Local

Sandy Bolzenius: Free Press Libby Award honoree for Community Activism

Blonde woman in blue t-shirt with a clipboard
The Free Press will honor Sandy Bolzenius with our 2018 "Libby" award for community activism at the Free Press Awards ceremony on Monday, October 8 at Woodlands Tavern, 1200 W. Third Ave. She is involved in grassroots efforts dedicated to creating genuine democracies beginning at the local level. To this end, she is most active with Move to Amend and the Columbus Community Bill of Rights, movements that put the rights of people and nature before those of corporations. An army veteran and a former international teacher, she has lived in and traveled through Europe, Africa, and Asia. During occasional pauses in her foreign forays, Sandy returned to Columbus to earn a bachelor’s degree in Education and a doctorate in History at Ohio State University, where she specialized in Gender and African American studies. Sandy is also the author of Glory in Their Spirit: How Four Black Women Took on the Army during World War II (University of Illinois Press, 2018).

Tell #BackersofHate: Stop Profiting from Pain!

People wearing colorful clothes and raingear marching outside holding a banner reading Stop Financing Oppression

Wednesday, September 26, 4:30-6:30pm
JP Morgan Chase headquarters, 1111 Polaris Parkway, visitor parking lot
On Wednesday, Sept 26th we're sending a STRONG message to #BackersofHate who are financing private prisons and immigrant detention centers: Stop Bankrolling Oppression Now!

Private detention companies like CoreCivic and the Geo Group, continue to be financed by Corporate #BacksofHate like JPMorgan Chase who profits enormously from our communities' pain and the separation of families.

Join us at by the Chase Headquarters to urge them to stop financing CoreCivic and Geo group! Families belong together, and NOT in cages!

This action is a part of a national day of action against #BackersofHate

7 days in … Punxsutawney, PA

Three white guys in suits looking important

I woke up every morning last week to the sounds of Sonny & Cher. I also woke up to news of a Supreme Court nominee’s history of sexual harassment and the ceaseless conservative support for him. Then there was the natural (more like man-made) disaster tearing the southern coast to shreds as well as a government official in hot water for misusing government funds and resources. And, naturally, the pathetic and vacuous legislative work of our “elected” representatives.

The news cycle is just the same garbage day in, day out, year in, year out. We are struggling to break away from the vicious cycle of our government always doing everything but serving the people.

Congratulate the Free Press Volunteer of the Year - Steve Caruso!

White man with grayish hair and beard with green parakeet on his shoulder

Steve Caruso was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, raised by nuns. He volunteered for The Philadelphia Folk Fest for 5 years, survived one immediate semester of college after high school, figured it was too then much went to Haight Ashbury after the height of hippiedom (’75), saw the debut of the Jeffrson Starship with the Grateful Dead in Golden Gate Park, “rollin’ the rug around.”

He saw the attempt on Gerald Ford’s life in San Francisco, a revenge attack by Sarah Jane Moore (now free) for pardoning Nixon. 

After traveling the country from one corner to the other in a spirit quest, Steve settled in Columbus late 1977. Being a campus street “urchin”/musician on free time between and after jobs for years and hanging with local progressives he started a coffee house at German Village, Golden Eagle Ice Cream, hosting the Columbus Poetry Group, Fred Anderle, Bill Cohen,  Donna Mogavera and others, then ended up at the King Avenue Coffee house.

Press conference - Columbus, Ohio, citizens demand supreme court justices recognize the people's rights and put the Columbus Community Bill Of Rights ordinance on the ballot

Round yellow logo with words Yes Columbus Community Bill of Rights and a fracking well in background

PRESS CONFERENCE/RALLY

 

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2018

12:00 NOON

 

COLUMBUS, OHIO, OHIO SUPREME COURT

65 S Front St., Columbus, OH  43215

 

The Columbus Community Bill of Rights supporters will give a Press Conference to update all interested media where this landmark city ordinance initiative stands with the Ohio Supreme Court, and emphatically draw a line:  We can no longer default to the powers-that-be, if they fail to honor our democratic process and our inalienable right to protect our community.  Currently the court has a motion to reconsider their September 14, 2018 decision to keep the people’s initiative off the ballot based on a decision from a federal judge on September 19 to allow two unrelated initiatives on the November ballot. 

 

Tips and Tools #5: Building an Organization? Rain Follows the Plow

Gray haired thin man standing by a white paper flip chart in front of a group of people at a table
In building an organization sustainability and self-sufficiency are essential, but money is not what drives the creation and survival of an organization. There is no amount of money that can substitute for a clear and solid organizing plan.     In organizing, I always encouraged people not to worry about the money, but to first make the plan, focus fully on that, and totally believe that if the plan is good enough, then resources will follow. In expressing this principle at ACORN, I would always say, “rain follows the plow.” What in the world could that have meant?   In the “manifest destiny” development of America and its drive to populate the vast lands from coast to coast, unscrupulous land promoters launched thousands of “prairie schooners” on the sea of the western plains by dangling before landless farmers the dream that “rain follows the plow.” In truth, the western states were environmentally a desert, rather than the anthem’s “fertile plains,” but the hucksters were arguing that famers could break the soil and that would trigger rain.     In farming, we now all know better.

Keep Wayne Wild September General Meeting

Trees

Sunday, September 23, 2018, 2:30 -4:00 PM
Come join Keep Wayne Wild to learn how you can volunteer and contribute to the cause to keep fracking out of Ohio's only national forest. We'll be discussing our upcoming Fall Bioblitz, the Land Management Plan Revision for the Wayne, and more. Send us a message if you want to get on the agenda!  Location:  Columbus Metropolitan Library – Linden Branch, 2223 Cleveland Ave. Facebook.  

Blog: What Some Judges Don't Want You To Know

Painting of an older man with long gray hair and sideburns wearing a high white ascot under a black jacket

The states have the power to regulate the practice of law and discipline attorneys

What many Americans do not realize is that the States have the power to regulate the practice of law and discipline attorneys.  The following is primarily taken from the American Jurisprudence 2d Law Encyclopedia (the theory and philosophy of American law), Vol. 17 Attorneys at Law, Section 2 Power of state to regulate the practice of law, unless otherwise stated.  Citations have been omitted for ease and clarity of reading.

The responsibility of regulating lawyers is an important governmental function in the administration of justice and the responsibility has historically been reserved to the sovereign states.  Thus, a state’s authority regarding an attorney’s license to practice law is not preempted by the Federal Constitution, notwithstanding that the licensed attorney may also be a federal judge.

Subscribe to Local