Drink Water? Breathe air? Depend on safe soil? Then this urgent message is for you.

Central Ohioans have less than a month to protect our water, air and soil from the fracking waste passing through our watershed. According to industry spokespersons, this “brine” poses little danger to those of us living downstream.

Citing state-of-the-art technology of its injection wells, they boast of their ability to direct millions of gallons of the toxic and radioactive waste safely through our watershed to a final resting place miles underground. Common sense argues that over time injections wells leak and liquids migrate. It also recognizes that the massive volume of Ohio’s fracking waste cannot be safely disposed of anywhere, and certainly not in our watershed, our city’s most precious resource upon which we depend for our very survival.

Monday, June 11, 6-8pm, The Vanderelli Room, 218 McDowell St.

Pride started as a riot — and Marsha P. Johnson, legendary Black trans activist and elder, was there to see it through. Marsha worked throughout her life to protect and support transgender youth and sex workers, building S.T.A.R. [Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries] to serve and house her community. She wasn’t about white-washed and exclusive gay “movements” — and neither are we.

Marsha’s work paved the way for Black trans organizers today — and her politics are at the root of Columbus Community Pride. Join us on Monday, June 11, at the Vanderelli Room, for a celebration of Marsha. Learn about her legacy and impact, and work alongside community members to create a collaborative art project.

This is an all-ages event; families (including chosen family) are encouraged!

This event will feature:

• Art and information about Marsha’s life and contributions

• A talk and discussion of Marsha’s legacy

• A collaborative, community collage to celebrate what Marsha means to us today — QTIPOC especially are encouraged to contribute!

David Swanson

In Seymour Hersh’s new account of his career, Reporter: A Memoir, he recalls that Martin Luther King Jr. told him upon the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that he planned to register 900,000 Negroes to vote. King would go on to oppose war and organize poor people across racial lines before being killed.

This is a music story that begins, oddly enough, in a courtroom at the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio. Around a month ago, I happened to be present when arguments were being made in the case of PGP, LLC vs. TPII, LLC, et al. PGP is a corporation owned by a Nashville talent manager named Herbert Graham. TPII is the corporate face of Keith Burns and Hattie Newfield, two of the three founding members of the pop-country band Trick Pony.

Trick Pony is godawful. I’m not sure if their songs “Pour Me” and “On a Night Like This” were the absolute nadir of late 2000’s pop-country dumbassery, but if they weren’t it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. Every cheap trick (sorry) in the book, from exaggerated accents to American flag themed guitars. Their website even features an adorable listing of the band members likes and dislikes. For the record, Newfield dislikes mean people and blue cheese and Burns is a fan of cold beer.

Did you know that according to the 2010 Census, 1.2 million people in the U.S. are Pacific Islander heritage? With 286,145 Polynesians, Micronesians and Melanesians residing in California - which of course is located on the Pacific Coast - the Golden State is second only to the Aloha State in terms of Pacific Islander residents. As of 2010 Hawaii had 355,816 people of Pacific Island heritage, including about 200,000 Hawaiians, who are defined as individuals tracing at least part of their ancestry to the original Polynesian inhabitants of Hawaii prior to the 18th century arrival of the English explorer Captain Cook. (Simply living in Hawaii does not make one a Hawaiian the way residing in, say, New York, makes one a New Yorker.)