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Protestors descended upon the Wendy’s at 9th Ave. and High St. on the Ohio State University campus on Saturday, November 16 to demand that the Dublin-based corporation join the Fair Food Program. Of the five largest fast food companies in the country, Wendy’s is the only holdout against the Program. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has built an historic partnership between farmworkers, tomato growers and eleven leading food corporations based on human rights, dignity and developing a sustainable tomato industry. A boisterous, chanting crowd with drums and megaphones demanded the end to substandard poverty wages. Signs called for Wendy’s to pay one penny more a pound to benefit the workers. The prevailing piece rate today for tomato workers is 50 cents for every 32 pounds of tomatoes harvested.

Eye is Adam Smith from Dead Sea, Matt Bailey of Teeth of the Hydra, ex-Pretty Weapons members Brandon Smith and Matt Auxier. From this roster one could probably ascertain Eye is probably a well-executed, heavy and deep journey into the intersection of psych, space, stoner, progg, metal and the avant-garde with Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath as touchstones. Like any good space-rock band, Eye draws influence from science fiction, fantasy, altered consciousness, nature and life in general. I queried Eye’s vocalist, Moogist, Mellotronist and guitarist Auxier on what science fiction style-problem is looming in reality. His response: “Space migration. Are we ever going to be able ever to venture somewhere else to start a colony? Because we are ruining our planet! We have to figure something out in the next 50-100 years.” He views saving the earth as better described as saving ourselves. “The earth will destroy us all if we don’t figure something out. It’s probably too late. The Earth may still be here, it may just wipe us out on the way.

The website says it all: RadioactiveWasteAlert.org. The billboard with a young woman guzzling liquid with a radioactive warning on it under the phrase: “Don’t Frack My Water, Protect Columbus” set the stage for one of the most important public forums in the city’s history. If we had to summarize the major themes that emerged from the Tuesday, November 12 Radioactive Frack Waste Forum, the first is this: the public has a right to know that much of the process allowing radioactive waste into the central Ohio watershed near Alum Creek is the result of hidden, behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Ohio legislators and Governor John Kasich. Second: the frack waste is undisputedly radioactive and carcinogenic. Radium 226 found at 3000 percent over the allowable limit by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a long-established link to many forms of cancer, including breast and bone cancer. Third: All landfills leak. If you put radioactivity into them, it will come out. Fourth: Ohio has become a radioactive dumping ground for the fracking industry and is now importing the waste prohibited by the regulators in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Ohio’s power plants rank second in the nation in emitting carbon pollution, according to recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data. Private investor-owned utilities such as First Energy and American Electric Power operate the five leading pollution producers in Ohio that account for 50 percent of all the emissions in the Buckeye State. Just prior to the gathering at the 19th Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 200 Ohioans rallied in front of the Ohio Statehouse demanding immediate action on global warming. The demonstration organized by Environment Ohio urged support for President Barack Obama’s plan to regulate carbon pollution at major U.S. power plants. “Our message today is clear. The time is now to act on climate change,” said Christian Adams, a state organizer with Environment Ohio. “Global warming threatens our health, our environment and our children’s future. Ohioans support President Obama’s plan to clean up the biggest carbon polluters.” The Obama plan directs the EPA to propose new standards for carbon pollution emissions for all existing and future power plants. U.S.

Life on Planet High Street is like life on the shores of an ocean on a far-distant earth-like orb: freaks and geeks rolling by like driftwood; human reptiles and upright dudes and dudettes crawling forth from the primal liquid, the good with the bad; and as always, the interminably ugly with the remarkably beautiful as well as the forgettable in-betweens. Circus time! Working on the city's endlessly fascinating main north-south thoroughfare in the campus area in an ossifying profession known as 'record store,' there have been one or two lethargic days in the last 20 years. But I don't remember them. There is simply too much non-stop action. Like the aging retired American army colonel who owns an antique store in Old San Juan said in Yankee-fied Spanish of his environs, "Nunca un momento aburrido" ("Never a dull moment"). And sometimes these creatures make a sharp left- or right-turn and enter my world. Everyone's greeted with a detached hello but a greeting nonetheless. Their response helps clarify my involuntary survival-instinct gathering of impressions which started the moment they entered my eyesight.

Allen Ginsberg. Jack Kerouac. William Burroughs. Lucien Carr. Lucien Carr? Carr may be less familiar than the others—all icons of the Beat Generation—but he apparently played an important role in the literary movement’s birth. That role is explained in the based-on-fact flick Kill Your Darlings. This stylish first feature by director/co-writer John Krokidas is a murder mystery of sorts, but the crime doesn’t materialize until late in the proceedings. For the most part, the focus is on Ginsberg (Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe) and the quest he undertakes after becoming a student at Columbia University in 1943. While World War II grinds on, Ginsberg and other rebellious young writers basically declare war on literary conformity. And how does Carr (Dane DeHaan) figure in? He’s a student who has no writing ability of his own, but he appears to be an expert at inspiring writers—particularly writers who, like Ginsberg, are attracted to his caution-to-the-wind attitude and blond good looks. Though Ginsberg arrives on campus determined to buckle down and study, he eagerly sets aside his books when Carr invites him to a party in a bohemian part of town.

This past Wednesday in the wake of Wikileaks publishing a draft of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Ohio State chapter of United Students for Fair Trade (USFT) paid a visit to Pat Tiberi’s (R-Ohio) office in Westerville. "We're delivering a letter to Pat Tiberi asking him to not support fast track for the Trans-Pacific Parntership," said Taylor Picorelli, 3rd year in Business/ Environment, Economy, Development, & Sustainability (EEDS). Though Congress has the ultimate authority to negotiate international trade, the TPP is currently on the “fast track,” meaning that President Barack Obama could have the power to sign the agreement into law before Congress approves it. The delegation of Ohio State students visited the district office of U.S. Rep. Tiberi to deliver a letter urging the congressman to join the over 150 members of Congress demanding transparency in the TPP negotiations. "The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a huge threat to democracy and human rights," said Sara Stanger, 3rd year International Studies major and President of the OSU chapter of USFT.

Oh tosh, it has begun. I realize, of course, that I should have been expecting it. But, alas, I was caught off guard. When I walked into the supermarket last night, there it was: the jingling of that bloody bell in the hands of a Santa-clad Salvation Army worker. I'm not entirely certain why it is, but I detest that sound. To me it is akin to the sound of a screaming baby or a wood chipper, both of which make my teeth itch. I put the tinkling of the Salvation Army Santa bell right up there with the sound of an unattended car alarm. Speaking of which, who ever thought that was a good idea? When was the last time you saw someone promptly attend to a car alarm once it has sounded? More often than not, the car alarm blares away outside the earshot of the vehicle's owner, annoying all those who are within earshot. It's senseless, I tell you. But about that Salvation Army Santa bell clattering. The more I think on it, the more I understand about my own loathing of the sound. Several years ago, for reasons I do not recall, I had the occasion to shop at a different supermarket from my regular one.

I was in the second grade at Highland Avenue Elementary School in Columbus when President Kennedy was assassinated. The principal made the announcement over the loud speaker, and school was dismissed. I walked the short distance home and found my mother glued to the television set; she had been interrupted by the horrible news while watching the soap opera, As the World Turns. The television in my parent’s bedroom remained on for the next several days. One would think there could be little left to say about JFK, Jacqueline Kennedy or the rest of the Kennedys of that fabled generation. However, since this year is the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination, the book world has been inundated with books about Camelot. Even the Kennedys were swept up in the misty memories; Jean Kennedy Smith, JFK’s only surviving sibling, Caroline Kennedy, his only surviving child, and a host of Kennedys from the third generation made a sentimental journey to Ireland, the land of Kennedy–and Fitzgerald–ancestors to retrace the steps of his famous 1963 visit there. Many do not know that, as a young man, Kennedy had aspired to be either a journalist or a professor.

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy, the airwaves are awash with coverage which is contradictory, confusing and dishonest. It is clear that President Kennedy was killed by the National Security State (CIA and Pentagon). The assassination marked the rise of the military industrial complex, the American Empire and the permanent warfare state. This fact is highly troubling for Americans who have not studied the political assassinations of the 1960s nor the many subsequent crimes perpetuated by the National Security State since 1963. People want to trust their government. Understanding the evil underbelly is highly uncomfortable. Political assassinations and events such as the attacks on 9/11 can be described as a “state crime against democracy,” a term coined by Lance deHaven-Smith in his book “Conspiracy Theory in America.” The cover story does not quite fit, but the result is increased funding or power for the National Security State. These events are used to justify another war, another conflict, another enemy. There will be no peace dividend.