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Columbus teachers picketed outside of Columbus City Hall to demand an end to tax abatements to corporations on Monday, July 29. They are bargaining for a new union contract to end the school to prison pipeline, reduce class sizes, end handouts to companies, hire counselors, social workers, nurses, and librarians, design schools that support physical education, music and the arts, and to compensate educators like the professionals they are.
At 4 p.m., community members, school children, future school kids, teachers, activists and union members from the Columbus Education Association (CEA), the Ohio Education Association and the National Education Association gathered in front of the Columbus Firefighters Union. CEA Vice President Phil Hayes, emcee for the event, informed the picketers to gear up for the march from 379 West Broad Street to 90 West Broad Street across the river after a few union members and teachers made statements.
Author Esther Flores is a registered nurse and the founder of 1DIVINELINE2HEALTH, a 501c3 public charity. Their mission is to eliminate human suffering locally and globally via compassionate messengers through a holistic approach. They are 100 percent solution-driven and community-funded. The organization is client-centered vs. system-centered. Seventy percent of their monetary donations go towards serving human trafficking victims and the remaining 30 percent goes towards loans, property taxes, insurance, maintenance and other costs. Flores is an abolitionist, with an addiction to love in the Columbus Jungle – a type of love that demands action and transparency. 1DIVINELINE2HEALTH defines compassion by using their human resilience as they meet hurting folks where they are at, never empty handed, which include the street outreach in a red commercial truck the victims call the “love bug.”
SŌW Plated just opened three weeks ago in Upper Arlington strip on West Lane Avenue strip. They are a full-service, organic, made-from-scratch, locally-sourced vegan-friendly fine dining establishment with vegan and gluten-free options from appetizer to dessert. Their delicious Pesto Pasta was filled with abundant fresh microgreens and asparagus with an almond ricotta. Their indulgent Gogi Cobbler was decadently topped with a coconut-based vanilla ice cream. Whether it is fresh juice, a robust salad loaded with diverse phytonutrients, a hearty bowl of ancient grains and roasted vegetables or tofu and noodles with Asian flair, you will find fabulous vegan offerings to suit your palate and mood. Enjoy!
As a Kansas farm girl named Dorothy said long ago, there’s no place like home. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is one of the questions addressed in The Farewell.
Like last year’s Crazy Rich Asians, the new film shows what happens when Westernized Asians return to their cultural homeland. Coincidentally, the flick again features Awkwafina, though this time the rapper-turned-actor is the star rather than the comic relief.
When we first meet her character, a Chinese-born American named Billi, she’s talking over the phone with her beloved grandmother, Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao). We quickly realize that neither woman is being quite truthful with the other. Billi insists she’s doing fine, though she actually owes back rent on her New York apartment, and Nai Nai hides the fact that she’s in a Chinese hospital being tested for persistent health problems.
Not many people know that the infamous Jeffrey Epstein spent a lot of time in Columbus in the 1990s and owned the second most valuable house in Franklin County, in the plush Stepford suburb known as New Albany. Epstein came to my attention when I was an investigative journalist for Columbus Alive. The State of Ohio Inspector General David Sturtz, one of my sources, was gathering evidence against Les Wexner and Jeff Epstein regarding public corruption, bribery and information related to the murder of Columbus attorney Arthur Shapiro.
Sturtz referred to Epstein as Wexner’s “boyfriend,” but Epstein was more than that. He was an “international man of mystery” with ties to the CIA, the royal family, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and others. But, at the heart of it, he is perhaps our nation’s most well-known pedophile.
Echoing Greek tragedies, the local billionaire with his name on more central Ohio buildings than anyone and known for his generous philanthropy, is now caught up in Epstein’s human trafficking scandal.
I don’t typically get personal in my columns for The Free Press -- I usually rant about the latest antics of the two party system or the Ohio Republican Party -- but it’s time for me to reflect on my last year and a half in Ohio because now I’m leaving. Although my move is subject to several variables (including the ol’ bank account) it could possibly be for good. We’ll see.
I am deviating from my decision to not write about politics for about 136 words – with the understanding that Democrats and Republicans know that impeachment might not ruin the President’s reelection campaign.
The Democratic-controlled House should impeach. I assume The Republican-controlled Senate would not repeat their Nixon decision that demanded the President resign or make the decision to convict the President in the Senate.
My presumed outcome from the impeachment of the President is Democrats avoiding advertisements that say: ‘Democrats didn’t even believe their own Russian hoax.’ The President would tweet about the Senate not convicting him instead. There was nothing disrespectful to Republicans or praising of Democrats in these statements.
This doesn’t say the President will be reelected or not be reelected.
The only real message is regarding commercials you’ll watch while watching football vs. if you want to look at The President’s twitter.
Music Reviews:
Our sympathy to each victim's family and friends in Brooklyn, Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton. We send our thoughts and our promise to continue to work to stop this violence to them and to each of the injured. Brooklyn, NY - 1 death and 11 injured, Gilroy, CA - 4 deaths and 13 injured in El Paso, TX - 20 deaths and 24 injured, Dayton, OH - 9 deaths and 26 injured. Join us to mourn and then act for them. Ohio Legislators and the Governor need to act like they care about you and your family instead of the gun lobby. It is shameful that certain legislators are still pushing bills to allow permitless carry, stand your ground and carrying loaded weapons everywhere while reducing penalties. Nationally Presidential candidates are calling for action and Ohio Senator Brown is calling for the US Senate to vote on the background check bill immediately. There is no need for the public to own assault weapons. No need for the large capacity magazines. Assault weapons let these shooters kill so many in so little time.
Are you afraid to go to the grocery store?
Are you afraid to see a lone young white male amongst a diverse crowd?
What doesn’t make sense is that Hillary Clinton lost, so we were supposed to be safe, right?
If he had lost, there would be active shooters wherever non-whites and women gathered. Those were Trump’s own words. As if you forgot.
So why have disaffected white males continued to turn our gathering places slick with blood?
Perhaps there is an answer but certainly not a solution…Stochastic terrorism.
“The use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable,” states Daily Kos.
“The person who actually plants the bomb or assassinates the public official is not the stochastic terrorist, they are the ‘missile’ set in motion by the stochastic terrorist. The stochastic terrorist is the person who uses mass media as their means of setting those ‘missiles’ in motion,” continued Daily Kos.
Sunday, August 4, 7pm
Ohio Statehouse
There has been 2 mass shooting within hours of each other and one of those shootings was right here in Ohio.... The heartland of the United States. Please come to the State House during the day on Sunday, August 4th during the day and place flowers or a teddy bear on the State House steps in memorial of those who have lost their lives and for those who were injured during the mass shootings in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH. There will be a candle light vigil and moment of silence starting at 7PM