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Ohio Governor John Kasich is suspected of giving Dayton and Ohio a black eye by pulling the plug on the presidential debate.

And once again, the “poodles” in the Ohio press corps could not bring themselves to hold Kasich accountable. The “reporters,” who have let Kasich skate on spending Ohio tax dollars on his failed presidential campaign, merely recited the story line given to them by officials at Wright State University instead of holding the governor accountable.

The September 26 debate was to be the first of three featuring Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The smackdown was likely to set audience records, not just in the United States but around the world, and have great impact on the election outcome.

But no more. It was moved to Hofstra University in New York in a surprise announcement by WSU President David Hopkins on July 19.

Radioactivity is on the loose at nuclear sites in Southern Ohio and Kentucky. Two plants that are supposed to process rusting cylinders containing radioactive and chemically dangerous substances are not operating. These facilities need to be restarted without delay.

The Nuclear Free Committee of the Ohio Sierra Club has written to legislators in Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois and to others, sharing our concerns about the stoppage of work at the Babcock & Wilcox Conversion Services at the Portsmouth, Ohio and Paducah, Kentucky Nuclear Sites. The Portsmouth site is just outside the town of Piketon in Southern Ohio.

Why would the Ohio Green Party Co-Chair end up addressing Bernie Sanders delegates in Philly during the Democratic Party convention? I found myself with them in a pizza place in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania at the behest of the mostly-California-based Election Justice organization.

UPS is the world’s biggest package-delivery corporation and has a major hub on the west side. Earlier this year the hub was awarded a property tax abatement by Columbus City Council and it should save UPS $10.4 million over the next decade. City Council claimed it was needed so UPS doesn’t move the hub that employs 800 to the suburbs or even out of state. The tax break would also create 75 additional jobs, said both UPS and city council.

Sat, Aug 6, 6-8pm, University Baptist Church, 50 W. Lane Ave.

This concert will commemorate the 71st anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Rocco Di Pietro, a local composer and a Columbus State Community College faculty member, has created a new piece entitled “Smiles and Screams: Love to Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” a concert with Taubes (an artistic rendering of how life and art interplay), that, along with community voices, will raise the vision of a world less violence and without nuclear weapons.

The goal of this project is to create a community wide expression of the 71st anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Through the use of artistic and cultural performances, Central Ohio residents will explore visions of a future free of nuclear weapons, war, and violence.

In measuring the success of this project, the organizers seek to achieve: 1) deepened organizational partnerships furthering a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons; and 2) a musical composition that reflects and commits to a world less violent.

As we go to press, the devastating numbers are coming in from the special election polls. It appears Issue One has failed.

At the crux of the anti-Issue One campaign was the Big Lie that the idea of a city with representative districts came from "The party of Trump" who were supposedly "associated with the Koch Brothers." Ironically, many voters were worried about an increased cost of $20 million to the city budget, which was part of the anti-Issue One campaign's false advertising. In reality, the movement for more representation was created after the all-Democratic Columbus City Council gave away a quarter of a billion dollars to Nationwide Insurance and four of the richest families to bail them out for a bad investment in the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team.

After a Donald Trump town hall reached capacity Monday afternoon, about 150 Trump supporters who had been turned away milled around the vendors of campaign merchandise outside the Columbus Convention Center. Trump falsely told his supporters that thousands were turned away “for political reasons.”

One merchandise hawker tried to turn the setback into an opportunity. “$5 off all Trump gear if you couldn’t get in!” he shouted over a bullhorn. Then he started to heckle protesters across the street who held signs saying “Wall off Trump,”  “Love Not Hate,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “No Más Trump.”

Protest organizer Rubén Castilla Herrera also had a bullhorn. “We’re black, brown, white, queer, straight, immigrants, women, men,” he said. “We’re a diverse community, and we’re to tell you that Trump is not welcome here!”

A Trump supporter grabbed the hawker’s megaphone. “How can you say that black lives matter?” she said. “All lives matter!”

With all the struggles this presidential election of getting Gary Johnson eligible to take part in the debates, we can easily become lost in the miasma of the federal elections. It had happened to me, until I noticed a post last week from my previous professor Dr. Robert Fitrakis. Dr. Fitrakis was always one of my favorite teachers to have discussions with, as well as the professor I credit the most for providing the tools I employ to analyze political media, thanks to his “Politics and the Media” course. He and I would have long discussions while smoking our briar tobacco pipes outside of the school building jokingly referring to ourselves as “pipe smoking intellectuals.”

Jason Bourne is the fifth installment in the Bourne film franchise derived from Robert Ludlum’s espionage novels that began with 2002’s The Bourne Identity. Ludlum’s original Bourne trilogy began in 1980 but didn’t reach the big screen until shortly after 9/11, when the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies turned to what author Jane Mayer called The Dark Side. The latest sequel continues the Bourne formula of nonstop action combined with criticism of the Central Intelligence Agency and is the fourth movie starring Matt Damon as the title character and the series’ third feature helmed by British director Paul Greengrass, starting with 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy.

Jonathan Beard is the energy and inspiration behind Issue 1, the vote to end the at-large city council which has been in-place for over a century. Beard is the president and CEO of the Columbus Compact Corporation. He’s co-chair of Represent Columbus, the grass-roots group behind Issue 1. In his own words Issue 1 is the “citizen-initiated proposed Columbus Charter Amendment to change our city council to a form that better represents the interests of the people of all Columbus.” A summer of violence in a long-neglected east side neighborhood, he says, is when and where Issue 1 was born.   

I personally became involved to initiate Issue 1 when Columbus City Council would not act to support 22 neighborhood groups – two area commissions, plus umpteen civic associations, business associations and block watches – during a summer of horrific drug-related gun violence on E. Main Street where all the violence was caught on video and shared with city council.