Gandhi: 'My life is my message'


As most of the world ignores or hypocritically celebrates the 147th birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on the International Day of Nonviolence on 2 October, some of us will quietly acknowledge his life by continuing to build the world that he envisioned. When asked for his message for the world, Gandhi responded with the now famous line 'My life is my message' reflecting his lifelong struggle against violence.

Gandhi's life was dotted with many memorable quotes but one that is less well known is this: 'You may never know what results come of your actions but if you do nothing there will be no results'.

Can a blue man play the whites?

Guys playing instruments

Do Italian musicians feel things differently?

Only one of these questions popped into my head at a very recent Friday Woodlands Tavern happy hour when the monstrously good guitarist Rick Collura and his Blue Cats played like the muddy waters of the Mississip coursed through their veins. I mean, baby, they were up to their necks in blue electric mud, churnin' out deep-pocketed groove like tax exiles in France. Groanin' and moanin' they had me, I confess. Where did their music end and my metabolism begin? It was a delta-Chicago-Vulcan soul-mind meld of the highest order. A rarity these days, what with all the roots doctors of music leaving no inheritors of the genre behind for what reason. Fuckin' millenials.

Nevertheless, I felt like I was in the catfish's stomach by the third song.

No peace until justice

Poster about walk against toy guns

This past September many America citizens were hit back-to-back with the realization that Black boys and men are “moving targets” for some police officers in America. In Columbus a thirteen-year old was shot and killed. Why? According to the Columbus Police Department (CPD) he pulled a gun on them during a chase. The “gun” turned out to be a toy gun. King is the third young Black man killed by the CPD this past year in Columbus. The police-officer appears to have fallen under the misbelief that the teenage boy, who happens to be Black, wanted to harm him, and thus his lawyers defense that the white man who is a trained police officer was “in fear for his life.” And now Tyre King’s mother buries her son and cries “no peace until justice.”

Exposing the Lies of OSU's Administration

A sign that says Reclaim OSU

On Tuesday, September 13th, the Lantern published an interview with President Michael Drake that misrepresented the details and events of and surrounding the #ReclaimOSU occupation last spring. We, as a coalition, have several corrections and rebuttals to President Drake’s comments:

Referring to the threats of expulsion against protestors at the ReclaimOSU protest, President Drake claimed that “it never would happen.” However, Dr. Drake has a history of upholding these same draconian measures against student activists. As Chancellor of The University of California Irvine, Drake threatened students who became known as the Irvine 11 with arrest and expulsion. After peacefully disrupting a speech by an Israeli ambassador, students were suspended from school and given three years of probation.

Cops, racism and cover-ups in Columbus

Black Lives Matter rally

On the tragic evening of September 14, 2016, Tyre King, aged 13, was shot and killed by Columbus Police Department (CPD) officer Bryan Mason. Around the city, people are mourning the death of this child. The scars are still new, and will never fade.

We mourn for Tyre and his family, and hope they can find some solace in the vigils and protests that have started to emerge around this atrocity.

While Tyre's story is unique and individual, the violence against him is also part of a larger pattern. So far this year, at the time of this writing, the police have killed 788 people (and counting), and a disproportionate number of them--almost 25 percent--were African American.

In terms of police killings that have received a great deal of media attention, Ohio stands out, with the deaths of Tyre King; Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old killed by police in November 2014, while he was holding a BB gun in a Cleveland public park; and John Crawford III, a 22 year old who police shot in August 2014, while he was in the aisle of a Walmart store near Dayton holding an air gun he was considering buying.

Journey to Standing Rock

Heidi Detty in front of No DAPL banner

Standing Rock is the focal point of a struggle between the indigenous people of the United States and the big oil industry. Energy Transfer Partnership is building the Dakota Access Pipeline that will transport Bakken fracked oil to the Gulf of Mexico and then likely sold outside this country. The pipeline is planned to go right under the Missouri River just one half mile upstream of the Sioux Reservation. The Missouri is the main source of water for the people on the reservation, as well as approximately 13 million people downstream.

Via social media, I was shocked to see video footage of natives being attacked by guards with pepper spray and vicious dogs as they tried to peacefully defend their sacred burial grounds from bulldozers. I became resolute that I wanted to go to the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota.

On September 8th I arrived in North Dakota. As I drove down route 6 into the reservation, I started to see small camps along the road next to areas that had been disturbed by bulldozers. A little farther and I saw hundreds of flags lining a long road into the camp. The land was covered in tepees and bright colored tents.

Ohio Supreme Court rules: Corporate State: 2, Community Rights: 0

Woman holding sign against Jon Husted

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted may have stepped out of bounds by keeping “community bill of rights” proposals off the ballot in Ohio. Residents of Medina, Athens and Fulton counties gathered required signatures to place proposed county charters on their respective ballots in 2015. Medina County Board of Elections (BOE) disallowed their residents’ proposal, and all of the proposed charters were kept off the ballots by Husted.

Husted interjected his interpretation of what “should” go on the ballot, as citizens came forth and asserted their constitutional right to create local laws when our higher-level government is not working for us. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld Husted’s decision. The primary legislative issue is that the 2004 ‘Niehaus Bill’ (HB 278) gave Ohio state regulators full control of oil/gas production, usurping home rule from communities.

Attack of the Mixed-Use Monsters

Building made to look like a monster

Attack of the Mixed-Use Monsters

Across Columbus and its suburbs mixed-use developments, which often include high-end condos, parking garages, office space, retail and entertainment, are either up-and-running, under construction or being proposed with each new week.

Some of these developments work for certain neighborhoods, especially if the development utilized a property that was either vacated or in need of investment, developments in Grandview and Franklinton, for example.

But cramming a mixed-use development into an already established and historically unique neighborhood is a different beast altogether. A recent case-in-point is the development that replaced Clintonville’s Olympic Pool, a summer hangout cherished by several generations of kids and parents alike.

Even in Upper Arlington there are some residents who see the coming invasion of high-density, mixed-use development as a gamble that not only could cause too much commercialism and increased density, but worse, demolish a community’s soul and character.

Zombie Cars: Insurance companies causing an epidemic of bad collision repair

Wrecked car under a tree

Three-C Body Shops is a lot like The Columbus Free Press. Both are fiercely independent and locally owned. And if you haven’t noticed, both are outspoken and unafraid to take on corporate bullies. Three-C and the Free Press are driven to help consumers understand how the corporatization and the consolidation of their respected industries is marginalizing not only them, but also their community.   

Three-C owner Bob Juniper, the second-generation patriarch of the company, says the collision repair industry is under attack and being devoured. Four to five companies, he says, are making a serious attempt to monopolize the industry he’s worked for since he was a teenager. One of these companies is Service King Collision Repair, which is majority owned by the Carlyle Group.

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