The Ohio Roller Girls closed out their regular season with a tough pair of victories over the Steel City (Pittsburgh) Roller Girls on Saturday August 30. This was easily one of the more physical bouts of the season. Both the All-Star charter team and Gang Green landed another point in the win column, with the All Stars advancing with a buy in the first round of the playoffs. The Eastern playoffs are a 16 team double elimination tournament to be held in Evansville, Indiana from September 19 through 21.

OHRG All Stars vs Steel Hurtin'

The charter team matchup between Columbus and Pittsburgh began without a whisper of points for our hometown heroines as Steel Hurtin's defense held the All Stars scoreless for first six jams. Ena Flash, a player not often seen in the jammer position finally got Ohio on the scoreboard for three points in the seventh. Ohio chipped away at Pittsburgh's lead for another two jams and until the Smacktivist took advantage of a power jam to land three grand slams and pull the All Stars ahead 28 to 24 at the end of the tenth.

President Obama has authorized surveillance drones over Syria, and is threatening to begin airstrikes in Syria, along with the ongoing strikes in Iraq. All without Congressional approval. The Syrian government has said that airstrikes in its airspace would constitute an act of aggression. Tell President Obama: Don’t bomb Syria or Iraq!

We’ve seen the pictures and read the news. ISIS is certainly frightening, and we’re deeply concerned about the people of Syria and Iraq. US military intervention in the region has historically been counterproductive. We've seen this from the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. What’s needed is a political and humanitarian solution to the crisis, not more violence.

A recent college graduate complains that she’s still struggling to find a good job despite her shiny new degree. Meanwhile, she faces the even bigger challenge of paying off $140,000 worth of student loans.

“It’s syphoning off my future,” she says of the massive debt.

The woman’s all-too-common predicament is explained in Ivory Tower, a thoughtful documentary that examines just how college came to be such an overwhelming expense. Directed by Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside The New York Times), the film goes so far as to suggest that America’s ever-rising cost of higher education is unsustainable.

It wasn’t always this way, the film recalls. As recently as the 1960s, education at a state university was so cheap that just about anyone could afford it. But then came the 1970s, and conservative politicians such as Ronald Reagan started pushing government to stop subsidizing students’ education.

How often have we, as discerning readers found that the reported norm does not fit what is true for ourselves? I had a few women contact me, asking me to write about menopause. I asked them to answer one question, “Have you noticed any changes in your sexual response in relation with menopause?”
Simply stated, menopause means a pause in menstrual cycles. Once cycles cease, a woman is said to be peri-menopausal. Pre-menopause can be classified when a woman first begins to experience changes to her cycles. It can take several years. The entire experience can be called Menopause, and it's not nicknamed, “The Change” for nothing. No woman can predict her symptoms, the severity, how many years it will last or if hormone replacement therapy is a worthwhile solution. Women can experience menopause in their 40s, 50s and into their 60s. Diet, stress, smoking, medication, surgeries, and especially cancer treatments can bring on menopause.

In the 1920s and 1930s, anybody who was anybody tried to figure out how to rid the world of war. Collectively, I'd say they got three-quarters of the way to an answer. But from 1945 to 2014, they've been ignored when possible (which is most of the time), laughed at when necessary, and on the very rare occasions that require it: attacked.

What a flock of idiots the leading thinkers of a generation all must have been. World War II happened. Therefore, war is eternal.  Everyone knows that.

But slavery abolitionists pushed on despite slavery happening another year, and another year.  Women sought the right to vote in the next election cycle following each one they were barred from.  Undoubtedly war is trickier to get rid off, because governments claim that all the other governments (and any other war makers) must go first or do it simultaneously. The possibility of someone else launching a war, combined with the false notion that war is the best way to defend against war, creates a seemingly permanent maze from which the world cannot emerge.