Local
Letter to Congresswoman Joyce Beatty:
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty
Ohio District 3
Dear Congresswoman Beatty,
Above is a photo of the group of us from SPAN Ohio and Our Revolution who gathered outside your Columbus Office yesterday. We came to ask you to become a cosponsor of Medicare for All, HR 1976, and to support the Medicare Expansion legislation that hopefully will be included in the reconciliation bill.
This gathering was prompted by the lack of a response to a meeting we had by ZOOM in May with Janay Eyo, a member of your staff, attended by 8 of us, including 6 constituents. We made the same ask of her at that meeting. We have had no response.
Columbus' metropolitan area now boasts over a dozen 100% vegan restaurants:
Ye's Vegan Asian Kitchen (Hilliard) Asian Food
The Little Kitchen (Dublin-Bridgepark NorthMarket)
Green House Canteen (Grandview)
Vida’s Plant-based Butcher (Grandview)
& Juice Co (Clintonville) Fresh Pressed Juices daily, and lovely weekend brunches and a monthly special dinner
Eden Burger (OSU Campus) Vegan Burgers, Fries and Milkshakes, other vegan Americana foods and incredible desserts by Doughasis (another vegan bakery)
Nile Vegan (OSU Campus & Grandview)
Ethiopian 4th & State (Downtown Columbus)
Two-Dollar Radio (German Village/Parsons Ave Columbus)
Lifestyle Cafe (Old Town East) Whole Foods meals from Waffles Soups Salads and Breakfast items and Bakery
Portia's Cafe (and Portia's Next Door in Clintonville)
Portia's Diner (Clintonville) Her latest whole foods restaurant
Seitans Realm (Clintonville in October 2020)
Woodhouse Vegan Cafe and Space (Italian Village -4th Ave just off 670 offramps)
Willowbeez SoulVeg (North Market Downtown)
Here’s what happened at the August Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon on August 14 with the theme “Radical Nutrition.”
Cyber-salon host and Free Press Board member Mark Stansbery introduced the first speaker, Eriyah Flynn of Vegan Shift. She spoke about veganism, stressing that it is a consciousness, not simply a diet choice. Veganism is a way to live fairly and equally with all earthlings, not to embody human supremacy over animals. She mentioned several informative videos, includingCowspiracy.
Here’s what happened at the July Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon on August 14 with the theme “Radical Nutrition.”
Cyber-salon host and Free Press Board member Mark Stansbery introduced the first speaker, Eriyah Flynn of Vegan Shift. She spoke about veganism, stressing that it is a consciousness, not simply a diet choice. Veganism is a way to live fairly and equally with all earthlings, not to embody human supremacy over animals. She mentioned several informative videos, includingCowspiracy.
Sunday, August 15, 1pm, Goodale Park Gazebo, 120 W. Goodale St.
We’ll plan to meet by the gazebo! Street parking is free on Sundays.
If you feel comfortable with participating, please bring a whole food plant-based dish to share with everyone who attends (details are below). If you do not feel comfortable, no worries — we’d still love to have you join us! Also, please bring along a towel and/or chair for you to sit on.
Please ensure that your dish is:
• whole food plant-based, which means primarily made from unprocessed, unrefined fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds, etc.,
• made with little to no added oils, and is
• free from animal-derived products, such as meat, dairy, egg, fish, etc.
If you are able, please bring a copy of your recipe for people to pass around / take a picture of, as well as the necessary serving utensils that your dish requires, such as a ladle if you bring soup.
If you have any questions about what to make or bring, feel free to check out the following:
And the least secret agent of all . . . Agent Orange!
On August 10, 1961, the United States, several years before it actually sent troops, started poisoning the forests and crops of Vietnam with herbicides. The purpose: to deprive our declared enemy, the commies of Ho Chi Minh, of food and ground cover that allowed them to trek from North to South. It was called, innocuously, Operation Ranch Hand.
To sum it up as simply as possible, war is insane—and growing ever more so.
Agent Orange, the most powerful of the herbicides used in Operation Ranch Hand, contained dioxin, one of the most toxic substances on the planet. We dropped 20 million gallons of this and other herbicides on Vietnam, contaminating 7,000 square miles of its forests. Half a century later, we are fully aware of the consequences of this strategic decision, not just for the Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians, but also for many American troops: hundreds of thousands of deaths and debilitating illnesses, horrific birth defects, unending hell.
Saturday, August 14, 7-8pm
Zoom
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83906590837
Meeting ID: 839 06
Also available at 7pm on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/freepress.org/live_videos/
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2984211631851002
Since we aren't getting together in person, we can gather for a couple hours on the second Saturday night of each month from 7-8:00pm Eastern Time on Zoom.
New bill, new ballot measure, new federal legislation. Signature “time machine” and Sativex for Brain Cancer? Welcome to selected bites of fresh cannabis news sliced from the headlines, with a sweet Ohio twist. Sources are linked.
Friday, August 13, 6-9pm, Wild Goose Creative, 188 McDowell St.
Six Ohio artists are crafting posters, inspired by insights from incarcerated and justice-impacted artists, about the importance of the work that they do.
In August, we will release the six posters in a limited edition of fine prints. You can buy the prints at this pop-up show, and on-line later. The event takes place at Wild Goose Creative’s new space in Franklinton (at 188 McDowell St.).
We’ll follow this release with a mass run of prints to be distributed widely to schools, community centers, prisons, and on the street. We are partnering with Cincinnati’s Pull Club, a women-owned studio, to advise and teach and to do the screen-printing for the series.
As a part of this project, we are partnering with Cincinnati’s Wave Pool to provide professional artist development workshops for the artists and for other returned citizens.
A 14-year-old former gang member of the “MBKs” or “My Brother’s Keepers,” told his story to the Free Press. He was living in the Hilltop, but now no longer lives near Mound Street because he was taken away from his mother and placed into foster care after spending a year in “juvy” or juvenile detention center. This is his story, mostly unfiltered. It is unfortunately a longtime reality of certain Columbus neighborhoods.
To be clear, the 14-year-old’s hair is fluffy light brown, his skin is milky white. He looks more Hilliard than Hilltop, but life is far more nuanced than stereotypes.
“The MBKs is mixed,” he tells us. “I was jumped in,” he adds, referring to his initiation.
“I robbed people. Downtown, the Short North,” he says. The Free Press could not independently corroborate his entire story.
He twists his hand around an imaginary handgun barrel. “With the silencer. That’s how you rob trap houses. I shot some people.” A trap house is where addicts repeatedly go for their fix.