Local
Ask many a problem gambler in Columbus, especially those who play video slot machines, and they’ll probably tell you this: “I hit big when Hollywood and Scioto Downs first opened, but I haven’t won big since.”
When the two casinos opened in 2012 it was a curiosity for many. Vegas-style gaming was now just a very, very short drive away. No longer did you have to cross state borders or fly to Nevada or New Jersey.
Six years later, here comes the (obvious) fallout from having a casino in your backyard: gambling addiction.
According to a study by WalletHub, a personal finance website, the state is tied for fourth with New Jersey for adults having a gambling problem. The factors weighed were the percentage of adults with gambling disorders, the number of gambling-addiction treatment programs, and the number of gambling-related arrests per 100,000 population.
Not surprising, Ohio is spending more and more to prevent and treat gambling addiction. For fiscal year 2015, the state spent $5.8 million to fight gambling problems, which is up from $4.5 million the previous year. This money comes from 2 percent share of taxes paid by the state’s four casinos.
Saturday, February 4, 9 AM - 4 PM
Hosted by Columbus Community Bill of Rights
The Fracking industry disposes radioactive toxic frack waste water at high pressures into abandoned vertical oil wells and new high volume, high pressure wells. Injection wells can be compromised, and will leak eventually. Injection wells in Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Ohio are causing a growing number of earthquakes.
Currently there are 13 active Injection Wells in the Columbus Metro Watershed.
Our next Morrow County injection well tour will be on Saturday, February 4th. We plan to meet in Clintonville, then drive together up north for the tour. Plan to meet at 9am, and to return to Columbus mid-afternoon, around 4pm.
We will restrict vehicles to three cars, and we may rent a large van to accommodate everyone. Final details will be on this website shortly, and we will be sure to email everyone who requests to join us on February 4th.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AWARDS BONUS TO COMPANY FOR CLEANING UP ITS OWN MESS.
In December, 2016, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded $3.82 million in "bonuses" to BWXT Conversion Services LLC, the company that operates the conversion facilities at the Nuclear Sites at Portsmouth, OH and Paducah, KY. According to the DOE, “Many activities relate to completing corrective actions and work to restart the conversion plants following the contractor’s suspension of operations due to safety and maintenance issues.” The DOE fails to note that BWXT is responsible for those very problems with safety and maintenance – and that the facilities have not been in operation for nearly 2 years. Operation of the facilities will be taken over by another company, Mid-America Conversion Services LLC, beginning this month, February 2017.
Gov. John Kasich, his allies and some media sycophants made great noise during Kasich's failed Presidential campaign that Ohio's governor was the "adult in the room" and the "prince of lightness."
Folks in Ohio wondered who they were talking about. Kasich's hard-ball right-wing politics of rewarding friends and punishing enemies in the Buckeye State was anything but genteel and grown-up.
Now the dust has settled and Kasich's once lofty favorability rating in Ohio has fallen to 50-50. Many state Republicans have turned against him and he breaks even only because some independents and Democrats have come his way because he opposed and refused to vote for Donald Trump.
President Trump has put Kasich in the doghouse by masterminding the defeat of GOP state chair Matt Borges, a Kasich protégé, and replacement with Trumpster Jane Timken.
Kasich's playground has been reduced from 50 states to one, Ohio, and his persuasive powers have been curtailed by term limits that will cause him to leave the governorship in early 2019.
Here is where my dream comes in.
“We The People” in Ohio just had another nail pounded into the casket lid of our “presumed Democracy.” Our constitutional right to pass our own local laws in our communities is now all but disallowed. Over the past two years, we have witnessed that the judicial system has been turned against We The People as they politicize constitutionally-presumed precedents by flipping them in favor of moneyed interests. For two years in a row, the Supreme Court upheld the latest vaporization in the separation of powers by allowing our Secretary of State to cheat We The People. He does this by illegitimately instructing our boards of elections to nix our rights of initiative through refusing their path to the ballot.
Hey everyone, David Bromberg has a new CD out. It’s called “The Blues, the Whole Blues, and Nothing but the Blues.” Do you think you’ll be able to appreciate it properly? Do you have a proper blues education?
Oh yeah, education. That’s how I was introduced to the blues; something you were expected to learn about if you wanted to know music. Like algebra or The Great Gatsby. Learn about it, respect it and insist that others do the same, because it is self-evidently great. When I was in high school, all of us wanted to play guitar like Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell or Sepultura’s Max Cavalera. But we all professed to be huge BB King and Eric Clapton fans, although their recordings secretly made us squirm with boredom. To say otherwise would show a lack of respect to the elders, the depressing but mystical spawning pool of Rock ’n Roll.
Thursday, February 2, 8:30am-4:30pm; Friday, February 3, 9am-2:30pm; Ohio Statehouse Atrium
Purpose: to facilitate and further the conversation about the rise of human trafficking in Ohio.
Hosted by State Representative Teresa Fedor; details will follow.
Participation is free but tickets are required. For tickets, please register at Eventbrite to keep up to date with our speakers and program information.
Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/8th-annual-ohio-human-trafficking-awareness...
Please note: backpacks are not allowed in the Ohio Statehouse.
Contact: Jen Stack, 614-644-6017 or jen.stack@ohiohouse.gov
https://www.facebook.com/Representative-Teresa-Fedor-112183629770/
Like a flashback from a distant memory, an egg cracked into a frying pan. Ominous words followed, “This is your brain on drugs…” The replay of a bizarre commercial from the 1990s? No, it was the 21st Century iteration of the Partnership for a Drug Free America, once again smearing marijuana with “alternative facts”.
It is one of the ghosts of the past from which the present day resistance movement might take lessons.
The morning after the fall election, a host of progressive movements awoke in aftershock. Climate Change. LTBTQ. Black Lives Matter. Water Protectors. And numerous others. Groups like Muslim Americans and even reporters felt a heightened sense of trepidation as they found themselves in unexpected crosshairs. Others, like the women’s and environmental movements, which have enjoyed decades of progress, now shared the same heartache as their mothers and fathers in the 1960s and 1970s.
One social cause that has traveled this same rocky road is marijuana reform. For all that is new and frightening about Trump, this movement has been living with daily, for decades.
Not that I was getting all that much good sleep before, but I've written off getting much more in the next four years. I've always been a pretty dour person, at least as my external facade, so in some way I'm well equipped for the joy shortage hitting America. It's everyone else I'm worried about, even the Trump voters who aren't open racists. Quite frankly I can't see how anyone smiles or falls in love or achieves transcendence. That part of the Obama administration I took for granted. As much as I have maintained the argument that a capital-dominated elections in a political system designed to suppress real democracy is functionally not that different from a dictatorship, I underestimated the psychological benefit of everyone at least respecting the decorum. The morning of November 9, I was struck with the feeling that this must be how the people in any dictatorship feel. I softened a bit in my defense of one-party socialist states, or at least become more interested in the proposed two-party socialist system that was floating around Yugoslavia back in the day.
Run The Jewels ended their sold-out Columbus show by playing deceased Columbus icon and friend of El-P, Camu Tao’s “Hold The Floor.” It's a record produced by DJ PRZM who is another deceased Columbus Hip Hop icon.
Philly Phil entertainment is releasing DJ PRZM”s LLABTIPS 3 vinyl on Record Store Day. April 22nd.Philly Phil gave me the PRZM record last month. I’ve been so aghast in regards to the behavior of the President that I haven’t been much use for music.
Video ideas for 4 of the 11 songs on LLabtips 3.
Heavy Metal Maniacs:
The production has a sinister, slow march baseline that picks up with a small subtle melody, and a gritty vocal hook by PRZM. The video should start with PRZM hopping into a car in his leaving Native Detroit at sunset. It’s ‘Devil’s Night” so there are several teenagers riding bikes around a fire in the middle of the road.