Local
The following are statements about the death of another African American at the hands of those sworn to protect us and the local and nationwide protests still ongoing.
My message to protesters is simple, will their turn up be a turn out in November?
Adrienne Hood’stragic story is well known and far too common. The mother’s 23-year-old son Henry Green was murdered by Columbus Police in June of 2016.
“The last few days have been emotional roller coaster. I am angry at what I saw, I ask the Lord, “Just how much more are we supposed to take!”
Video obtained by the Free Press from a Thursday, May 28 Columbus protest against the murder of Geroge Floyd in Minneapolis, depicts peaceful demonstrators sitting down facing a phalanx of bicycle cops as officers suddenly begin spraying them in the face without warning.
WATCH VIDEO HERE: https://youtu.be/AB6LmkmLnUI
The video circulated briefly on Facebook but has been removed by Facebook least four times.
Mainstream news account of the incidents blame the demonstrators for starting a "riot" but witnesses tell the Free Press a different story. The old adage remains true - put police in riot gear, and there will be a riot.
Joe Motil, a former City Council candidate and outspoken critic of the Columbus Police Department states that, “ It really should come as no surprise that Black America and others who have lost all faith and hope with how police officers continue to avoid being properly prosecuted, have begun displaying their built up anger with combative protesting.”
Motil states that,” Here in Columbus and other cities across the country, the media’s attention is once again centered on the actions of protesters and not where it should be. The media should be questioning city leaders and police chiefs about what they are doing to ensure that rogue police officers shall be properly prosecuted and justice to Black victims and their loved ones will be served.”
Saturday, Ma7 30, 10am-12pm
Ohio Statehouse, 1 Capitol Square
***On the sidewalk in front of the Ohio Statehouse facing High St.***
Bring your signs and face masks this Saturday, May 30 from 10 AM-12 PM for a demonstration to demand justice for Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd! We will be gathering in front of the Ohio Statehouse along High St. on the sidewalk. We CANNOT be on Capitol Square, so please be sure to stay on the sidewalk.
A couple of things:
1. We WILL be enforcing social distancing guidelines. We don’t want to give the police any reason to want to make any arrests or try to break up our demonstration. If that means we’re stretch out over a couple blocks on High St, so be it! The more the merrier!
2. It’s supposed to be cooler this Saturday, but definitely bring some water and sunscreen. It’s mentioned above but also wear a mask!
Victoria Sadowski is a 26-year-old grad student at OSU who pays $975 in rent and fees for a single bedroom at Heritage Apartments in Grandview, an aging complex where hundreds live.
In comparison to some of the luxury apartments going up around town, Sadowski’s single bedroom is just about average, as long as you ignore the water damage and holes in the wall.
Sadowski’s part-time job barely covers her monthly expenses – and now this, the pandemic’s grim fallout staring an entire generation of young renters (and many others) in the face.
Sadowski was hoping Heritage Apartments might be #InThisTogether and offer tenants a break. She inquired how they may help loyal tenants. Take several hundred off rent for the next several months, perhaps.
Afterall, Heritage Apartments is owned by Village Green Management Company, which has become one of the nation’s largest privately held apartment companies over its 100-year history.
As Wendy’s greenhouse defense crumbles, allies look to hold company accountable at tomorrow’s annual shareholder meeting…
Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster to Wendy’s: “Given the life-or-death stakes of unsafe working conditions under COVID-19, how can Wendy’s justify its continued failure to join the Fair Food Program?”
Last week, we posted a reflection on the news of a massive COVID-19 outbreak at a greenhouse in upstate New York owned by Mastronardi Produce, one of the largest greenhouse growers in North America and, according to an article from 2019, a supplier to Wendy’s. The overcrowded housing conditions – with workers staying in budget hotels “where they lived four to a room and slept two to a bed” – were the perfect Petri dish for the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus. The outbreak was so severe that it is even being blamed for the death of the husband of one of the hotel employees who cleaned the farmworkers’ rooms and contracted the virus as a result.
Here’s an excerpt from last week’s reflection:
Thursday, May 28, 12-2pm; Friday, May 29, 3-6pm; Saturday, May 30, 3-5pm; these on-line events require advance registration
World BEYOND War is planning three days of online activities, May 28-30, to talk about nonviolence strategies, to hear from organizers who have successfully shut down weapons expos in their communities, and to learn about viable pathways to convert from a war to peace economy.
Day 1: Thursday, May 28, 12noon-2pm Eastern Time (GMT-4): Mary-Wynne Ashford will kick off #NoWar2020 with a virtual workshop on “Nonviolence Strategies: 101 Solutions to Violence, Terror, and War.” Mary-Wynne is a retired Family Physician, former Co-President of the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, and former President of Physicians for Global Survival (Canada). Her workshop will address ways that we can use nonviolence principles at the personal, community, and international level. Register here!
Working Man is a modest story set against the economic landscape that has left thousands of factory workers without jobs. It’s like a fictional counterpart of last year’s award-winning documentary American Factory. (Until it isn’t—of which, more later.)
Peter Gerety stars as Allery Parkes, who has spent decades toiling in a small-town plastics factory. He’s so devoted to the job that, after the owners shut the plant down, he breaks in through a back door and continues reporting to “work” every day. Unable to restart the assembly line because the power has been shut off, he simply switches to cleaning the machinery rather than running it.
Like a modern-day version of Herman Melville’s Bartleby the scrivener, Allery stubbornly clings to a job that no longer exists.
A brief scene in the beginning reveals that the plant shutdown isn’t the first heartache Allery has faced. Years earlier, he and wife Iola (Talia Shire) lost their son to suicide, leaving a mark on them and, no doubt, their marriage. Maybe that helps to explain why Allery is so loath to accept this latest loss in his life.
Art & Activism: A Workshop on Resisting Drone Warfare
Wednesday, May 27, 2020, 7:00 PM
Essam Attia. Essam served for three years as a geospatial analyst in the US Army, he then earned a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts and went on to create his most notable artworks, Drone Zones and The Drone Campaign. These seminal works garnered international press and have been featured in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and Fox News. Online - Register here.
