Global
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.
In Switzerland a petition from 100,000 people, or about 1.25% of the population, creates a public referendum. By this means, last March, Swiss voters created strict limits on executive pay.
On November 24, the Swiss will vote on whether to take a further step -- limiting executive pay to no more than 12 times the lowest salary in the company. Such a maximum wage policy allows the CEO pay increases, but only if workers get at least a twelfth as much.
A movement in the U.S. is asking: If Switzerland can do it, why can't we?
The Swiss are also set to vote, on a date yet to be set, to create a guaranteed basic income of $2,800 (2,500 Swiss francs) per month for every adult. That's about $16 per hour for a full-time worker, but it's guaranteed even for those who can't find work.
You know what country can afford such a measure even more easily, given its vast supplies of wealth? The United States of America.
On November 24, the Swiss will vote on whether to take a further step -- limiting executive pay to no more than 12 times the lowest salary in the company. Such a maximum wage policy allows the CEO pay increases, but only if workers get at least a twelfth as much.
A movement in the U.S. is asking: If Switzerland can do it, why can't we?
The Swiss are also set to vote, on a date yet to be set, to create a guaranteed basic income of $2,800 (2,500 Swiss francs) per month for every adult. That's about $16 per hour for a full-time worker, but it's guaranteed even for those who can't find work.
You know what country can afford such a measure even more easily, given its vast supplies of wealth? The United States of America.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- American evangelist Billy Graham's controversial
son Franklin, who said Buddhists cannot "get to heaven" and Islam "is
very evil and wicked," began a three-night Christian festival on
Friday (November 22) in Buddhist-majority Thailand's second biggest
city, Chiang Mai.
Vietnam, meanwhile, is hosting the first United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) International Conference on Spiritual Tourism for Sustainable Development, including an Australian tourism investor and others discussing how Aboriginals, traditional religions and New Age spiritualism enhance destinations.
Many people in the international travel industry are looking for ways to protect crumbling monuments and indigenous spiritual arts, while educating tourists and governments about the value of belief systems dating back before recorded history.
In Southeast Asia, foreign evangelicals and modern visionaries also frequently arrive, attracted by the region's ancient religious sites or trying to push atheist Buddhists into imagining a god to worship.
Vietnam, meanwhile, is hosting the first United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) International Conference on Spiritual Tourism for Sustainable Development, including an Australian tourism investor and others discussing how Aboriginals, traditional religions and New Age spiritualism enhance destinations.
Many people in the international travel industry are looking for ways to protect crumbling monuments and indigenous spiritual arts, while educating tourists and governments about the value of belief systems dating back before recorded history.
In Southeast Asia, foreign evangelicals and modern visionaries also frequently arrive, attracted by the region's ancient religious sites or trying to push atheist Buddhists into imagining a god to worship.
With a stroke of his pen on November 6, 2013, Ohio Governor John Kasich demonstrated his utter contempt for democracy. Fearing that Ohio Libertarian Party nominee Charlie Earlwho has strong Tea Party support would cut into his conservative base, Kasich outlawed all third parties in Ohio for the 2014 election.
The offending law is Senate Bill 193, which passed last week amidst controversy and turmoil at the Statehouse. It has been dubbed the “John Kasich Re-election Protection Act” for obvious reasons. The ever-arrogant Ohio Senator Bill Seiz (R-Cincinnati) introduced the draconian law the same day the Libertarians publicly announced Earl’s nomination.
Kasich has always been a bit contemptuous of competitive elections. Other than his first campaign, most of his electoral victories were landslides aided by gerrymandered districts and an incredibly safe noncompetitive seat in the 1990’s. When Kasich ran for president in 2000, he often polled 0% of the vote in the early caucus and primary states.
The offending law is Senate Bill 193, which passed last week amidst controversy and turmoil at the Statehouse. It has been dubbed the “John Kasich Re-election Protection Act” for obvious reasons. The ever-arrogant Ohio Senator Bill Seiz (R-Cincinnati) introduced the draconian law the same day the Libertarians publicly announced Earl’s nomination.
Kasich has always been a bit contemptuous of competitive elections. Other than his first campaign, most of his electoral victories were landslides aided by gerrymandered districts and an incredibly safe noncompetitive seat in the 1990’s. When Kasich ran for president in 2000, he often polled 0% of the vote in the early caucus and primary states.
"Pass the gravy and petition, please."
Families and friends will hear that this week at Thanksgiving Dinner tables across the state. That's because Marriage Equality supporters in Ohio want to help us collect One Million Signatures for Marriage so that voters can repeal Ohio's 2004 Marriage Ban next year.
Will you help us reach that goal?
If so, just click here to get your petition and simple instructions on "how to" collect signatures on the petition. It's super easy and frankly, I think you'll find that equality is pretty yummy!
Thanks for giving your time and attention to helping us winning marriage equality in Ohio.
Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving to you, your family and friends.
Best regards!
Ian James
FreedomOhio
Families and friends will hear that this week at Thanksgiving Dinner tables across the state. That's because Marriage Equality supporters in Ohio want to help us collect One Million Signatures for Marriage so that voters can repeal Ohio's 2004 Marriage Ban next year.
Will you help us reach that goal?
If so, just click here to get your petition and simple instructions on "how to" collect signatures on the petition. It's super easy and frankly, I think you'll find that equality is pretty yummy!
Thanks for giving your time and attention to helping us winning marriage equality in Ohio.
Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving to you, your family and friends.
Best regards!
Ian James
FreedomOhio
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The image of Hilary Ells scoring the final goal in the Capital University women’s soccer team’s 4-2 victory over John Carroll University in the 2011 Ohio Athletic Conference championship is forever etched in the mind of Crusaders coach Chris Kouns.
“After she scored, she raised her index finger in a Joe Namath style. For me, that’s just Ells,” Kouns says. “That’s the type of mentality you have to have: ‘I just did this to you. I put the ball in your net and now you have to watch me walk away.’
“I always joke with her ‘I’m constantly looking to see that kid with the finger up in there again. Where is she?’”
After missing last season with a stress fracture in her right hip, Ells has returned with a flourish. The red-shirt senior forward was selected as the OAC Forward of the Year after scoring 14 goals in the regular season.
Ells broke out of a four-game scoring slump, fittingly enough, in a 4-0 win over John Carroll in the OAC championship game on Nov. 10. Ells, who hadn’t scored since powering in four goals in a 5-0 win over Marietta on Oct.
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Through the late 70s and the entirety of the 80s, WBNS-TV here in Columbus was the home of Fritz the Nite Owl and his Nite Owl Theatre. Wearing big owl-winged glasses, Fritz Peerenboom bookended movies with clever segments that used simple green-screen effects to insert him into scenes where he could give commentary on the night’s feature. Fritz won 5 Emmy Awards for his show and was even inducted, in 2012, into the Horror Host Hall of Fame. Here in Columbus he became an icon.
The Nite Owl Theatre’s TV run ended in 1991, but thanks to the work of some longtime Fritz fans it returns to Studio 35 once a month for a healthy dose of 80s nostalgia.
And the new Night Owl Theatre is firmly planted in the 80s. When the new cinematic version of the show began at the Grandview Theatre in 2010 they were restricted to public domain movies, and while that meant they could show classics such as Night of the Living Dead and the House on Haunted Hill, it also limited them to older fare. With the move to Studio 35 they were able to screen nearly anything. November’s movie was Back to the Future, and Peerenboom arrived at Studio 35 in a vintage Delorean provided by the Free Press.
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1. With his background as a defender, it’d be easy to assume that Gregg Berhalter would bring a very defensive-minded style to the Columbus Crew this spring. In his first press conference as the Crew’s head coach and sporting director, Berhalter said he wants his team to be very aggressive offensively next season.
“I want to organize defensively,” Berhalter says. “I wouldn’t necessarily make that link though to the team being defensive minded.
“My ideas about soccer are very offensive and I want the team to play nice and attack the football. I believe in a possession-based game and I would say that the defensive side of it has to do with organization.”
Berhalter, who was named as the second-best defender in SC Cambuur Leeuwarden (Holland) history and was named to the FC Energie Cottbus (Germany) All-Time Best XI during the European portion of his career, is the seventh coach in the Crew’s 18-year history. He replaces interim coach Brian Bliss, who was 4-4 overall after taking the reins after Robert Warzycha was let go last season.
Columbus finished 12-17-5 last year, placing eighth in the 10-team Eastern Conference.
“The only premise of the book was to just go out and listen.”
And the book, edited by Miles Harvey, who is quoted above, is remarkable. It’s one of a kind, as far as I know – How Long Will I Cry? – the first publication of a newly formed nonprofit organization called Big Shoulders Books, which is affiliated with Chicago’s DePaul University. It’s available free of charge, because . . . how could a cry in the wilderness be otherwise?
It’s a cry in the wilderness punctuated by gunfire. Usually all we hear is the gunfire, emanating from “those” neighborhoods, the violent ones, “so physically and spiritually isolated from the rest of us,” as Alex Kotlowitz describes them in his foreword. How Long Will I Cry? is an attempt – no, I mean a beginning – at ending that isolation.
And the book, edited by Miles Harvey, who is quoted above, is remarkable. It’s one of a kind, as far as I know – How Long Will I Cry? – the first publication of a newly formed nonprofit organization called Big Shoulders Books, which is affiliated with Chicago’s DePaul University. It’s available free of charge, because . . . how could a cry in the wilderness be otherwise?
It’s a cry in the wilderness punctuated by gunfire. Usually all we hear is the gunfire, emanating from “those” neighborhoods, the violent ones, “so physically and spiritually isolated from the rest of us,” as Alex Kotlowitz describes them in his foreword. How Long Will I Cry? is an attempt – no, I mean a beginning – at ending that isolation.
