Global
Image
When he first started practicing with the Ohio Dominican University’s football team in the fall of 2010, senior Justin Bell had a hard time attracting the coaching staff’s attention.
After transferring from the University of Toledo, the defensive back didn’t go through the spring practices and sat on the bench during a 2-8 season in 2010.
Bell isn’t overlooked any more. He was selected as the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletics Conference’s defensive back of the year on Nov. 22.
“I went from being someone who wasn’t noticed at all to being a primary player,” Bell says.
“After spring ball, the coaches kind of know what route they’re going to take into the fall. The coaches weren’t able to see me play and I wasn’t able to show what I had. I had to climb up from there.”
Bell made the climb and then some. He has been a first team all-conference selection in both 2012 and 2013.
Image
Daniel Rako led the New Albany High School football team on to the field one last time on Nov. 22. Players pushed the sophomore’s wheelchair on to the artificial turf prior to a 35-28 loss to Zanesville in a Division II regional final at DeSales High School.
Although he never played a down for the Eagles, Daniel says being a part of New Albany’s 11-2 season was a life-changing event.
“I’d give anything to play,” Daniel says. “I know I can’t but it’s still fun to be out there and be a part of this team.”
Daniel, who was born with Spina Bifida, joins freshman Sam Hill and sixth grader Matthew Thomas as managers for the Eagles. All three are part of the football team’s partnership with the Special Needs Program. Hill and Rako were both chosen as the team’s practice players of the week in the days before the Zanesville game.
“Daniel is what our program is all about. It takes a lot of other people besides the starters to make up a football team,” New Albany defensive coordinator Matt “Bubba” Kidwell says. “Daniel will never make a tackle for this team. He’ll never score a touchdown, throw a block or catch or throw a pass.
What goes around comes around . . . and around, and around.
Last month, the day after I left Santa Rosa, Calif., a 13-year-old boy carrying a toy replica of an AK-47 was shot and killed on the outskirts of that town by a Sonoma County deputy sheriff with a reputation for being trigger-happy. The officer had ordered the boy to drop the “gun,” then in a matter of two or three seconds opened fire, giving him no chance to comply.
This is not an isolated incident, which is why it’s yet one more tragedy I can’t get out of my mind — one more logical consequence of the simplistic militarism and mission creep that’s eating us alive. This is gun culture running unchecked from boyhood to manhood, permeating national policy both geopolitically and domestically. This is the trivialization of peace. It results in the ongoing murder of the innocent, both at home and abroad, at the hands of government as well as criminals and terrorists.
“That’s America, we say, as news of the latest massacre breaks,” Henry Porter wrote in September in the U.K. Observer. The massacre of the moment was lone gunman Aaron Alexis’ slaying of 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.
Last month, the day after I left Santa Rosa, Calif., a 13-year-old boy carrying a toy replica of an AK-47 was shot and killed on the outskirts of that town by a Sonoma County deputy sheriff with a reputation for being trigger-happy. The officer had ordered the boy to drop the “gun,” then in a matter of two or three seconds opened fire, giving him no chance to comply.
This is not an isolated incident, which is why it’s yet one more tragedy I can’t get out of my mind — one more logical consequence of the simplistic militarism and mission creep that’s eating us alive. This is gun culture running unchecked from boyhood to manhood, permeating national policy both geopolitically and domestically. This is the trivialization of peace. It results in the ongoing murder of the innocent, both at home and abroad, at the hands of government as well as criminals and terrorists.
“That’s America, we say, as news of the latest massacre breaks,” Henry Porter wrote in September in the U.K. Observer. The massacre of the moment was lone gunman Aaron Alexis’ slaying of 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.
More than ever, Israel is isolated from world opinion and the squishy entity known as “the international community.” The Israeli government keeps condemning the Iran nuclear deal, by any rational standard a positive step away from the threat of catastrophic war.
In the short run, the belligerent responses from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are bound to play badly in most of the U.S. media. But Netanyahu and the forces he represents have only begun to fight. They want war on Iran, and they are determined to exercise their political muscle that has long extended through most of the Washington establishment.
While it’s unlikely that such muscle can undo the initial six-month nuclear deal reached with Iran last weekend, efforts are already underway to damage and destroy the negotiations down the road. On Capitol Hill the attacks are most intense from Republicans, and some leading Democrats have also sniped at the agreement reached in Geneva.
In the short run, the belligerent responses from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are bound to play badly in most of the U.S. media. But Netanyahu and the forces he represents have only begun to fight. They want war on Iran, and they are determined to exercise their political muscle that has long extended through most of the Washington establishment.
While it’s unlikely that such muscle can undo the initial six-month nuclear deal reached with Iran last weekend, efforts are already underway to damage and destroy the negotiations down the road. On Capitol Hill the attacks are most intense from Republicans, and some leading Democrats have also sniped at the agreement reached in Geneva.
Hello Everyone,
We have yet to get a response from the UN on our petitions. We'll continue gathering signatures until we do. Our request that Tepco be replaced by a global team is more urgent than ever.
Why? Because news from Fukushima & the Pacific continues to worsen. Please look at the on-going coverage as linked at Nuke Free.
Tepco has brought down some unused fuel rods from Unit 4. Next come those that were exposed. Remember that Units Three, Two & One may have even worse problems.
The whole world is trying to watch....so Tepco has complained that the media is actually photographing their operations! With a state secrets act on its way, we anticipate a formal crackdown. Tepco wants to open four other reactors in Japan and pursues overseas investments while toying with the fate of the Earth at Fukushima.
We have yet to get a response from the UN on our petitions. We'll continue gathering signatures until we do. Our request that Tepco be replaced by a global team is more urgent than ever.
Why? Because news from Fukushima & the Pacific continues to worsen. Please look at the on-going coverage as linked at Nuke Free.
Tepco has brought down some unused fuel rods from Unit 4. Next come those that were exposed. Remember that Units Three, Two & One may have even worse problems.
The whole world is trying to watch....so Tepco has complained that the media is actually photographing their operations! With a state secrets act on its way, we anticipate a formal crackdown. Tepco wants to open four other reactors in Japan and pursues overseas investments while toying with the fate of the Earth at Fukushima.
NILES, Ohio — Two Youngstown community members were arrested today at a nonviolent protest of an injection well, which was attended by about 50 protesters from around Ohio and Pennsylvania. The two protesters who were arrested stood in front of the well gate and blocked trucks from entering, holding a sign that read “Fracking Hurts Communities.” Meanwhile, the rest of the protesters participated in a spiritual ceremony led by Reverend Monica Beasley-Martin. The well where the protests took place is the first in the Niles area; it is less than a mile from the downtown areas.
Image
On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy, the airwaves are awash with coverage which is contradictory, confusing, and dishonest. It is clear that President Kennedy was killed by the National Security State (CIA and Pentagon). The assassination marked the rise of the military industrial complex, the American Empire and the permanent warfare state.
This fact is highly troubling for Americans who have not studied the political assassinations of the 1960's nor the many subsequent crimes perpetuated by the National Security State since 1963. People want to trust their government.
The website says it all: RadioactiveWasteAlert.org.
The billboard with a young woman guzzling liquid with a radioactive warning on it under the phrase: “Don’t Frack My Water, Protect Columbus” set the stage for one of the most important public forums in the city’s history.
If we had to summarize the major themes that emerged from the Tuesday, November 12 Radioactive Frack Waste Forum, the first is this: the public has a right to know that much of the process allowing radioactive waste into the central Ohio watershed near Alum Creek is the result of hidden, behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Ohio legislators and Governor John Kasich.
Second: the frack waste is undisputedly radioactive and carcinogenic. Radium 226 found at 3000% over the allowable limit by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a long-established link to many forms of cancer, including breast and bone cancer.
Third: All landfills leak. If you put radioactivity into them, it will come out.
The billboard with a young woman guzzling liquid with a radioactive warning on it under the phrase: “Don’t Frack My Water, Protect Columbus” set the stage for one of the most important public forums in the city’s history.
If we had to summarize the major themes that emerged from the Tuesday, November 12 Radioactive Frack Waste Forum, the first is this: the public has a right to know that much of the process allowing radioactive waste into the central Ohio watershed near Alum Creek is the result of hidden, behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Ohio legislators and Governor John Kasich.
Second: the frack waste is undisputedly radioactive and carcinogenic. Radium 226 found at 3000% over the allowable limit by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a long-established link to many forms of cancer, including breast and bone cancer.
Third: All landfills leak. If you put radioactivity into them, it will come out.
As news seeped out that American troops could be stationed in Afghanistan through the year 2024 “and beyond,” questions began to proliferate toward the Obama administration. Over the course of a couple years the mantra has been that America’s presence in Iraq is over and the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan is fading away. With these recent revelations stemming from Afghanistan that speak directly to the contrary, this narrative is now on trial. Further, if the reaction from the State Department is any indication, then we are in store for a very confusing trial.
Indeed, the amount of confusion has become so great between the U.S. and Afghanistan that the words of Afghan President Karzai are now apparently unreliable. Karzai reportedly said in a recent private meeting that he wishes to have the next president of Afghanistan sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), as opposed to himself. The position of the U.S., in the meantime, has always been to have the BSA signed and completed by the year’s end. Since the Afghan election would make such an American aim impossible, this puts the Obama administration in a bind to say the least.
Indeed, the amount of confusion has become so great between the U.S. and Afghanistan that the words of Afghan President Karzai are now apparently unreliable. Karzai reportedly said in a recent private meeting that he wishes to have the next president of Afghanistan sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), as opposed to himself. The position of the U.S., in the meantime, has always been to have the BSA signed and completed by the year’s end. Since the Afghan election would make such an American aim impossible, this puts the Obama administration in a bind to say the least.