In the fight for fair labor practices in the U.S. food industry, grass-roots organizing by conscientious consumers has been taking an increasing role. A case in point is Friday afternoon, when a dozen members of the Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA) gathered at Mirror Lake on the OSU campus and marched to the Wendy’s restaurant in the Wexner Medical Center as part of the “Schooling Wendy’s” national week of action.

“Our march to Wendy’s today is one of over 20 marches, letter deliveries, and demonstrations at campuses across the country — campuses with Wendy’s on campus and near campus — to tell Wendy’s to listen to what students and farmworkers are asking them to do: join the Fair Food Program,” said SFA member Ben Wibking.  “Until then, students across the country will be boycotting Wendy’s and getting our universities to cut ties with Wendy's until they do the right thing by farmworkers.”

Americans may find Syria a bit confusing. David Petraeus, sainted hero, has proposed arming al Qaeda, organized devil. Vladimir Putin, reincarnated Hitler, is bombing either ISIS or al Qaeda or their friendly democratic allies, but he shouldn't be because he's against overthrowing the Syrian government, also run by Hitler living under the name Assad. Hillary Clinton, liberal socialist, wants to create a no-fly zone, but wouldn't that make it hard to bomb all the scary Muslims? Wait, are we against Assad or the scary Muslims or both? Aaaaaarrrrgghh! How does this make any sense?

Let's start over, shall we?

Some basic facts?

We'll start with the most uncomfortable fact, but one that helps begin to make sense of everything, OK?

   The Free Press is distressed to learn that the long-time stalwart resource for healthy foods, progressive literature, and ecologically sustainable products – the Calumet Natural Foods Cooperative a.k.a. the Clintonville Community Market – plans to close its doors no later than October 31 this year. Some of us at the Free Press remember its roots as it began as a germ of an idea at the King Avenue United Methodist Church.
   The reason for its demise is summed up in a letter to the community that reads: “During the past decade, the retail organic/natural food landscape has changed drastically with more competitors, including the larger conventional chains placing much more emphasis on the organic/natural products arena.”
   True, the community now has several Whole Foods stores, Trader Joes, and there are health food sections in Kroger and Giant Eagle (I still wonder at how the rest of the food in the store is categorized, if not for health). But, the suspect forcing the closure in the Clintonville area is more likely Lucky’s Market.          

It's beginning to look like political season has finally arrived, and it isn't just that we have two debates under our belt and primaries about to begin. The telling statistic is that fully 85 percent of op-ed writers, most of whom ought to know better, have finally succumbed to the temptation of reacting to some piece of insane gibberish emanating from our dear friend Donald Trump. It's the journalistic equivalent of a weekend off, a “phone it in and come to bed honey” moment. More fool them – the man is plainly a Democratic plant, as is his friend Tom Brady.

  But this is a music column, and we don't ask the easy questions here. If you want to know John Kasich’s stance on net neutrality, the Dispatch would be more than happy to oblige you. Here, however, we roll up our sleeves and get down to the ugly core of what makes someone deserving of the presidential office – if a candidate was a Kinks songs, which Kinks song would they be? Cue “The Contenders,” in alphabetical order: