Does it matter whether Catholic church officials really believe that they have the power to turn dead people into magical demigods? I don’t think so. I think it matters whether large numbers of people believe that, and I think they don’t. I think making someone a saint is, at this point, just a high honor like any other high honor, and that, as long as the practice exists, we’re better off with better people, rather than worse people, being made saints, for better reasons, rather than worse reasons.

Editor’s Note: The 2018 midterm elections are quickly approaching. These non-presidential elections historically give voters a chance to change the country’s course. They will decide whether or not Republicans keep a majority in Congress, important governor’s races and more.

Novelist Henry James’ 1898 Gothic novella The Turn of the Screw has oft been adapted for the big and little screen, opera and in its latest incarnation by playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, it’s currently scaring the bejesus out of ticket buyers at The Harold Clurman Lab Theater - just in time for Halloween. Set in 1870s England, The Woman (Australian actress Emily Sulzberger) answers a newspaper ad placed by a British gentleman (Sean Spann displays the span of his acting range in multiple parts) seeking a live-in instructor for his niece and nephew living in a posh country manor.

Originally Published Columbus Alive 4-22-1999

Something’s rotten at Rickenbacker Port Authority. Maybe it’s just the stench of the bankrupt corpse of Southern Air Transport, or the moldering smell of the $3 million the state pumped into the notorious airline before it folded.

Ohio taxpayers are among the more than 800 creditors now lined up to file claims against “Spook Air.” SAT filed for bankruptcy in Columbus on October 1, 1998, the same day the Central Intelligence Agency Inspector General issued a report linking the cargo hauler to allegations of drug-running in connection with U.S.-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Once lauded as a coup for central Ohio development, landing Southern Air Transport’s business at Rickenbacker eventually turned into a nightmare, as the enterprise became mired in massive debt and was closed under a cloud of suspicion about its true activities. Just how and why one of the world’s most notorious airlines ended up in Columbus in the mid-1990s is a story that hasn’t been fully examined until now.

Following national politics has been a tough slog recently so I’m just going to cut to the chase.