Patti Smith is the high priestess of NY Punk. In a world where Avril Lavigne and Christina Aguilera are considered rebellious, thank god Patti can still come around and remind them they’re not. I would love to see these MTV darlings go on TRL and proclaim that, “Jesus died for someone’s sins, but not mine.” That was the opening line of Smith’s iconic 1974 release, Horses. Thirty years on, Patti is using Trampin’ as a sounding board for an American revolution of a different kind.

From the first guitar riff, you know the album is gonna rock. The opening track “Jubilee,” is a bit of a barnyard stomp with Patti in a two tone chant declaring, “We will never fade away /Doves shall multiply /Yet I see hawks circling the sky.” The band underscores Patti’s fading utopian dreams with a psychedelic jam of tight blues and swirling guitars.

In “My Blakean Year,” Patti pays homage to every Beat poet’s hero William Blake. The minimal guitar scratching and deliberate underproduction is brilliant. Patti fades out with the repeating lines, “Embrace all that you fear /For joy shall conquer all despair /In my Blakean year.”

Bob Fitrakis is at his best when he writes about George Voinovich at his worst. Catching Voinovich at his worst was not that hard when the former “frugal” Cleveland mayor and future “moderate” U.S. senator held statehouse ethics hostage as Ohio’s governor in the 1990s. So it’s not surprising that The Fitrakis Files: The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal — the fourth compilation of the Columbus State Community College professor, lawyer, activist, and talk-radio firebrand’s writings — is probably his best.

That’s not to say the first three Fitrakis Files — Spooks, Nukes & Nazis; A Schoolhouse Divided; and Free Byrd & Other Cries of Justice are not exemplary. How could I say otherwise when I co-wrote some of the entries in the Byrd book? But The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal rises above the others because the Voinovich clan and the brownshirts who did their bidding made such easy targets as they turned statehouse sleaze into an art form.

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a family reunion in a small town in the Northwest corner of Arkansas. Being in the Ozarks allows one to appreciate some of America’s natural beauty. We were in the retirement community of Bella Vista, just north of Bentonville. Never heard of it? Bentonville is the world headquarters of Wal-Mart. That’s right, I was in the belly of the beast.

One evening my vegan brother-in-law and my vegetarian wife decided it was time to purchase some food for our rented townhouse. We were told the only place to go would be the community market. We were thinking a community market would be like our very own in Clintonville, Ohio. As we pull in, my wife quickly points out that it is in fact, a “Wal-Mart Community Market.”

After reluctantly entering and shopping, we went to the checkout line. The other two quickly said, “We’ll be outside.” Alone with the cashier, I was saddened and distraught by feeling forced to give money to Wal-Mart -- not unlike the feeling of a progressive voting for John Kerry.

Our Central Ohio area native son Abe Bonowitz has been named “Abolitionist of the Year” by the Board of Directors of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP). He will be given this most special award at the Annual Conference of the NCADP in Washington, D.C. on October 16, 2004. Abe started his activism in Bexley, Ohio.

A Zogby International poll taken on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York City found 49.3% of New York City residents believe that some of our leaders “knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act.” The key question is how many members of the Bush clan knew, or does Cheney have them on a need-to-know basis only.