Neil Young rocked America with his anthem “Southern Man” on his 1970 album “After the Gold Rush.” Similarly, the Black and white bards Sheri Bailey and Dura Temple struck gold with their outstanding Southern Girls drama, which was first mounted during the Reagan era and is, happily, being revived at the Hudson Backstage Theatre with an all-female cast and a woman director, Zadia Ife.
Set like To Kill a Mockingbird in smalltown Alabama, three of the eponymous females are white, two are Black and one is biracial. The play’s trajectory follows them from small kid days, when they played girlish games in the Jim Crow South, through the Civil Rights era, the Black Power movement and beyond. Southern Girls is exemplary in how it rather perfectly dramatizes how world historical events – from American apartheid to assassinations, et al – deeply impact individuals in their daily lives and the choices they do – and cannot – make.  

When Ohio Attorney General David Yost went judge shopping to permanently ban Columbus City Council’s effort to enact even the mildest of gun safety laws, the Free Press was certain the Fairfield County judge he found would side with the State of Ohio.

Many were confused or not paying attention: How could a Fairfield County judge have authority over Columbus? Unfortunately, and almost unimaginably, is how a tiny sliver of southeast Columbus extends into neighboring (and mostly conservative) Fairfield County.

But the Free Press was thankfully wrong. Fairfield County Common Pleas Judge Richard Berens on January 20 denied the State of Ohio’s motion for a preliminary injunction to forever ban Columbus’s gun safety measures passed in December.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Muslim-majority Malaysia's newly elected Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was jailed twice for homosexual sodomy, is warning lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT) that they, along with communism and secularism, "would never be recognized" by his administration.

Mr. Anwar made the remarks after a popular hardline Pan-Islamic Party (PAS) official, Razman Zakaria, claimed Mr. Anwar and his allies would legalize same-sex marriage in the Southeast Asian country.

“Sometimes these [rival] politicians say if Anwar becomes prime minister, then Islam will be destroyed, secularism and communism will be established, and LGBT will be recognized,” Mr. Anwar said on January 6.

“This is just a delusion. Of course it will never happen and, God willing, under my administration it is unlikely to happen," the prime minister said.

"Such anti-LGBT sentiments, coupled with scapegoating for political expediency and survival, are dangerous," responded Thilaga Sulathireh, co-founder of Justice for Sisters.

"It has effectively increased LGBT-related misinformation and bias."

It seems Columbus’ policing unfortunately follows national trends, incident by incident. Columbus Police actions have become a regressive, dark-mirror version of the country: a week after a jury in Atlanta convicted three men on hate crimes charges for chasing down and murdering 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery while he was going for a jog, Columbus officer Ricky Anderson shot 20-year-old Donovan Lewis in the stomach while serving the near-juvenile a warrant in the middle of the night. Twenty minutes after news broke that Derek Chauvin had een found guilty of the long, slow murder of 48-year-old George Floyd in Minneapolis, Columbus officer Nicholas Reardon shot and killed 15-year-old Ma’khia Bryant in response to that juvenile’s having called the police to help de-escalate the very situation officer Reardon walked into.

The three men who lynched Arbery were found guilty of murder and hate crimes. In a subsequent trial in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin plead guilty to having violated Floyd’s civil rights for kneeling on his neck and back for nine minutes while Floyd took his last breaths.

I meet punk bands who talk with me about rap or vegan food.

Ocean: I think all of us in the band enjoy hip hop and rap. I'm the only one who is a vegan that eats veggie.

Erek: The best part about not being vegan is still eating vegan food. It's delicious and good for you!

Covid eliminated punk shows for a while.

Ocean: That time frame was traumatic! Some of the venues and people I know did not make it.

Erek: Everyone basically lost a year... But the scenes are back and better than ever.

I read about Body Farm at Maximum Rock N Roll because I have Verizon internet where I live.

Do you know someone at MRR or did you just send them stuff…

Erek: You submit everything. There are instructions on their site.

Once something is live on MRR do you receive emails, sell records and end up with shows?