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Our Green Emergency Election Protection Coalition Zoom #133 begins with ANDY MOORE of the National Association of Non-Partisan Reformers, a nationwide coalition of organizations working for election reform.

The great ANDREA MILLER of the Center for Common Ground fills us in on her great grassroots push in Virginia.

NORM STOCKWELL of Progressive.org then explains the aftermath of the progressive movement’s huge Supreme Court victory in Wisconsin, which will stretch deep into the 2024 presidential election.

We then hear from the great ANNA GYORGY about German’s monumental decision to shut down ALL its atomic reactors, which finally closed on April 15.

In tandem we hear about the world-changing ENERGIEWENDE, Germany’s incredibly rapid and effective shift toward a 100% green-powered energy supply in the world’s 4th-largest economy.  

Anna is joined by SCOTT DENMAN and by LINDA PENCE, both legendary long-term safe energy activists with great things to say about this European dawn of Solartopia.   

PART TWO:  SECOND HOUR…..please also put this on the air where you can…

Young dark-haired woman

Former Columbus police officer Andrew Mitchell was inexplicably exonerated by a jury this week for the brutal murder of 23-year-old Donna Dalton Castleberry. What was not brought before the jury was the fact, as reported in local media, that Mitchell remains in custody and “faces nine federal charges after being accused of forcing women to perform sexual acts in exchange for their freedom and lying to federal investigators, among other accusations. Trial in that case is scheduled to begin in July 2023.” (Columbus Dispatch).

What happened between Mitchell and Dalton?

As the Free Press reported in 2018:

Columbus skyline colored green

Do you talk a good Earth Day game? Can’t stand the trash that blows around Columbus throughout the Spring?

Earth Day of course is this Saturday and here’s your chance(s) to take action. Both Green Columbus and Columbus Recreation and Parks Department are hosting events where you can, for instance, fish in a recently stocked Linden pond or spend the day at Genoa Park visiting booths from 40 local environmentally friendly organizations while listening to bands, sipping on some cold beer and sample food trucks.

Green Columbus, a volunteer-driven nonprofit seeking to improve equitable environmental outcomes for people of Central Ohio, says they coordinate the “largest volunteer-driven service event for Earth Day in the country.” The event starts at noon at Genoa Park (on the bank of the Scioto River adjacent to COSI) and goes until 9 pm:

Statehouse and details

On April 19, the Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 92 and Senate Joint Resolution 2, which would strip political power away from everyday Ohioans and make it harder for their voices to be heard. We cannot allow this effort to silence Ohioans to succeed. The resolution, and companion House Joint Resolution 1, raise the requirement for constitutional amendment ballot initiatives to only pass if they reach 60% approval from Ohio voters.

Roof with solar panels

Sustainable Columbus and nonprofit group Solar United Neighbors (SUN) will announce the launch of the Columbus Solar and EV Charger Co-op on April 19th.  The group will help Franklin County residents, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations go solar.  The co-op is launching off the heels of the city announcing that Columbus received a Gold SolSmart Designation Award. The Award recognizes the city’s expansion of solar energy use in their jurisdictions.

"Columbus is proud to continue our partnership with Solar United Neighbors to help residents understand and realize the benefits of going solar,” said City of Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther. "Equitably transitioning to clean energy sources is critical to the Columbus Climate Action Plan, and this co-op is helping our community reach our goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050."

The co-op is free to join and open to homeowners in the greater Columbus Area. Together, co-op members will learn about solar energy and leverage their numbers to purchase top-quality individual solar systems at a competitive price.

People volunteering

Still haven't volunteered to celebrate Earth Day? Don't worry, there's still plenty of time to make Columbus a little greener.

Here are a few volunteer opportunities that could use your help:

Friday, April 21

Saturday, April 22

As a film historian, when I heard a bioplay was being mounted about silver screen siren Ava Gardner at one of L.A.’s finest theaters, the Geffen Playhouse, it was “Westwood Ho!” for moi. I strapped on my running shoes and said: “Feets, don’t fail me now! Feets, do your thing!” to go see a play about The Barefoot Contessa. All the more so when I learned that Ava, The Secret Conversations was not only starring, but written by, Elizabeth McGovern.

One of the delights of L.A. theater is that our hamlet’s vast talent pool includes big and little screen talents, and what a treat to see McGovern – who was Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated for 1981’s Ragtime, plus Emmy and Golden Globe-nommed for Downton Abbey – tread the boards live and in the flesh. (At my last foray to the Geffen in 2022 I had the pleasure to see Bryan Cranston act in person in Power of Sail.)

When Israel launched a war against the Gaza Strip in August 2022, it declared that its target was the Islamic Jihad only. Indeed, neither Hamas nor the other Gaza-based groups engaged directly in the fighting. The war then raised more questions than answers. 

 Israel rarely distinguishes between one Palestinian group and another. For Tel Aviv, any kind of Palestinian Resistance is a form of terrorism or, at best, incitement. Targeting one group and excluding other supposedly ‘terrorist groups’ exposes a degree of Israeli fear in fighting all Palestinian factions in Gaza, all at once.

Watching a once great nation commit suicide is not pretty. President Joe Biden does not seem to understand that his role as elected leader of the United States is to take actions that directly or indirectly benefit the folks who voted for him as well as the other Americans who did not do so. That is how a constitutional democracy is supposed to work. Instead, Biden and the gang of introverts and neocon war criminals that the has surrounded himself with have done everything that can to inflict fatal damage on the economy through rash initiatives both overseas and at home. A spending spree to buy support from the bizarre constituencies that make up the Democrat Party base while also fighting an undeclared war in Europe have meant that nearly two trillion dollars has been added to the national debt under Biden’s rule, a debt that was already unsustainable at nearly $30 trillion, larger than the United States’ gross national product. Plans to cancel student loan debts will add hundreds of billions of dollars more to the red ink.

 

When’s the last time you had your mind blown? Was this something that only happened in the 1960s?

Well, I had my mind blown a few days ago, when I took part in a sort of reunion I could never have imagined. It wasn’t a “reunion” so much as a reopening of the counterculture — specifically, the revival of a publication from the late ’60s called the Western Activist, a renegade (you might say) student newspaper that emerged at my college, Western Michigan University, in 1966.

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