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Dear House Republicans: Well, ya done did it. You shut down the government. Congratulations! Although I'm not exactly sure for what. But let me take a stab at it. Maybe it's because you don't think the Republican Party is irrelevant enough. Or maybe it's because you want to speed up your complete obsolescence. Perhaps it's because you think your 10 percent approval rating is too high. Or maybe it's because you want to prove to Newt Gingrich that you're more reckless, irresponsible and crazier than he was back in '95. Or maybe you're all just too stupid to understand the economic implications of your unconscionable behavior. My guess? It's all of the above. Celebratory cries of "Yay!" and "Yippee!" could be heard throughout the Republican caucus at midnight last night as Speaker John Boehner turned into an even bigger pumpkin. But let's be clear: this is no Cinderella story. There's no Prince Charming to save the day. So now what, geniuses? Do you realize that the "Obama" of "Obamacare" is never going to throw his signature health care reform under the GOP bus? You do realize that you're at an impossible impasse, don't you?

Dear Lady Monster, My husband is obsessed with anal sex. At first, my attitude was “It's for exit only,” but I'm beginning to think more about it and want to tell him it's OK. Is it guaranteed to hurt? What can we do to make it feel as good as possible? Sincerely, Brown-Eyed Susan Hello Susan, Thanks so much for posing a wonderfully intimate question. You are being cautious and smart, asking the best way to make anal sex pleasurable. In the words of Nina Hartley, “You must earn butt, you cannot be given butt.” You obviously feel your husband has earned butt. This should be a great moment. Let me provide some tips. Lube. The anus has no natural lubricant, so you must provide it. Many people use silicone-based lube. Water-based lube is also good, but will become sticky more quickly than silicone. Crisco shortening is considered by many as the best lube for anal play. It is heavier, thoroughly lubricating the area for a long period of time, but will stain towels, sheets and blankets. Use ½ cup of Dawn liquid dishwashing soap in your regular laundry to remove the stains. When using condoms, use silicone or water-based lube. Crisco will disintegrate latex condoms.

By Bob Fitrakis and Jonathan Beard Hockey season starts this week. Fans cheering for the Blue Jackets in Nationwide Arena and those outside unable to afford tickets, are likely unaware that their tax money bailed out four of the wealthiest families in the city for their losing investment in the team. Despite voting not to subsidize the Arena or our hockey team, Columbus taxpayers are being duped by a convoluted financing scheme that publicly subsidizes the Arena.

Whose Arena – Your Arena!

Despite voting NO in May 1997 – citizens of Columbus, Ohio, helped purchase and now subsidize the Nationwide Arena. The Columbus City Council decided to defer to Mayor Michael Coleman and purchase Nationwide Arena, pledging future casino tax revenue funds – already promised to the taxpayers of Columbus as the way to make our city, and particularly the west side, a better place to live. Oddly, the Columbus Dispatch reported that “the vote authorized the administration of Mayor Michael B.

Cheryl Shuman. If you are unsure who she is, that will soon change. In some circles, she is already an icon. Coined the “Martha Stewart of Marijuana,” Shuman may be one of the most recognized faces in the burgeoning Cannabis industry. And an industry it is. In the report, “The State of Medical Marijuana Markets, 2011,” See Change Strategy estimated that, “A national market for medical marijuana is worth $1.7 billion in 2011 and could reach $8.9 billion in five years.” As an architect of this industry, Shuman began with a subject she knew well: the media. A master at media relations, Shuman has built the largest Cannabis media source in the world, producing content for such outlets as CNN Piers Morgan Live, Katie Couric's show, Katie, The View, Good Morning America, Fox Business News and many other international media outlets, taking them from $150,000 in gross revenues when she started to more than $6.5 million in revenue within a mere 18 months.

Ohio Republican Senator Bill Seitz (District 8) is at it again. His Senate Bill 193 is out to purge Ohio minor parties from the ballot. On Friday, September 20, former Ohio State Representative Charlie Earl announced that he is running for governor as a Libertarian candidate next year. By Tuesday, Seitz was holding hearings on his new bill that would make it difficult for Earl to stay on the ballot. Earl ran as the Libertarian candidate for Ohio Secretary of State in 2010 and received nearly 5 percent of the vote. In his announcement, Earl claimed he had “Tea Party support.” The bill requires minor parties to get 3 percent of the presidential vote in order for their party to stay officially on the Ohio ballot. Essentially, minor parties will be removed from the 2014 ballot on the grounds that they did not pass a vote test – that was not in existence in 2012.

More than 48,000 global citizens have now signed a petition at www.nukefree.org asking the United Nations and the world community to take charge of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. The petition was first linked at www.freepress.org. Another 35,000 have signed at www.rootsaction.org. An independent advisory group of scientists and engineers is also in formation. The signatures are pouring in from all over the world. By November, they will be delivered to the United Nations. The corporate media has blacked out meaningful coverage of the most critical threat to global health and safety in decades. The much-hyped “nuclear renaissance” has turned into a global rout. In the face of massive grassroots opposition and the falling price of renewable energy and natural gas, operating reactors are shutting and proposed new ones are being canceled. This lessens the radioactive burden on the planet. But it makes the aging reactor fleet ever more dangerous.

While recording his new album, Superorganism, Mickey Hart donned an EEG cap and a computer channeled the electrical impulses of his brain waves into sounds. From there, according to his silly liner notes, he incorporated them with his music. "These sounds are noise--harsh and strange--and it is only after dancing with their essence face to face that music can be created." But that doesn't answer the question Superorganism's cover picture of his brain provokes: Isn't Mickey Hart's brain scan a lovely replica of a jellyfish? From the Dead's ubiquitous skull logo to Mickey's mental matter--this is progress? The squishy weird thing that floats by you in our dirty, filthy, medical-waste-strewn oceans isn't what came to mind last week when Hart and his band played under the big tent in the Woodlands Tavern's back parking lot. No, first of all, the lovely, frightening post-Grateful Dead crowd of forever young and yet old-before-their-time pre-humans make one think it was a collection point for a Noah's Ark of unwanted pets. Funny-lookin' folk, really.

It's 10:15 AM on September 25th, and Ted Cruz is still talking, and though in the process of watching him intermittently I have pantomimed or actually thrown things at the screen approximately 8 times (I was almost done with his ass after the “Everyone in this country has ancestors who know what it means to risk everything for freedom,” but sometimes having the abyss gaze back is fun), I have to say, he has the whole populism thing down. As he read tweets aloud on the Senate floor for the fourth time, asserting in the way that so many of those with no real understanding of people power do, that Twitter's “trending topic” algorithms determine the will of the American people, I was a tenth of the way toward believing him. But of course, the actual “will of the people” is impossible to determine in today's postmodern politics which function as a reality show/pyramid scheme, of which Ted Cruz is a perfect distillation. Obamacare loves insurance companies that's its f**kin' problem, though it also has many others of the more celibate variety. These problems are not apocalyptic, but they are real, and in a perverse way gratifying.

To Governor Kasich and Respected Leaders of the State of Ohio, On this momentous day, September 28th, 2013 as Ohio residents gather at the historic Malabar Farm State Park for the 37th Annual Heritage Days and the unveiling of the Big House renovations, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the true value of Malabar Farm and the invaluable lessons that Louis Bromfield taught us decades ago and that still hold true today. The $500,000 in improvements were announced late last fall and came with a promise not only for cosmetic improvements but also a return to “healthier soil and water, two things that Bromfield always strived to maintain on his farm,” according to Director Zehringer in a news report published last fall. Ohio soil and water is under siege and gravely threatened by the introduction of flowback waste created by the process of hydraulic fracturing in the attempt to extract fossil fuel resources from deep shale deposits. Last year in Ohio, almost 600,000 gallons of toxic, radioactive liquid waste was injected into Ohio soil via Class 2 Injection wells. Approximately 60 percent of this fracking flowback waste came from outside Ohio.

As the sun rose over the hills surrounding Malabar Farm in Richland County, Ohio this past Saturday morning, chasing away thick fog, so too did Frack Free Ohio's action team, arriving just outside the entrance a little before 8am to hold a demonstration intended to engage the thousands of visitors to the park's 37th annual Heritage Days. Dubbed our “Rapid Response” team, the entire action was basically planned and initiated over a 48-hour period and team members were exuberant over the results. We literally engaged thousands of people entering the park, many who seemed to have never heard of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. And many others who had. It was also a re-dedication of Louis Bromfield's Big House and we hoped to catch the attention of Governor John Kasich, Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director James Zehringer and Representative Mark Romanchuk as they arrived for the 10am ceremony. A steady stream of cars began a little after 9am and did not let up until much later in the day.