Local
Staff at the Pickerington Public Library are organizing to form a union. If successful, they would become the third library system in Central Ohio to unionize through the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT). In 2021 and 2022, library workers at Worthington Libraries and Grandview Heights Public Library formed unions in affiliation with OFT. Fairfield County Library workers are also organized through the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
On August 10, the Pickerington Public Library staff formally asked the library’s Director and Board of Trustees to voluntarily recognize their union. Signed union cards were presented to the State Employee Relations Board (SERB) as well, the office which will count the vote. At least 73 percent of staff in the library system, spanning two locations, had signed cards indicating their support for the unionization effort.
We've all had unimaginable childhood dreams growing up. But what if one of those dreams became a reality? Neil Blomkamp's movie adaptation of the video game "Gran Turismo" delves into this notion. What's captivating is that it's grounded in the incredible true story of a team of underdogs in auto racing: a unique blend of a video game movie and a biopic.
The film is based on a real-life contest that allowed the best Gran Turismo players to race for real. Despite following familiar underdog tropes, the film is well-crafted and features impressive racing sequences. "Gran Turismo" is a video game adaptation that blurs the line between reality and fiction, showcasing how a racing simulator can train someone to become skilled in the real world.
Archie Madekwe portrays Jann Mardenborough, an avid gamer from Cardiff who dedicates nearly every waking moment to dominating Gran Turismo on PlayStation. He dreams of becoming a real-life race car driver. The problem? His expertise lies in the virtual world; he doesn't know the first thing about racing actual cars.
Columbus activists held a banner at 161 and High Street in Worthington last Saturday, August 26 to demand freedom for Julian Assange. Amnesty International says: "The US government’s unrelenting pursuit of Julian Assange for having published disclosed documents that included possible war crimes committed by the US military is nothing short of a full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression."
Julian Assange is currently being held at Belmarsh, a high security prison in the UK, on the basis of a US extradition request on charges that stem directly from the publication of disclosed documents as part of his work with Wikileaks.
The time left to save freedom of the press is short. The UK has agreed to extradite Assange to the US. If he is tried and convicted in an American court, all publishers will be open to prosecution with the possibility of a life sentence in prison for printing information that the US govt doesn't like.
What publisher would risk that? Assange's "crime" was publishing truths that the government wanted concealed from the public -- a heroic act.
Thursday, August 31, 7pm, Tuttle Park [outside of the Tuttle Community Center], 240 W. Oakland Ave.
Join Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists for a meeting discussing and debating the methods we need to use to advance the socialist movement and end capitalist oppression once and for all. We’ll talk about the role of organization, the centrality of anti-oppression struggles, and the need for total independence from the ruling class and its political parties.
This meeting will take place in-person outside of the Tuttle Community Center and online at tinyurl.com/CORSmeeting (using the Jitsi app).
Hosted by Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists.
Part Two
Instead of actions that aid its too many, largely unadvised and unassisted students, several years ago, OSU changed the long-time traditional requirement that first year students live on campus in university-operated dormitories as part of their transition from home and socialization to college. With little advance notice and no responsible operational planning, one year became two years of mandatory on-campus housing and required university food contracts for all students who do not live with their families.
This was partly foreshadowed when OSU more than twenty years earlier removed full-time faculty from regular student advising. Only a handful of departments now assign new majors to faculty or have majors select their own advisors. For almost all students, as in first- and second-year general education, advising is conducted by full-time, non-teaching advisors. Many students, concentrating in certain colleges and departments, never or seldom speak to an advisor. Waiting time can be months not days or weeks and months.
On August 24, 2023, Ta'Kiya Young was murdered by the police. This fund is to help her family with burial and funeral expenses.
Give to CashApp here: $ChelleeBoo2887
Earlier this year, at a Kroger on the far Southside, a store manager was undercover. And a customer, a middle-aged white woman wearing a pant suit, a COVID mask and a floppy hat, was about to the leave the store.
Suddenly the undercover store manager yelled “Drop It!” The white woman, who looked more Dublin than Southside, scoffed at first. But then spilled her plastic grocery bags’ contents onto the floor. Out came organic juices, dog bones, and makeup. Caught red-handed. She was marched by the manager to the customer service desk.
There, a security guard made her raise her right hand and sign a document. She said she would never shop in that store again and walked out a free woman. A Free Press reporter witnessed all of this firsthand.
Corporate America continues to claim shoplifting post pandemic is ruining their bottom line, but Kroger during this time has also become one of the world’s top five largest and most profitable grocery chains. In 2020, Kroger’s sales surged over 8 percent, to $132 billion, posting a $2.6 billion profit for the year.
I am surely not the only one who has noticed that the defensive propaganda lines that are flowing out the Democratic Administration have become more than ordinarily ridiculous of late. One is astonished at the melding of fact and fiction to create narratives that depict the White House and all that pertains to it as forging a new and more wonderful country. Wasn’t “Build Back Better” the battle cry, whatever that is supposed to mean? And the spin is endless, even when a clueless Joe Biden belatedly winds up in Maui to relate to the tragedy in which at least 1,000 died, only to be greeted by surviving local residents saluting the president with their middle fingers upraised. As the president looked out over the destruction of an entire city by fire he reminisced by recalling his long ago “almost” encounter with a fire in his kitchen. Locals who were screaming for help from government were, in fact, getting almost nothing while the nation’s Chief Executive was in the Oval Office gloating over sending another $23 billion to the arch crook Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, money to fight a war that Biden encouraged and has blithely entered into.
The Open Shelter still is in need of groups that can provide sack lunches for those we serve every month; homeless men, women, children, and families.
We are in definite need of sack lunches for 9/22 & 9/28.
Due to increased demand, we can use sack lunches for any weekday but need sack lunch groups for the 1st Tuesday, 4th Thursday, and 4th Friday of each month in addition to any 5th Tuesdays or 5th Fridays.
Feel free to give us a call at 614-222-2885 or email us back if you can help or have any questions.
Many groups that have helped say it is a fun and rewarding activity. YOUR support can help fill the bellies of the 250+ homeless and marginally housed men, women, and children we see each weekday. Thank you!
Ta’Kiya Young – an unarmed 21-year-old pregnant woman – was shot and killed by local law enforcement for allegedly shoplifting. What many may not be aware of is that Kroger corporate – averaging $30 billion in annual profit since 2020 – has forgone shoplifting charges for several years now, and if caught by store security, those caught are asked to leave and never come back.
Curbing increasing gun violence, police-involved shootings, and shoplifting, has no good solution no matter how hard the community tries. But one thing we have learned from relatives of those killed by local law enforcement is that police shootings give our young people this attitude – “If the police can do it, then I can do it.”
But there may be an answer to police-involved shootings, but the GOP-besieged state government won’t allow this potential solution be approved for a statewide vote and thus decided by citizens themselves.