Sunday, September 18, 2pm, Mees Hall [Capitol University campus], north side of E. Mound St. between College Ave. and Pleasant Ridge Ave., Bexley, Ohio

This September, Green Bexley is exploring the most impactful actions that we can take to be more sustainable. Inspired by Project Drawdown and sponsored by the Bexley Community Foundation, Capital University, and Simply Living, we’re excited to learn alongside you and take action towards a more sustainable future!

Ambitious action is required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to keep the increase in average global temperature below 2 — but preferably 1.5 — degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, we’ve already raised the temperature by over 1 degree since 1880. The actions must be big, and they must be implemented on a large-scale, worldwide.

Not all actions are equal, and not all actions are applicable. This month, we’re exploring the most impactful actions that can be taken by Bexleyites, and hope you’ll join us!

Find more information about “Sustainable September” at greenbexley.org/sustainableseptember.

Saturday, September 17, 12noon, Ohio Statehouse

Join us at the intersection of honest education and democracy! ​​

The future of Ohio education is on the ballot in the 2022 General Election. ​

Your Vote Is Power To:

• Protect students, families, educators, and democracy

• Stop elected leaders from gerrymandering Ohio education

​• Stop elected leaders from censoring honest education

• Stop elected leaders from weaponizing race and identity

• Stop elected leaders from targeting LGBTQ+ students

• Stop elected leaders from infusing extremist political agendas into the State Board of Education and local school districts

​​On the 2022 November Ballot:

• State leaders sanctioning unconstitutional, gerrymandered elections

• Sponsors of “Divisive Concept” and censorship bills

• Sponsors of anti-LGBTQ+ bills​​

• State Board of Education members who repealed Ohio’s antiracism and equity resolution

• Leaders who support anti-honesty resolutions in schools​

Readers of my Columbus Free Press essays, especially those who live far from the city, ask me why I remain in a city without history, identity, city services, or democratic government; in a neighborhood whose decline is fostered by the City and the adjacent mega-university; and in association with the large mismanaged and disorganized university. After 18 years, I first reacted with surprise. Our daily lives are mostly comfortable, especially outside the weekend rumbles of OSU undergraduates. We are settled as retired professionals who planned responsibly. But direct questions from long-time friends give me pause.

Friday, September 16, 7:30-9pm, Columbus Mennonite Church, 35 Oakland Park Ave.

Peace is Possible. Help us make Peace Flags for the United Nations International Peace Day in Times Square.

Machai St. Rain, the Peace Peddler, who walked over 10,000 miles for peace, will be in Columbus on her way to New York City for the U.N. International Peace Day Events. We will have music, community, refreshments, and all of the materials for making Peace Flags.

Help Us Make Peace Flags for the 9-21-2022 U.N. International Peace Day Event at Times Square and then watch live on September 21 to see your flag.

• Machai St. Rain, The Peace Peddler

• 10,000+ miles for Peace

• Music, Community, Refreshments, and Making Peace Flags.

Use this link to learn additional information about this event.

Hosted by Machai’s International Peace Day Tour.

There they were again. The dangling irony of memorial Nikes . . .

I was walking home from my neighbor’s house. They’d just had a piano recital and I was still full of music when I saw the pair of tennis shoes flung over the telephone wire that crosses my street – instantly redefining, at least for me, this moment, this piece of earth and sky. Oh my God. I don’t believe it.

Here?

In front of my house?

Every now and then I see a pair of tennis shoes flung over a telephone wire – that wire stretching through a nearby McDonald’s parking lot, for instance– and every time I do, I think about a 12-year-old boy named Jose, who shoved a bit of reality in my face twenty or so years ago. He did so as a student of mine.

I was a volunteer writing teacher at the time. This was part of my decade-long struggle with the Chicago Public Schools, which my daughter attended. One day, when she was in third grade – this is when the school system begins the farce known as standardized testing, and “education” started to mean teaching to the test – she came home angrily and declared: “Dad, I hate writing!”