Background

In 2001 over 12,000 Central Ohio residents signed a petition saying they wanted a vote at the ballot box in the City of Columbus on a moratorium to stop new City sewer and water service into the Big Darby Watershed. In October of 2001 the Franklin County Board of Elections certified that enough of those signatures were valid City voters to meet the requirements of the City Charter. Columbus City Council then voted in October to put the issue on the May ballot, according to the dictates of the Charter. That same Charter requires the Clerk of Council to immediately send the petition to the Board of Elections.

Animosity between India and Pakistan is spread over the past half a century, more or less equal to the total life of both South Asian nuclear neighbors. During this time, both the countries fought two full-scale wars (1965 and 1971) and two mini-wars (1948 and 1999). Interestingly, the two minor and one full-scale wars were fought over the issue of Kashmir, a state in the extreme north of south Asia. Both India and Pakistan claim their right over Kashmir. The war of 1971 split Pakistan into two halves, thus paving the way for the creation of present day Bangladesh.

Background of present conflicts

To understand the present stand-off between India and Pakistan, we must refer to the past that will guide us again to the present.

Akin to Europe, the sub-continent or south Asia (present day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) as it is now being called, has never been under a single political authority in the annals of history. On the contrary, this part of the world remained divided into various empires, princely states and kingdoms in the past. Before 1947, there were no such countries as Pakistan, Bangladesh or India.

Authorities tell us that the world changed on September 11. As a result, university professors must watch what they say in class or be turned in to the "speech" police. Elected officials must censor themselves or be censured by the media. Citizens now report behavior of suspicious-looking people to the police. Laws now exist that erode our civil liberties. Americans now accept these infringements as necessary to win America's New War.

America, the world's only superpower, is stifled in its ability to defend human rights and democracy abroad because it has failed the fundamental test at home. Our combination of money and military might, and our willingness to use them, did not make us a superpower. We are the most powerful nation on the face of the planet because we have combined raw power with American ideals such as dignity, freedom, justice, and peace. These ideas and ideals are admired around the world and are more important, in my view, to our position of global strength than our ability to shoot a missile down a chimney. We might be feared because of our military, but we are loved because of our ideals.

It was a Nuremburg moment. Fueled by the 911 "terrorist attack," Ohio State University graduates, their families, and friends were mostly in the same frame of mind as Germans after the burning of the Reichstag: they were all geeked up for simple-minded nationalistic jingoism which Resident George W. Bush supplied. The Selected One dotted the i on a big-ol' script Ohio so big that Osama bin Laden could read it.

I ran into Yoshie Furuhashi at Hempfest on the Saturday before the June 14 graduation/indoctrination to the New World Reich rally. As usual, she was in hyperactivism mode. I did manage to catch the following words: "wouldya like to be a alternativecommencementspeaker at the turnyourbackonbush rally, bring your soundsystem?" I agreed to Yoshie's request as I always do. After all, she's being honored at Community Festival this year for her energetic and consistent activism at OSU this past year.

AUSTIN, Texas -- There' some stiff competition in the Stupidest Thing Said Yet department about the swoon in the financial markets. But among the heavy contenders we must surely count those who are now saying they know who's responsible, and it is us.

According to this theory, you, me and Joe Doaks made Ken Lay do it. Came as a surprise to me, too. Naturally, as a liberal, I just love guilt, so I was ready to sign right up for this one, but try as I may, I can't get it to make a lick of sense. Nevertheless, several of our heavy ponderers and The Wall Street Journal's editorial page insist that we did it.

It seems "we," a word they use rather promiscuously in my opinion, were seized by greed and folly in the '90s. "We" were so stupid we thought stock markets only went up, and "we" are whining like children only because "we" don't understand that in the big, tough, he-man world of capitalism, we must take risks.

Who you callin' "we," white man?

Let me count the ways this one is a crock. It's not as though the 1990s are exactly lost in the mists of time here. Children