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Recycled songs connected by discontent and regret

What do you do when you’re 20-something and stuck in a dead-end job or relationship? According to Fugitive Songs, you hit the road.

  Lyricist Nathan Tysen says the show consists of songs he and composer Chris Miller wrote for other projects that fell through. After realizing that all of them were about people on the run from one thing or another, they decided to combine them into a “song cycle” that’s united by a general theme rather than characters or plot.

  It sounds like a haphazard way to construct a show, which may lead you to believe you shouldn’t expect too much. And after hearing the first handful of angsty but unmemorable songs, you may think you were right.

  With song No. 6, though, things start to turn around. “Get me the hell out of Washington Heights,” sings the sonorous-voiced Ezekiel Andrew, playing the part of a man who’s spent too much time in one neighborhood. From that point on, the songs are as well-honed as the singers who deliver them.

4 Art: Charles Wince

I'm a 59 year old artist that's been painting since 1974. I'm self taught and have been labeled "Outsider/Visionary Artist" and I have no qualms over this description being that my desire, drive to create art is driven from personal issues and not from an "art for art's sake" or some preconceived notion of ever making a living from my artistic endeavors. I've often said that I paint because I'm unable to do much else...unfortunately that's closer to the truth than just a self effacing quip. I never acquired enough credits to graduate the low standards, rural high school that I attended. Predictably my only high marks were from Art and Creative writing classes. So it seems I'm the poster boy for ADHD!
  Yes, I know that the definitions over this term can be a bit loose and may be over diagnosed but with me, it fits me to a "T." This past summer I underwent six hours of "comprehensive cognitive" testing.

Taking On The Black Friday Bully

“Are you ready to strike and refuse to work this Thanksgiving and Black Friday to protest Walmart's bullying?”


  That is this year’s rallying call from the Organization United for Respect – better known as OUR Walmart – as they try once again to convince Walmart associates across the county to strike on Black Friday.


  Formed in 2011, OUR Walmart is not a union; however, they receive financial support from the United Food and Commercial Union (UFCW). OUR Walmart is technically termed a “worker organization,” and joining requires a monthly fee of around $5. While worker organizations don’t have negotiating power, federal law permits worker organizations to speak out against employers without the threat of retaliation.

Special treatment for the Special Victims Unit

It all started as a house burglary in Reynoldsburg. It lead to missing dogs, a missing police service weapon, several arrests and a Columbus Police Detective implicated in a pattern of sex with minors. It then lead to nothing beyond a handful of juvenile prosecutions. The Free Press, as a matter of policy, does not identify minors or survivors of sex crimes. The Free Press has no problem identifying Detective Sergeant Terry McConnell, who is still the second watch supervisor of the Columbus Police Department's Special Victims Unit.

  Through the acquisition of police reports from the Reynoldsburg Police Department, the story leads to the Columbus Police Internal Affairs division and the Franklin County Prosecutor's office. It then ends abruptly.

2014 Elections Roundup

THE GOOD

Censorship Was the Real Reason Columbus City Officials Ended Public Access TV

Supporters of public access TV have wondered for years why the Columbus city government closed the station. The reasons given by the city never made much sense – until a previously hidden reason was recently revealed.

 

Bogus reason number 1: lack of money

 

When funding for public access TV was drastically cut in 2001, Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman told The Other Paper that the action was not taken as a reaction to the station’s program content but because of “a lack of money.”

In response to questions about public access TV in 2006, Mike Brown in the mayor’s office likewise explained that the city “faced significant budget challenges during the recession of the early 2000s, and that led to significant reductions to . . . public financing for Public Access Television.” But he said the mayor supported “the concept” of public access TV.

The approval by Columbus voters of a 25 percent income­tax increase in 2009 and the resulting budget surpluses took away the “lack of money” explanation. The restoration of public access TV could therefore have been expected. But city officials didn’t do it.

 

Ohio Rights Group – 2014 Accomplishments

If medical marijuana in Ohio will be remembered for one thing in 2014, it will be the push to place the Ohio Cannabis Rights Amendment (OCRA) on the ballot. Hardly one Ohio television station, media outlet, newspaper or magazine could be found that didn’t carry at least one story. The issue was hotly debated. Thousands of volunteers offered their time and talent. Petition circulators collected signatures at dozens of events.
  But the bar for getting a constitutional amendment to the ballot is a high one, and to date, signatures for OCRA still fall short of the required 385, 247-plus. The measure missed the ballot.
  “Still” is the key word, though. Each of the 100,000+ signatures collected for the OCRA thus far is “evergreen” - still good - and will remain so, unless the signed address changes.
  Despite the obvious challenge, the Ohio Rights Group saw 2014 as a great success. Consider these accomplishments:

Your “socially just” holiday

Gift-giving - Help the local economy

Free Press picks


In some family and friendship relationships, or even at your workplace, you just can't get out of the typical gift exchange. If you don't like participating in mainstream consumerism during the holiday season, The Free Press has some suggestions for alternatives to gift-giving and how to buy gifts that make you feel good.
  Instead of camping out at the mall or Walmart, or using your credit card online, you can patronize small independent businesses for your gift buying. In order to save the planet, we need to re-localize, to stimulate the local economy and circulate our surplus labor value.

Letters to the Editor December 2014

Dear Editor
  The mid-term elections have confirmed it- the Democratic party is dead. And Big Money killed it.
  Once upon a time, the Democratic Party stood for something. It stood for the average Joe, the lower class, the middle class, the upper-middle class. In other words, the 99 percent of the population that was not represented by the Republican party. The "little" people of this country had a voice, and that voice was the Democratic party. Each party served a clearly-defined constituency. The GOP served the interests of the super wealthy, and the Dems served the interests of everyone else.
  No longer. Now we have essentially a one-party political system in America. Call it the Corporation party. The Democrats are merely a watered-down version of the Republicans, who at least have always been honest about who and what they represent- the elite, the super-wealthy, the 1 percent, the corporations. The Democrats are new to serving a corporate master, and obviously they are confused.

Central Ohio Workers Center (COWC) - El Centro de Trabajadores de Central Ohio

Kim Bobo’s book, Wage Theft in America (2009) was the inspiration for starting a workers center in Columbus. Kim Bobo founded the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues and is well-known for her organizing and advocacy for a living wage and workers rights that currently has expanded into the Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) with affiliates throughout the U.S. Wage theft is a term created by the IWJ Worker Center Network. Their website identifies this as their number one issue their worker centers are focused on. They do this by holding employers responsible and advocating for new anti-wage theft laws at the state and local level.

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