Local
“Are you ready to strike and refuse to work this Thanksgiving and Black Friday to protest Walmart's bullying?”
That is this year’s rallying call from the Organization United for Respect – better known as OUR Walmart – as they try once again to convince Walmart associates across the county to strike on Black Friday.
Formed in 2011, OUR Walmart is not a union; however, they receive financial support from the United Food and Commercial Union (UFCW). OUR Walmart is technically termed a “worker organization,” and joining requires a monthly fee of around $5. While worker organizations don’t have negotiating power, federal law permits worker organizations to speak out against employers without the threat of retaliation.
It all started as a house burglary in Reynoldsburg. It lead to missing dogs, a missing police service weapon, several arrests and a Columbus Police Detective implicated in a pattern of sex with minors. It then lead to nothing beyond a handful of juvenile prosecutions. The Free Press, as a matter of policy, does not identify minors or survivors of sex crimes. The Free Press has no problem identifying Detective Sergeant Terry McConnell, who is still the second watch supervisor of the Columbus Police Department's Special Victims Unit.
Through the acquisition of police reports from the Reynoldsburg Police Department, the story leads to the Columbus Police Internal Affairs division and the Franklin County Prosecutor's office. It then ends abruptly.
THE GOOD
In a historical breakthrough, the U.S. Department of Justice appointed U.S. attorneys to investigate “election fraud” in Ohio and the nation.
In a surprise move a day prior to Election Day, U.S. Attorney Carter M. Stewart designated three election officials to investigate voter suppression and “election fraud’ in Ohio.
“It’s our duty to ensure that all qualified voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots and have their votes counted free of discrimination, intimidation, or fraud in the election process,” U.S. Attorney Stewart said.
Stewart’s press release specifically referenced “altering vote tallies” and “actions of persons designed to interrupt or intimidate voters at polling places by questioning or challenging them…”
“Both protecting the right to vote and combating election fraud are essential to maintaining the confidence of all Americans in our democratic system of government,” Stewart said. “We encourage anyone who has information suggesting voting discrimination or ballot fraud to contact the appropriate authorities.”
Supporters of public access TV have wondered for years why the Columbus city government closed the station. The reasons given by the city never made much sense – until a previously hidden reason was recently revealed.
Bogus reason number 1: lack of money
When funding for public access TV was drastically cut in 2001, Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman told The Other Paper that the action was not taken as a reaction to the station’s program content but because of “a lack of money.”
In response to questions about public access TV in 2006, Mike Brown in the mayor’s office likewise explained that the city “faced significant budget challenges during the recession of the early 2000s, and that led to significant reductions to . . . public financing for Public Access Television.” But he said the mayor supported “the concept” of public access TV.
The approval by Columbus voters of a 25 percent incometax increase in 2009 and the resulting budget surpluses took away the “lack of money” explanation. The restoration of public access TV could therefore have been expected. But city officials didn’t do it.
If medical marijuana in Ohio will be remembered for one thing in 2014, it will be the push to place the Ohio Cannabis Rights Amendment (OCRA) on the ballot. Hardly one Ohio television station, media outlet, newspaper or magazine could be found that didn’t carry at least one story. The issue was hotly debated. Thousands of volunteers offered their time and talent. Petition circulators collected signatures at dozens of events.
But the bar for getting a constitutional amendment to the ballot is a high one, and to date, signatures for OCRA still fall short of the required 385, 247-plus. The measure missed the ballot.
“Still” is the key word, though. Each of the 100,000+ signatures collected for the OCRA thus far is “evergreen” - still good - and will remain so, unless the signed address changes.
Despite the obvious challenge, the Ohio Rights Group saw 2014 as a great success. Consider these accomplishments:
Gift-giving - Help the local economy
Free Press picks
In some family and friendship relationships, or even at your workplace, you just can't get out of the typical gift exchange. If you don't like participating in mainstream consumerism during the holiday season, The Free Press has some suggestions for alternatives to gift-giving and how to buy gifts that make you feel good.
Instead of camping out at the mall or Walmart, or using your credit card online, you can patronize small independent businesses for your gift buying. In order to save the planet, we need to re-localize, to stimulate the local economy and circulate our surplus labor value.
1) Does time really exist?
2) Is poetry dead and did the Koch Brothers kill it?
3) How important was the moon in humanity's spiritual evolution?
4) Is this new animal therapy for depressed gorillas morally right?
5) Why are the Spikedrivers not a national phenomenon?
OK, so I don't go see them for a couple of years (the Spikedrivers, not the Koch Brothers whose calls I refuse to take anymore because I took a ten grand grant on a pigeon research scam I ran on 'em concerning the Jim Rhodes statue on the Statehouse lawn. Don't ask about the details, suffice it to say they've relegated me to the dead debts section of their political funds portfolio though I told 'em to sell my debt to the city of Detroit--more later).
Which was a good idea--time away from the living entity of which you are enamored. Return a time later and you can see how they've evolved, aged, matured; or devolved, decayed or gathered the moss of immaturity and contempt from too much familiarity from being in the same places with the same faces.
If you type in the hashtag #FreeSylvie on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter you will find images of various rappers, musicians, artists and high school kids wearing a shirt that bears the image of Sylvie Mix and the call for her liberation.
Sylvie is not a rapper arrested for drugs or murder. She is not a political prisoner.
Sylvie Mix is a 16 year-old Columbus Alternative High School AP Physics student whose mother Maika Carter and friend Thom Lessner came up with an innovative form of discipline that raised a decent amount of money for the Mid-Ohio Foodbank by selling the aforementioned Free Sylvie T-Shirts.
Sylvie’s explained her peer pressure induced crime.
Last week, the word came down that Bob Dylan was releasing another one of his generally excellent bootleg series, this time the full 1967 recordings known as The Basement Tapes. Like a good little Dylan fan, I immediately toddled down to Barnes and Noble on my lunch break to pick up a copy, with the purpose of (1) entertaining myself on a scheduled trip to Cleveland and (2) reviewing it for The Free Press.
Once I arrived at the store, I was unable to find anything on the new arrivals rack. Undaunted, I bounced up to the counter and made inquiries, which resulted in a computer search. I was then led to the box sets area, and as panic began to set in I was presented with an giant package with a price tag of around $129.00. Dear heavens. Even with my trusty membership discount this was one I would have to bounce off the wife.
In spite of veganphobe rhetoric, vegans do not live a life of stinking deprivation with the never-ending unimaginative pasta marinara bowl and naked side salad topped with twigs. You don’t have to have someone sacrifice a terrified and abused turkey or stuff their dismembered butt with seasoned breadcrumbs (can you pass the “butt bread?” really, a gross tradition when you think about it) for a centerpiece anymore.