Mark Stansbery, Free Press Board member, again did a fabulous job facilitating the first Free Press Second Saturday Cyber Salon in 2025 on January 11.

See Video here.

The theme was “Organizing for the challenges of 2025, from despair to active resistance! - Housing First!”
The first speaker was Kate-Curry-DaSouza, a former longtime Near East Area Commissioner and Columbus City Council District #7 candidate. Kate spoke about Housing First!, that means that everyone deserves housing, and how we must work with public officials to understand this with dialogue moving to action. She talked about the criminalization of the houseless and how they are blamed for their problem. She explained that she’s on the short list for an appointment to Columbus City Council and the problems with the current “ward” system that forces candidates to still run at-large. Check out Kate’s website here.

Last week, I, as an Executive Producer of FROM GROUND ZERO: STORIES FROM GAZA, was quoted across the country as stating the following: “No filmmaker, writer or artist should ever have to tell the story of their own extermination.”

And yet…

As I write this, in a scattered group of cinemas across the country, movie-goers are watching this anthology of stories captured on camera by Palestinian filmmakers in Gaza amidst Netanyahu’s reign of terror over the past year. This collection of 22 short films of his shameless extermination attempt — the unending barrage of bombs and bullets, the forced starvation — is what the people of Gaza are facing every single day.

And during this hour and fifty-two minutes on the screen, you will feel the pulse of the Palestinian people. Their resilience. And you are right there with them.  They are not Hamas. They are not rapists. They are not lying in wait to murder Israelis. They are not a threat to any human or to Democracy as certain propagandists are hoping you’ll be brainwashed into believing.