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Malcolm X said “of all of our studies, history is best qualified to reward all research.”   George Santayana said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  History is knowledge acquired by investigation.  It is the study of the past, particularly how it relates to humans.  History relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, presentation and interpretation of information about these events.

The Columbus Civilian Community Board understands the importance of history and as a result brought historian Dr. David Imhotep, the author of the “The First Americans Were Africans” to Columbus, Ohio this past August.  The two-day event began on Friday, August 26th with a book signing by Dr. Imhotep at Zawadi Books.  Saturday, August 27th was the lecture held at the Columbus Metropolitan Main Library in the auditorium.  People had to be turned away at the door as the room filled quickly and became standing room only.

If you’re an Ohio medical marijuana aficionado, you know about HB 523. After 20 years of intransigence, the Ohio General Assembly has passed its first pro-cannabis bill.

Lawmakers fast tracked HB 523 after the humiliating November 2015 defeat of the Responsible Ohio ballot issue and to preempt its successor, Ohioans for Medical Marijuana sponsored by the Marijuana Policy Project. The bill evolved from a series of town hall meetings and task force hearings to introduction as House Bill number 523 in April 2016. Testimony was heard before committees of both the Ohio House and Ohio Senate, with House passage in early May and Senate passage two weeks later. Ohio Governor John Kasich penned his name on June 8, 2016. The“Marijuana-authorize use for medical purposes-controls” Act goes into effect on September 8, 2016.

This Act has its good and bad, as well as its devilish unknowns:

The Good

Probably the most damning thing about Hillary Clinton is her supporters' most cited compliment: “You may not like her in public, but she's great one on one.” Which really says everything about her politics. Because, while Trump may be capitalism's id, Hillary is its ego and super ego, its true avatar (she literally said her job is to save capitalism from itself). Ostensibly progressive. Reserved. Loves cruise missiles. Does not like consorting with the masses. Only interested in what you can do for it. All subsuming. Wants you to believe there is no alternative. Can't understand what everyone's problem is.

The average rom-com loves couples who “meet cute.”

The new flickSouthside With You is not exactly a rom-com, and it’s definitely not average. Its subject, after all, is the first date of Barack Obama and future first lady Michelle Robinson.

Nevertheless, it must be said that the two meet kind of cute. But that’s just part of the charm of writer-director Richard Tanne’s depiction of a momentous day they spend together in 1989.

They walk, talk and get acquainted, but first of all they argue—primarily about whether they’re actually on a date. As a young associate in the Chicago law firm where Barack is serving as a summer intern, Michelle insists it’s inappropriate for them to socialize. She’s agreed to see him outside the office only because he invited her to attend a community meeting in his South Side neighborhood.

It’s not until after he’s picked her up in his rusted-out hatchback that he admits the meeting is still hours away. In the meantime, he suggests they take in an African-American art exhibit and get a bite to eat.

I’m something of a musical tourist. Once a year or so some friends and I travel to some American city famous for its music – New Orleans, Bakersfield or whatever – and spend a long weekend. This year was two nights in Memphis, with a stop at Graceland and a return trip through Nashville. It had been around eight years since I had been to either city, and I was looking forward to Beale Street and Broadway again.

So you know, when we travel to party we have no interest in finding the spot where the locals go to hear the “real thing,” nor do we avoid the “touristy” places because we are tourists. For more authentic travel advice, ask a hipster – you won’t have to look hard to find one.

The 13th Amendment is celebrated for abolishing slavery. But many Americans are not aware that it includes a legal exception for continuing slave labor in the prison system: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”

After the amendment was passed, many former slaves were arrested on petty or trumped-up charges, and returned to being slaves within the prison system. Part of what continues to drive mass incarceration in the U.S. is the profit motive: millions of inmates are forced to work for little or no pay. With the highest per capita prison population in the world, U.S. prison labor is a huge industry.

On August 27 prison abolitionists, anarchists, socialists, and other opponents of the prison industrial complex marched from the Ohio Statehouse to support a nationwide prison strike planned for September 9, the 45th anniversary of the prisoner uprising at Attica, New York State’s most notorious prison.

The Felice Brothers aren't highfalutin'. The country boys from the Catskills would rather record an album in an unassuming farm garage shared by chickens than in a fancy studio in the big city. And that's just what they did with their new release, “Life in the Dark.” The result is a stark, unvarnished and down-to-earth record, as unpretentious yet thoroughly satisfying as a heaping plate of biscuits and gravy.

The band celebrates it's 10-year anniversary by hitting the road this month in support of “Life in the Dark,” and looks forward to returning to one of its favorite tour stops, the Rumba Cafe, on the15th. “We love coming to your town,” says James Felice, “we've played the Rumba four or five times.”

Columbus produces influential people for various reasons. One reason is Columbus has major learning institutions which provide an influx of young people looking to ripen, who mix with the civilians who exist. One place that exemplified this pure-of-heart culture incubator was Bernie’s Bagels and Deli (and bar) on the OSU campus. The campus bar combined lifer-anarchists with college kids who, in turn, created experiences that helped develop new energies. They finally removed Bernie’s physically. But with this spirit of internal exploration, here is my incomplete guide to something you could do with your next two months to 75 years.

As 96 percent of America's minds descend into election-year madness, driven there by two scoundrels in particular and many more in general, perhaps it is time to ponder the only question that matters:

What would Allen Ginsberg have thought of America 2016?
 

Back in August 1995 when I was in my prime provocateurship at The Other Paper, I decided to treat myself to a little vacation in New York City. I picked a helluva week--and on purpose: Shane McGowan of the Pogues was playing his first post-Pogues live show in America with his band The Popes, that I had to see.
 

And Ginbsberg was doing a reading at The Cooler, a music and performance space in the ultra-hip-by-its-sheer-unhipness meatpacking district in the Gnawed Apple. More than a reading, actually, avant-garde guitarist Marc Ribot would be sitting next to him supplying sounds eclectic to one of the founding freaks of the Beat Generation's words.
 

Saw Shane and Al on consecutive nights--bloody marvelous, both. And of course took in an afternoon Mets game at Shea, after walking 75 blocks through Manhattan.
 

Who is Zach Klein and where did he come from?

On the heels of Represent Columbus’ Issue One, which was perhaps the most partisan political event in memory, the all-Democratic City Council launched a divisive propaganda campaign falsely claiming the issue was a Republican plan. City Council member Mike Stinziano initiated an attack against Represent Columbus co-chair Whitney Smith at a council meeting, pointing out that she is a Republican.

Issue One, the initiative attempting to expand and reform Columbus City Council that was defeated at the August 2ndspecial election, actually had support from the Green, Libertarian, Socialist parties as well as many disgruntled Democrats

The one-party Columbus City Council and its One Columbus PAC, led by Mayor Andrew Ginther’s aide Bryan Clarke, attacked Issue One as being a “Republican power grab” led by “the Party of Trump” associated with the “Koch brothers.”