The advent of #MeToo has revealed so many sexual predators who used some form of emotional abuse or manipulation to get what they truly want, perhaps we should begin thinking of new laws to protect women from predators who spring emotional traps to have sex.

I served in Iraq and was the only female in my platoon. We faced constant threat by the enemy, and I faced daily misogyny and sexual tension from my fellow soldiers. Eventually I was raped by another soldier and now suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). My predators never faced any consequences. I served my country and survived to advocate for other female soldiers, and now for #MeToo.

You may not be in the know, but what follows is a short list of dangerous and abusive ways to emotionally manipulate women or men, for that matter. Emotional abuse leaves no physical scars, but can be devastating to a person’s psyche causing years of anxiety and depression. And now that our dating scene has been aggrandized, simplified and hyper-sexualized by Tinder, Grindr, and the like, perhaps it’s time emotional abuse is treated by the law in similar ways physical abuse is treated.  

Love is more important than art, a character proclaims during a key moment from An American in Paris. While that’s undoubtedly true, it’s art that makes the musical so memorable.

Christopher Wheeldon’s direction and choreography combine with Bob Crowley’s set and costumes, Natasha Katz’s lighting and, most of all, George and Ira Gershwin’s ageless jazz tunes to create multiple gifts for the eyes and ears. As for the love story at its center, it mostly amounts to the colorless glue that holds it all together.

Based on the 1951 film about an American (Gene Kelly) who woos a reluctant Frenchwoman (Leslie Caron), the musical took an unconventional path to its 2015 Broadway premiere. It debuted in late 2014 in Paris, where it created a stir despite the language barrier. In addition to its glorious musical numbers, Parisians likely were attracted to its rejiggered plot and setting.

Last month, Ohio’s lieutenant governor Mary Taylor made headlines by not getting the endorsement for governor from her state party and subsequently putting them on blast for doing so. In a speech madeto the Ohio Republican Party’s State Central Committee on February 9, Taylor – who is up against Ohio’s attorney general Mike DeWine for the gubernatorial nomination following months of reshuffling within the party– did not hold back. She opened her remarks by calling the venue “Mike DeWine’s living room,” thanked the press for coming so they could televise DeWine’s “coronation,” and went on to slam his campaign for its “air of inevitability” as well as the Ohio Republican Party for “all of the good ol’ boy bullying and backroom deals that have gotten us to this point.” By the end of her speech it was clear Taylor wasn’t actually gunning for the endorsement, nor did she want it in the unlikely event she received it.

A thriving community where wisdom prevails is the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s vision and mantra. But this doesn’t apply anymore to the Main Library’s next door neighbor the Grant Oak apartment complex, a quasi affordable dorm for college students attending CCAD, Franklin University and Capital University. And much like many lower-income peoples who were living downtown (ie, Bollinger Tower), they too are set to be thrown out into the cold.

Grant Oak, seven red-brick buildings built in the 1940s, was sold in January by the library’s Board of Trustees to the city’s pet developer the Pizzuti Companies for $1.26 million even though the Franklin County Auditor’s Office valued the property at $3 million. Thus the library, which could always use the money, shorted themselves roughly $1.75 million in taxpayer’s dollars.

True, Pizzuti Companies had the inside track because they were recently under contract to oversee ten other library construction projects, but $1.75 amounts to a lot of books and other services that could be utilized by the numerous collegians and high schoolers who use the libraries to further themselves.

Will the #MeToo/Time’s Up movement have a lasting effect on Hollywood? Too soon to say, obviously, but it’s already had a profound effect in the short term. In the weeks and months leading up to the March 4 Academy Awards ceremony, several men have seen their fortunes fall thanks to the film industry’s long-overdue revolt against sexual harassment. To recap:

▪ Harvey Weinstein: The mogul whose alleged serial abuse sparked an entire movement has been ejected from both his own film company and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which means he’s been uncharacteristically absent from this year’s Oscar competition. 

▪ Kevin Spacey: The actor was deleted, post-production, from All the Money in the World after being accused of sexually assaulting underage males. Making a terrible situation even worse, he issued a kind of non-apology apology combined with the ill-timed announcement that he’d decided to come out as a gay man. (Christopher Plummer was brought in to reshoot his scenes and won an Oscar nomination for his efforts, making him perhaps the only male celeb who’s benefited from the movement.)