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While Mayor Coleman pushes his $1 million advertising blitz in support of his proposed 24 percent tax increase for Columbus City Schools, pesky facts keep getting in the way of all the glossy mailers, radio spots and 30-second television ads. And those facts keep suggesting that more money will not solve the problems of Columbus City Schools. Whether you agree or disagree that the Mayor and other community leaders should be out championing for a permanent $77 million a year tax increase for a school system that is under some serious scrutiny, you have to admire the slick mailers. They manage to promote lofty goals on behalf of the Board of Education without ever mentioning the school board – which is the entity that will be receiving the money. That is how discredited this school board is – the campaign hides it behind children and celebrities and hopes you forget it is there. Of course the million dollar levy campaign doesn’t mention the high cost of the levy. Nor does it mention Columbus City Schools and the Board of Education – an entity under tremendous focused investigation by the Auditor of State, Ohio Department of Education and U.S.

While the debate in Congress over “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” continues, undocumented youth have continued to take bold steps, showing they are unafraid, unashamed and that they and their families belong in their new home, the United States. Since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, there has been no concrete legislation addressing the need for citizenship for people who, for whatever circumstance, have come to the United States to seek a better life for themselves and their family. Like any presidential candidate, Barack Obama campaign promised more than he could deliver when he promised Immigration Reform during his 2008 campaign. Quite the opposite of supporting immigrant rights, during Obama’s tenure the United States has deported more people than any previous administration -- 1.7 million within six years. Our country averages over 1,000 deportations each day, including hundreds of deportations in Franklin County each year. Obama again made Immigration Reform central to his 2012 presidential campaign.

Not to be confused with Whole Foods (although, ironically they were both established in 1978 and have similar philosophies in serving whole food meals) Whole World is Columbus’ oldest completely (lacto-ovo) vegetarian restaurant, and they are very, vegan friendly. If you are a fan of Reuben sandwiches, Whole World has a delicious vegan Reuben. Their scrumptious menu is made from the freshest ingredients and includes; made-from-scratch soups and breads, daily specials, salads, specialty sandwiches, pizza (with either regular or soy based cheese) and an awesome (affordable) array of baked goodies. Almost every menu item can be made vegan, and they even offer whole wheat crust for the pizza if you so desire. They are located in Clintonville and open for lunch (11am) and dinner (8pm during the week and 9pm on Sat) every day except Mondays and offer a hearty brunch on Sundays from 10am to 2pm. It is a wonderfully whole world of delectable satisfaction as a vegan to find vegan pancakes and vegan French toast with a tall glass of orange juice available here on Sundays.

The government shutdown engineered by the Republican tea party zealots in the House of Representatives is headed into its third week. The damage is spreading. Infants go without nutrition. Children are locked out of pre-school programs. Scientists are losing support and locking up labs. The people taking the biggest hit, of course, are public employees — the workers who serve the American people. Some 800,000 of them were initially furloughed without pay. Ironically, those deemed the most essential are paying the highest price. “Essential” government employees are now, as Jeffrey David Cox, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told me on my radio show, essentially “indentured servants.” They’re forced to work without pay. About half of AFGE’s 670,000 members are deemed “essential.” They are required to work, and face disciplinary action if they don’t. But they aren’t getting paid and won’t be until the shutdown ends and Congress decides to vote them retroactive pay. These employees include nurses, food inspectors, janitors, firefighters and more. Most are not big earners.

When listening to Ron House’s new band Counter Intuits, (with Times New Viking’s Jared Phillips) one can see the how the Columbus icon rolls with a similar clever and cynical take on punk culture that he had in his 80s days in the seminal Columbus band Great Plains. It is easy to tell the guy who asked, “Why do punk rock guys/go out with New Wave Girls” in 1986 is the same guy on who wrote Counter Intuits “Anarchy on Your Face,” off the band's 2013 album released on House’s own Pyramid Scheme imprint. “It’s a mild joke song. One of my favorite lines: ‘crusty punks are very smelly but the odor is fortune telling.’” Ron explains that particular musical composition’s satire from the porch of his North Campus home of 22 years while we both somewhat ignore a rowdy, mid-afternoon game of beer-pong that his next-door neighbors are partaking in. I ask the 59 Year-old House if the college kids ever irritate his townie life, now complete with a wife and a kid. House observes that the generational diversity of North Campus isn’t so bad, “I think that students are more mellow than they were before because they have to be more serious in school.

It is 4:12 PM on Saturday, and I am drunk and waiting to go on the Santa Maria. It is Experience Columbus Day, so the tours are half off. Live music and a taco truck are summoned to provide the festive atmosphere for this celebration of colonialism. This floating homage to genocide is a popular site for field trips; I remember going on one in early elementary school. As I wait for the tour to start, one such assortment of suburban teenagers is role-playing in front of the ship for some sort of official photo-op. In a truly transcendent bit of colorblindness, the person playing Christopher Columbus is a black girl, the sole presence of diversity in the group. I'm too far away to hear what they're saying, but it's obvious this girl is having trouble, because whenever they start the scene, she cracks up laughing, to the mystification of all the white people surrounding her. Certainly some of this is nerves, but she is also clearly on to something that her fellow cast members are not: the fundamentally absurd and terrifying nature of the presence of this 62-foot carrack on the Scioto River. The downtown riverfront in Columbus is beautiful, make no doubt about it.

How does one end up living in an “Earth Ship?” Well, if you are Jay and Annie Warmke, it starts with the impending birth of your grandchild. In 1993, the Warmkes purchased 38 acres in Muskingum County, in the foothills of the central Appalachian mountains to develop a retreat for their extended family. After the land purchase, Annie was listening to a radio show and heard the words of architect Michael Reynolds outlining the Earth Ship house concept. Their Earth Ship is a house built of waste products such as old tires and bottles, as well as what nature provides with straw, clay and mud. Annie became a contractor and project manager for what is now their home and a tourist attraction, called Blue Rock Station which hosts 20,000 visitors a year. Annie likes to tell tour visitors how she arranged for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to haul in 1200 tires from an illegal dump to create the foundation and walls of their family abode and other buildings on their property. The outer wall of the Earth Ship is buried, well, under the earth, and the walls are made of tires and bottles covered with mud.

I wasn't sure what my column's topic this week was going to be about. A moment in Giant Eagle this morning as I bought a roll of Scott's toilet paper and a roll of paper towels (I often get the purposes mixed up) decided for me. In the meantime, I'd been mulling over three ideas: 1) A preview of this year's kinky sex rave at Trauma's new basement addition, an invitation-only exhibition of "15 rooms of psycho-sexual terror" called ironically enough, "Bliss," as promoter Nick Wolak of Evolved put it to me. "I've been concerned Trauma's been getting vanilla-fied over the years. This'll put the edge back on. Nobody from the Doo-Dah Parade will be able to complain," he said with a laugh, referring to Evolved's suspension-pulling team hauling a huge truck, a cringe-worthy spectacle that had a few Doo-Dah folk complaining.

Pitchfork TV and revered Seattle-based record label Light In The Attic (Last Poets, Lee Hazelwood, Jane Birkin, Black Angels, etc.) are in the midst of filming a 6 video road trip series that focuses on record stores between New York and Chicago. This documentary is set to hit Columbus on Saturday, October 19th with visits to Lost Weekend, RPM, Spoonful and Used Kids Records. P4K and Light In the Attic’s visit comes on the heels of Used Kids Records 27th Anniversary, which was Saturday October 12th. This celebration of the Columbus music institution had performances by the Redbuds, Nom Tchotchke, Headtaker, Bloody Show, Second State Butchers, Dead Girlfriends, Pink Reason, The Ferals, and Nervosas. I took the time before The Ferals performance to peruse and appreciate Used Kids’ eclectic and unique selection. You had new releases by the Connections, Danny Brown, Boldy James, the Raspberry Bulbs and RJD2. There were a plethora of used rock n roll vinyl recordings ranging from the obscure to classics from the Cramps and Led Zeppelin. Used Kids has a huge selection of soul and jazz records for beat diggers or just for people who just like to listen to soul and jazz.

So what is a school system to do when faced with evidence that it has impermissibly and unlawfully altered data to make its performance seem good, when it was in fact bad? If it is Columbus City Schools, lawyer up, clam up, obfuscate and deny.

Audits and Investigations Uncover Fraud and Data Manipulation

After a year of damning report after damning report, CCS has yet to admit any serious problems. Board member Ramona Reyes says, “we need to act on facts and evidence. We need not rush to judgment with suspicions, but take firm action when violations are proven.“ The Board apparently never found any violations with former Superintendent Gene Harris, who retired at her leisure this past summer. The first damning report came from Auditor of the State of Ohio David Yost, and found that each of the ten middle schools tested improperly coded students as having withdrawn or transferred, which removed those records from the school and district report cards.