Local

During my life I have met and interacted with four women who have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. There is one common thread between all these four women. They all have lost their only child to accident, disease, terrorist attacks, between their ages of 7 and 10. Another trend I noticed, when I was volunteering at a drug rehabilitation center in India, is that apart from dealing with addiction, about 6 to 7 families out of 10 were also dealing with a loved one's cancer diagnosis.

In this scenario two things were noticed consistently. The person who was diagnosed with cancer was always the one who shared an extremely close bond with the person who was an addict. And second the diagnosis of cancer always came about 4 to 6 years after their loved one was suffering from full blown addiction. I have always wondered if there is a connection here between sense of loss, helplessness or any other negative feelings and dis-ease.

Saturday, September 1, 11am, Studio 35 Cinema & Draft House, 3055 Indianola Ave.

The Official Animal Rights March is an annual march founded by the U.K. animal rights organisation Surge. The march began in London in 2016 with 2,500 vegans; in 2017, the march doubled to 5,000 vegans marching for animal liberation through London. In 2018, we’re bringing The Official Animal Rights March to Columbus, Ohio to spread the message of animal liberation across the globe.

In order to make this march succeed, we need your help. Invite your friends, tell every vegan you meet, this is the day where we unite, where we stand up, rise up and say, “no more, not in our name.”

The future is vegan, but we must continue to speak out on behalf of the animals until the day that their suffering ends.

Save the date, spread the word, and let’s make history for the animals.

Note: this march will begin and end at Studio 35 Cinema & Draft House and will follow a circular route through the nearby neighborhood.

Free tickets for the After-March Speech, featuring Joshua Entis, are available at the following URL:

Thursday, August 30, 6-7:15pm
Columbus Collegiate Academy, 300  Dana Ave., front of buildingCOMMUNITY JUSTICE RALLY - (PEACEFUL) 

* Kid Friendly - Community Gathering *

SHOWING THE WESTSIDE SOME LOVE ❤ SUPPORTING Donna's family & Columbus families that lost loved ones to violence... 

#Justice4Donna
Donna G. Castleberry 
("Donna Dalton") 
 

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the many things that occurred in America’s most horrible year in the most tumultuous decade of the twentieth century. In some ways it’s an anniversary for me, too, because it marks when I became aware of and interested in American politics and history. I remember 1968 as a bubbling cauldron of assassinations, demonstrations, and confrontations near and far. By the time my sixth grade school year was over, there had been Tet – a former neighbor and two of my older sister’s classmates died in Vietnam – President Lyndon Johnson’s declaration that he would not seek reelection; the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; the televised execution of a Vietcong officer by the South Vietnam chief of police; and numerous urban rebellions in cities across America. My mother had subscriptions to the weekly magazines Life, Look, and Newsweek, and I looked at them again and again. Nineteen sixty-eight was indeed, as the Temptations sang several years later, a ball of confusion.

Thursday, August 30, 7-8:30pm
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 30 West Woodruff
War, poverty, exploitation and oppression are all products of the capitalist system, a system in which a minority ruling class profits from the labor of the majority. How do we fight capitalism, and what's our alternative? This week, we'll be discussing Where We Stand, a pamphlet that outlines the ISO's politics of revolutionary socialism and a positive vision for a socialist future. 

You can access the document here: https://www.internationalsocialist.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Where_We_Stand.pdf

We will also be voting on our schedule for the month of September. 

Columbus is still in the running to become the home of HQ2 — the second headquarters of Amazon in North America. Amazon narrowed its list of candidate cities down to 20 finalists in January. The company is expected to further narrow the list very soon.

Cities are competing for the privilege of hosting HQ2 with economic incentives. Columbus is offering a 15-year, 100 percent property tax abatement and a 15-year, 35 percent income tax rebate for new employees at HQ2.

Here is what Amazon is putting on the table: investing over $5 billion in building the HQ2 facility, and creating 50,000 high-paying jobs over ten years. The company’s web site promises even more: “In addition to Amazon’s direct hiring and investment, construction and ongoing operation of Amazon HQ2 is expected to create tens of thousands of additional jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the surrounding community.”

Saturday-Sunday, August 25-26
Various locations
Facebook event

Founded in 2017, the Midwest Queer Comedy Festival is dedicated to highlighting diverse talent and showcasing that talent to Midwestern comedy fans. A secondary mission of the festival is to bring about awareness of a deserving local charity.

The inaugural Midwest Queer Comedy Festival (August 22-26) is five nights of LGBTQ+ comedians performing in multiple venues around Columbus. Equitas Health is our main charity partner for the 2018 Festival; proceeds from the festival will be donated to further their mission of Health Care For All.

Don't miss the Third Annual Columbus Vegfest today, Saturday, August 25, 10am-5pm at the Whetstone Community Center, 3923 North High Street, Clintonville. There is free admission, free parking and it is adjacent to the Park of Roses. The Columbus VegFest is a day of education promoting sustainable living, healthier bodies and a more compassionate society. We are pleased to welcome special guest speakers, free workshops, compassionate workshops, The Columbus VegFest is a 501 (C) 3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of the health, environmental, and ethical benefits of a whole food plant-based lifestyle. Our event includes healthy living, animal- and Eco-friendly exhibitors, renowned chefs and speakers from around the country, presentations, cooking demonstrations, food trucks, area restaurants, non-profit organizations, author signings, kid’s activities and more. In 2016, we held the first VegFest in Central Ohio and were blessed with more than 1,000 attendees. We invite you to join us in helping Columbus become more veg-friendly.

The members of the Franklin County Board of Elections are the Free Press enemies of the people, after effectively stripping 560,000 Columbus citizens of their right to vote on a ballot measure entitled Community Bill of Rights for Water, Soil, and Air Protection and to Prohibit Gas and Oil Extraction and Related Activities and Projects Ordinance. The local group, Columbus Community Bill of Rights (CCBOR), qualified the measure, gathering more than 12,000 signatures. The Columbus City Council approved the measure to advance to the ballot on July 30.

Denying Columbus voters the right to vote on the initiative were:
Ed Leonard, Franklin County Board of Elections Director (D)
David Payne, Franklin County Board of Elections Deputy Director (R)
Doug Preisse (R)
Brad Sinott (R)
Kim Marinello (D)
Michael Sexton (D)