Congress Members Jones and Garamendi are going to screen and discuss a hilarious movie mockery of militarism. They’re going to do it in the U.S. Capitol. They’re going to go right on funding the war madness, sanctioning possible new enemies, and risking all of our lives. But for a moment, they’re going to open a window and let a bit of sanity in.

Ohio plans to execute Alva Campbell on November 15, 2017, in revenge for his 1997 murder of Charles Dials, a crime to which Campbell confessed and pled guilty. However, the person Alva Campbell is today is not the same person he was when he committed his crimes.

Campbell’s case was infamous in central Ohio. He feigned illness and attacked the lone deputy sheriff who had left Campbell unrestrained while escorting him to the hospital. He then carjacked Charles Dials and ended up killing the 18-year-old before being re-captured. None of this is in dispute.

Also not disputable: Alva Campbell is a very sick man[AB1] who may well die “naturally,” possibly within months. The optics are ugly. The photograph of Campbell was taken in late September. A clemency application by Campbell’s attorneys thoroughly lists all of Campbell’s medical conditions at length. A short excerpt from the application states:

• DAMNING QUOTE: Columbus City Council member and former Safety Director Mitchell Brown proclaimed at a candidate’s night that Columbus doesn’t need a civilian review board to monitor the police since the grand jury is a civilian review board. The Franklin County Prosecutor’s office admitted that they can’t remember any Columbus police officer ever being indicted by the grand jury. The grand jury is overwhelmingly white and under control of the Prosecutor’s office – not the citizens of Columbus – whose proceedings are secret, not transparent.

• LAWSUIT #1: The Estate of Jaron Thomas filed a wrongful death lawsuit on October 12 against the Columbus Division of Police. In response to Thomas’ call for help on January 14, 2017, Officers Darren Stephens, Chase Pinkerman and Michael Alexander decided to handcuff him and punch, body slam, knee, choke-hold and hobble strap him into submission which caused him to lose consciousness and cause his death. The Columbus Division of Police authorized the use of excessive force and his death was deemed an accident.

I first saw the Salty Caramels seven or eight years ago when the Columbus music scene was locked in the death grip of the Americana movement. There were three ladies in matching dresses, and (if memory serves) they sang a song about ice cream. In addition to playing the acoustic miscellany of the day, one of them had a saw with a violin bow which sounded like an intoxicated ghost with self-esteem issues. It was saccharin to the point of nausea.

Subsequently, I learned that they had undergone a lineup change, adding a drummer and electric guitar. Even so, I was a little apprehensive when I popped in their new disc, Baby Blue, the title of which I suspected was not a Dylan reference. Sure enough, the opening track began with a sort of kitschy drum and vocal intro about a Baby Blue. About six seconds in I was actually reaching for the eject button.

Which would have been a serious mistake. Because this album is a collection of gloriously wonderful pop music that is light years away from what I expected.

Just prior to Hitler-inspired neo-Nazis and their white supremacist allies descending on Charlottesville, Virginia in August, the FBI began characterizing the Black Lives Matter movement as “Black-identity extremists.” As best the Freep can tell, the FBI made up this term to apply to anyone who advocates equal rights, racial justice and an end to police brutality against minorities.

The Black Alliance for Peace put it this way: “The state is growing more desperate and dangerous. It faces a crisis, one where its own legitimacy is being questioned. In a re-play of the repression faced by Black liberation forces in the 1960s and ‘70s, news broke that the Black resistance movement is in the cross hairs of the state. So-called ‘Black-identity extremists’ are now the new FBI targets, a category that can include anyone who believes Black people have the right to resist and deserve self-determination.”