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The Big Fix: Spay/Neuter Week 2003

It's getting to be that time of year again- kitten and puppy season. We all know the woes of companion animal overpopulation- unwanted litters of kittens ultimately euthanized, puppies obtained for "bait" in dogfighting circles- so what can be done about it? The most humane and effective way of dealing with this problem has proven to be large scale companion animal sterilization. With this in mind, local shelters, veterinarians, and others have joined with No More Homeless Pets- Central Ohio to repeat The Big Fix: Spay/Neuter Week 2003. The Big Fix enjoyed tremendous success last year, sterilizing over 150 animals during the week of the event, and nearly 100 more over the course of the summer.

Awareness also was brought about by the event that reached thousands of homes regarding issues concerning animal welfare. Mayor Michael Coleman signed a proclamation calling on everyone in Columbus to alter their own pet or that of someone they know.

Help protect the Clean Air Act

The Bush administration is helping powerful interests weaken the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program, which forces old, dirty power plants and other facilities to install modern pollution controls. These changes will make it easier for 17,000 facilities to emit more pollution, resulting in more disease, death and damage to the environment.

Recently, there was a vote in U.S. Senate on the Edwards-Lieberman Clean Air Amendment, which would have blocked the first set of White House rollbacks of the New Source Review program. Unfortunately, the U.S. Senate defeated the Edwards Clean Air Amendment by a vote of 46 to 50.

While we didn't win on this vote, this was an impressive vote count that sends a strong message to the White House that the public is opposed to efforts to weaken the Clean Air Act.

The next step is to demonstrate public opposition to the Bush administration's second set of proposed changes to the New Source Review Program. The first set of changes undermines this key clean air protection program, but the second set of proposed rules goes even farther and virtually eliminates the New Source Review program.

Protest Jim Petro's decision re U of M admissions case

Local NPR newscast informs that Attorney General Jim Petro refused to allow the Ohio State University Board of Regents to file an amicus curiae brief (friend of the court) in support of the University of Michigan's position in the two affirmative action cases in front of the US Supreme Court (Gratz v Bollinger, et al. and Grutter v Bollinger et al.) These cases, on appeal from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, challenge the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy. U of M's policy was carefully crafted to meet the requirements of the 1970's Bakke case and if the US Supreme Court rejects the U of M program, affirmative action will be dealt a major setback if not a death blow. The Dispatch carried a New York Times article on Tuesday (2/18) noting that 300 organizations have filed friend of the court briefs in support of the University of Michigan. (page A3)

No! In thunder

A simultaneous global protest! Collectively these mid-February rallies against war on Iraq have been the largest such demonstrations in history and, individually, the largest turnouts in the history of the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia and maybe Spain.

This thunderous, popular "No!" has emboldened, at least for now, France and Germany, and undercut the UK's Tony Blair. Nor can a man with as keen an eye for the political temparature as UN Arms Inspector Hans Blix have been oblivious to the emotions of Old Europe.

Here in the United States, city after city reported turnouts far in excess of what organizers had hoped for. We're thinking of towns like Flagstaff, Ariz., which had a peace rally of 1,500 in downtown, as big an event for Flagstaff as was the 200,000 in San Francisco. The block-by-block pens imposed by New York's Mayor Bloomberg managed to paralyze the East Side far more dramatically than would the rally and march originally requested by the organizers and shamefully denied by the NYPD and then by the federal courts.

The Ohio State University Undergraduate Student Government Senate Passes Anti-War Resolution

Columbus, Ohio -- At 8:30 PM today The Ohio State University's Undergraduate Student Government Senate passed a resolution calling for a peaceful solution to the conflict with Iraq, and condemning an unprovoked attack on Baghdad and the Iraqi people.

In the previous USG Senate session on Wednesday, February 12, a similar anti-war resolution was not voted on by the USG Senate because senators cited a lack of student support.

Following a flood of phone calls and e-mails from students supporting the resolution, the primary sponsor of the resolution, Senator Dan Ramos, reintroduced a revised version of the anti-war resolution and again asked the USG Senate to consider the proposal.

At today's USG Senate meeting on Wednesday, February 19, over 30 students in support of the anti-war proposal attended the meeting and engaged the senators in a discussion lasting nearly two hours. One student and several senators opposed to the resolution also voiced their concerns, and helped to round out a vigorous, balanced discussion on the issue.

Commemoration of the murder of John Byrd

Call for contacting the Governor on February 19!!

Don't let Johnny Byrd be killed in vain! Remind Gov. Taft that we, the people of Ohio, do not believe in the death penalty and we will NOT FORGET that he killed an innocent man. Write, call, email and fax the serial killer, Bob Taft, on February 19, the day he executed John Byrd last year. Give him the message:

"Last year on this day, John Byrd, Jr., an innocent man, was killed in the name of the people of the state of Ohio. As a citizen of Ohio, I do not believe in the death penalty and I did not sanction that execution. I will not forget it and I will never let you forget that on this date you murdered an innocent man."

Also on Feb 19., join anti-death penalty activists at the Riffe Center at noon, State and High Streets where Gov. Taft's office is. Posters of John Byrd will be there to hold. For more information, call 253-2571 or email truth@freepress.org.

Gov. Taft email: Governor.Taft@das.state.oh.us
Governor Bob Taft
30th Floor
77 South High Street

Column 86: Black Radio Entertainers

Jazz owes a lot of its popularity to the phonograph, going back to the early days, when Thomas Edison invented the musical box that brought jazz to people who lived outside of the areas where jazz musicians played. Through phonograph records, they could hear the music of such people as "King" Joe Oliver. He was the first of the legendary great trumpet players to come out of New Orleans, the city where most experts in the field say that jazz originated. Jazz was played in the whorehouses in that city, and Louis Armstrong credits Oliver as being one person from whom he learned his style of playing trumpet.

The earliest phonographs I remember were the old type; you would wind the machine up in the same manner that one wound a clock or watch, until you could wind no longer. Then you placed the record on the turntable and turned on the switch, and the music would blare out of the megaphones. Most records sounded very tinny, but the volume could be raised or lowered by another switch.

The first electric phonographs made the music sound much better, and there was a constant improvement in the machines until the 1920s,

Don't boycott the French!

AUSTIN, Texas -- As our coaches used to say, "OK, people, settle down and listen up." We have been enjoying a lovely little spate of French-bashing here lately. Jonah Goldberg of The National Review, who admits that French-bashing is "shtick" -- as it is to many American comedians -- has popularized the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" to describe the French. It gets a lot less attractive than that.

George Will saw fit to include in his latest Newsweek column this joke: "How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried." That was certainly amusing. One million, four hundred thousand French soldiers were killed during World War I. As a result, there weren't many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II. Nevertheless, 100,000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop Hitler.

On behalf of every one of those 100,000 men, I would like to thank Mr. Will for his clever joke. They were out-manned, out-gunned, out-generaled and, above all, out-tanked. They got slaughtered, but they stood and they fought. Ha-ha, how funny. In the few places where they had tanks, they held splendidly.

SATIRE: Leaked White House Transcript (3)

PRESIDENT BUSH: Let's get going, Gentlemen. I don't like what's going on.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Calm down, George. Things are under control.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I don't think so. What's with that damn United Nations? China. France. Germany. Who the hell do they think they are?

KARL ROVE: Don't worry, sir. We've got answers for all of them.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Just nuke 'em, dammit. I want a war. God tells me we have to have a war. And they're standing in the way. The economy's tanking. Gas is going up. And Armageddon is long overdue.

KARL ROVE: Well, I'm not sure Colin's speech really did the trick. Polls here went up, of course. But he kindof laid an egg in the rest of the world.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: First things first, Karl. I love how not a single talk show or TV commentator raised the least question about anything Colin said. And, of course, the polls fell right in line, even Oprah's. I was mighty impressed.

NO WAR: over 600 rally in Columbus, millions around the world

The Columbus anti-war demonstrations had an excellent turnout this weekend. Photographs from the February 15th march and rally can be found at cpanews.org/peace/peace.html.


Columbus Rally and March


Columbus County Rally and March

Additionally, 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.

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