News
Climate change is real, and it has had devastating effects. Antarctica reached record high temperatures in the 60s earlier in 2020. Pakistan reached a record high temperature of 125 degrees in 2019. These are some of the devastating effects in our climate.
“The Climate Issue has changed the way of life.” That is what actress and activist Erika Alexander said in her opening remarks as the moderator of the World War Zero Town Hall Discussion on Climate Change on March 8 at Otterbein University in Westerville.
World War Zero was brought to Otterbein on March 8, in partnership with Otterbein University and the Columbus Metropolitan Club. World War Zero, according to the official website, is “a coalition of people from all walks of life that are committed to addressing the climate crisis.”
Some of the big names that have enlisted in this initiative include billionaires, actors, politicians, and the three men who spoke about climate change at Otterbein – former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Ohio Governor John Kasich, and the man who launched this initiative, former Secretary of State John Kerry.
Yesterday, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless delivered a letter to the Governor’s office signed by 80 organizations and leading individuals from across the state calling for a state-wide moratorium on evictions and utility shut-offs, and an immediate influx of emergency housing dollars.
The letter states that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic demands urgent need for immediate state-wide action. “We have already seen shelter-in-place orders come from the Bay Area and it seems other large cities are next. We cannot possibly put quarantine measures in place at the same time that we forcibly remove Ohioans from their homes, for any reason, or make it impossible for them to remain there because of utility disconnections” said Demitra Brown, Housing Justice Co-Chair of the Cleveland Democratic Socialists of America.
A new freely downloadable book
I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the most serious dangers which the world faces today. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link:
http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Linked-Dangers-to-Civilization-John-Scales-Avery.pdf
Contrasting rates of change
Cultural evolution depends on the non-genetic storage, transmission, diffusion and utilization of information. The development of human speech, the invention of writing, the development of paper and printing, and finally, in modern times, computers and the internet: all these have been crucial steps in society's explosive accumulation of information and knowledge. Human cultural evolution proceeds at a constantly accelerating speed, so great in fact that it threatens to shake society to pieces.
Just say no. It had such a quaint ring to it, hearkening back to a simpler time when some thought that binary choices – black and white – could be applied to substance use. In today’s political climate, no has switched to yes, as illustrated by a majority of presidential candidates who now support a spectrum of cannabis legalization policies. Some, though, like Mike Bloomberg, Joe Biden, Republicans and the Trump administration are stuck in another time. Their supposed concern? Research, or a perceived lack thereof.
In this era of Columbus development explosion, Freep has often been critical of the mixed-use condominiums jammed into some of the city’s most unique neighborhoods.
We also feel some recent developments were much needed in certain areas, such as Italian Village and Grandview. But did the city have to allow off-campus to turn into a lame corporate piano bar and Clintonville’s Indianola Avenue into a Siberia-looking gulag loaded with condo boomers?
Speaking of Indianola, Freep has criticized the city’s lack of effort to save Olympic Pool, which of course was destroyed for a high-end condo with a stunning view of I-71. Clintonville realtor Joe Jackson of Keller Williams Realty told the Freep he just learned – and confirmed just last week – the owners of Olympic Pool had tried to gift the pool to the city, but the city refused.
The city helped save the Crew, but the team’s new stadium could cost the city $100 million. With that commitment we feel saving Olympic and rehabbing it into an updated water park would have been worth any lack of long-term profitability.
Could anything have saved Olympic?
Why does universal health care scare so many otherwise rational people?
Why aren’t people more scared that the worker slapping the bun on their burger makes minimum wage, doesn’t have health insurance, and can’t afford to stay home from work when they have a cold or the flu?
Why don’t U.S. citizens feel they deserve healthcare, mandated maternity leave, universal childcare, free college tuition and a clean environment? These programs are routinely expected in most other developed countries. The U.S. is the outlier, with a small group of elites convincing the population that the necessities of life must be purchased in a market economy rather than part of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
People in the United States are comfortably sandwiched in between a friendly Canada, a (semi) friendly Mexico – despite President Donald Trump’s xenophobic attacks – and two massive non-hostile oceans on each side. The vast majority of residents speak just one language and have had only the limited option of choosing between the same two major political parties since 1864.
On Friday, February 28th, representatives from the Columbus Freedom Coalition, including Julius Tate Jr.’s parents and sibling, met with mayor Andrew Ginther at the MLK Branch Library to discuss the mayor’s complicity and role in Columbus Police Department’s (CPD) continued terrorism of Black communities. Ultimately the disingenuous nature displayed by city officials made the meeting a waste of time for the family, putting the coalition in a position where it was impossible to hold a conversation about what justice looks like.
“Please don’t be my bullies, too.”
These words echoed loud against the salmon-pink walls of room 114 of the Ohio Statehouse. They concluded the testimony of 11-year-old Sean Miller, a transgender girl offering her story of fighting bullying and discrimination, at a proponent hearing for the Ohio Fairness Act (or HB 369). The state representatives on the House Civil Justice Committee watched sympathetically, but under the surface a familiar fight was brewing.
The Ohio Fairness Act would amend the state code to expand its protected groups and outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. While 28 localities in Ohio have some form of LGBTQ protection, those only cover about a fourth of people in the state. In most places in Ohio, it is still legal to fire an employee, deny a renter a lease, or refuse to give a homebuyer a loan on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity.
State-run parole and probation programs are designed to keep persons convicted of crimes – including a very large number of non-violent crimes – out of prison. But in Ohio, according to a recent Council of State Governments study, “Confined and Costly: How Supervision Violations are Filling Prisons”: “On any given day 10,320 people (or 21 percent of the entire Ohio prison population) are behind bars as a result of a probation or parole violation, at an annual cost to the state of $279 million.”
Parole and probation are court-ordered, non-prison sentences that give offenders a chance to rebuild their lives in a community setting. Not a get-out-of-jail-free-card, each offender agrees to follow a strictly supervised list of conditions that commonly includes mandatory drug testing, keeping regular parole officer visits, paying fines and restitution, holding a job and drug rehab and anger management classes.
More restrictive conditions may include searches, prior approval to open a checking account, travel restrictions, electronic monitoring, curfews and off-limit establishments.
Donald Trump received the highest Republican presidential vote total in Lake County, Ohio since George Herbert Walker Bush whipped Mike Dukakis in 1988. Trump beat Hillary by 15 points in that county. The Lake County News Herald pointed out that “Trump won in many communities that had traditionally voted for Democratic candidates.”
By contrast, Barack Obama lost in Lake County by less than one percent of the vote in 2012. Bill Clinton only lost by three points in that county in 1992 to Bush the Elder. Obama won 16 counties in Ohio, Hillary Clinton only won seven.
Various polls indicate that Ohio is in play once again as a swing state for the 2020 election. A recent Emerson poll of Ohioans revealed that 47 percent of Ohio voters supported impeachment while only 43 percent opposed. In a recent Baldwin Wallace University poll, Trump is trailing a hypothetical “or any” Democratic candidate by five points, with 16.3 percent undecided.
Will your vote be counted?