Saturday, May 6, 4-8pm, The Vanderelli Room, 218 McDowell St.

Paul Volker is a native of Columbus, where he studied fine art at The Ohio State University. Volker began working as a freelance cartoonist and illustrator at age 20, but shifted to painting a few years later, using mainly recycled house paints on various materials, including rubber, plywood, and even bread.

“I enjoy experimenting with different materials. For me, a painting shouldn’t just be a picture of something, but should be a unique object in itself, on which the picture is placed.”

Volker is known as a prolific artist, having painted and sold more than 3,000 works. His paintings rely heavily on contrast and humor, with cartoon animals having been the main subject in over a thousand small paintings created in a series he calls “Wild Beasts” (a reference to Fauvism).

Where most paintings are done on canvas, Volker uses plywood. He prefers house paints to tube paints. His paintings are designed to hang without frames and many without wires. Whatever is expected, he seems to do the opposite.

After more than 150 years, The Ohio State University (OSU) does not understand that it is now completely within and surrounded by – and has legal responsibilities to – the city of Columbus and its residents.

Among large urban university campuses and their adjoining residential districts, OSU and the University District are among the most dangerous in the US. As I was in the process of submitting this article, DegreeChoices.com released a new national report that found OSU to be the second “most dangerous campus” in the United States, based on data from the U.S. Department of Education on violent crimes committed and/or reported in 2019-2021. OSU had 583 reported incidents.

OSU has a campus security force of less than 80 for a student, faculty, and staff campus of almost 90,000. The Columbus Police has no regular presence in the University District. For good reasons, students do not want to see them on campus. In 1970, for example, the Columbus Police Department (CPD) and the National Guard rioted on campus.

It is a common understanding in the retail industry that "if you break it, you buy it". That same principle applies to a community destroyed by a reckless corporation as well as a community broken by a careless customer. The overdue bill owed by Norfolk Southern for its wanton destruction of East Palestine is a hefty one that far exceeds the $387 million claimed lost in its 1st Quarter Report on the "Eastern Ohio Incident". However, not a dollar has been paid so far to directly compensate property owners for their colossal loss of value. Making matters worse is Norfolk Southern's refusal to even consider purchasing damaged property at pre-disaster value. That must change.

Nazis disrupted a drag brunch on the Westside last week. Social media exploded over the news that white supremacists were disrupting a children’s event and were surprised by the inability of Columbus Division of Police to ensure the Nazis were barred from exposure and scaring the community with their black ski masks.

Up until a few weeks ago, when three Democratic lawmakers joined mostly young people at the Tennessee legislature demanding stricter gun legislation in the wake of yet another mass shooting, the First Amendment was sacrosanct: It states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Hey China, quit threatening us! We’ll kick your ass.

Yeah, bad China, maybe worse than Russia, e.g.:

“The People’s Republic of China, which is increasingly challenging the United States economically, technologically, politically and militarily around the world, remains our unparalleled priority.”

The words are those of Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, addressing a Senate committee recently. As the New York Times noted, she “reinforced the message that President Biden and his top foreign policy aides have been sending on China. . . . that while Russia is a medium-term challenge, China is the greatest long-term rival of the United States and is the only nation with the power and resources to reshape the American-led international order.”