Local
At the end of June, our corporate media overlords blessed us with the most inclusive political debate in American history. Twenty candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination made their case to voters over the course of four hours on television – to get on the stage, they only needed a minimum of 65,000 unique donors, regardless of how they were polling in the primary race. Thanks to these requirements, voters were able to hear from a diverse field of qualified (and unqualified) candidates.
As a former third party candidate for office myself, I found this inclusion of twenty candidates particularly interesting. For years I was told that media outlets were unable to include more than two candidates in a debate unless they were polling at a specific number, despite the fact that these polls and polling methods were never exactly disclosed. In fact, every two to four years when partisan elections take place in our country, it doesn’t matter if third party candidates are running on a local, state or national level -- we’re always somehow kept out of the debates because of our “low” polling numbers.
Jewish Voice for Peace, along with many other national organizations, is a campaign partner of the “No Way to Treat a Child” campaign that seeks to challenge Israel’s prolonged military occupation of Palestinians by exposing widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system. This is a project of Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P) and American Friends Service Committee. The Central Ohio JVP Chapter is actively supporting this campaign.
Israel is the only country in the world that arrests and tries minors under military law. Currently, Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year. Palestinian children in the West Bank, like adults, face arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment under a military detention system that denies their basic human rights and violate international law.
One of the best feelings in the world is seeing a hot band in a cozy club playing a show so unforgettably on that you're sure – absolutely sure-fire sure – the best rock'n'roll anywhere on the planet that night is being performed right in front of you raw and in the flesh.
Seeing how the Stones had the night off...
... it's a no-brainer: NRBQ at Rumba Cafe was the greatest rock'n'roll anywhere on our funky blue spinning ball the last Saturday in June. Stupendous they were, 120% stupendous.
My clogged chakras got an energizing purge so bold-as-love they're still a-tinglin'! Like musical super concentrated high-voltage Liquid Plumr – the Q straightened my spine and blew my mind, left all my troubles behind. I can't booze it up and dance to just any old band. They got to know how to play and to slay and brother, when it comes to the Q, well, that's my church of the holy soul jelly roll. They stoned me. They owned me. I'm going to leave them everything I got in my will.
In this year’s elections around Athens County, Ohio, there are a number of independent candidates running for office, including several socialists.
McCray Powell (I, Nelsonville) and Ellie Hamrick (I, Athens) are both running for office as independent socialists for City Council in their respective cities.
As socialists, Hamrick and Powell believe in workers controlling their own workplaces and communities, instituted by revolutionary system-change that must occur from “the bottom up.”
“Socialism to me is workers running the world that they created,” Powell argued. McCray Powell says that he developed his Marxist beliefs through his experiences at previous jobs he’s worked, including working as a cashier, factory worker, retail worker, maintenance worker, server, fast-food worker, and as a wine-bottler.
Hamrick says that she had first started her activist journey by reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in middle school; activist work throughout her time at Ohio University, however, was what fully solidified her socialist beliefs.
On June 18, members of the Columbus Education Association and community supporters gathered downtown at the STRS Plaza to protest an impending move by the Columbus school board. A block away, the Columbus Board of Education was preparing to vote on whether to hire the Michigan-based agency Huffmaster for strike contingency planning.
"We do not want a strike,” CEA president John Coneglio told the crowd. “Your bargaining team is committed to doing everything possible to reach an agreement. We want to be back in the classrooms, doing what we do best. However, we need to be crystal clear to those in power: we will not let you shortchange our students, and we will not accept a contract that treats us as anything less than the professional educators that we are.”
My first response from reading JAre (J Rawls + John Robinson’s) Youth Culture Power book was: There Are Social Skills Even For People Who Don’t Teach. The book is written to give educators methods to build rapport + create environments that are conducive to the exchange of information utilizing Hip Hop.
Youth Culture Poweris a Hip Hop record as well as book. YCP’s album brings the human side for the teachers as music should.
I want to recommend Youth Culture Power’s music to people who participated with Hip Hop in high school + college while choosing to work as a teacher following the ideals that made them Hip Hop.
The YCP album starts with John Robinson stating that Youth Culture is Power in some median point articulation between KRS One + Q-Tip.
Four years ago, the editors of the Columbus Free Press gave me the chance to write a monthly column about the local media as the Columbus Media Insider. Over time, the editors let me write broadly about media and politics.
I will always be grateful. Nearly every newspaper journalist yearns to be a columnist.
Thank you, Robert Fitrakis and Suzanne Patzer, for making my dream come true.
And thank you, dear readers, even those of you at the Columbus Dispatch.
The sale of the Dispatch by the Wolfe family to GateHouse Newspapers led to the launch of my column in July 2015.
I noted in my first column that chain newspaper ownership results in major staff cuts. Around Labor Day, 2015, dozens of heads rolled. Today there are about half as many journalists putting out the newspaper as before.
The paper's coverage has shrunk and the errors have increased as much of the design and editing has been shifted to a hub in Texas.
Tuesday, July 9, 6-8pm
Driving Park Library, 1422 E Livingston
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On Independence Day this month, many people celebrated with fireworks and barbeques while forgetting the United States’ history of settler colonialism, slavery, genocide, imperialist wars and internment camps. Meanwhile, migrant children are still be in detention centers and are deprived of basic human essentials such as soap, toothbrushes and blankets.
Public outrage is growing over the civil rights violations and dehumanization of children. The Coalition to Close the Concentration Camps formed to call for mass mobilizations of concerned people, activists, organizations, and social justice groups to demand the closure of the camps.