On April 1, 2016 President Barack Obama addressed the closing session of the Nuclear Security Summit and praised "the collective efforts that we've made to reduce the amount of nuclear material that might be accessible to terrorists around the world."

"This is also an opportunity for our nations to remain united and focused on the most active terrorist network at the moment, and that is ISIL," Obama said. Some observers might argue that the US, itself, now represents the world's "most active terrorist network." In doing so, they would merely be echoing the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who, on April 4, 1967, railed against "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government."

While Obama hyped the fact that "a majority of the nations here are part of the global coalition against ISIL," he also noted that this same coalition was a major recruiting conduit for ISIS militants. "Just about all of our nations have seen citizens join ISIL in Syria and Iraq," Obama admitted, without offering any thoughts as to why this situation exists.

As a defender for the Columbus Crew SC, Michael Parkhurst likes to make the most out of every opportunity he’s given. Parkhurst was glad one of his opportunities wasn’t taken away from him when the Black and Gold defeated the Houston Dynamo 1-0 April 23 at MAPFRE Stadium.

Parkhurst, Columbus’ captain the last three seasons, was inadvertently given a red card for denying a goal-scoring opportunity in the 86th minute of a 3-2 home win over New York City FC on April 16. In an April 18 match report, the referee cited a case of mistaken identity and said the red card should have been given to Tyson Wahl. Three days after that, Wahl’s red card was also rescinded.

“I don’t like to miss games. That’s for sure,” Parkhurst said after the win over Houston improved the Crew SC to 2-3-2 overall after the first seven matches. “I figured it would get overturned but you never know. Crazy things have happened before.

Two things.

Used Kids is no longer on the OSU campus. Used Kids moving to Summit/Hudson is momentous because the record store was the last visible bastion of campus counter-culture. I feel bad for the students. Sometimes it seems like OSU doesn't like music.
 

The second was that I missed the Vic Mensa show at OSU. I saw Big Sean last year, and it was pretty amazing. He rocked with complete emcee dominance to 6,000 kids with the use of a band and deejay.

I guess it just depends where you stand.

It’s been nearly two years since a mob of entitled straight white males took on the uncreative handle of “Gamergate” (Can we stop with the “gate”s already?) to harass and threaten women in gaming-related geek spaces under the guise of “ethics in journalism.” In that time they managed to bring attention to the ugliness faced by women in the game industry and games journalism and get mentioned as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, but they didn’t actually manage to stop video games from occasionally being about people other than them.
 

That’s because most big game companies have decided to stay on the side of Good. Even Intel, which slipped up by removing their ads from the Gamergate-targeted web site Gamasutra, aggressively made up for it by not only reinstating the ads but publicly supporting other targets like game critic Anita Sarkeesian and the LGBT-geared GaymerX convention.
 

On Wednesday, May 3 supporters of Palestine from across the state testified before the Ohio House Government Accountability and Oversight Committee in opposition to House Bill 476, bipartisan legislation that would prohibit state agencies from contracting with a companies or individuals who are boycotting Israel or divesting from Israel.

“We are opposed to HB 476 because it violates our free speech,” said Don Bryant from the Cleveland area, one of the 14 who testified. “To outlaw BDS is to outlaw a non-violent form of resistance against the oppression of the Palestinians.”

BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) is an economic strategy for pressuring Israel to end its occupation and colonization of Arab lands in Palestine, dismantle the Gaza Wall, and recognize full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel.