Local

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.

In November and December 2015, over 60,000 folks converged on Paris for the 21st United Nations Meeting of the Countries of the Partnership on the Kyoto Principles for Ecological Impact (COP 21 - UN Framework on Climate Change [UNFCCC]). The final accord agreed to at 7:36 p.m. on December 13, 2015 in Paris by over 185 countries,195 nations in all, is the first climate agreement that addresses, although voluntarily, fossil fuel impact on the global economies.  In this accord, the Global South Nation-State leaders and the Developed Nation-State politicians devised a system to financially sustain (although voluntarily setting up a fund of $100B a year) a global development model that seeks alternatives to fossil fuel energy sources by 2050.

The Grass Skirt Tiki Bar has been a great venue for a number of socially just events! My first encounter with this ambiance-filled restaurant was in Aug 2013 during a coalition effort of several environmental conservation and climate change organizations posing with a bus stating #I WILL ACT ON CLIMATE  (none of which said anything about vegan living as an empowerment strategy so I was happy to be there representing with my vegan shirt). I love what the Liz Lessner restaurants stand for with their vegan empowering offerings as well as their consciousness to local, organic and community building and engaging progressive political efforts. There are several vegan options on their menu and very interesting drink concoctions too. If you want to get a reprieve from the Ohio winter blues and be transported to the tropics (via taste and atmosphere anyway- not weatherL) without the cost of a plane ticket, the Grass Skirt Tiki Bar may be just what you are looking for. They do offer tofu and lots of gluten-free, rice, pineapple and coconut based meals.

Oak Harbor, OH and Rockville, MD—A meeting held today by teleconference, between U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff at the agency’s headquarters near Washington, D.C. and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) officials from the Lake Erie shoreline atomic reactor in northwest Ohio, revealed that the problem-plagued Davis-Besse plant’s backup diesel generators (EDGs) likely would not work, if called upon to cool the overheating core in an emergency. The reason is the voltage setting has been set too low, for years or even decades. Watchdogs from Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Committee, and Union of Concerned Scientists listened in, and members of the public provided comments to NRC.

The voltage, as documented in the plant’s Technical Specifications, has long been set at only 4,031 volts, whereas a minimum of 4,070, or perhaps even 4,088, volts is needed. First in May 2012, and again in April 2015, FENOC has applied to NRC for approval of a License Amendment Request (LAR) to address the still unresolved problem. 

Editor's Note: The following is an article from The Outsider, by Shawn Gaynor, that establishes connections between Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and a vulnerable database should raise the obvious question: Is this another "Dean Scream?" The Clintons have a long history of political dirty tricks.
   In 1992, when I was a platform spokesperson for Governor Jerry Brown's presidential campagin, Bill Clinton campaign operatives knowingly lied and claimed I forged signatures on a death penalty plank. They later apologized. Democratic Party insiders destroyed Howard Dean's presidential bid as an outside in 2004. The Clintons, as the consummate Democratic Party insiders, seem to be doing little more than illegally hijacking Bernie Sanders' campaign database. The irony, of course, is that this is coming from a candidate who was accused of far worse thing in the "Filegate" scandal and has recently had her own computer email problems. ~ Bob Fitrakis

  A good newspaper understands the political sensitivities of the community it serves and reflects that understanding in the newspaper's coverage and opinion-making.
   A newspaper that fails to understand and reflect the nature of its community is bound to lose readers.
   Such is the plight of the Columbus Dispatch that was purchased by GateHouse Media in June.
   The political disconnect between the Dispatch's news and opinion policies and its core readers is likely a key factor  in a one-year drop in circulation of nearly 9 percent. The annual report published in the Dispatch in October stated that the average number of copies sold on the day nearest to the filing date was 127,477, down sharply from 139,696 the average number of copies sold during the previous 12 months.
   A copy of a print newspaper is read by an average of two people, so the Dispatch is reaching about 255,000 people per day.