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We have just witnessed, in the United States, the massive and wholesale theft of the presidency. Yet the fraudulent political dynamics that propelled loser George W. Bush into the White House have happened before. A political philosopher once observed that history always repeats itself twice—the first time as tragedy, and the second time as farce. The seeds of the current electoral debacle are found in the past.

Back in 1876, the Civil War had been over for only eleven years. Black men had finally won the right to vote, but Southern whites were vigorously attempting to regain their power over their state legislatures. Deep sectional antagonisms still divided the nation, with the industrial and commercial North mostly supporting Republicans, and the White South supporting the Democrats. The Republican presidential candidate in 1876 was Rutherford B. Hayes, the governor of Ohio. Hayes was widely viewed as being handicapped by the governmental scandals and corruption during the administration of two-term President Ulysses S. Grant.

To ring in the new year on Tuesday, January 2, five members of the Columbus School Board passed a New Year’s resolution: to destroy the tradition of free speech at school board meetings. The long-standing practice of open public comments at the board meeting is gone; equally shameful is moving the starting time of the meeting from the traditional 5pm to 3pm to block access by working parents. This same board majority ended the practice of weekly board meetings last year at the insistence of the malevolent and wholly unqualified ex-jock new board member Stephanie Hightower. After $130,000 poured into her school board campaign from Chamber of Commerce types, she’s now assumed the board presidency in her second year.

Bill Moss’ comment that Hightower “doesn’t know goose shit from wild honey” is too generous on her educational insights.

Woe is Gore and Lieberman. Woe on Bush and Cheney. Woe for America and its systems of checks and balances, the electoral process, litigation and finally woe for the Jewish community. What the Hell is going on? Can’t any upstanding Republican admit that the fix was in, in Florida? Come on….old machines that require routine cleaning, that hadn’t been cleaned for three years. Butterfly ballots being used in selected counties. State police blocking the single road to the polls from a Black community. Voter intimidation and further, voting tests, Blacks being required to provide two forms of picture identification in some counties. Whoa!

Did anybody seem to notice that the only place the exit polls were wrong is Florida? Did you notice a kind of self assured cockiness in the voice of guvnah’ Bush when it was suggested that the exit polls had given Gore the state? The guvnah’ stated in clear terms that he “rejects the information provided by the networks because he’d been provided other information that he had or will win the state.” Could George W. be sooo stupid that he tipped his hand?

As we were laying out the Free Press this holiday season, we were shocked by the sudden and untimely death of one-time Free Press writer, advertiser and friend, Joanna Demas-Way. Our condolences go to her husband, UFO bassist Pete Way, a staunch Free Press supporter who headlined our recent 30th Anniversary bash.

Dr. Demas-Way, a graduate of University of Miami Medical School was one of the few doctors willing to write about the medical use of marijuana (see our Winter 2000 issue, “Relief in a Leaf”).

Joanna was not only a gifted writer, but a kind and caring physician. She often volunteered her medical services to poor and underserved patients. She prided herself on spending time with getting to know each patient’s needs. Her compassion extended to all of Earth’s creatures, great and small. One of our fondest memories of Joanna is when the Free Press editor found an abandoned newborn baby possum, which Joanna insisted on nurturing, hand-feeding and loving for a few weeks before its inevitable death.

The debate about the issues of race continues. Recently we have witnessed what a shocked America will do when confronted with the evidence of a people who decide to stand up for themselves and be counted…and (in Florida) recounted and then counted again. In Columbus I find it conspicuous that so many people want to dismiss the argument of race and the inherent inequities and disparities. To many, the problems don’t really exist. After all, Columbus IS America.

Columbus (the great testing center) represents the quintessential cross-section of America….in other words if it can’t happen here it can’t happen anywhere, right?

When it comes to proficiency tests, nothing is real. According to just some of the propaganda: schools are “failing”; we have (and need) these tests to “improve” education; the tests were created by educators; the tests are on the 4th, 6th, and 8th grade “levels”; if teachers and schools did things properly, every kid would pass every test; and over time the tests will make our schools “successful.” It’s all malarkey!

Schools are not “failing.” Schools are doing a better job than ever before, helping more kids with more problems. Over the years schools have gotten better and better. That is not to say that schools are perfect, that they provide everything certain interest groups demand, that they provide enough of what actually is needed, or that they shouldn’t be asked to do even more. Still, schools are not failing.

House Bill 578 (Rep. Dale Miller) would extend time limits for welfare recipients from three years to five years. Current time limits are sending people out into the workforce before completing education and job training necessary to support a family. Especially devastated are new immigrants, who face cultural, language and educational barriers to employment.

Status: Sponsor testimony took place on November 28, 2000. Direct correspondence on the bill to members of the Finance and Appropriations committee, especially vice-chair, Rep. E.J. Thomas.

A $647 million shortfall in the state’s Medicaid budget is raising concerns among advocates about needed health care spending in the next budget. Roughly $250 million of the shortfall comes from state funds; the rest is federal matching funds. The state has sought additional funds from both the Controlling Board and legislature.

Governor Taft has asked all state agencies to maintain current funding levels. That will be tough, in light of increased Medicaid costs. Medicaid covers both aged, blind and disabled (ABD) people, as well as low-income children and families.

The State of Ohio has agreed to give free health coverage to 160,000 Ohioans who lost Medicaid since welfare reform began. This move is an important opportunity for many low-income working people to receive needed health care. The reinstatement will provide Medicaid cards that are good from January 1, 2001 to March 31, 2001. These cards have no strings attached – in other words, recipients will not have to pay for services, even if they are found ineligible for continuing benefits. The cards are good for all services covered by Medicaid. That includes doctors’ visits, hospital care, dental, vision, and most health care needs.

People will also receive a simple, mail-in application to apply for continuing coverage. This is important because eligibility limits for both parents and kids went up on July 1, 2000. Many working parents and their children may be eligible. Also, you can apply by mail, with no office visits, and the paperwork is much simpler.

When I became publisher of the Free Press in 1987, the media scene in Columbus was considerably different from today. The daily Citizen Journal was still being published. The Other Paper and Columbus Alive were not yet born, though Alive’s predecessor, Downtown Alive was in its infancy. And the Free Press was about to go under.

Amidst great optimism, a new group of Free Press enthusiasts incorporated the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism and set out to become the alternative newspaper in the city. We changed to a tabloid format and began to focus our coverage on local stories ignored by the dailies. But for a variety of financial, political and journalistic reasons, it was not to be. We didn’t have investment capital and couldn’t afford to pay salespeople or investigative reporters. We made a political decision to not accept cigarette advertising or the sex for sale ads that were offered us. And frankly, we weren’t sure if our readers wanted us to compromise our coverage for the sake of gaining a broad based audience.

“In terms of conventional physics, the grouse represents only a millionth of either the mass or the energy of an acre. Yet subtract the grouse and the whole thing is dead.” -- Aldo Leopold

“New York City’s Central Park …emerged out of a complex mix of motivations – to make money, to display the city’s cultivation, to lift up the poor, to refine the rich, to advance commercial interests, to retard commercial development, to improve public health, to curry political favor, to provide jobs. No single individual either conceived or carried through the massive public project that, in the end, cost more than $10 million (three times the city’s total budget in 1850) and took more than eight hundred acres out of the most expensive and intensely competitive real estate market in the United States.” -- Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, The Park and The People.