Local

Monday, March 5, 7-8:30pm
Whetstone Library, 3909 N. High St.
Joe Schiavoni, former gubernatorial candidate and state senator, and Tina Pierce, Ph.D., school board candidate and educator, will discuss the impacts of a potential state takeover of the Columbus City Schools.
The meeting will begin at 7:00 in the Public Meeting Room at the Whetstone Library. Snacks and conversation from 6:30 to 7:00. See you there!

Strange dramas are unfolding these days in the Ohio Statehouse and City Hall in Columbus. While concerned Ohioans rally around citizen initiatives to ensure our rights, legislators are reeling out laws to limit those rights. Lawmakers opposing affordable healthcare, safe water, and other popular measures cite divisions among their constituents. Common sense and lopsided funding against citizen proposals reveal that objections pivot less on differences between Ohioans than on the demands of powerful corporate interests. In broader terms, Ohio is engaged in an epic battle between human rights and corporate rights that is determining the future of the state.

As the 2019 Columbus Crew season kicks off, local activists should recall why our hometown soccer team is still here. Despite some criticisms from this publication and others, the story of how The Crew got saved can provide lessons that even the most vocal critics should learn from for their own purposes.

The Columbus Crew was the first charter team in Major League Soccer (MLS) and went on to play an important role in U.S. soccer history. I was at that first game in Ohio Stadium in April 1996 when I was twelve years old, which allowed me to watch a sport I loved in a city that (until that time) never had a viable professional team before. The Crew helped prove the MLS could work in the U.S. and that a soccer-specific stadium could be built for MLS and national teams alike. Without the city of Columbus and our modest franchise, soccer would have never succeeded in our country and so many incredible professional careers – from Brian McBride to Zack Steffen – would have never happened. It is this history that preceded the #SaveTheCrew movement.

I am tired of elected officials acting like they are smarter than we, the people.

I am tired of them acting like we, the people, are Rip Van Winkles, who just woke up from a long sleep.

I am tired of them scheming with and making secret promises to the powerful and keeping we, the people, in the dark.

Case in point: Gov. Mike DeWine's proposed 18-cents-a-gallon gas tax increase for highway and bridge projects.

Do you remember candidate DeWine campaigning on a massive tax hike?

Do you remember the candidates for the Ohio Legislature doing so?

Of course not. Candidate DeWine promised voters to not raise taxes. Now he is a born-again tax-hiker. Coincidentally, he just announced he's paying himself back the $3 million he lent his campaign. It's a good bet he will get lots of donations from highway builders made busy by the gas tax.

The Ohio House seems in a hurry to pass the bill. Speaker Larry Householder, who had to court and make concessions to Democrats to win the job, knows there is lots of money to be raised from contractors in future elections cycles to enshrine him in power for the next six years.

Sometimes you just have to speak your mind.

Rant #1. The Cleveland Clinic and fake news. It is well known that the vaunted Cleveland Clinic derides medical marijuana. Dr. Paul Terpeluk, Medical Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Employee Health Services, recently penned a news release attesting to “better alternatives.” The release aimed to explain why the Clinic bars its physicians from recommending cannabis under the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program (OMMCP), the regulatory body created by HB 523 to oversee medical cannabis cultivation, processing, distribution and sales in Ohio. Fair enough. Under the law, local jurisdictions, including hospitals, can establish their own policies, particularly on their premises.

That’s the real news. The fake news involved a widely circulated social media post entitled, “Cleveland Clinic MMJ Policy in a nut shell – Call the Cops!” That probably got your heart pumping! The problem? It’s fiction.

Sunday, March 3, 5-7pm
379 Chittenden Avenue
Sending books to prisoners. 

Thursday, February 28, 2019, 8:30 AM – 4:00 PM

TOLEDO, OH:  Fifty years after the media infamously declared “Lake Erie is dead,” Toledo voters recognize that Lake Erie and its entire ecosystem is very much alive – and as such, Lake Erie has the right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve.

Despite agricultural and industrial interests’ well-funded campaign opposing the ordinance, with a 61.37-percent yes vote on Tuesday, Toledo voters have enacted the Lake Erie Bill of Rights Charter Amendment. The law recognizes the rights of the lake and its watershed, and empowers citizens – as part of that larger ecosystem, and who have “the right to a healthy environment” – to stand up for the lake when those rights are violated.

“It was definitely a long, hard struggle to get to this day, but all the hard work and countless volunteer hours by everyone in our local community group has paid off,” stated Crystal Jankowski, a Toledoan for Safe Water organizer. “We started this more than two years ago and had to overcome election board decisions and protests in court just to get on the ballot.”

My students often say to me that they aren’t clear what they should be highlighting when they are reading their texts or primary source documents.  I had a similar thought when I was reading A More Beautiful and Terrible History; I wanted to underline just about everything.  What a terrific book!

As a professor of African  American history, I know my students are woefully ignorant of the story of race in America.  They usually know about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King’s 1963 speech at the March on  Washington, Malcolm X’s “by-any-means-necessary approach to ridding America of racism.  But even with those subjects, they often get details wrong and miss the nuances.  And they are absolutely gobsmacked to learn that white people fought and died alongside blacks for freedom.

Sustainability is no longer a niche effort. Today, it’s a global initiative that’s demanded by society and practiced by businesses across all industries. Car companies, from newer additions like Tesla to old standards like General Motors, understand this and are doing what it takes to get on board.

One reason why American car manufacturers are focusing on sustainability is to compete with foreign car manufacturers – and to improve where those have failed. Additionally, a big portion of jobs in the U.S. auto industry relies on sustainable products. According to a study by the BlueGreen Alliance and the Natural Resources Defense Council, "Building clean vehicle technology directly supports 288,000 manufacturing and engineering jobs in the United States.”