Local

Thursday, October 26th at 6pm
Suszanne M. Scharer Room, Ohio Union
1739 N High St, Columbus, OH 43210, Ohio State University
Teach-in with Palestinian Provost's Fellow, Dr. Bayan Abusneineh, on contextualizing Gaza, Palestine and its history. 

When it comes to Columbus’s new district system for City Council, Eastside activist Jonathan Beard pulls no punches.

“I started calling this ‘Columbabama.’ This is repackaged 1950’s Jim Crow,” he says. “These fake districts were Shannon Hardin’s effort to confuse the ballot, claim responsiveness to an issue, and preserve white money and white voters’ influence over who represents Black folk in Columbus.”

In 2016, Beard unsuccessfully tried to bring true representative districts to Columbus. His non-profit Everyday People For Positive Change spent $13,000 while the City spent over $1 million to distort and then defeat the citizen-initiated vote.

“Our proposal simply sought to enlarge the size of council and bring real council districts to the city. Columbus is the only big city in America to retain an all-at-large election system,” he says.

Reefer Madness is alive and well. Remember the drug war when truth didn’t matter? Apparently, those who represent us at the statehouse vehemently oppose cannabis being on the ballot. So, to sway public opinion, they copped their legislative authority to pass a ridiculous resolution filled with faulty facts.

Yep, on October 10th, with nary an announcement nor a hearing, Ohio Senate Republicans – all of 23 them – introduced an passed that very same day, along strict party lines Ohio Senate Resolution 216 (S.R. No. 216), whose Long Title is: “To express the Ohio Senate's opposition to Issue 2 on the November 7, 2023, statewide ballot, which would legalize the use and retail sale of recreational marijuana; to identify the problems, risks, dangers, burdens, and costs it would bring to Ohioans, employers, and communities; and to encourage Ohioans to vote against the measure.” Gee thanks.

Tuesday, October 24, 2023, 7:00 – 8:30 PM
Staff from US Together and Community Refugee and Immigration Services will discuss their efforts to help individuals and families join new communities, including those resettling in Worthington, and share ways to help.  
Location:  Old Worthington Library, 820 N. High St., Worthington. 

Labels are central to the politics of media. And no label has been more powerful than “terrorist.”

 A single standard of language should accompany a consistent standard of human rights, which the world desperately needs. “If thought corrupts language,” George Orwell wrote, “language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.”

 No amount of rhetoric from its defenders and apologists can change the reality that Hamas engaged in mass murder. What Hamas horrifically did to more than 1,000 Israeli civilians of all ages two weeks ago meets the dictionary definition of terrorism.

Please join me in calling and emailing your representatives and senators daily. Ask for an immediate ceasefire.  
Ask representatives to cosponsor H.Res. 786 calling for immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine.  
The phone numbers and email forms can be found on each member’s website.  
Below are some quick messages you can send:

From the Rebuilding Alliance:  Open Call for Immediate Ceasefire: Urge Elected Officials to Sign 0n

Prevent a Humanitarian Catastrophe and Further Loss of Innocent Lives.  Take action here. 

Don’t Tell 

On the way to East High School, we stopped to pick up Annie at her house on Long Street. She used to live in an apartment in Poindexter Village, now she lived a few doors down from the Reverend Phale D. Hale, Sr. family. Another famous family on the East Side and in the state. Rev. Hale had been the President of the NAACP and was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. I thought it was cool that he lived in my neighborhood. It showed where his heart was, with his people.

Annie was glad to see us, well, me at least. Jean didn’t particularly like Annie and made sure we both knew it. She wasn’t outright mean, but she insulted Annie every chance she got. Like the time when Annie got a new haircut. I thought it was cute, but Jean told her she looked like a black orphan Annie from the movie. When Annie and I entered the lunchroom that day Jean started singing “the sun will come out tomorrow” and everybody laughed and those that knew the song started singing with her. I was mad, but Annie wasn’t. She started singing it too.

In the last week, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther shows signs of an incumbent in a tight race desperate to prove he deserves another shot at his job. If he were even slightly engaged with everyday people, he wouldn’t need the polling firm he’s hired to learn about what matters to people in the city he is paid to lead.

Selected voters in Columbus recently received a survey (or “push poll”) from a market research firm, EMC Research, paid for by the Friends of Ginther campaign ($55,000 paid to EMC Research on July 27, 2023). What these polls lacked in ethical research, they made up for in creative rewriting of history, attempting to create a fiction of Andy Ginther as having “worked tirelessly to fight crime” in Columbus with only two examples to offer the public of his effort.

In the last week, Columbus Mayor AndrewGinther shows signs of an incumbent in a tight race desperate to prove he deserves another shot at his job. If he were even slightly engaged with everyday people, he wouldn’t need the polling firm he’s hired to learn about what matters to people in the city he is paid to lead.

Selected voters in Columbus recently received a survey (or “push poll”) from a market research firm, EMC Research, paid for by the Friends of Ginther campaign ($55,000 paid to EMC Research on July 27, 2023). What these polls lacked in ethical research, they made up for in creative rewriting of history, attempting to create a fiction of Andy Ginther as having “worked tirelessly to fight crime” in Columbus with only two examples to offer the public of his effort.

Martin Scorsese paints a vast canvas of greed, betrayal, and twisted love in "Killers of the Flower Moon." This sweeping epic, a suspense-filled crime drama, is adapted from David Grann's acclaimed book, revealing a dark chapter in American history. It explores the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma, who, after striking "black gold" (oil), faced mysterious murders. At 80, Scorsese still pushes cinema's boundaries.

After serving as a cook in World War I, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns to Oklahoma and meets his influential Uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), known as the "King," Hale's power in the Osage Indian Reservation comes from cattle ranching and deep community ties. Driven by greed, Hale persuades Ernest to marry Mollie (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman with a potential oil inheritance. As tragedies strike Mollie's family, FBI Agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons) is sent to investigate the suspicious events.