
After the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), which is a government agency that helps mediate and resolve labor-management disputes, confirmed that the cards were authentic and had 65 percent support, leadership voluntarily recognized that the union had unequivocally garnered overwhelming support, clearly more than the majority that was needed, according to Olivia Oney, Regional Field Manager of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio.
Perhaps nothing divides Americans more vehemently today than views regarding the subject of abortion. Thus, instead of fuming group outbursts and slick slogans (bromidic and not supported rationally or in intellectual depth by either side of the issue) entrenched individual personal opinions (some valid, some not), and (worst of all) punitive laws, a strictly clinical review of the issue is well overdue. This means objective consideration is required by those who will contemplate the subject with a logical mind, a cool temperament, and the willingness to use pure reason based on facts of reality.
I pranced off the bus at Yellow Springs Brewery Columbus at Indianola. I entered. I saw a sign for Meatless Mondays.
Monday = Half-off vegan sandwiches
I smiled. Craft beer is a almost barista pastry and/or relaxing buzz. Food is a necessity lifestyle.
Meatless Monday implied plant-based food is obtainable and cost effective.
I rode the number 4 while walking up 161 from the Worthington Library. I finished errands. I picked up a series of French New Wave Shorts. Winter is for watching Barbillion, Doniol-Valcroze, Godard, Pialat, Truffaut, Varda etc.
I saw the Yellow Springs Columbus Columbus Brewery Sign off Indianola. I’ve read Dave Chappelle, Coretta Scott King, Winona LaDuke, Francis Cress Welsing, and John Robbins. I’ve known several women who attended OSU after Antioch. I figured Yellow Springs Brewery would offer me booze. I entered. I saw a table sign for Meatless Mondays.
Meatless Monday = Half-off vegan sandwiches
I perused the vegan things which could interact with my body.
Sweet and Spicy Chicken Sandwich
Chicken Melt
Black Bean Burger
No Tuna Salad Sandwich
On Thursday, January 23, concerned community members attended the latest quarterly meeting of the Franklin County Investment Advisory Committee (IAC) to challenge Treasurer Cheryl Brooks Sullivan’s investments of taxpayer money into the State of Israel. The high stakes meeting was the last before $5 million dollars in Israel Bonds mature on February 1. Historically, the treasurer has used money repaid upon maturity to swiftly repurchase new Israel Bonds.
On January 22, the Ohio Student Association disrupted Ohio Senator Jerry Cirino’s press conference announcing SB 1, a regurgitated version of the widely unpopular SB 83. OSA members showed up loud and proud on day one at the Ohio Statehouse to defy this attempt to dismantle Ohio’s higher education system. The re-introduced bill aims to centralize control over Ohio’s public higher education system, threatens academic free speech, and the state’s ability to attract and retain top students and educators.
Students gathered in the atrium holding signs and graduation caps reading “Listen to Students” and “R.I.P. my degree” before marching to the hallway outside the Harding Press Room. Students chanted as incoming Chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee, Kristina Roegner, took the stage, her speech overshadowed by the booming chanting of college students: “Higher ed will be dead”.
A couple hundred people gathered at Goodale Park Saturay afternoon, January 18 for a rally and march to the Ohio Statehouse.
The organizers stated the message: "This is our time. Our time to make it clear: we will not be pushed aside, ignored, or silenced. On January 18, we march together—as women, as LGBTQIA+ individuals, as BIPOC communities, as immigrants, as allies. We stand united to demand a world where equality is not a threat, but a reality.
WE MARCH BECAUSE: Every person deserves a life free from fear and filled with opportunity. Our LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC siblings deserve the freedom to love, live, and be their true selves without discrimination or threat of safety.
Immigrant families have the right to safety, dignity, and respect, without fear of losing their homes or loved ones. Women’s voices, bodies, and futures will be in OUR hands—not controlled by anyone else.
THIS IS OUR MOMENT. It’s not enough to hope for change. We are the change. Every step we take, every voice we raise, every hand we hold shows that we are ready to rewrite the future.
Los Angeles is now being destroyed by fire.
Next will be the “Big One” earthquake everyone knows is coming.
And then---unless we take immediate action---Diablo Canyon’s radioactive cloud will make this region a radioactive dead zone.
My family is now besieged by four fires raging less than four miles away. We don’t know how long our luck will hold.
We are eternally grateful to the brave fire-fighters and public servants who are doing their selfless best to save us all.
We are NOT grateful that Gavin Newsom has recklessly endangered us by forcing continued operation at two unsafe, decrepit nuclear power plants perched on active earthquake faults, set to pour radioactive clouds on us from just four hours north of here.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s resident site inspector---Dr. Michael Peck---after five years at Diablo warned that it cannot withstand the earthquakes we all know are coming.
Invasion of the “Hyperscalers” – or large-scale data centers – into Central Ohio is full-speed ahead with no end in sight. And there’s a looming question that many are not paying attention to, but should: Who is going to foot the bill for the extra American Electric Power (AEP) infrastructure and electricity needed by Amazon, Google, and Meta, to satisfy their hunger?
“The bottom line from a consumer protection perspective is, these data centers are the largest, richest, most powerful companies in the world, and they are going to consume a very large amount of electricity. And the consumer protection issue is, who is going to pay for all the infrastructure necessary to serve those big data centers and who will bear the risk in the event if something goes wrong?” Bill Michael told the Free Press, senior counsel with the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel.
The freezing cold bites hardest on those who don’t have a home to head to at the end of the day. It doesn’t stop. Some may be lucky enough to have an abandoned home (“bando”) that provides shelter but not utilities. There are encampments with tents around the city that provide strength in numbers. Shared resources last longer and different hustles combine to provide more varied goods. But not long enough if the City of Columbus bulldozes your encampment after threatening “trespassers” with arrest.
On the night of the Winter Solstice – the longest night for those with nowhere to go – candlelight vigils are held across the US mourning and remembering the unhoused residents who have passed. According to the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, 112 local unhoused passed in 2024 in Franklin County. The Coalition believes 400 unhoused passed over the previous three years.
The Central Ohio Reuse Coalition (CORC) will launch a first-of-its-kind circular economy coffee shop reuse program in Ohio as an initial step towards reducing the approximately half-million single use coffee cups thrown away in Central Ohio daily. CORC is comprised of nonprofits, local sustainability groups, green businesses, faith-based organizations and committed individuals who live and work in Central Ohio. CORC is also a chapter of the Austin-based Plastic Reduction Project.
With grant funding from the City of Columbus and Upstream Solutions, and in partnership with S’wonderful Times Café in Bexley and Community Grounds Coffee Shop in Columbus, CORC is launching a reuse solution that keeps cups circulating in an open-loop system.