Politics
The President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, spoke to Columbus’ Somali community on Sunday, September 22, at the Polaris Hilton hotel and addressed Ohio State students on Monday, September 23. He was greeted by both enthusiastic supporters and protesters in both places. Mohamud is the first official president of Somalia since civil war broke out in 1991. The Federal Republic of Somalia, which formed in 2012 from a series of transitional governments, was officially recognized by the United States in January this year. His visit to Columbus follows a visit to Washington DC to meet with Secretary of State John Kerry and a series of trips around Europe seeking international aid. His trip will culminate at a conference in Brussels as he tries to gather support for his “New Deal for Somalia” conference.
Like it or not, we’re forced to think about it these days, since it’s still an enticing pretext for war. And the more I think about it, the more I marvel at the persistent insanity of its existence. The “red line” that the so-called civilized world crossed over a century ago was not in the use of poison gas but in its creation, because it’s lethal whether it’s used or not. Attempting to get rid of it — by burying it, burning it, dumping it — has consequences almost as deadly as firing it off in battle.
The enormous toxic mess that encircles the globe needs serious and sustained attention, something present-day governments are, seemingly, incapable of. The fact that this mess of our own making exists at all ought to inspire not missiles and self-righteousness but the deepest questions we know how to ask. And the first question is this: How in God’s name do we untangle ourselves from this mess collectively?
Welcome to the Obama Justice Department.
While mouthing platitudes about respecting press freedom, the president has overseen methodical actions to undermine it. We should retire understated phrases like “chilling effect.” With the announcement from Obama’s Justice Department on Monday, the thermometer has dropped below freezing.
"We were never against Jews. We oppose Zionists who are a small group," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the semi-official Tasnim news agency in September, according to Tehran Times.
"We do not allow the Zionists to represent Iran as an anti-Semitic country in their propaganda so they can cover up their crimes against Palestinian and Lebanese people," Zarif said.
Zarif is a U.S.-educated former ambassador to the United Nations and posted on his Twitter account "Happy Rosh Hashanah" on Sept. 5 to welcome the Jewish New Year.
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Christine Pelosi -- daughter of U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi -- responded to Zarif on her Twitter by writing, "Thanks. The New Year would be even sweeter if you would end Iran's Holocaust denial, sir."
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Buddhists and Hindus hope to ensure the best possible reincarnation, and eventually escape the cycle of rebirth to achieve nirvana.
Many of Cambodia's traditional rites appeared during week-long ceremonies in the capital, Phnom Penh, when former king Norodom Sihanouk was cremated in February.
Sihanouk was entitled to have an elaborate royal cremation, but had indicated preference for a simpler, albeit relatively grandiose, funeral.
"Before King Sihanouk, the body of a [previous] deceased king, with the help of [cotton] strings, was put in the position of 'a fetus in the mother's womb' and the body was put in a big urn," said Ang Choulean, a professor at the faculty of archeology in the prestigious Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh.
The tent in front of the Ohio Statehouse is gone. The populist ferment of ordinary people out to fight the rich and powerful in the streets has vanished. It appears that the 1% remain incredibly wealthy and unaccountable. Amid the current political calm resides the collective memory surrounding the Occupy movement, one of the great uprisings against the robber barons in American history.
On this two-year anniversary of Occupy’s birth, and a year after Occupy Columbus ended their Ohio Statehouse encampment, the Free Press wondered what happened to the controversial Occupy Columbus movement. Was it assassinated by the power elite that control the city of Columbus and the politicians that do their bidding? Did it die of natural causes?
Occupy’s Origin
When the nationwide Occupy crackdown began in late 2011, this author found himself in California. Increasingly I was drawn to Occupy Oakland, where I had lived previously, and where a police raid on the occupy encampment had nearly killed a protester, Marine Corps Iraq veteran Scott Olson, by shooting him in the face with a tear gas grenade at short range.
Let me first stipulate that I’m not an attorney, but I have an opinion. I didn’t know that you had to be one in order to have one. My opinion concerns the recent guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with regard to marijuana enforcement under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Call mine an educated opinion. Let the Letters to the Editor debate me.
On August 29, 2013, James M. Cole, the Deputy Attorney General at the DOJ issued a memo to all United States Attorneys entitled, “Guidance Regarding Marijuana Enforcement.” This is the same James M. Cole who issued similar guidance in June 29, 2011, updating guidance that was issued by Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden on October 19, 2009.
In those memos, the DOJ seems intent on clarifying its clarifications. The most recent memo claimed that the agency has focused its efforts on these enforcement priorities, among others:
- Preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors;
Over the last few weeks you’ve seen the ads start to roll in.
In one, Mayor Michael Coleman talks about it being time for Columbus City Schools to match the rest of the city’s greatness. There is a commercial with a teacher and one with a parent. And just this past week mailers, replete with images of smiling children, began to arrive at homes in the district.
The district's levy campaign – Coleman’s education commission-cum-levy commission known as Reimagine Columbus Education – has begun in earnest to “sell” issues 50 and 51 ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
The 9.01 mil levy will bring approximately $76 million into the system for each of the next four years. One-third is for district operations and five of the other six mils deal with teacher training and retention, technology and expanding pre-kindergarten. It represents a 23.5 percent tax increase, or $315 additional every year for every $100,000 of home value.
