I stare blankly at the news. Little men with guns once again stir the country – the world – into a state of shock and grief and chaos. Attention: Every last one of us is vulnerable to being eliminated . . . randomly,

On Saturday, Dec. 13, there’s a classroom shooting at Brown University, in Providence. R.I. Two students are killed, nine others wounded. A day later, in Sydney, Australia – in the midst of a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach – two gunmen fire into the crowd of celebrants. Fifteen people are killed. The shock is global. The grief and anger flow like blood.

So do the questions: Why? How can we stop this? How can we guarantee that life is safe?

Usually, the calls for change after mass shootings focus on political action: specifically, more serious gun control. Ironically, Australia does have serious gun control. And, unlike the U.S., mass shootings there are extremely rare, but they still happen, which indicates that legal efforts can play a significant, but not total, role in reducing violence.

I learned that Columbus mayor was going to visit the 3rd Shift Warming Center and I was suspicious that he was doing so just for another Facebook “photo opportunity.”

Yeah, I was correct. He and his staff members (plus police bodyguards) arrived with pizzas so that he could be photographed giving them out. He also walked around to shake hands, but I don’t think he learned anything from the experience.

I sat at a round table watching his entourage coordinate his movements, all while a few boxes of pizza were sitting on a table. The smell of the pizza was everywhere, but instead of allowing people to eat they had to wait for the mayor to get photographs of himself walking around. Ever movement was choregraphed.

The funniest thing I heard was from an older man sitting next to me, “Great. We have to sit here smelling pizza and on top of that I’m allergic to tomatoes!”

The mayor’s chief of staff made sure that he made contact with specific people, but it was 3:30 in the afternoon and not late at night when the basement would be packed.

WOODY OR WEXNER? OHIO STATE MUST CHOOSE

WOODY OR WEXNER – Information Sharing Event
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
1:00 – 2:00 PM EST
Outside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center
535 Irving Schottenstein Drive
Columbus, OH 43201

Ohio State University has never fully reckoned with its role in one of the largest sexual abuse scandals in college athletics history.

Thousands of athletes were sexually abused by Dr. Richard Strauss. Some were football players. Survivors have raised serious questions about how power, money, and silence protected abusers—and those connected to them.

Jeffrey Epstein donated $2.5 million to Ohio State, and shortly after, Les Wexner’s name was added to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.

Survivors have also pointed to disturbing overlaps between Strauss, Epstein, and Abercrombie & Fitch—then owned by Wexner—including allegations involving photographed athletes and modeling connections.

Despite this, Les Wexner has refused to comply with a subpoena to testify in the OSU abuse case.

That is unacceptable.

Survivors are demanding accountability.

This article first appeared on Substack.

Will Governor DeWine do the right thing? Or will he cower and cave to his party’s extremists?

He only has a few days left to decide.

Ohio Statehouse Republicans have sent the governor four bills that would cause immense harm to our state. He can choose to sign the bills into law or veto (reject) them.

Three of the bills (HB 129, HB 186, and HB 335) are fake property tax “relief” plans that will devastate Ohio communities while protecting politicians’ wealthy donors.

You’re one of the thousands of homeless in Columbus. You own a tent and found the perfect isolated location, but it’s getting cold. Very cold.

Neither City Council nor the Mayor invest much time thinking about how to solve this problem. They talk about how much they care and post videos online, but have no long-term strategy. Or, maybe it’s that I started to think about it and noticed how little they (and Franklin County) actually do to help the homeless; especially compared to a Woman’s Volleyball Team.

I assumed that there were dozens of shelters and “warming centers” around Columbus to allow people to survive this level of cold. I was wrong.

During the day the homeless are encouraged to visit a public library to get warm (a completely different problem), but at night?

There’s only one “warming center” that operates 24 hours a day.

Read the previous sentence again.