21 days in … a vacuum

Young looking Asian man with no smile but clapping his hands

Well, not really a vacuum. The past three weeks have been more like the space between our planets which is actually full of all kinds of stuff but doesn’t have much happening. The bloated Congress has been typically idle, and the administration has spent most of its time battling through an increasingly large number of scandals. Then there’s the solar wind that blows in all directions, constantly moving but achieving no forward progress. That’s been the Democrats’ lackadaisical plans for the next couple of years and the executive branch’s staffing changes. It is said that a lot can happen in a day, but following national politics makes it impossible to believe.

NATIVE SON Theater Review

Note: This review contains plot spoilers.]

 

I “celebrated” Karl Marx’s 200th birthday by attending a theatrical version of the 1940 novel Native Son by onetime Communist Party USA member Richard Wright. As adapted by playwright/screenwriter Nambi E. Kelley, Antaeus Theatre Company’s SoCal premiere of Nambi’s play is anything but namby-pamby. Indeed, viewer beware: this is a very disturbing, upsetting one-acter and those who prefer for their stage outings to be innocuous entertainments might want to skip this relentlessly hard hitting drama. After all, as dramatist Bertolt Brecht noted in The Threepenny Opera: “Though the rich of this earth find no difficulty in creating misery, they can't bear to see it.” 

 

DPRK Hot Takes

Peace and the Nuclear Paradox

Whenever the topic is nuclear weapons, I remain in a state of disbelief that we can talk about them “strategically” — that language allows us to maintain such a distance from the reality of what they do, we can casually debate their use.

Consider, in the context of the sudden rush of alarming news that Donald Trump may trash the Iran nuclear agreement on May 12, on the false grounds that Iran is in violation of it, this piece of news from several months ago:

Are You Ready to Vote Tomorrow? The Ohio Primary Election is Tuesday May 8

The words in a font that looks like the hippie sixties with curly q's and flowers saying Watch Out I Vote with the words making up a circle

Contact: Franklin County Board of Elections, 614-525-3100

Dreamers of Columbus Photo Exhibition Opening

Words Dreamers of Columbus and details of event

Tuesday, May 8, 5:30-8:30pm
Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. Grant
Photojournalist Sahar Fadaian and journalist Leticia Wiggins created Dreamers of Columbus to showcase DACA recipients living in Columbus. Sahar initiated this project to portray an intimate face of Dreamers that goes beyond the headlines we've all seen and into their personal lives. Free. 

To Whom It May Concern – Comments on International Cannabis Scheduling

Drawing of black maijuana leaf with medical symbol inside the stem

These days, some mighty big players are talking about cannabis, extracts and scheduling: U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

As background, all marijuana, aka cannabis, is illegal in the U.S. according to the feds. It’s position as “Schedule I” in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) codifies this, as do international treaties like one negotiated in 1971. This rusty political machine meanders change through multiple agencies, arriving at a website called regulations.gov where mere interested persons can submit comments for the WHO to consider. The question is, should or should not cannabis’ classification match modern reality?

Organizing Tips & Tools Column Tips & Tools #1: Building an Organization? To Incorporate or Not to Incorporate

Thin tall white man with white hair smiling holding a coffee cup standing outside a store with a outdoor chair

So, you have an idea for a way to make your neighborhood better, create social change, or join the resistance. You and others have hit the streets a couple of times, gone to public and community meetings, and want to reach out to others and take the next step to make things happen. A friend says his cousin is a lawyer who could give you advice. You have been online and learned a little something. It must be time to incorporate your idea so that you can build a “real” organization.

Whoa, Nelly, not so fast! Before your knee jerks and you incorporate, you have to figure out the “what” and “when” that would lead you down that path and answer the threshold question of “to incorporate or not to incorporate?”

If Bobby Kennedy Had Lived

 

By David Swanson

Fifty years ago, Bobby Kennedy was about to win the Democratic presidential primary in Indiana. He would soon lose in Oregon and in a few weeks win in California, practically clinching the White House, and be murdered the same night. The film RFK Must Die and book Who Killed Bobby? leave little doubt that the CIA killed him. And of course there is no doubt that many have always suspected as much, which has had a damaging effect on U.S. politics whether or not true. But the major impact of RFK’s killing is separate from the question of who killed him.

 

Columbus Community Bill of Rights-Help get Signatures-Early Voting

Blue blackground with words Early Voting in white

Monday, May 7, 8am-2pm
Franklin County Board of Elections, 1700 Morse Road
The Columbus Community Bill of Rights Ballot Initiative is gathering Columbus Voter Signatures to put this Ordinance on the Nov 2018 ballot. 
Contact Us w/ Availability: ColumbusBillofRights@gmail.com

SAFE WATER FOR OUR KIDS.
COLUMBUS -
NO PLACE FOR FRACK WASTE!

ColumbusBillofRights.org
https://www.facebook.com/ColumbusBillofRights/

 

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