Local

Friday, March 3, 2023, 5:00 PM – Sunday, March 5, 2023, 3:00 PM
For more than 60 years, Amnesty International USA has hosted our Annual General Meeting. Amnesty International is a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights. We work to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth, and dignity are denied.  

Our Annual General Meeting (AGM) is an opportunity for members and activists to come together and inspire one another, learn about each other’s efforts and campaigns, share stories and experiences, and listen and participate in our sessions and panels. Throughout the weekend, you will meet and interact with individuals and groups who share your commitment to human rights. We hope that when you leave AGM, you leave with new skills, inspiring stories, and a refreshed sense of hope and determination. Join us for AGM in March!  

Environmental activists, after Wednesday’s public meeting (March 1st) of the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission, called on commission members to seek emergency adoption from Gov. Mike DeWine of Proposed Rule 155-1-01, which sets the regulations regarding oil and gas industry leases for fossil fuel extraction from Ohio public lands. 

The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission approved Proposed Rule 155-1-01, along with a draft Standard Lease Form, at its February 1 meeting and sent these items on for consideration by the Common Sense Initiative and Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review. 

City of Columbus mayoral candidate Joe Motil states, “Incumbent Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s runoff election loss yesterday is part of a pattern across the country. In one term, she lost the unprecedented diverse backing that elected her four years ago. Voters in cities east and west, north and south, large and small are rejecting new leaders and handpicked politicians who are joined at the hip with developers and corporations. Chicago voters overwhelmingly made it clear that those who are not delivering on their promises to provide safe neighborhoods, truly affordable housing, fixing our crumbling infrastructure, solving homelessness, and quality of life for all no longer will remain in office.”           

Motil says, “Last year’s Los Angeles, California mayoral election loss by businessman Rick Caruso, who spent over $100 million on his campaign, is also a sign that money by itself isn’t going to fool Columbus voters. We see similar patterns in New Orleans, Atlanta, San Francisco, even Cleveland and Cincinnati.  

Thursday, March 2, 2023, 7:00 PM
Co-hosted by the Ohio Chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby  
Learn more about the forces that have been holding back progress on climate solutions.  In our last conversation, we discussed innovative approaches to solving the climate crisis. In March, we will take a look at the ways in which entrenched interests have worked to undermine progress through coordinated disinformation campaigns.

Our book will be “The Petroleum Papers” by Canadian journalist Geoff Dembicki, and this time we are adding a podcast to the conversation. 

More information and registration here.  

Wednesday, March 1, 2023, 6:00 PM
The Columbus Education Justice Coalition (CEJC) will launch its “Our City, Our Schools” campaign this week.

The reasons why a loved one takes their own life is an agonizing question a bereaved family has to deal with for the rest of their lifetime. But if a person decides to take their life at their place of employment, it’s a distinct possibility the stresses of the job played a role.

On the Westside of Columbus, sandwiched between Upper Arlington and Hilliard, is a mostly industrial area where one of the region’s largest employers – the United Parcel Service or UPS – has a massive hub. A 90-acre packaging distribution center to be exact, which employs roughly 800 full-time and part-time workers, and processes over 60,000 packages an hour. The hub’s address is 5101 Trabue Road and can be seen driving west on I-70.

Late last December, a full-time UPS employee, believed to be an assistant manager, took their own life at the hub while on the job. A large Columbus police presence showed, and according to several UPS workers there that night, the incident was severely traumatizing.

“We basically nuked a town with chemicals so we could get a railroad open.” Those are the words of former Youngstown fire chief and hazmat specialist Sil Caggiano, describing the anything-but-controlled burn of 1.1 million pounds of highly hazardous chemicals after the Norfolk Southern derailment disaster in East Palestine on February 3. 

Since then, residents have had a lot more questions than answers about what exactly was in those rail cars and what else formed when the chemicals in those cars were drained into a ditch and burned. The fire pit burn created a mushroom cloud of toxic smoke that was carried by the wind across neighboring states and even into Canada, according to NOAA modeling.

The United States and Ohio commit relentlessly to limit children’s reading and literacy. Led by Ohio State University’s anti-academic, anti-children’s learning, and profiteering Reading Recovery—where there is nothing to “recover,” let alone reading--Ohio swings wildly from over-dependence on—you pick the misleading jargon name—phonetics, “balanced reading,” “whole word,” “look-see” to now tilting at the windmill of so-called phonics.

In this, Ohio follows a national shift. Despite DeWine’s constant refrain, Ohio is never a leader, especially in education where the needs of children never come first. (See, for example, my “State legislators and critical race theory,” Letter to the Editor,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 27, 2021; “Ohio Education Promotes Racism and Restricting Equity, Again,” Columbus Free Press, Oct. 27, 2021; “DeWine whines about critical race theory,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Dec. 11, 2021; “The State of Ohio assaults its own children: The war on those least able to defend themselves,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Mar. 6, 2022;

At last week’s Rage Against the War Machine peace rally in Washington there was no shortage of speakers who denounced the Biden Administration’s hypocritical foreign policy, which essentially judges any violent action undertaken by the United States and its friends as good by definition while anything done by rivals or competitors, sometimes conveniently referred to as “enemies,” as “evil.” In the current context of Ukraine versus Russia, where the US is engaged in proxy warfare, speakers were able to cite and compare the formidable list of America’s armed interventions worldwide since World War Two ended. Neither Russia nor any other nation comes anywhere near the United States in terms of constant bellicosity, conflicts which hardly ever reflect any real vital national interest or imminent foreign threat.

Monday, February 27, 2023, 7:00 – 8:30 PM
Welcome to Sunrise Columbus! We are the local hub of a national, youth-led movement fighting for political action on climate change. We advocate for sustainable policies in Columbus, across Ohio, and at the federal level, to ensure a just and livable planet for all.  

Whether you're new to Sunrise or have been here since the beginning, all are welcome to our weekly Monday meetings.  This meeting is not at our normal location due to scheduling conflicts. It is being held at a private residence. We intend to return to our primary location (normally the Main Library) at our future in person meetings. Join us to take bold action!  In person event,