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According to Ohio State professor Dr. Brad Bushman, who’s been studying the influence of media violence on behavior for over 25 years, playing violent video games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto may not trigger someone into a gun-toting murderous rampage, but you are more likely to blow a loud horn into someone’s ear, pour hot sauce down their throat or ignore someone who’s dying on the side of the road after being run over by a car.   There’s no definitive link showing violent video games such as “first-person shooters,” which indirectly place you behind a very realistic gun so you can be rewarded for killing very realistic human beings, cause shooting rampages, says Bushman. Mostly because there’s no ethical way to run experiments, you can’t “randomly assign people to play violent video games and then give them guns to see what they do with them,” he told the Free Press.   There is definitive evidence, however, based on hundreds of studies, says  Bushman, that shows playing violent video games, even for a few days in a row, increases aggressive thoughts, makes you more angry and also drains you of empathy.

Renee Dion and Jon Rogers are celebrating the release of their Fender Rhodes laden, textured and beautiful down-tempo R & B album “Moonlight” on Saturday February 22nd at Brother's Drake Meadery. “Moonlight” is destined to be one of the better Columbus releases of the year, so I was delighted to speak to Renee Dion last weekend. The release party for “Moonlight” is a milestone in Dion's artistic life which started off with her singing on her organist grandmother's lap at church when she was a little girl. However, the Brotherâ's Drake show will not be as nerve-wracking as Dion's May 5th, 2012 performance of the National Anthem for President Barack Obama at a Columbus rally. Dion recalled the historical performance, “I've been thrown in so many situations vocally, where I just had to rise to the occasion. That was the most crazy thing I probably have ever done. There is no music.

The Near East Side Area Commission met on February 6, 2014 in part to approve zoning variances for a new 40-unit apartment development planned for 122 South Parsons Avenue. The meeting was punctuated by repeated interruptions by the Commission Chair, Kathleen Bailey, and the Zoning Committee Chair, Anne Ross-Womack, during the time allotted for citizens’ comments on the proposal. Ambiguities between the zoning variance application and corresponding Franklin County property tax records left unanswered questions as to who stands to gain from the proposed development and who actually owns the land. During citizens’ comments, all the citizens who spoke were opposed to the proposal. The proposal was brought to the Commission by Michael Woods, who owns Woods Development Company, to build the housing units in several split unit town homes on the property. The rent on the units has a reported price point between $1200 and $2000 for each two bedroom unit – a rate higher than other rents in the area.

Despite an on-going legal battle with the city of Columbus, Juneteenth Ohio 2014 will go on as planned, though in a new location.   Following a long run at Franklin Park, festival organizer Mustafaa Shabazz says this year's festival will take place at Genoa Park at 303 W. Broad St. in downtown Columbus. The change of venue means other changes will have to be made.   “It will be a gated event,” Shabazz said. “Everyone will be searched in order to provide a safe and secure event. Junetenth Ohio has always been a family friendly event. We will plan the event in a way that everyone will enjoy three days of music, food and family fun. What we do know is that Franklin Park was the perfect place to celebrate Juneteenth Ohio. The open park attracted people planning their family reunions, picnics, renewing marriage vowels, naming ceremonies for the babies. The park was perfect in the celebratory sense that people became reacquainted to the area for the past 23 years.”   Columbus Police shut down Juneteenth 2013 after two days after an 11-year-old boy was shot.

Like some of you, I have a dislike for forced holidays, and do not celebrate this holiday that some say was created by corporations (my personal joke, the Greeting Card Industrial Complex?) However, many do celebrate this day of love, with their romantic partner.   For those rebelling against the masses, and those who want to do something different for the holiday, I have some advice. Challenge yourself to find a way to express love and kindness to your partner, yourself, a friend and a neighbor – whoever you encounter, whoever is near. Find a new way of giving of yourself that you may not have done in a long time, if ever.   I'm remembering Valentine's Day in grade school. Covering old shoe boxes in tin foil, felt, glitter, glue, heart shapes and other kinds of trim. Stuffing inside little cards with names misspelled and silly sayings, sometimes to people we didn't care that much about. However, it still felt good to spread some love around, even if it wasn't romantic.   Perhaps you could buy a package of child's Valentine cards and place them in a series of mailboxes on your street. Don't write any names or addresses on the card or envelope.

When the big snow hit central Ohio last week I happened to be in Whitehall. I was there for reasons that are unimportant.    But that's where I was when we were inundated by the big snowfall. I weighed my prospects for returning to the luxurious digs of the Free Press. After much mental give and take, I ventured forward.    I was pleasantly surprised to find the roads clear, even the side streets. By the time I reached Broad St. at Hamilton Rd. I thought I was in the clear. Traveling West toward downtown everything was fine until I reached the Whitehall/Columbus border.    That's where the plowed road ended and a mountain of snow began. Columbus had not deemed Broad St. plow-worthy apparently. Traffic slowed to a crawl as motorists made their way through the ever-darkening sludge.    Things did not improve until I reached Gould Rd. which just happens to be where Bexley begins. That municipality did take the trouble to plow Broad St. Later I learned that there were lots of places in Columbus that had not been plowed.

There are times when the evil you are facing is so vast, so powerful, and so determined that you begin to question your own sanity. I had put off learning about the Trans-Pacific Partnership for a while now, because though I knew it was horrible, it seemed complicated. Of course, that is part of the point. The multivariate machinations of global capitalism are able to hide in plain sight precisely by passing themselves off as dry boring stuff you don't really need to concern yourself with. Free trade agreements, though, are anything but, witness: Ukraine having a revolution over one right now. And yes, while the phrase “investor-state dispute settlement” sounds esoteric, the concept of corporations suing governments in an international tribunal over environmental regulations that infringe on potential profits ten years in the future is not that complicated. That is but one example of the litany of cartoonishly wicked ideas contained in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, and these are only the ones we know about through leaks and free trade agreements of the past.

You have probably seen her. Jazzmary has opened every mall in the central Ohio area in the last thirty-five years, and has performed her unique piano jazz and vocals in countless venues and festivals. You have probably heard her. Jazzmary has been on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter for over two decades, and you have probably checked her website: www.jazzmary.com. Jazzmary has performed at every type of event from intimate house parties on grand pianos, to opening of famous restaurants and fund-raisers, such as Romancing the Grape for Easter Seals. Jazzmary plays fresh and lively entertainment music with a touch of jazz. After graduating from Wittenberg University, Jazzmary has run the choral and music programs at Columbus Public Schools, at Mifflin High School -- which produced a hit record the "M.E. Experience", and at Fort Hayes School of the Performing Arts. She taught world famous bassists from Columbus: Foley, who toured with Miles Davis, and Jay Demarcus of Rascal Flatts. Also, she founded and led a band of nine women in the 1990's called MOXIE, which toured and played extensively in the central Ohio market.

Take Five with Jazzmary Daniels I saw 63 year-old Tommy Smith play at Dick’s Den a couple weeks ago. His drumming matched what he told me on the phone Sunday: “I’m a Bebop drummer. That’s where I come from.”  Tommy Smith comes from the South side of Columbus originally and has been a lot of places. In the 1950’s, he started playing with his grandfather in the Elk’s Lodge Marching Band, and fell in love with jazz after going to shows with an uncle at the Palace Theatre downtown.    During the 60’s, the teen Tommy was living on the West side, attending Central High School and becoming part of small city-wide jazz community.    “In high school, in Columbus, there were a bunch of us,” Smith said. “Not a bunch…I would say we were the young lions. And we were all into Jazz.”    Tommy and his friends would go to Columbus jazz spaces such as The Regal on Long Street, The Copa on Mt. Vernon, The Cadillac Club, the Starline and the 502 on St. Clair.    At the 502 they would watch greats such as Miles Davis and Horace Silver during Sunday matinee shows.    Tommy recalled the dream.    “I walked all the way from the West side.

Citing a wide range of ailments from leukemia to blindness to birth defects, 79 American veterans of 2011’s earthquake/tsunami relief Operation Tomadachi (“Friendship”) have filed a new $1 billion class action lawsuit against Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).    The suit includes an infant born with a genetic condition to a sailor who served on the USS Ronald Reagan as radiation poured over it during the Fukushima melt-downs, and an American teenager living near the stricken site. It has also been left open for “up to 70,000 U.S. citizens [who were] potentially affected by the radiation and will be able to join the class action suit.”    Now docked in San Diego, the USS Reagan’s on-going safety has become a political hot potato. The $4.3 billion carrier is at the core of the U.S. Naval presence in the Pacific. Critics say it’s too radioactive to operate or to scrap, and that it should be sunk, as were a number of U.S. ships contaminated by atmospheric Bomb tests in the South Pacific.    The re-filing comes as Tepco admits that it has underestimated certain radiation readings by a factor of five.