Friday, November 24, 12noon-1pm
250 E Wilson Bridge Rd, Worthington
Rally FRIDAY!! (The day after Thanksgiving.)
No one will say we aren't tenacious. Even during Thanksgiving week when the office is closed, rally outside Tiberi's to show we mean business! All signs welcome, especially about the tax bill.

Two months after the Sept. 20 landfall of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico—like the nearby Virgin Islands—is still in a state of horrifying devastation. The help being offered by the Trump administration is thin to the point of being cruel and unusual.

At this point one must ask: Is Trump’s astonishing lack of aid part of a larger plan to cleanse the islands of their native populations, drive down real estate values and create a billionaire’s luxury hotel-casino-prostitution playground à la Cuba before the revolution?

In other words: ethnic cleansing for the superrich.

There is just one piece of good news: Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., has joined Rep. Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands in proposing that Puerto Rico’s electric grid be rebuilt with wind, solar and a network of micro-grids. More than half the original electric grid is still not functioning, with frequent blackouts occurring in areas where the grid is operational.

OK, here’s a good one: What’s the position of women in the antiwar movement?

This was circa 1967, when I was a college kid just coming of age, psychologically and politically. I was a hippie. I had stopped cutting my hair. I’d discovered pot. And I was outraged by the Vietnam War. I was also still swaddled in the sexism of the day, and I laughed knowingly at the answer to this little joke:

Prone.

By the early ’70s, women’s rights emerged as a movement and a lot of men began to see that sort of humor in a stunningly different context. I went through a year of shame and shock as I became aware of my own sexism — “you gotta control your woman” — and did my best to embrace feminism and surrender the stupid male birthright that this was my world more than it was hers . . . that I was the boss, that sex was something to be pried loose from her.

Childish oversimplification seems to be spreading throughout public discourse. Maybe it’s the character limits on tweets. Maybe it’s the second limits between commercials. Maybe it’s two-party politics. Maybe it’s an excess of information. Maybe it’s presidential example. Maybe it is, in fact, thousands of different things, because reality is actually very complicated.

In any case, the phenomenon I’m observing has been growing for some time. I recently found a professor willing to publicly debate me on the question of whether war is ever justified. Now I’m having the hardest time finding a university willing to host the debate or even to recognize the concept of civil nonviolent debate. But where would anyone go to observe such a thing? Not television. Not most text journalism. Not social media.

“There’s no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.”

“The Democrats and the Republicans have nothing in common.”

These are both ridiculously stupid statements, as are these:

“Women always tell the truth about sexual assault.”

“Women always lie about sexual assault.”

With family and community support, Edith Espinal is striving to keep her spirits up as she lives in sanctuary at the Columbus Mennonite Church to evade a deportation order. But immigration enforcement is doing what it can to make sanctuary feel like incarceration.

Espinal was notified in mid-August that she was slated for deportation. Since then she has been forced to wear an ankle bracelet GPS monitor that tracks her location. The monitor is owned and managed by GEO Group, a private company that contracts its correctional and detention services to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

GEO Group gave generously to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Despite numerous lawsuits for wrongful death, terrible living conditions, and violating anti-slavery laws in its detention centers, GEO Group was awarded another lucrative federal contract after Trump was elected.