Just as City Council works against public safety and the Columbus Police—reducing the force, under-funding, spouting slogans instead of policy, and refusing to conduct serious gun buy-back programs; the natural environment by approving oversized developments; the public schools by tax abatements and worse; and the city’s publics in general, on Monday, Oct. 25, 2022 council acted out against art in the little city that can’t.

Like the Columbus Dispatch and OSU’s president, it is often too easy to caricature Columbus’ City Council and the mayor, “Mr. Opportunity—for some.” It is hard to parody self-parody, but we must persist. The fate of Columbus’ ever-slight democracy depends on it.

With no debate but unblushing exhortations purportedly about cities, art, economics, and whatever doesn’t fit--free of knowledge, understanding, or meaningful context, City Council approved $250,000 to “create its first-ever ‘Public Art Master Plan,’ for the development, improvement and enhancement of public art and cultural arts programs in the community.”

The artist formerly known as Kanye West has told Tucker Carlson he sees “good things” in Adolph Hitler.

Maybe “Ye,” as he’s now called, should know Hitler would have had him sterilized, then gassed.

Indeed, as a man of color, the infamous rapper would have been subject to Nazi race laws that paralleled those imposed on Jews.

But Hitler reserved additional special treatment for those of African descent. By 1937, if he’d lived in his hero’s Germany, Ye was sure to have been forcibly neutered.

To prevent what der Fuhrer called “race polluting,” Nazis rounded up non-whites—-including children as young as 11—-and terminated their ability to reproduce. The procedure was done without anesthetics. Its victims were given a certificate and warned never to have sexual relations with any white German.

That was for those who kept their heads down.

Had the high profile Ye been even suspected of consorting with any non-African woman in Hitler’s Germany—-let alone one as prominent as Kim Kardashian—-he’d’ve been shot on the spot.

Last week I wrote a column for this publication in which I mentioned that I’m a member of the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local Number 12. In it I exposed the association one of our members also had with the Proud Boys (PB) and that he’d been caught passing out PB propaganda at a worksite. He was removed from the worksite that weekend and, during an executive committee meeting a few days later, was justly and thankfully removed from our union altogether. 

In the column, I called him “Andy.” His name isn’t “Andy.” 

I also seemed to leave the impression in that column that those who choose to work as laborers at the Convention Center are somehow rougher than the theater crews.

Neither of those things are true. In the first place, the one Andy that’s in our local, can (and has) walked intellectual circles around the “Andy” I mentioned in the last column; in the second, many of those who primarily work the Convention Center are higher up on the food chain than anyone who prefers the theater. 

Joe Biden has directed the Democratic National Committee to reduce the danger that progressives might effectively challenge him in the 2024 presidential primaries. That’s a key goal of his instructions to the DNC last week, when Biden insisted on dislodging New Hampshire -- the longtime first-in-the-nation primary state where he received just 8 percent of the vote and finished fifth in the 2020 Democratic primary. No wonder Biden wants to replace New Hampshire with South Carolina, where he was the big primary winner.

The White House and mainstream journalists have echoed each other to assert that Biden would face no serious challenge to renomination if he runs again. But his blatant intrusion into the DNC’s process for setting the primary calendar is a sign of anxiety about potential obstacles to winning renomination.

Tuesday, December 6, 2022, 11:30 AM – 4:15 PM
Join us for an in-person training featuring expert panelists and in-depth discussions on the upcoming 2024-2025 State Operating Budget. Sponsored by Community Solutions and Advocates for Ohio’s Future.  Cost:  $30.  More information and registration here.