Local
In a continuing series of explorations, I probe US universities and especially the example of The Ohio State University’s sloganeering, marketing, and self-promotion, most recently in “The OSU Way: Slogans Over Truth and Honesty in Graduation Rates and Student Well-Being” (Oct. 27, 2022) Let me repeat, I am not on a singular campaign to tarnish the mixed images of the local mega-university. Rather I explore the largest case at hand.
This chapter’s update progresses chronologically over the past month or two. I begin with new (one of countless cohorts) Vice Provost James Earl Orr, Jr.’s undated “Enrollment Report 2022.” Orr is Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management which must be different from nonstrategic Enrollment Management.
Sunday, November 27, 12noon-4pm, Revolutionary Botanicals, 5212 N. High St.
The Bizarket Market will feature 10+ handmade, local vendors. This market will specifically focus on food/drink vendors, bakers, etc. Expect foods that are vegan, Soul Food, Puerto Rican, and Caribbean, plus Drinks, Wine Cellars, Herbal Teas, Mushroom Chocolates, Sweets, Treats, and many more eats! Come have Friendsgiving with us!
There will be gourmet vegan food vendors, drinks, amazing music, live painting, raffles, and more. This is a market by vendors and for vendors so make sure you shop local! Attend Bizarket and enjoy the community and love free of charge. There will be donation gift bags and discounts on select vendors. So, the love is free, but you have to pay for everything else. We’ll see y’all there!
Parking:
Option 1: Wing Snob parking lot, 5179 N. High St.
Option 2: Graceland Shopping Center parking lot, 182 Graceland Blvd.
Ohio House Bill 434 has passed the House. Proponent testimony will be heard in the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee on Nov. 29, 2022. It is likely that opposition testimony will be held the following Tuesday, Dec. 6, with a vote possible that day. HB 434 could open the State of Ohio to a lot of mischief.
Find your senator’s name and contact information using your address. Write one letter and use it SIX WAYS! Here’s how: write or phone to stop Ohio House Bill 434.
The Ohio Nuclear Free Network has created a 4-page flier with 28 concise points on why this bill is dangerous and precedent-setting. This article has highlights from the flier. A link to the flier is at the end of this article. You can write a letter in your own words, copy and paste talking points from the flier, OR send the entire flier.
Friends. Freedom. Food. Music. Parents. Children. Pets. Laughter. Emotions. And dozens of other things. Despite the virus, racial injustice, and many other challenges, we all have so much to be thankful for.
So join me (Bill Cohen) from 7pm to 8:30pm on Friday, November 25 as I sing a unique concert of songs that express gratitude for all that we have. It’s our ninth year for this Thanksgiving-themed concert.
Playing piano and guitar, I’ll sing songs written by, made famous by, or inspired by, a wide variety of folks: John Denver, the Weavers, Phil Ochs, Louis Armstrong, and Don McLean. Even Johnny Appleseed, Jiminy Cricket, and the TV show, “Golden Girls.”
On several songs, Ann Fisher will add beautiful flute accompaniment, David Maywhoor will add percussion, and Joe Lambert and Joanne Blum will add soothing vocal harmonies.
Besides the music in the gratitude concert, we’ll hear some thoughtful quotes, reminding us of our many blessings. No sermons here but words of inspiration and emotion from sources as varied as Albert Schweitzer, Rod Serling, Gandhi, Einstein, and Buddha.
I’m looking right now at the Ohio River, that great and beautiful stream whose name is said to mean just that, in poetry and on place mats. But has anyone heard that explanation and seriously believed it? Perhaps many Ohioans do believe it, and that is why we have the state legislature that we do.
As is typical of American place names claimed to come from native languages, the story of the name Ohio is a fish tale, so to speak. The state name came from the river, of course. But there has not been scholarly agreement on what the name is supposed to mean, though there is consensus that it comes from Seneca language. The Seneca have long lived nowhere near the Ohio River, and once occupied the Ohio Valley for only a short time, as invaders, so this is reason for suspicion off the bat.
I am a journeyman with IATSE Local 12, the local stagehands’ union. We’re freelance artisans and laborers who build the majority of theatrical productions in Central Ohio.
We’re also the primary builders (and uninstallers) of the dozens of trade shows that go through the Greater Columbus Convention Center near the Short North. Whereas the theaters tend to work longer and more irregular hours for us, the Convention Center gigs are predicable, 9-to-5 jobs that often last longer.
Being a dyed-in-the-wool theatre kid, I strongly prefer the magic of a theater to the cold concrete and fluorescent lights of the Convention Center. On the other hand, the regular crews at the Convention Center tend to be a little more blue-collar and have a more ribald (vulgar) sense of humor than most of the regular theater crews.
Here’s a video of John Oliver denouncing FIFA for putting the World Cup in Qatar, a place that uses slavery and abuses women and abuses LGBT people. It’s a video about how everyone else glosses over nasty truths. Oliver drags in Russia as a past World Cup host that abuses protesters, and even Saudi Arabia as a possible host in the distant future that commits all sorts of atrocities. My concern is not just that the U.S., as one of the planned hosts four years hence, gets a pass on its general behavior. My concern is that the U.S. has far outdone FIFA this year, and every year, in Qatar. The U.S. has put six things into that horrific little oil dictatorship, each of which is worse than the World Cup.
Stored in a nondescript Columbus office complex is a massive cache of Ohio’s most important Native American artifacts. Also stored there are the remains of roughly 7,200 Native Americans whose grave sites were dug up by archeologists or looters over the previous century or longer.
These remains and the 110,000-plus funerary objects found with them have been stored by the Ohio History Connection in near secrecy, but what can’t be denied is what they represent.
That Ohio, and the Scioto River Valley in particular, is hallowed and historical ground for many who claim First Nation ancestry. A history the white man tried to erase with shovels, bulldozers, and his insatiable appetite for more.
“It’s abundant, it’s everywhere, but it’s silent,” said Alex Wesaw of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, who was hired in 2020 to run the Ohio History Connection’s American Indian Relations Division, which, surprisingly, was only just established at the end of the last decade.
As Thanksgiving rolls around again this year, it’s time to once more get in your Republican family members’ faces about the harsh realities that their political party is creating –– whether they fully understand those realities or not. After all, it’s only been two years since one of the most controversial elections in American history –– and two years away from another that will have massive implications on democracy in our state and country as well. However, this past midterm election was equally important –– and while the majority of Americans succeeded in showing up and realizing that importance, it’s fair to say that Ohio voters failed to fully grasp the gravity of our own state’s situation. Ohio’s democracy is slowly teetering on the edge of fascism –– and Republicans are to blame.