As Columbus struggles with issues of public trust in government caused by the conduct or misconduct of elected officials,The Columbus Free Press takes a look at our local election system as evidenced by the 2015 election cycle. Recent years have provided some of the biggest public failures, including allegations and convictions of elected officials, including the school data scrubbing scandal, NCLB school tutoring fraud scandal, unvoted Nationwide Arena public purchase, undisclosed tax abatement and continuing financial losses, inflated priced home sales to foreign nationals, Redflex bribery scandal and the continuing F.B.I. public corruption investigations.
   All this begs the questions, 1) does our electoral system produce the best pool of candidates and elected officials possible?, and 2) is it appropriate for citizens to find and demand better ways to ensure honesty and competence in local government?  Communities across the country are wrestling with the same questions, and some are finding answers and working toward solutions.

The 2015 Election and Campaign Financing

The morning after Election Day 2015, I woke up suddenly. My mind was racing, “This isn’t right. This isn’t right. Something’s not right.” As an analyst, I’m used to working with mass quantities of data; I’m used to looking at patterns of numbers. Sometimes these differences just leap out at me. Such was the case on that morning.
  The prior evening, Issue 3, which would have legalized marijuana in Ohio while according growing rights to just ten properties, went down in flames. Just 34 percent of voters supported the measure; a crushing 65 percent opposed it. So said Ohio’s election officials when the vote was called at 9:41 pm.
  The defeat had opponents jumping for joy. Issue 3’s “deeply flawed, monopolistic approach failed garner broad support” said one. It “would have made a handful of rich celebrities and businesspeople even richer” mused another. Meanwhile, those who understand the sordid history of Ohio elections were witnessing the repeat of a troubling pattern.

What do the Pyrenean ibex, St. Helena olive, Baiji dolphin, Liverpool pigeon, Eastern cougar, West African black rhinoceros, Formosan clouded leopard, Chinese Paddlefish, the Golden Toad and the Rockland grass skipper butterfly all have in common but which is different from the Dodo?

The answer is that these species all became extinct since the year 2000, that is, in the last fifteen years. The Dodo became extinct in 1662.

The one thing that all of these species have in common is that the cause of their extinction was human beings.

If you would like to watch a video which evocatively showcases some of the extinct species of planet Earth, you can do so here: 'Toll a bell on Remembrance Day for Lost Species 30th November 2015'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT1vp5HfBq4

Here is a condensed version of President Obama's speech from the Oval Office on Sunday night, unofficially translated into plain English:

I kind of realize we can’t kill our way out of this conflict with ISIL, but in the short term hopefully we can kill our way out of the danger of a Republican victory in the presidential race next year.

As a practical matter, the current hysteria needs guidance, not a sense of proportion along the lines of what the New York Times just mentioned in passing: “The death toll from jihadist terrorism on American soil since the Sept. 11 attacks -- 45 people -- is about the same as the 48 killed in terrorist attacks motivated by white supremacist and other right-wing extremist ideologies.... And both tolls are tiny compared with the tally of conventional murders, more than 200,000 over the same period.”

While I’m urging some gun control, that certainly doesn’t apply to the Pentagon. The Joint Chiefs and their underlings have passed all the background checks they need by virtue of getting to put on a uniform of the United States Armed Forces.

We now know this. A young man who had successfully killed on a large scale went to his religious leader with doubts and was told that mass killing was part of God's plan. The young man continued killing until he had participated in killing sprees that took 1,626 lives -- men, women, and children.

I repeat: his death count was not the 16 or 9 or 22 lives that make top news stories, but 1,626 dead and mutilated bodies.

Do such things bother you?

What if you learned that this young man's name was Brandon Bryant, and that he killed as a drone pilot for the U.S. Air Force, and that he was presented with a certificate for his 1,626 kills and congratulated on a job well done by the United States of America? What if you learned that his religious leader was a Christian chaplain?