In case you haven’t noticed, there is an election being held in November – November 8th to be exact – and you must participate if eligible. The stakes are high.

You say, there’s nothing in this election for me. Do you use cannabis even occasionally? Do you or a family member have a medical condition? Do you know someone who has been incarcerated for marijuana, or someone who has lost privileges because of a cannabis conviction? Do you believe in social justice? Do you want a vibrant economy?  I could go on, but you get point. The herb in its many forms has become an important issue in the lives of many Americans.

This is a primer on canna-candidates and canna-voting in Ohio. The where, why, who and how of this process. Let’s get started. Sources are linked. See the canna-candidate list here.

How to vote: Make a plan.

Just in time for Halloween, that “Mysterious and spooky …all together ooky” all-Un-American family, the Addams, are back. The Addams Family originally appeared in Charles Addams’ one-panel cartoons in The New Yorker magazine in 1938. In that franchise tradition of never letting a profitable brand name go to waste, the bizarre members of this clan with a supernatural vibe have appeared in numerous iterations, including a 1964-1966 ABC-TV sitcom; big screen, live action feature films; animated TV series and movies; and in 2010, a Broadway musical.

Part Two

Failure of internal and external communication

Part and parcel of the foregoing is the lack of effective communications systems and open, integrating, and supporting cultures that modern institutions require. The City of Columbus admits that its comms systems are a disaster, from website to online to telephone. When I first attempted to communicate with both staff and Council, one legislative aide came to my home to explain how I might try to contact appropriate parties for different issues and problems. They began by stating “it’s impossible to learn this from our website.”

I share what they taught me as widely as possible. Everyone I have spoken or written to within the City agrees: all City of Columbus communications systems need to be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. I have proposed that they publish a guide or handbook to the City. All agree.

I’m old-fashioned. I think you can only learn so much about a candidate by reading about him and watching him on video.

I believe you must experience a candidate up close and personal by seeing him speak, watching him interact with voters, and by having a face-to-face conversation.

Enter Jeff Crossman, the Democratic running for state attorney general. On paper and on video, he came across as a good candidate, but I wanted that real life contact.

I got it three weeks ago when the Parma-based state representative appeared before the Third Friday Democrat group in Columbus. I was not disappointed. The 50-year-old lawyer wowed me and the crowd with a straight up speech that Ohio has been poorly served by the current AG and his Republican cronies, that corruption has been running rampant in the Buckeye State, and that he had the backbone necessary to clean up the mess.

Crossman told the group that his opponent was sometimes careless with the truth and the public has a right to be angry at AG David Yost for inaction and obfuscation.

We begin GREE-GREE #113 with a celebration of Indigenous People’s Day led by TATANKA BRICCA and the reminder that whatever democracy and freedom we enjoy in America is rooted with our native peoples---especially with the Hodenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy.

JOEL SEGAL fills us in on the fight of Puerto Rico to rise again from yet another horrific storm, one that’s also brought terrifying death and destruction to much of Florida.

We then hear from CHRISTIAN NUNES, President of the National Organization for Women, as she and WENDI LEDERMAN take us on a deep dive into the core of women’s issues in the world today.  Roe v. Wade is “on the ballot” and, as Christian tells us, the issues cut far deeper than abortion.