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Under the absurd guise of “fairness,” Ohio Secretary of State Husted announced statewide uniform times for early voting for the 2014 fall general election. Unlike in past elections, there will be no early voting on Sundays. The Republicans who dominate Ohio politics, like Jon Husted, are targeting black, poor, elderly and young voters for disenfranchisement. Just like “Driving While Black” (DWB) has become a well-known acronym, so it is joined by “Voting While Black” (VWB). Husted is not a born-again fundamentalist acting on old-time “day of rest” principles in barring a Sabbath voting day. Rather, he’s prohibiting it because black preachers have urged their congregations to vote on Sundays after church services. These well-known “Souls to the Polls” crusades should be applauded in a democratic society. Instead, Husted and his Republican Inane Clown Posse close down voting at the times most convenient for voters. Another tactic they use is so blatantly ridiculous that it needs little rebuttal.

Alright, so admittedly, at this point, Israeli Apartheid Week may be over, but you know what is not over? The occupation of Palestine. I will not front, when I came back to Columbus, I was hella on a despondency tip 'bout the radical consciousness of the equilibrium of settler colonial America, but as home to the one of the nation's largest universities, it really should be no surprise that the Palestinian justice movement is modestly on and poppin'. This shit give me hope y'all because Columbus is the social justice equivalent of Liza Minelli's New York, New York. If you can organize here, you can organize anywhere. If the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement can make traction here, it can make it anywhere. At this point, if y'all been payin' attention, it should be redundant as to why the Palestinian justice movement deserves attention. Instead, I shall examine what it means to embrace this movement at the emotional and political center of the seat of imperial power. Too often it is fashionable to relegate this movement to the confines of academia and cable news segments.

I’m speaking out for the children who are bombarded everyday with visions and sounds and negative images that can change who they think they are, before they know who they are, in this world. I’m speaking out for the children who have been told that they can’t be what they want to be by the media and thus by their parents, caregivers and guardians who allow them to be exposed to the media without supervision and proper guidance to ensure they understand the messages they are receiving. As adults we sometimes feel we can do what we want, listen to what we want and take our children to see what we want without any negative consequences. We play all kinds of sounds and images that can do serious damage to our children’s emotional growth, damage that we may not see until they are teenagers and adults and find it hard to “cope” with society and the people who make up our society. I’m speaking out for the children no matter what color, race, creed or age, they are who are forced to see movies, videos, DVDs and listen to music that degrades women and men.

During it’s five O’clock Traffic Mix on Monday, Power 107.5 dropped Fly Union’s new song “Flatline” off their new album Small Victories in between various hit records after DJ Big Bink took a request from a female caller to play the Columbus hip hop group. I caught up with Fly Union earlier in the week to interview them on the heels of the aptly titled Small Victories. Power 107.5 has played Columbus records here and there. They also have a Sunday show hosted by Yaves Ellis that addresses community issues but, really, there hasn’t been a Columbus record with impact on the station since perhaps “Welcome to Buckeye City” a long time ago. Fly Union’s manager, Chea explained reciprocation is the key to any good relationship, and especially with a media outlet like 107.5, “It has to work both ways. I think we are on the same page of us showing our support and them showing their support. We need to bridge that gap between people over Fly Union in Columbus. But they don’t listen to radio because they don’t want to.

In my capacity as music writer, I have been asked by Editor-in-Chief Bob Fitrakis to write a review of the police band Hot Pursuit's 1988 D.A.R.E graduation concert at St. John Arena. This has presented some difficulty -- first, I wasn't at the concert, and second, I'm not entirely sure the event occurred. Although I'm not necessarily averse to stretching the truth in the service of a good story, outright fabrication of an entire concert seems a bit much. I try, however, to be accommodating to Bob. Therefore, I have collected before me a 1988 AP piece on the band which somehow ended up in the Los Angeles Times, some slightly terrifying pictures, a YouTube clip of the band performing "The D.A.R.E. Song," a 2013 Dispatch article in which the members of the band are crying about having their funding cut off, and my own vague memories of 1988. I also watched some videos of people playing volleyball in the arena to get a feel for the space. It's weak, but what am I supposed to do? Anyway... It's a brisk windy day in April, and Hot Pursuit is about to take the stage at St. John Arena for the D.A.R.E. graduation, whatever that is. I personally missed out on the D.A.R.E.

I once got a job writing for a magazine because of a James Brown tribute I'd written focusing on his shiny patent leather shoes during his performance on the old '60s television show, Shindig. When the Stones played the Shoe back in '97, I was photographing them and standing on a special step built on the front of the stage just for the photographers. I was close enough to Jagger several times I could've untied his hard leather street shoes, which I thought were an interesting choice of footwear for a hyper-active front man such as he. And Nick Cave? Don't even ask. He used to wear these ridiculous boots with super-long points curling up several times over, like how the dead witch's feet curled up when Dorothy's house fell on top of her. Nick, ha, what a weirdo. But you gotta love him. My point? You can tell a lot about a performer by what they wear, especially on their feet, which you don't ever normally think about or can even see. What it says I'm not always sure but it sure says something. And no, freaks, I don't have a foot fetish. Which brings us to Lydia Loveless at the Rumba Cafe last Friday night.

Over 20 years ago, a handful of farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida started meeting in a borrowed room of a local church. They gathered to discuss the routine conditions they experienced in the fields: sub-poverty wages, wage theft, sexual harassment and, in the most extreme cases, modern-day slavery. That conversation was the seed of what was to become the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). Now two decades later, Columbus has become the focal point of a national struggle for farmworker justice. Of the top five fast food chains in the country -- McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King, Subway and Wendy’s -- Ohio-based Wendy’s is the lone holdout still refusing the workers’ demands. In response, a community group of people of faith, students, organized labor and food justice advocates have come together under the banner of Ohio Fair Food to pressure Wendy’s to respond to farmworkers in their supply chain.

A recent Reddit discussion framed an interesting dilemma: should members of a cooperative grocery store (in this case the Clintonville Community Market) remain loyal to their co-op or try to save money at the larger chain stores like the new Lucky's Market or Whole Foods? Full disclosure: I was one of the founders of the Clintonville Community Market, as was Simply Living, and I serve as a board member and interim director of Simply Living. As Chair of the Support Our Local Economy (SOLE) Coalition, I offer a "Localist" perspective that may help re-frame the dilemma posed in the Reddit discussion. First-- Why do we have all these nonlocal chain stores? Not just grocery stores, but pharmacies, restaurants, hotels and big box stores for office supplies, hardware, clothing, appliances, books, media and computers - pretty much every sector of the retail economy, which is 70 percent of our total economy? Just 50 years ago, all these retail businesses were locally owned, and today each sector is dominated by chain stores. What happened? It's no accident that the past 50 years have seen Ohio and the rust belt states lose half of our manufacturing base.

Mel Brooks’s The Producers is built on such a clever concept, it’s no wonder it’s found success both in Hollywood and on Broadway. It was in a 1968 movie that Brooks first told the story of Max Bialystock, a once-great Broadway producer, and Leo Bloom, an accountant who dreams of making his mark on the Great White Way. Together, they realize they can cook the books in a way that allows them to make a fortune by putting on a show so bad that it opens and closes in one night. When they come across a diehard Nazi who’s written a loving tribute to Der Fuhrer called Springtime for Hitler, they think they’ve found the world’s worst play. Then, to cement their chances of producing a flop, they hire Broadway’s worst director to stage it. The results are delightfully unpredictable. The Producers has a winning concept, but it’s not foolproof. Though the stage version has catchy tunes, much of its humor relies on broad stereotypes that can get old fast because—well, let’s face it, they start out old.

If you are looking for some “paleo-vegan” comfort food (yes, Paleovegans exist!), the Crest Gastropub on Indianola has some of the best variety of vegan and gluten-free fare found in a non-vegan restaurant (although they don’t have a house-made decadent vegan dessert option, yet). The fall harvest squash casserole really hits the spot on a cold winter evening. Beyond delicious food, the Crest Gastropub has made considerable efforts to vanguard the way of socially just businesses; from community focused, on-site gardening or locally sourced produce for better nutrition and less oil consumption, and other sustainability practices such as re-salvaged and deconstructed architectural materials, reusing, recycling or composting what they can. Their water conservation and pollution prevention strategies include the installation of rain barrels. They source heirloom vegetables to help preserve their viability continues after centuries of cultivation.