The Coshocton County Coalition for Peace and Social Justice held a peace rally and march on Feb. 15, 2003. This was the first anti-war demonstration held in Coshocton. Three guest speakers and two coalition speakers addressed the demonstrators, who numbered about 40. The crowd consisted of college students from Muskingum College, local residents young and old, as well as some clergy and other professionals. General speaking topics addressed non-violent opposition to war, the just war theory, misinformation disseminated by the administration to fuel war fever, and the call to activism on peace and social justice issues.

John Michael Houser, known to many as Mike, died in February. Mike, 57, was an activist who had gone on the Freedom Rides of the 60's and was at the Chicago 1968 convention. Michael, who was notably unmaterialistic, was also a member of the CPA, the Communist Party of America. He worked also with the local CWA union. Many of us will miss Mike.

It started like any other routine day at the Reflexions on Front hair salon on December 17, 2002. The proprietor, Randy Hubbard, prepped his salon for his early customers. The phone rang -- it was one of his regulars wanting to schedule an appointment. While on the phone, Hubbard heard a loud knock on the door. He wondered why a young man with close-cropped hair, who looked like an FBI agent, was at his door. Hubbard's salon is located on the ground floor of Columbus' FBI office building at 500 S. Front St.

Still on the phone, Hubbard opened the door and was blasted with the following question: "Why is your flag upside down?" Hubbard paused and thought about telling him that he placed it upside down following the November re-election of Governor Bob Taft, whom he opposes, as a sign of the state's distress. Instead, he simply replied, "None of your business." Hubbard says the man, he later learned was a military liaison to the FBI, shouted back, "You're a jackass!"

Hubbard admits he swore back and told the military man, "The day you start paying the rent you can hang the flag any way you want."

The Coors Lite crowd is busy frothing at the mouth and claiming they "ain't gonna drink no French wine or German beer no more!" Out of tremendous respect for the heroic efforts of the German and French governments to make the world a more secure, safer and more peaceful place, the Free Press is asking all of its readers to drink only German beer and drink only French wine for the next two months. Think of March as an early Oktoberfest. Make sure you buy as many imported German and French products as you can afford. Share them with your friends in the peace movement.

In 1989, the State Department released a report that described in gruesome detail Iraq’s violation of human rights, specifically how Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein tortured his own people for allegedly being disloyal.

But despite the atrocities outlined in the report, which President Bush now refers to when speaking about his desire to remove Hussein from power, the United States, under the first Bush Administration, refused to vote in favor of a United Nations resolution calling for an inquiry into Iraq’s treatment of its population and possibly indicting Hussein for war crimes and human rights abuses.

The two people most vocal about refusing to go along with the U.N. investigation are now lobbying for a U.N. resolution authorizing an invasion of Iraq and are highly critical of the countries that refuse to back a U.S. led coalition to use military force to remove Hussein from power. Those men are Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.