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“If the physician presumes to take into consideration in his work whether a life has value or not, the consequences are boundless and the physician becomes the most dangerous man in the state.” Dr. Christoph Hufeland (1762-1836)

Before Reynoldsburg police broke down the door to her home November 19, 2015, Linda Leisure, long-time corruption investigator and whistleblower, thought she had seen it all – including previous police break-ins into her home. But she had no psychiatric history and never before witnessed “forced psychiatry” Ohio-style.   

Last December 2015 while some waited for the holidays to bring them “good cheer” and were consumed with the media hype in regards to Trump, or just waited for the year to end, many African Americans and Civil Rights Activists were more concerned with the outcomes of grand jury indictment decisions and jury trials held in December concerning African Americans who lost their lives in 2014 and 2015 at the “alleged” hands of police officers.
  Twenty-Five year old Freddie C. Gray Jr., was arrested on April 12, 2015 in Baltimore and while being transported by a police van to jail fell into a coma and died April 19, 2015 from “injuries to his spinal cord.”  On December 21, 2015 a hung jury left the Gray family as well as Officer William Porter and the other five officers awaiting trial, in limbo until a retrial this June 2016.

JPMorgan Chase and Co. is a bank “too big to fail,” and according to the G20 or The Group of Twenty, it is the bank too big to fail.
  The G20 is an international forum of the world’s major governments and central banks, and recently published a report stating if JPMorgan were to get into trouble, the greatest global financial havoc could follow because the bank is interconnected with so many smaller banks and investors.
  As Wall Street sputters into 2016 amidst global market volatility, many in Central Ohio and the rest of the state aren’t aware of how connected JPMorgan is to the local workforce and beyond. Way beyond, as in 200,000 state worker retirees and their beneficiaries.
  JPMorgan is the region’s largest private-employer with more than 20,000 workers, and many are well-paid. JPMorgan is also the custodian of the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System’s international fund, which accounts for $21 billion of the pension’s total fund that’s currently at $87 billion.

Strong encryption in the age of terrorism has quickly become a major part of the debate on how safe we are. Intelligence agencies are saying strong encryption they can’t crack will result in more terrorist attacks. ISIS is encouraging its followers to use encrypt communication, but it hasn’t been proven that ISIS has actually ever utilized encrypted technology to commit an act of terrorism.

Nevertheless, more and more tech giants such as Apple and Google have strong encryption technology in the pipeline that will soon be available to everyone. Because of this, our government and nearly all of our presidential candidates are encouraging these tech companies to create and allow access to secret backdoors within their future encryption technologies.

Jeb Bush said stronger encryption makes it harder to catch “evil doers”. Hillary Clinton went further saying in a recent debate a “Manhattan-like Project” is needed to create encryption that allows for government access to backdoors.

Many years ago I dated a man who made lists for virtually everything. He even had the five- and ten-year plans all the business books of the era were touting. I jokingly called him List Man, and thought it was kind of quaint. Now in 2016 he’s well off and I’m not, and I’m beginning to think there was something to all his list making after all!

What we learn from Lists of Note is that people have been making lists for eons. The extremely varied lists show us that human beings have long tried to make sense of and order in the world and their lives. Most psychologists and psychiatrists agree that list making, unless it is compulsive, has a number of positive benefits.  Lists can clarify goals, organize time, tame chaos, and provide a road map for where we need to go. The act of making lists represents hope and possibility, and there is great satisfaction checking items off our lists.

On New Year’s Day, the first baby boomers will turn 70.

From Jan. 1, 1946, through the end of 1964, 76 million babies were born in the U.S., more humans than lived in this country in 1900.

With a little help from LSD and our friends, we’ve won a cultural and technological revolution.

But our earthly survival depends on beating the lethal cancer of corporate domination-and the outcome is in doubt.

The GIs coming back from World War II kicked Rosie the Riveter out of the factories and into the suburbs.

The GI Bill gave them cheap home loans and free college tuition, birthing one of the world’s great university systems and one of its best-educated workforces.

Millions of boomers entered those colleges in the early ’60s. They lit the torch for a cultural revolution. They also invented the personal computer and the Internet.

Pot and psychedelics were essential to both.

As the winter emerges

It fixes me with a piercing stare

My tears sparkle,still

I take a walk in the cold

Mist wraps me up like a robe

Nature's severity lessens my inner shock

Daisies, Lilies, Roses adorning the yards

Charm me and I am taken up, but

Your ignorance hurts me as the cold approaches

Like winter trees you are brutal and stand bare

Drop my love like leaves to survive yourself.

(The poet lives in Ohio, USA; She can be reached arubabz@gmail.com)

Thursday, Dec. 30, 2-4pm
Ohio Statehouse, 1 Capitol Sq, Columbus, Ohio 43215
There has been no indictment for the Cleveland police officers that murdered 12 year old Tamir Rice. Let's show the world that Columbus demands that Black Lives be treated with dignity, respect, and justice. The whole State of Ohio is responsible for the disgusting and racist negligence shown at every level of this case, and it's time we let our state know that we will not be silent in the face of injustice. Bring signs and banners. And for those able, be ready to chant. Please continue to check the event page throughout the day if you plan on coming late, we'll post updates regularly.

Christmas is traditionally a popular time to open a film, so it’s no surprise that a slew of new releases are hitting the multiplex this week.

Will any of them be able to gain a foothold following last week’s record-breaking debut of Star Wars: The Force Awakens? Let’s hope so, because one of them is among the year’s best: a serious comedy that takes on a complex and controversial topic with the help of big-name stars working at the top of their game.

The Big Short, directed and co-written by Adam McKay (Anchorman), is a based-on-reality examination of the banking and housing “bubble” that triggered 2008’s Great Recession.

This sounds like the kind of dry, complicated subject that’s best handled by a well-documented book—and indeed, the source material is Michael Lewis’s book of the same name. In McKay’s hands, the subject is still complicated, but it’s anything but dry.