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Free Press September Salon at Hot Times Festival

Details about event

Saturday, September 9, 7-8pm, Hot Times Festival, 240 Parsons Ave.

Join us at the Hot Times Community Arts and Music Festival for the September Free Press Second Saturday Salon.

We’ll gather on the porch of the Health Department building: 240 Parsons Ave., between E. Main St. and Bryden Rd., on the lawn of Columbus Public Health.

• We’ll have a discussion of protest music and musicians playing some protest songs.

• We will also discuss the Ta’Kiya Young murder and the effort to stop qualified immunity for police.

We will be celebrating 46 Fabulous Hot Times Festivals! Art Cars, three stages, vendors, food, friends, family, and fun!

Hosted by The Columbus Free Press.

Facebook Event

“If the parents are OK, the children are OK”

Father, mother and child

Late last year, two groups of Columbus immigrants sat down with researchers from the Children Thrive Action Network (CTAN) and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) for private “listening sessions.” Ohio was one of seven states chosen by these national organizations.

Listening to immigrants, who are the real experts in immigration law and policy, themes emerged. Research findings are presented in a new report, “If The Parents Are Okay, The Children Are OK.” Next, CTAN and CLASP will move from listening and analyzing into action, incorporating parents’ recommendations into their advocacy plans.

In Columbus, parents said they were terrified about their kids’ safety going to and from school, and inside the classroom. On top of gun violence, stranger danger, and drugs that look like candy, they are contending with bullying, verbal attacks, and even ethnicity-based hate crimes.

Hot Times Community Arts and Music Festival

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Friday, September 8 to Sunday, September 10, 240 Parsons Ave. [northeast of the intersection of E. Main St. and Parsons Ave.]

The Hot Times Community Arts and Music Festival is scheduled for September 8-9-10, 2023.

This weekend-long celebration is a special occasion where the community gathers to celebrate peace, harmony, community unity, friends, family, and the arts.

Please enjoy your time at the festival, and upon leaving, take away with you a bit of happiness and friendship that is Hot Times.

Hosted by Hot Times Community Arts and Music Festival. 

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Go Fish

An American Ally, a Coup, & Prison

BANGKOK, Thailand -- While visiting Bangkok in 2003, then-President George W. Bush designated Thailand a "non-NATO treaty ally" and congratulated Thaksin Shinawatra, the popular, elected, civilian prime minister.

Three years later, a desperate, panicking Mr. Thaksin secretively alerted Mr. Bush about "a threat to democracy in Thailand" by "extra-constitutional tactics" just before a 2006 military coup toppled him.

Today, Mr. Thaksin is a prisoner beginning a one-year sentence -- reduced by the king from eight years -- for financial corruption, ending 15 years as an international fugitive by voluntarily returning to Bangkok on August 22.

This is where so-called "Thai-style democracy" gets tricky, opaque, and imaginative.

Hours after Mr. Thaksin returned and was arrested, Parliament ended a three-month standoff and elected Mr. Thaksin's Pheu Thai Party colleague, a politically inexperienced real estate tycoon, Srettha Thavisin, 60, as prime minister.

Mr. Srettha, a billionaire relatively unknown to the public, said he will "improve the living conditions of all Thai people."

Gallows

“Reform of Revolution?,” hosted by Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists

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Thursday, September 7, 7pm, Tuttle Park [outside of the Tuttle Community Center], 240 W. Oakland Ave.

Join Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists for a discussion about how we fight for and win progress today — through reform or revolution?

This meeting will take place in-person outside of the Tuttle Community Center and online at tinyurl.com/CORSmeeting (using the Jitsi app).

Hosted by Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists.

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Scootin' With MAGA

Depleted Uranium won't bring peace to Ukraine

Freedom’s just another word for . . . blowing up your children? Giving them cancer?

Militarism is obsolete, for God’s sake. Its technology is out of control. The latest shred of news that has left me stunned and terror-stricken is this, as reported by Reuters: “The Biden administration will for the first time send controversial armor-piercing munitions containing depleted uranium to Ukraine. . . . It follows an earlier decision by the Biden administration to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, despite concerns over the dangers such weapons pose to civilians.”

Law enforcement must stop pulling guns on African Americans

Hand holding a gun at a car

Ta’Kiya Young’s death was a terrible mix of poor decisions, bad timing, and a lack of de-escalation training. But the bottom line is, Kroger is a $100 billion corporate monster – just ask their store employees – and shoplifting should never mean pulling a gun on a young mother and her unborn baby, let alone killing both.  

The K9 attack in Circleville in one massive way mirrors Ta’Kiya’s death. The Free Press has heard from several law enforcement sources that the Ohio state troopers who pulled over Jadarrius Rose approached his semi with guns drawn. This was a mistake, these same law enforcement sources told us.

In this post-George Floyd world-on-edge, some younger African Americans panic in the presence of law enforcement. But as Cynthia Brown of the Ohio Coalition to End Qualified Immunity (OCEQI) has repeatedly told us, Ohio law enforcement lacks the skills to help change a life, and because of this, they instead take a life.

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