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Thousands of angry protesters filled Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma boulevard, marching more than two miles to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the disappearance of 43 education students from a rural teacher’s college in 2014.

National anger over the forced disappearances revived days before the September 26th anniversary. Among President Manuel Andrés López Obrador’s most prominent campaign promises when he was a candidate in the 2018 elections was a swift solution to the disappearances and stern sentences for the guilty. Yet now, half way through the six year term, he announced a meager advance.

Moreover, the pledged commitments to education, youth, teachers, employment, and nearly all other social ills have gone unmet — most of them even suffering severe cutbacks. Most repulsive is the rising number of feminicides (murdered women) in an administration that flaunts itself as center-left, populist, progressive, etc.

Background

I read that on July 4, 1977, the Imperial Wizard, Dale R. Reusch of Lodi, Ohio led a Klan rally on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse. There were protestors and a fight broke out. I’d like to talk to one of the men arrested. He knows what I know, that the Ku Klux Klan was alive and well in Columbus in the 1970s. I met Klan members that night. I saw how many white men gather to express their hate, to show the city how strong they are. It was like a movie I accidentally walked into.

On September 17, three Ohio civic organizations and six individual Ohioans filed suit in the Supreme Court of Ohio, seeking to block the state general assembly plan adopted by the Ohio Redistricting Commission on September 16 and require the commission to draw new districts. The plaintiffs argue that the new plan’s maps violate the prohibition against partisan gerrymandering and voters’ equal protection and associational rights under the Ohio constitution. 

Thursday, September 30 at 6pm EDT
UPDATES on what's happening in Missouri, Ohio and Oklahoma, featuring Lauren Sobchak, Organizer with Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Yesterday the organization delivered your petitions to help stop next week's scheduled execution of Ernest Johnson. Also joining us, Allison Cohen from Ohioans to Stop Executions. Register Here.

Ohio’s medical marijuana law and program are not perfect and there have been complaints – prices are too high, the state-mandated THC levels are too low, you can’t grow your own medicine, and the complaint heard most often, it’s illegal in Ohio to smoke your own medicine.

Nevertheless, the program has helped tens of thousands cope with AIDS, cancer and Parkinsons, among others, and also arthritis and chronic migraines, two new qualifying medical conditions.

The latest numbers provided by the state show just over 200,000 registered patients, with over 800 having a terminal diagnosis, 14,000 being veterans and 15,000 indigent status or not having the means to purchase their medicine.

The program has saved lives, in ways many may not believe is possible, but believe it.

“The program has saved my life as I’m a recovering heroin addict,” says 30-something Anthony Ballein, a single father who lives near Cincinnati. “I am happy with the program overall as it has helped me to stay sober.”

What is a gaffe but an inadvertent uttering of an awkward truth? For instance:

“This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while.”

The “gaffe” part of George W. Bush’s post-9/11 announcement that the War on Terror had begun was, of course, his calling it a crusade. Doing so, as the Wall Street Journal put it at the time, was “indelicate,” because:

“In strict usage, the word describes the Christian military expeditions a millennium ago to capture the Holy Land from Muslims. But in much of the Islamic world, where history and religion suffuse daily life in ways unfathomable to most Americans, it is shorthand for something else: a cultural and economic Western invasion that, Muslims fear, could subjugate them and desecrate Islam.”

Wednesday, September 29, 2021, 12:00 PM

Sunday evening workers and supporters of workers at Worthington’s three library branches gathered on Worthington’s Village Green to rally support for voting yes to unionize. The year-long effort to unionize the workers at Worthington Public Libraries has come down to a vote, which employees and the community are optimistic will result in the recognition of the union.

If workers at Worthington Public Libraries succeed in forming a union, it would be the first library to be unionized in Franklin County. Libraries in Franklin County are fragmented among individual towns and cities, which is why the City of Worthington has three branches under Worthington Public Libraries. Columbus has its own library system, Columbus Metropolitan Libraries, and cities like Bexley, Upper Arlington, and others each have their own independent libraries, but all share resources with each other.

Sunday evening workers and supporters of workers at Worthington’s three library branches gathered on Worthington’s Village Green to rally support for voting yes to unionize. The year-long effort to unionize the workers at Worthington Public Libraries has come down to a vote, which employees and the community are optimistic will result in the recognition of the union.

If workers at Worthington Public Libraries succeed in forming a union, it would be the first library to be unionized in Franklin County. Libraries in Franklin County are fragmented among individual towns and cities, which is why the City of Worthington has three branches under Worthington Public Libraries. Columbus has its own library system, Columbus Metropolitan Libraries, and cities like Bexley, Upper Arlington, and others each have their own independent libraries, but all share resources with each other.

Tuesday, September 28, 12:30pm, Ohio Statehouse

This event is in conjunction with an “international solidarity protest” “from Ohio, to Texas, to Mexico.”

Hosted by NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, Ohio Women’s Alliance Action Fund, Ohio Women’s Alliance, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, Women Have Options Ohio, and Feminist Flag Corps.