Local
Well, not really a vacuum. The past three weeks have been more like the space between our planets which is actually full of all kinds of stuff but doesn’t have much happening. The bloated Congress has been typically idle, and the administration has spent most of its time battling through an increasingly large number of scandals. Then there’s the solar wind that blows in all directions, constantly moving but achieving no forward progress. That’s been the Democrats’ lackadaisical plans for the next couple of years and the executive branch’s staffing changes. It is said that a lot can happen in a day, but following national politics makes it impossible to believe.
Contact: Franklin County Board of Elections, 614-525-3100
Tuesday, May 8, 5:30-8:30pm
Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. Grant
Photojournalist Sahar Fadaian and journalist Leticia Wiggins created Dreamers of Columbus to showcase DACA recipients living in Columbus. Sahar initiated this project to portray an intimate face of Dreamers that goes beyond the headlines we've all seen and into their personal lives. Free.
These days, some mighty big players are talking about cannabis, extracts and scheduling: U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
As background, all marijuana, aka cannabis, is illegal in the U.S. according to the feds. It’s position as “Schedule I” in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) codifies this, as do international treaties like one negotiated in 1971. This rusty political machine meanders change through multiple agencies, arriving at a website called regulations.gov where mere interested persons can submit comments for the WHO to consider. The question is, should or should not cannabis’ classification match modern reality?
So, you have an idea for a way to make your neighborhood better, create social change, or join the resistance. You and others have hit the streets a couple of times, gone to public and community meetings, and want to reach out to others and take the next step to make things happen. A friend says his cousin is a lawyer who could give you advice. You have been online and learned a little something. It must be time to incorporate your idea so that you can build a “real” organization.
Whoa, Nelly, not so fast! Before your knee jerks and you incorporate, you have to figure out the “what” and “when” that would lead you down that path and answer the threshold question of “to incorporate or not to incorporate?”
Monday, May 7, 8am-2pm
Franklin County Board of Elections, 1700 Morse Road
The Columbus Community Bill of Rights Ballot Initiative is gathering Columbus Voter Signatures to put this Ordinance on the Nov 2018 ballot.
Contact Us w/ Availability: ColumbusBillofRights@gmail.com
SAFE WATER FOR OUR KIDS.
COLUMBUS -
NO PLACE FOR FRACK WASTE!
ColumbusBillofRights.org
https://www.facebook.com/ColumbusBillofRights/
Sunday, May 6, 2-3:30pm
Columbus City Hall, 90 W. Broad St.
The 2018 March for Freedom, is our 4th annual human trafficking awareness event. We are hosting our 4th Annual March for Freedom in Columbus to raise awareness of the human rights violations of prostitution and trafficking on Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 2 p.m. We will meet at Columbus City Hall, 90 West Broad St., and walk to the Ohio Statehouse where we’ll hear several heart stirring messages and take a pledge to personally fight human trafficking.
As the mid-terms loom, Democrats could regain control of Congress in 2018, and make a move for impeachment of Trump. But will progressive-minded voters be denied their constitutional right to vote, especially minorities? Or what about younger voters, who are energized to vote against candidates who support the National Rifle Association?
Citing a recent a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the national office of the ACLU recently told the Free Press that 16 million people experienced difficulty voting in the 2016 presidential election. Of the 16 million, an estimated 1.2 million were turned away or their vote not counted.
The ACLU says over two-hundred thousand walked away from a long line, but an equal amount were denied because they lacked proper photo ID due to stricter voter ID laws. Registration issues resulted in 300,000 votes not being counted, and 250,000 votes were “lost”, which means the voter refused to vote provisionally or their provisional ballot wasn’t counted.
Saturday, May 5, 7-10pm
It Looks Like It's Open, 13 E. Tulane Rd.
Join us for a night of political music, poetry, speeches, dance and other art!
Too often political movements and works of art are separated into different spheres, the public and the personal, where each is only tangentially related to the other. But art and politics have always been bound up together. Art isn’t just often about political movements–it’s a living part of them.
A People’s Open Mic is meant to intentionally celebrate the political side of art and the artistic side of political movements. Bring your own art, or bring somebody else’s. We are living in a unique political moment, and we want to find the art that moves us, that speaks to this moment.
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Back when “tin soldiers and Nixon” were “cutting us down” in 1970, a group of Ohio State University students and campus activists started an underground newspaper in Columbus. Driven mostly by the murder of four students at Kent State – Allison Krause, Jeff Miller, Sandy Scheuer and Bill Schroeder – shot during a demonstration that was opposing President Nixon’s illegal attack on Cambodia and the Vietnam War, the Columbus Free Press was born.
Not surprisingly, the Free Press was the first western newspaper to expose Cambodia’s killing fields thanks to international law professor John Quigley’s reporting from Southeast Asia. In the first issue of the Free Press, the October 11, 1970 issue, a Free Press opinion attacked a special grand jury’s decision not to indict Ohio National Guardsmen for the Kent State killings.