Local
The Columbus Dispatch apparently is abandoning its hard-right editorial page slant with the departure of Glenn Sheller, announced March 19. It advertised the vacancy in journalismjobs.com on March 2.
The longtime editorial page editor reflected an ultra-conservative point-of-view that was horribly out of step with the newspaper's core audience in deep blue Columbus and Franklin County, as I have pointed out more than once in this column, Sheller's head in the sand perspective may have been costing the print and web product thousands of subscribers and readers, not to mention advertisers.
In a column announcing Sheller's departure, Dispatch editor Alan Miller quoted publisher Bradley Harmon as saying that the next editorial page editor should reflect the “need for diversity to better mirror the growing, evolving region we serve.”
Harmon's statement could be interpreted to mean that Sheller's views were not congruent with the region's.
In honor of Earth Day, Ohio Republicans and Donald Trump in the White House have unleashed a two-prong attack to destroy clean air and clean water in the Buckeye State.
Ohio House Republicans destroy renewable energy
The Ohio House Republicans pushed through a bill ending government assistance for renewal wind and solar power in Ohio. By a 65 to 29 vote, House Bill 114 passed and will now go on to the Senate. Governor John Kasich vetoed similar legislation in December 2016. There were 66 House Republicans and it only takes 60 to override a veto. It would take 20 votes to override a Kasich veto in the Senate. Last December’s veto only garnered 18 Senate votes.
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil
Like millions of students, I never liked math. I thought it scary, mysterious and evil. I joke that I can’t even sit next to math professors during meetings! Generally a bright student with high grades, my lack of prowess at math let me down every time. And then in the ninth grade, the lottery placed me in Arnold Anderson’s general math class. He had a reputation for transforming struggling math students into, if not math wizards, students who would see that math was no longer mysterious and could even be interesting and—borrowing a term from my students—fun. (My favorite mathematical task? Balancing equations.) It was the first time I was interested in math, liked math and earned As in math. Alas, that was the last time for me; I managed to make it all the way to a PhD without math. I came to ruefully regret my lack of math prowess when I began my career in higher education. I was the person who always interrupted meetings so that someone could explain the math behind the data so ubiquitous in our field.
Zerqa Abid describes herself as an “activist mother” which is quite an understatement. Zerqa Abid is the founder and president of Muslims for Ohio PAC and the MY Project USA, an organization that works on poverty and human trafficking issues in Columbus. She has organized Columbus Unity Meetings to bring all the socially conscious activist groups in Columbus together and she is active in Indivisible Columbus.
Originally from Pakistan and then from North Carolina, Zerqa studied mass communication, TV production and journalism at North Carolina State University. Her professional experience ranges from working in MSNBC’s Newsroom and managing a TV station to organizing international trade and commercial shows. Right now her priority is saving our children from drugs and pimps.
Ordinary people have extraordinary power.
That’s the philosophy behind Defund Injustice, a newly formed coalition based in Columbus that seeks to organize the people’s power of the purse. In a consumer-driven economy, the power of the purse is king. Where people choose to spend and invest their money can be a remarkably persuasive driver of social change. The same can be said of where cities choose to spend and invest taxpayer dollars.
Take, for example, the recent consumer-driven change in the production of eggs. Twenty years ago there were three types of eggs widely available to consumers: small, medium and large. The recent, and growing, interest in more humane egg production practices has resulted in the widespread availability of cage-free and free-range eggs. Last year major restaurant chains, like McDonalds, Taco Bell and Dunkin Donuts, promised to use cage-free eggs in their food production.
Tuesday, April 4, 12-3pm
OSU Moritz College of Law, 55 W. 12th Ave. FREE
Facebook Event
Ohio has seen a boom in the storing of fracking wastewater, much of it from neighboring states, and this wastewater includes a mix of toxic chemicals—many of which are harmful to human health. Some communities have responded by trying to limit wastewater dumping, but the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that municipalities have no power to regulate or limit the disposal of fracking waste. Many of the Ohio Supreme Court justices who made this decision received large campaign contributions from fracking companies and other fossil fuel interests.
Please save the date for this exclusive event co-sponsored by Why Courts Matter Ohio, Ohio Fair Courts Working Group, OSU American Constitution Society, the Ecologic Institute, Common Cause Ohio, the Ohio Environmental Council, and the Piper Fund. You will receive registration information soon.
The administration at Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) has been targeting and restricting Hasan's communication access on any pretense they can find or invent since his outspoken support for the nation-wide prisoner strike on September 9th of 2016.
Hasan and another prisoner, Jason Robb began refusing food when the OSP administration put them on a 90 day communication restriction for being interviewed by the Netflix documentary series Captives. Hasan appealed the RIB's decision, arguing that they violated policies regarding timelines, access to witnesses, and prisoners' due process rights. Director Mohr's response to the appeal was a form letter that did not address any of the issues Hasan raised.
Photo report here
The march — and the storm — approaches…
In what would become an unforgettable march celebrating the end of the week-long fast by students and alumni at The Ohio State University — and the start of a rolling fast of students across the Fair Food Nation in support of the Wendy’s Boycott — nearly 500 farmworkers and their consumer allies braved cold winds and a soaking rainstorm to march three miles through the streets of Columbus this past Sunday in pursuit of justice for the workers who pick Wendy’s fruits and vegetables.
As the marchers gathered at Goodale Park for the opening rally and chose the signs and banners they would carry for the day, some small, and some very tall, the weather — long predicted to be absolutely miserable — gave fleeting signs of hope that the worst might just hold off. But it wasn’t long before marchers began prudently battening down the hatches for what was clearly going to be a rough patch ahead.
Fifth Annual Ohio Move To Amend Network Gathering
Saturday, April 1, 9:30am-4:30pm [registration begins at 8:30am], First Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 W. Weisheimer Rd. Facebook Event
A statewide gathering of local chapters of the national Move to Amend organization that is calling for a U.S. Constitutional amendment to reverse several U.S. Supreme Court decisions during the past century and thereby to firmly establish that corporations are not people and that money is not free speech. Join us on April Fools’ Day to debunk several long-standing constitutional hoaxes — including the legal fictions that corporations are “persons” and that money is equivalent to “free speech” — and together build the growing national movement to create real democracy.