Local

There is an old joke I remember:

Q.: “How do you know when a politician is lying”
A: “His/her lips are moving.”

This certainly seems to be the case with One Columbus, the politician-supported political action committee (PAC) formed to oppose Issue 1 – the citizen’s ballot issue that will be voted on in a special election August 2nd proposing a change to Columbus City Council. The group appears to be launching a campaign against the citizens’ initiative, based solely on lies or distortions.

On August 2nd, in a Special Election with just one issue on the ballot – Issue 1, Columbus will vote on whether to adopt a more contemporary form of city council, where three members will be elected at-large in city-wide elections and ten members will be elected from smaller council districts that are clusters of neighborhoods. This format would replace the antiquated seven member all at-large elections (elected citywide) we have had since 1914.

The ten council districts will be developed by an independent apportionment committee, comprised of nine Columbus electors who submit applications and then are chosen to serve on the committee. The mayor and council will each choose three members of diverse political registration (majority party, minority party, third party or independent). Those six will then choose the final three again recognizing the diversity of political affiliation or non-affiliation and broadly reflecting the geographic and demographic diversity of the city. The committee will then elect a chairperson and hire a “districting master” who is qualified by experience and training to create an apportionment plan.

Bernie Sanders need only ask the obvious question to find his way out of the corporate capitalist neocon wasteland where he now lingers – What Would Debs Do?

Sanders is quite familiar with the life of his “hero” Eugene Victor Debs. Sanders produced a documentary on Debs’ life in 1979 before being elected to political office. In the 1970s, Sanders ran in five statewide races on the ticket of the left-wing Liberty Union Party. Debs ran five times for president of U.S. on the Socialist Party ticket.

Now Sanders and his mass of young followers find themselves squabbling over how to influence a meaningless Clinton Democratic Party platform. Students in my Intro to American Government class are familiar with the phrase “A political promise in the UK is a pledge but in the U.S. it’s a hedge.”

One the first times I thought about Aesop Rock, I ended up looking at sculptures by Alberto Giacometti after listening to “Shere Khan” on the acclaimed rappers 1997 “Music for Earthworms” Ep because he referenced the Swiss artist when describing fragility.

The last time I thought of him I was sitting at Front Row bar looking at a T-Shirt that emblazoned his current album cover for “The Impossible Kid.”

I'm assuming The T-shirt was purchased at this month's Columbus stop @ the A & R bar. Aesop Rock performed mostly new material with the help of Bobby Freedom and DJ Zone. Columbus, Ohio's own Blueprint came up on stage to rap at some point.

Aesop Rock was the most confident I'd ever seen him. The room was sold-out. He was scheduled to appear on a Late Night Television show backed by with Yo La Tango the next night so fragile was not how I would describe him anymore.

In a small press room on the fourth floor of the Cannon House building, an oversized crowd heard Revs. Jesse Jackson and Lennox Yearwood, joined by members of the newly formed (see http://www.opednews.com/articles/Congressional-Briefing-Apr-by-Marta-Steele-Bipartisan_Congressional-Committees_Corruption_Democracy-160422-490.html ) Congressional Voting Rights Caucus, and others, including Terri O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW). The subject was the insidious disappearance of voting rights, including the relevant legislation, and what we can do to reverse it.

Barbara Arnwine moderated the event with energetic enthusiasm. This former executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law, now presides over the Transformative Justice Coalition, which she recently founded.

On June 22 over 50 Unitarian Universalists gathered outside the Wendy’s on Woodruff & High calling attention to the nation-wide boycott of the Ohio-based fast food chain.  The protest happened in tandem with the Unitarian Universalist Association, with hundreds of thousands of members worldwide, officially endorsing the Wendy’s boycott.

It’s a new chapter of a long story: the Free Press has covered the now 3 ½ year campaign urging Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) for farmworker dignity.  The Program entails corporations paying one penny more per pound of tomatoes purchased and agreeing to buy from reputable farms that uphold basic rights such as breaks, shade, and zero tolerance for wage theft and sexual harassment — conditions all too common in the industry. All of Wendy’s major competitors in the fast-food industry — McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Taco Bell and Chipotle — are partners in the Program. 

This is a banner week for South Seas Cinema, the film genre set in/shot at the Pacific Islands. It is being kicked off by writer/director Taika Waititi’s gem, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which was made on location in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This good-natured, well-made film is a sheer delight and absolute joy to behold (and although there is some off-color language and violence, is recommended viewing for most children and families).

In essence, Wilderpeople is about an urban Maori (the indigenous people of NZ) juvenile delinquent type, Ricky Baker (the droll, roly-poly Julian Dennison), who is placed in a foster home somewhere out in the bush. There, he is begrudgingly adopted by “Uncle” Hec, a Caucasian ex-con and “bush man” played by the great Sam Neill. (Did you know that in addition to co-starring as Dr. Alan Grant in 1993’s Jurassic Park and 2001’s Jurassic Park III, as well as in 1999’s Hawaii-set Molokai, Neill grew up in the South Island of New Zealand and co-directed/co-wrote an insightful documentary about that country’s movies called Cinema of Unease?)

Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum’s production of Tom is artistic director Ellen Geer’s adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1851 abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Geer, who also directed, added post-Civil War scenes depicting Stowe (Melora Marshall), who is still fretting over slavery. These additional 1886 vignettes enable the playwright to presciently ponder the plight of Blacks after the Reconstruction Era, but also in our own times wherein police and vigilante violence, institutionalized racism, the racist Trump candidacy, and more continue to beset and bedevil African Americans. These Stowe sequences, which are stowed away and interwoven into the fabric of the play - which is mostly a dramatization of the original book - also allows Tom to explore feminist issues, particularly the role of women in literature. After all, Stowe was, as Lincoln (perhaps apocryphally) called her, “the little lady who made this great war.”

Unitarian Universalists are engaged in the Black Lives Matter movement and are mobilizing in the broader movement for black liberation. At 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 23, the Unitarian Universalist Association is hosting an interfaith State of Emergence rally at the Ohio Statehouse in collaboration with the Ohio Student Association, the People’s Justice Project, UU Justice Ohio, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Union of Reform Judaism, and the United Church of Christ.

Most Unitarian Universalists are white, but they don’t see this as a reason to sit on the sidelines of the struggle for racial justice. The entire ministry team and several members of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus turned out for the June 15 Justice for Henry Green protest wearing yellow Standing on the Side of Love T-shirts.