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Today’s news overflows with concerns about the cost and benefits—“is college worth it?”--about higher education itself, its price, public vs. private, preparation of both students and professors, on the one hand, and fears about the maturation of Gen Z caught between social media, AI, and uncertain futures, on the other hand.
Parents and most others assume that established universities are relatively safe spaces for late-teenagers and young adults (now 18-26, no longer 18-22, years old) to grow and learn. They are often not. Irregular reports or alarms do not connect the different elements.
My focus is the failure of public universities because of their commitment to corporate profiteering, sloganeering, and private interests over public, image and finances over student lives. What I describe is true for most universities. My major example is The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, Ohio, an especially egregious example of all-too-common problems. It is a very large institution that admits to none.
Political corruption and lack of accountability in the statehouse today are reasons Ohio’s Republican Party supermajority legislators are considering despoiling Ohio’s state parks by fracking, said David Pepper, Cincinnati political activist and author, at a recent Columbus rally.
Dark money led to “safe” gerrymandered voting districts, where some politicians have never been adequately challenged for re-election, he told about 100 people attending the Save Ohio Parks-sponsored “Rally for State Parks, Climate and Democracy” on Oct. 27.
“We're living in Ohio, but it’s happening around the nation,” said Pepper. “All the incentives are turned upside down; the incentive to serve the people goes away, because you get re-elected no matter how bad a job you do, no matter how poor the schools are…no matter how much you screw up the Ohio parks.”
What dark money has given Ohio politicians is an incentive to keep private players happy, and what do the private players want?
Thursday, November 2, 2023, 7:00 PM
It’s not too late to join.
Register by sending an email to Chuck@SimplyLiving.org.
Put Emerging World in the subject line to receive the Zoom link.
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
World Vegan Day is a global event celebrated annually on 1 November. Vegans celebrate the benefits of veganism for animals, humans, and the natural environment through activities such as setting up stalls, hosting potlucks, and planting memorial trees.
The first World Vegan Day was created to mark the society's 50th anniversary, held on 1 November 1994. This was later extended to become World Vegan Week and as we now know it, World Vegan Month. Since then, every November, World Vegan Month is celebrated around the world as a time to shine a light on the vegan movement.
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
World Vegan Day is a global event celebrated annually on 1 November. Vegans celebrate the benefits of veganism for animals, humans, and the natural environment through activities such as setting up stalls, hosting potlucks, and planting memorial trees.
The first World Vegan Day was created to mark the society's 50th anniversary, held on 1 November 1994. This was later extended to become World Vegan Week and as we now know it, World Vegan Month. Since then, every November, World Vegan Month is celebrated around the world as a time to shine a light on the vegan movement.
Andrew Ginther’s 2023 campaign for mayor seems to be driven almost entirely by developers and architects, whose campaign donations make up 48 percent of the $1 million the campaign has received this year. In total, Ginther received $485,609.69 from developers and architects just this year.
Included in the donations to the Ginther campaign is $13,700 from M/I Homes PAC, the political wing of M/I Homes of Central Ohio LLC, who own almost 700 properties in the county according to the auditor’s website, and $15,000 from Smoot Construction, a company that regularly receives contracts from the city and earned a place in Ginther’s 2020 State of the City Address.
We are once again decking out Streetlight Guild for Halloween, featuring a two-floor miniature Halloween village. Our largest layout yet!
Visitors and families can come tour the village on both floors for free. We’ll be giving away candy bags for all, and those who come in costume get an extra gift! We host a family-friendly exhibit that’s only up for five days, so come get your trick-or-treat on in a safe and spooky environment!
Tuesday 10/31: 5-8
Admission: Free
The first floor of Streetlight Guild is wheelchair accessible in the back of the building by lift. Just inform us ahead of or upon your arrival and we’ll assist.
Hundreds of protestors and community activists gathered outside the Ohio Statehouse on October 21 and marched across the Short North to demand an end to the genocide of Palestinians and the illegal Zionist occupation of Palestine. There have been many protests in Columbus since then to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The protest was organized by Students for Justice in Palestine, a student organization at OSU that advocates for the rights of Palestinians. Community organizers gave powerful speeches in support of the Palestinian people.
Jineen Musa, a local activist with Palestinian roots gave a speech that day, saying “I have yet to see the Palestine we yearn for. I have spent my whole life screaming ‘Free Palestine,’ just like the generations before me. How many more generations will have to scream? ...it is our generation that must free them from the inhumane occupation. We must be the generation to bring about a Free Palestine.”
UFOs are all the rage, even en vogue, especially after the Pentagon admitted it had secretly been investigating a gigantic white Tic Tac UFO, among others. The mystery is reaching near hysteria and even the Air Force may not have a clue about these things which have made many, many people exclaim “What is that?” to the sky.
We republish this updated Halloween thriller from 2013:
On an ink-stained night in late October 1973, sheriffs near Zanesville witnessed three pulsating globes over a local graveyard on the edge of town.
UFOs hovering over graveyards sounds like a pretty cool plot line. But 50 years ago, just days before thousands of kids flooded the streets for Halloween, the truth was way stranger than fiction as a UFO wave swept across Ohio in mid-to-late October of 1973.
Also known as a UFO “flap,” fear and panic spread across the colorful fall prairie. Much like how the Halloween night radio broadcast of HG Wells’ War of the World’s did in 1938.
But this was mind-bendingly real, as police from Columbus to Cincinnati fielded hundreds of calls. Local newspapers put the story on the front page.
From Win Without War
While trucks carrying humanitarian aid were finally able to enter Gaza with life-saving drinking water, food, and medicines in recent days, an essential element has been missing - Fuel.
The Biden administration and the international community are thankfully doing more to secure and prioritize getting critically needed humanitarian aid to Gaza in the face of the Israeli government’s blockade — but it’s still not enough. Without the fuel necessary to keep hospital generators and ambulances running, these relief efforts will be hamstrung, and lives will be unnecessarily lost.