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There is a reason white people can't seem to stop appropriating black culture, a reason that white American culture, despite being the dominant aspirational culture for the rest of the world, seems so boring to the people it portrays. White supremacy has paid a price for its place at the top, and that price is its people's humanity, humanity in all its beautiful and brutal, maddening and serendipitous contradictions. Contradictions that must unwaveringly be excised or, perhaps more accurately, replaced with more civilized ones. America's racists have been dying of thirst, so it's time to sing about them. Every time Sherman's in the Super Bowl he be actin' like his shit don't stink. Moments after Richard Sherman tipped Colin Kaepernick's pass to prompt a game-sealing interception, he tipped one of white America's greatest contradictions, that of the graceful winner, which Twitter promptly intercepted, complete with covert and overt racist social media updates and litany of defending posts in the black blogosphere.

Not many citizens of Columbus are aware that if the police think you report too many crimes – or complain about them – Columbus’ finest will put you on a “list” and simply ignore your complaints. The history of how a whistleblower or concerned citizen becomes a “chronic complainer,” blacklisted by the Columbus Police, is well-documented in public records. Take for example Bernadine Kennedy Kent, the woman who initiated the federal investigation into vendor theft and fraud in the Columbus City Schools system. At the same time Kent was acting as a whistleblower and igniting a federal investigation into the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) funds, she was being blacklisted by the Columbus Police. How to become a chronic complainer Kent, a former Columbus City Schools vice principal, runs the nonprofit advocacy group PASS – Parent Advocates for Students in School. In 2006, Kent filed complaints with Columbus Police against the Columbus City Schools for theft and fraud in NCLB funds. When this did not yield results, Kent provided information to the FBI that launched an investigation into the Columbus School’s tutoring program.

As winter has sat on our faces with its historic polar vortex, one can and must fight back. In lieu of a soul-saving emergency trip to Puerto Rico and midnight strolls along Coronado Avenue sensually absorbing the Atlantico's oceanic thickening of the night's warm breeze, there is one and only way to beat this polar vortex shit: Johnny Go Winter Time Aerobics. Two perfect tunes to warm up to, both by the sexiest bastards of all time, the Rolling Stones: The groove of "Love I Strong” is somewhere between slow and medium-paced, confident and determined. Mick is out for some ass and he's going to get it. "Love is strong and you're so sweet/you make me hard and you make me weak," a good lyric to loosen up to. Do lots of hip shakes as you march in place, wave your arms like a bi-plane making passes at King Kong. "I followed you through swirling seas/down darkened with silent trees," Continue hips, arms and legs. Next song: the Stones--again. "Has Anybody Seen My Baby" is living proof the Stones are the best white R'n'B band that is, has and ever will be.

It's 6:45 on a Friday evening, and the Honky Tonk Happy Hour is rolling at the Shrunken Head. Singer-Songwriter Chad Lee Williams has just finished up his set and has headed to the bar where a mixed crowd of band invitees and regulars are milling around. Most have finished the drinks they hoarded during the Head's "Happiest Hour" from 5-6 (75 cent drafts and shots!), and must now content themselves with a mere happy hour discount. Onstage the Hellroys have just launched into their unhinged brand of rockabilly and are starting to pick up steam. Host Matt Monta tracks down each new guest as they walk in the door and gives them a raffle ticket for the nightly prizes of band memorabilia and a home baked pie. Perhaps because it’s the beginning of a Friday night, the mood is laid back – even jovial. The Hellroys finish their first song, tell a couple of jokes, and smash back into their set. The Happy Hour was started in 2010 when singer/guitarist Jamie Lyn moved to Columbus from Brooklyn, NY.

Toshi and Pete Seeger defy description except through the sheer joy and honor it was to know them, however briefly. Their list of accomplishments will fill many printed pages, which all pale next to the simple core beauty of the lives they led. They showed us it’s possible to live lives that somehow balance political commitment with joy, humor, family, courage and grace. All of which seemed to come as second nature to them, even as it was wrapped in an astonishing shared talent that will never cease to inspire and entertain. Pete passed on Monday, at 94, joining Toshi, who left us last year, at 91. They’d been married nearly 70 years.Somehow the two of them managed to merge an unending optimism with a grounded, realistic sense of life in all its natural travails and glories. Others who knew them better than I will have something more specific to say, and it will be powerful and immense. But, if it’s ok with you, I’d like to thank them for two tangible things, and then for the intangible but ultimately most warming. First: In 1978, we of the Clamshell Alliance were fighting the nuclear reactors being built at Seabrook, NH. An amazing grassroots movement had sprung up.

Much has been printed concerning the “data-scrubbing” scandal in the Columbus City Schools (CCS) district. Less has been revealed about the more blatant criminal theft and misappropriation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) tutoring funds. As a result of the Tuesday, January 27 release of State Auditor David Yost’s long-awaited report on student data tampering, four principals were immediately fired and Columbus Schools data czar Steve Tankovich may be facing possible criminal charges. Yost also told reporters that former Columbus Schools Superintendent Gene Harris may have known about the illegal activity: “There’s a reasonable inference, at least based on our interviews that she was at least aware of what was going on.” Yost is sending the information he gathered in the data tampering scandal to the Columbus City Attorney’s, Franklin County Prosectutor’s and the U.S. Attorney’s offices.

Action Bronson stormed the A & R bar stage after his deejay Party Supplies had just unleashed Mad Lion’s 1994 ragga banger "Take It Easy." His confidence beamed a vigilante’s aura that fit perfectly with Mad Lion's barking "Too Many Sucka's/Not Enough Time.” The room was packed and it greeted The Q-Boro emcee with the full adulation that hip hop tradition thinks a man with upper-echelon rap patterns, zooted stream of consciousness abstract metonymies that consistently align skill and hip hop taste level with an imperative for fellatio as reciprocation for his presence deserves. As he plowed through everything from his “the Saab Stories” EP to both “Blue Chips” tapes, to his early “Dr. Lecter” material and guest spots; the crowd was going line for line with him. At one point during his set, Bronson called out, "Introducing Bronsolino." The crowd responded with the next part "With My Hair Slicked Back I Look Like Rick Pitino" without missing cadence from his cameo from Chance the Rapper's "NaNa.” This was the moment of Chance’s arrival as well as Bronson’s. The humorous part of this line is that Bronson does not look anything like the dapper GQ -esque basketball coach.

Remember back in the day when you used to take photos with cameras? The ones with film in them? Remember how you usually put those pics in frames or a photo album? Maybe you didn’t get around to doing that and you just kept them in the envelope and threw them in a box. And sometimes you didn’t get around to that and you had them lying around on a table or counter. Now do you remember how saddened and frustrated you got when one of those loose photos had water spilled on it and the picture was ruined with washes and discoloration? Artist Matthew Brandt goes toward those spills and damages amongst other photo destruction/creation processes in Columbus Museum of Art’s exhibition Sticky/Dusty/Wet. The exhibition shows an assortment of works representing the variety of experimental photo processes used by Brandt. In Lakes and Reservoirs, Brandt traveled throughout the country taking photographs of lakes and reservoirs in nearly a dozen different states. He would develop the beautiful landscapes on large scale color photo paper and then submerge them in the lake water they capture. The photos were submerged for days, weeks, or even months.

William Ong is a long time performer in the Columbus music scene. From humble beginnings in the two piece funk, Primus-inspired Big Nasty to his current role in SRVVLST. Drums are his passion and he certainly does them justice. A graduate of Fort Hayes Arts and Academics High School, he now has an endorsement deal with Soultone Cymbals. FP: Put together your fantasy band, dead or alive. Hmm, well if I had to choose, it would probably be Brendan Canty from Fugazi on drums, Jaco Pastorious from Weather Report on bass, Jacob Bannon from Converge on vocals and on guitar/keyboard/vocals, Nick Reinhart from Tera Melos. I would imagine it to be a chaotic thrash-mathy post-punk jazz band. Nick Reinhart is a madman with guitar pedals and layering, Jaco Pastorious laying down harmonic melodies though a distorted Ratt pedal, Brendan Canty hammering out fat grooves and powerful fills following that dry farmer's bell making you lost in the pulse, all while Jacob Bannon leads this barrage of musical madness into a depressing, yet insightful onslaught of vocal hardcore bliss. I could see post punk math rock kids flailing around wanting to destroy each other while zoning out together.

Ryan Jewell will be jazz drumming along with musicians Robert Heinz, Bret Burleson, and Eddie Bayard at Dick’s Den on Sunday, January 25th. In addition to being an in-demand jazz musician, Ryan has also played with revered noise artists such as Jandek and Mike Shiflet. He has also been a member of Complete Strangers, Terribly Empty Pockets, Pink Reason, and PHS. You can check his new murky psych-folkish group Mosses on Jan. 30 at punk house VVK. “My favorite music is either extreme outsider art that is inept in some ways. Or it’s highly virtuosic.” Jewell explained his various musical passions while sipping tea in a Clintonville home where he was pet-sitting a friend’s ferrets. While Jewell has an extensive and diverse body of work, perhaps his most unique recording was made while unconscious, and literally brokenhearted. In January of 2013, Jewell recorded his open heart surgery at OSU’s Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital. “It was like a birth defect thing.” Jewell said, speaking of the life-threatening misshapen heart valve that put him under the scalpel and bone saw. “It didn’t close up properly.