I first saw Betsy Ross at the Blind Engineer's CD release party at Ace of Cups in July of last year. I only managed to catch a couple of songs, but I remember being impressed by the band and especially the playing of their bass guitarist. So when I heard that they were opening up for the Oklahoma City act Skating Polly at the Rumba Cafe last Monday I headed on over. I'm fond of Rumba anyway – it's walking distance from my house and I can drink all the whiskey I want. And their shows tend to start on time.

The show started with the Time Cat, a power trio from Akron that plays that vague mixture of punk/pop/rock that has dominated the indie scene for the last several decades. They did a lot of stop/starts and were well rehearsed, and beyond that they were about what you would expect.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- When the U.S.-Vietnam War ended on April 30,
1975, a Central Intelligence Agency officer's two best military
sources committed suicide and an American diplomat endangered the
lives of escaping staff and CIA personnel, according to James Parker
the last CIA officer to evacuate Vietnam.
   Earlier, off the coast of Danang, South Vietnamese who evacuated
onto a U.S. ship shot, stabbed, raped, trampled and executed each
other during onboard revenge attacks and panic, Mr. Parker, 73, said.
   "As for my experiences back in Vietnam at the end, the absolute
chickenshit character of the men in the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, how
they were so petty and self-indulgent, so pedantic and so distant from
the fighting," contributed to the U.S. war's failure and chaotic end,
Mr. Parker said in an interview.
   "Their pusillanimity disrespected the men, American and Asian, I
had known who died fighting the good fight.
   "I'm speaking about all the Americans at the U.S. Embassy in
Saigon, though this does not include the Americans from the CIA that

Free Press Hero – State Representative Bernadine Kennedy Kent

Rep. Kent is a Freep Hero for introducing House Bill 137. Currently, 49 states require law enforcement officers to be mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect. Ohio stands alone as the only state without this requirement. Teachers, medical personnel, attorneys and other professionals are already required under Ohio law to report cases of child abuse and neglect. Kent has firsthand knowledge, as a former school administrator and tutor, witnessing credible evidence that young children were being molested and raped. The police detective assigned to the case never wrote up an incident report or contacted Children’s Services. Kent and House Bill 137 will correct this large oversight.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is awash in mysteries, but the biggest is existential in nature. Namely, why does this flick exist? 

In 2003, Disney gave us the first film in the series, The Curse of the Black Pearl, starring Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow. The eye-shadowed scamp of a pirate was such a hit that the studio brought him back in a trio of sequels that drowned the original’s charm under scattershot plots and frantic action sequences.

Despite critical brickbats galore, Disney continued to earn shiploads of booty from the series, which is why Depp is back with Dead Men Tell No Tales. The title of this fifth installment is based on a quote from the chief villain, Javier Bardem’s Capt. Salazar, who reveals that he and his cursed crew leave one man alive from each ship they attack because they want someone to tell the tale.

Of course, that’s assuming anyone is capable of explaining the tale. Like its predecessors, Dead Men is a convoluted mess involving undead or missing parents, curses, quests, revenge and a series of magical objects: a compass, an unreadable map, a mythical island and Poseidon’s trident.

Alliance for Ohio’s Future Plans Public Demonstration Against Fracking on Ohio’s Public Land
Alliance for Ohio’s Future will hold a public demonstration on Wednesday, June 14th at 1pm at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus to protest HB 49, a state budget bill that contains Amendment HC 2241, which strips the governor of the power to appoint members to the 4-member Oil and Gas Leasing Commission, and gives these appointment powers to the speaker of the house and president of the senate.