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I think some of you have wondered where I've been, at least I'd like to hope so. Indeed, I've missed the intermittent hate mail and compliments from people nowhere close to my intended audience (fellow nonwhite revolutionary socialists under 35 where are youuuuuuuuu). Initially, my hiatus was borne out of dirty rotten old-fashioned opportunism. I was figuring that if I was going to write for free, I might as well do it on my own platform. But I would also be selling myself short, because to be real wid it, I was also getting a low-key case of drapetomania.

Central Ohio is relentlessly expanding outward, leaving behind areas of undeveloped and developed land to essentially waste away; and, if no one acts, a future of super sprawl is in the cards.
The critical question is: Will regional planners take the necessary steps to reign in a metropolis once referred to as “Cowtown?”
The American population is trending toward greater numbers of young adults and retirees (Baby Boomers). Experts say this will spur demand for more and more single-occupant dwellings.
Taking this into consideration is the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission or MORPC which predicts Columbus and its seven surrounding counties could expand another 480 square miles by 2050, adding 500,000 residents and 300,000 housing units. For perspective, 150 square miles (95,000 acres) of urbanized land was added from 2000 to 2010.
The numbers are alarming, and so are the consequences: neighborhoods without community, increased dependence on foreign oil, destruction of natural resources, rising taxes to pay for infrastructure and community services, and the stratification of class and race.

“Banks have all the money, and the rich hold all the cards.” These are common laments among Central Ohioans who, as the dismal turnout in the November 2014 elections indicate, suspect that democracy is not working as it should. While the majority of citizens and businesses play by the rules, clearly other are writing the rules, and not to our benefit. Large and often multinational corporations expect politicians to fight for their interests, not ours. It’s all too much, and we wonder, why don’t citizens unite and take back our democracy? Then along comes an organization called Citizen United. Sounds inviting.

As Ohioans fight to shut the state's two dying reactors, good news has come from Vermont.  Thanks to decades of dedicated activism, the Vermont Yankee reactor at Vernon was permanently shut down on  Dec. 29, 2014. 

Citizen activists made it happen. The number of licensed U.S. commercial reactors is now under 100 where once it was to be 1,000.

Years of hard grassroots campaigning by dedicated, non-violent nuclear opponents, working for a Solartopian green-powered economy, forced this reactor’s corporate owner to bring it down.  Hopefully, the same can be done--SOON!---to the dangerous, decrepit reactors at Davis-Besse, near Toledo, and Perry east of Cleveland.  

Selma gives us our first glimpse of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) while he’s preparing to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

Given our memories of King as the inspirational leader of the Civil Rights Movement, you might expect him to say something profound and high-minded. Instead, he complains to his wife (Carmen Ejogo) about the formal tie he’s forced to strap on for the occasion.

That’s one way Selma distinguishes itself from the average historical drama it could have been. Rather than turning King and other luminaries of the period into cardboard heroes, it renders them as recognizable human beings.

The other way Selma distinguishes itself is by delving into the arguing and strategizing that went on behind the scenes as King fought to secure voting rights for black Americans. Director Ava DuVernay and screenwriter Paul Webb have put together an illuminating account of the events leading up to a massive demonstration he organized to promote those rights: the 1965 march from Selma, Ala., to the capitol building in Montgomery.

There is a mental health epidemic in our midst and it is happening to some of our best people.

While the United States government continues its eternally self-defeating War on Drugs, the Veterans Administration (VA) is producing junkies at an exponential rate. But the drugs they are taking are legal. And one side-effect doesn’t last long because you won’t be around to suffer – its suicide. No surprise is that one veteran commits suicide every hour, this according to the VA.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the number one affliction affecting our nation’s Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans. And after rotating countless patients through every single antidepressant and antianxiety medication that modern psychiatry has to offer, the VA says they have a cure.

The VA believes the most successful medication prescribed for combat PTSD is the benzodiazepine. A class that includes Xanex, Valium, Klonopin, and Adavan.

A two-part series in the Sept. and Oct. issues of The Free Press reported on the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) setting employers’ insurance premiums illegally and unfairly for many years. The violations were revealed in the class-action lawsuit of San Allen v. Buehrer, in which Ohio’s 8th District Court of Appeals in May affirmed BWC’s liability to Ohio employers.

In November, the trial judge in the case, Richard McMonagle of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, approved a $420 million settlement agreed to by BWC and the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

McMonagle had ruled in 2012 that BWC knowingly violated state law and acted unfairly in setting hundreds of thousands of Ohio employers’ workers’ compensation premium rates. The illegal rates were imposed on employers for over 15 years, until the lawsuit forced the agency to stop in 2009. BWC’s records submitted at trial indicated its conduct caused many thousands of employers to close due to shockingly high – and completely illegal – premium increases.

Next week, Columbus viewers will get the chance to see Selma, a smart and impassioned film about a pivotal moment in America’s Civil Rights Movement.

While they’re waiting, they may want to check out the documentary Concerning Violence, a collection of film footage shot during the 1960s and ’70s. Though it’s set in colonial Africa rather than the United States, the underlying racial inequities are all too similar.

Subtitled Nine Scenes From the Anti-Imperialist Self-Defense, the documentary takes us to various countries that were ruled by European governments or business interests. The vintage footage, shot for Swedish television and compiled by Swedish director Goran Hugo Olsson (The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975), offers a diverse look at an era of African upheaval.

Several revolutionaries talk about the lengths they’ve gone to in their fight for freedom—and the lengths their government has gone to in its attempt to suppress them. A smattering of graphic images underscore their words.

Meryl Streep long ago proved she can act. In Into the Woods, as she did in 2008’s Mamma Mia!, Streep proves that she can sing, too.

One thing, though: You probably wouldn’t want to sing in a choir with her. Performing in an ensemble requires more restraint than performing a solo, as your goal is to blend with the other voices, not to stand out. Whether she’s singing or acting, Streep often seems incapable of exercising this kind of restraint.

Maybe it’s not her fault. Maybe her directors think to themselves: “Hey, I’ve got Meryl Streep here. Why shouldn’t I take advantage of the situation by letting her deliver a Meryl Streep-style star turn?”

Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as she’s the star. It’s not so good when she’s merely one member of a large ensemble, as she is in Into the Woods. The fact is that whenever her Witch is on-screen, the other actors basically disappear into the fairy-tale-style woodwork.

In Unbroken, World War II bombardier Louis Zamperini is subjected to a crash landing at sea and a grueling stint in a Japanese POW camp. Will he survive?

Obviously. Otherwise, the flick would be titled Broken.

The real question is whether you, the viewer, will survive Angelina Jolie’s oh-so-slow, oh-so-traditional war epic. Two hours and 17 minutes might not sound like a long slog, but that’s exactly what it turns out to be.

As you know if you’ve seen any of the recent interviews with Jolie, the second-time director was enamored of the real-life Zamperini, who died before the film was ready for release. Perhaps the saga’s greatest shortcoming is that, after watching it, we’re not sure why she found his story so compelling.

Yes, he was heroic. Yes, he was a survivor. But so were lots of other U.S. veterans.

One thing that sets Zamperini apart is that he was a distance runner at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Even there, however, he barely stood out. In an early flashback, we watch as he runs an exceptionally fast final lap on his way to an eighth-place finish.