Saturday, December 10, 7-10pm
Old First Presbyterian Church, 1101 Bryden Rd.
Limited parking in side lot, alley, and street parking

Theme: Human Rights Day
Food, drink, and music

Featuring
Lorraine Moore, author of book on the Universal Declaration of Human RIghts
Tekla Lewin on prisoner rights and free speech
Live Jazz music

The problem with most Western media’s political analyses is that they generally tend to be short-sighted and focused mostly on variables that are of direct interest to Western governments. 

 These types of analyses are now being applied to understanding official Arab attitudes towards Russia, China, global politics and conflicts. 

 As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to lead a large delegation to meet with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia on December 9, Western media conveys a sense of dread. 

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.