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Oddfellows Liquor Bar in the Short North launched into the scene and created more vegan community buzz for bar food options. Cara Woodhouse has made great strides in developing a surprisingly comprehensive vegan brunch food selection in her “Classy Brunch Party” buffet for an affordable $8 that runs 10am to 3pm on both Saturday and Sunday. You can find uncommon vegan options that include home fried potatoes, pancakes, French toast, biscuits and gravy, and if you need a gluten-free accommodation, there is a quinoa and kale green salad and often a soup or chowder.

Yes, Officer, I am under the influence.

Of the following:

Two cups, Bigelow's peppermint tea, probably four full teaspoons white sugar.

Two fat Stauf's porcelain cups, moka java coffee, ten packets (at least) brown raw sugar.

One 12-oz.can Mountain Dew.

Two king-size Reese's Cups.

Madonna's 1989 hit, 'Express Yourself" which she performed at the Women's March last Saturday.

Becalmed, I am ready to start my column.

Having finished consuming caffeine, chocolate and sugar only a few minutes ago, Express Yourself has been mentally greeting me every morning since last Saturday. And why not? It's a really good, maybe even great '80s Madonna pop song, catchy as a cold on a rainy day and way more enjoyable. The chorus flows, the messages are good. Hey, I was an '80s feminist once upon a time!

Baby

B-b-b-baby

Do you believe in love?

Come on, girls!

I've got something to sing about

and it goes something like this...

On January 14, 2017, 36-year-old Jaron Thomas called for help, as he had done several times before by the advice of mental health professionals. Jaron, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was struggling with hallucinations. He was a gifted hip-hop lyricist, having at one point worked with well-known artist Bizzy-Bone. He knew that he needed help and had calmly asked for a medic on the 911 call obtained by the family. He expected to be admitted for treatment, in his hometown of Columbus, but the response he received instead was from officers with the Columbus Police Department. It is unclear what transpired, but the result was inexplicable injuries and brain damage.

According to the family’s legal team Walton and Brown, LLP, “Several Columbus Police officers responded to the scene. Jaron was hospitalized with severe brain damage, head contusions, a blood clot near his sternum, at least one broken rib and other injuries.”

Surrounded by his close-knit family and a host of loved ones and friends, this loving father of three fought for his life. He lost the battle on January 23rd, roughly one week after his brutal and tragic encounter with police.

Columbus Oligarchy and Franklin County Democratic Politicians Defend Our Racially Biased System – Embracing Racial Superiority as “The Columbus Way”

In recognition of Black History Month, as Board Chair of The Columbus Free Press, I explore the racist origins and dubious legality of Columbus’s at-large system of electing its city council, in hopes of educating Columbus citizens about the current environment.

In August 2016, Columbus residents placed on a Special Election ballot a citizen-initiated proposal to change the form of our government from an at-large city council, where all council members are elected in citywide elections, to a form with a mix of council members elected at-large (three) and by district/ward (10). While the Columbus city charter has been amended over 70 times, each time the amendments have been requested by Columbus City Council. This marked the first time citizens had ever successfully placed a charter initiative of our own making on the ballot. And the vitriol of the ruling class to this display of citizen disobedience and imprudence came out immediately.

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The day after inauguration day, on January 21st, over one million people converged on the capitol to make their voices heard at the Women's March on Washington.

I went there to inquire what some of them thought about loving kindness. I suspect that if politically-organized loving kindness is espoused and carried out, activism becomes more immune to infiltration, cooptation, and in-fighting. A social movement based in loving kindness makes it harder for the corporate media and authoritarian politicians to convince the general public we are to be feared, hated and repressed. This article also asks some important questions of our readers.
 

This week, the Senate will vote to confirm Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma Attorney General who has spent a sizeable chunk of his tenure as Attorney General organizing other states to sue the very agency he's slated to lead.

This is a problem for America, and Ohio.

The Environmental Protection Agency protects the water, air, rivers, lakes, streams, forests, prairies, mountains, and coastlines we all love. And equally as important, the EPA ensures that big polluters like the fossil fuel industry, big utilities, and their allies, do not abuse our lands and leave the little guy to pay the price either economically or with less secure public health.
 

Pruitt's place at the helm of the EPA threatens to take all the work we've done to develop this agency off course. He does not believe in science or climate change, and this fundamental lack of understanding is not a good foundation for continuing the work to preserve our clean water, clean air, and preserved lands in the United States.
 

The hashtag #DeleteUber has trended amongst the Twitterverse and in doing so has translated into boycott-oriented action on an impressive scale. Thousands have deleted the transportation app Uber and have shared screenshots of their acts of protest on their timelines. This controversy came to fruition on Saturday night in accordance with President Donald J. Trump’s 120-day Refugee Ban and 90-day travelers ban.

Donald Trump, who lost the 2016 presidential election by at least 2.8 million votes, has announced an "investigation."  He says the federal government will look into his false assertion that some three million illegal aliens voted for Hillary Clinton last fall, allegedly costing him a popular vote mandate.

The assertion is being gleefully rejected by much of the corporate media as "a lie." 

If we thought his calls for an investigation of our thoroughly broken election system were serious, we would welcome them. 

But Trump's relentless obsession with voter fraud has very effectively shielded the corrupted electoral system that put him in the White House.  His loud shouts have completely blacked out any discussion of the massive Jim Crow registration stripping, electronic vote flipping, and slavery-based Electoral College that put him in the White House, and that have effectively neutered American democracy.

Meanwhile, Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, all of whom rightfully won presidential races but then refused to fight for them, have said not a word about any of this.

Conservation groups filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over invalid and outdated Endangered Species Act approvals of oil and gas leasing plans for the Wayne National Forest. The Center for Biological Diversity, Ohio Environmental Council, Heartwood and Sierra Club are challenging the approvals for failing to consider the effects of fracking, white-nose syndrome and climate change on the endangered Indiana bat and other protected species threatened with extinction.

In December 2016 the BLM auctioned 719 acres of public land in the Wayne National Forest’s Marietta Unit in southeast Ohio, opening up the forest to large-scale, high-volume fracking of the Marcellus and Utica shales for the first time. The groups’ legal challenge aims to void this auction and halt fracking in the Wayne to protect the forest’s wildlife and water.

The groups assert fracking would industrialize Ohio’s only national forest, increase climate pollution, destroy the Indiana bat’s habitat, and risk contamination of water supplies that support endangered mussels and local communities.

Many of us in Ohio were duped into voting against our own best interests on Election Day in November 2015. Issue 2 was presented by the 1% as an antimonopoly initiative, promising to protect We the People from monopolies, oligopolies, and cartels.

Who wouldn’t vote for that?

Some saw through the smoke screen and voted against it when they realized it was an attack on grassroots democracy. But the majority went to the polls and, lulled by the propaganda, voted to make statewide initiatives even more difficult for us to place on the ballot.

It wasn’t about stopping monopolies, oligopolies and cartels. It was about stopping us. It was about choking off citizen initiatives.

Tightening the Choke Hold