Terrapin Moon came on after the white-hot fireballs known as Electric Orange Peel (should say 'Atomic' Orange Peel). A Grateful Dead cover/tribute band whose version of China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider was spot-on, the mournful Rider insertion choking me up, my dear beautiful brother Bob having passed last year and it was like he was singing to me, "gonna miss me when I'm gone."

Before the song was over I was pedaling home, overcome by the sad refrain, missing my gone brother, the sunglasses I found in his basement hiding the tears pouring out of my sad eyes.

Two years of no music. Then one refrain from one Dead song with a borrowed blues motif and I'm reduced to nothing but humanness. Trust me, I don't think I'm special. But he was, my dear brother Bob. And so was that song.

Tuesday, July 26, 7-8pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

Join a fishbowl conversation with Ohio policy experts and community leaders to talk about life in a post-Roe Ohio.

Experts will be joining the conversation from Ohio Fair Courts Alliance, Equality Ohio, Faith Choice Ohio, Case Western Reserve Law School, plus Dr. Anita Somani, a practicing OBGYN.

We will discuss the connection between the courts, your rights, and gerrymandering; interfaith messaging and fairness; the law/impact of the Ohio Supreme Court; civil rights; and more.

RSVP for this event by using this link.

Hosted by Common Cause Ohio, Faith Choice Ohio, Ohio Voice, and Fair Districts Coalition.

Facebook Event

There are three great acts of naval rebellion in nautical history and the one that’s been the least celebrated in popular culture – until now – is (finally!) the subject of Trouble the Water. Ellen Geer’s stage adaptation of Rebecca Dwight Bruff’s 2019 novel of the same name dramatizes the remarkable real-life saga of Robert Smalls, who was born enslaved in 1839 and rose to become one of the Civil War’s great heroes and among America’s first Black Congressmen, initially elected during the Reconstruction Era.

Smalls’ stunning story is so phenomenal that it takes no less than two thespians to depict this Black Spartacus: A simmering Terrence Wayne, Jr. (whose credits include Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum’s production of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People) as the youthful slave-turned-revolutionary aptly nicknamed “Trouble,” and Gerald Rivers as the postwar Republican statesman who, having met Honest Abe during the Civil War, may have coined the phrase that refers to the GOP as “the party of Lincoln.” Rivers, a WGTB stalwart and, quite appropriately, a renowned Martin Luther King reenactor, also directs Trouble the Water.

Florida’s right-wing Governor Ron DeSantis has vetoed a bill designed to kill solar power in Florida.

But “progressive” Governor Gavin Newsom is standing by as pro-utility regulators embrace new taxes and metering restrictions set to devastate California’s solar industry.

Newsom is also supporting prolonged operations at the high-cost Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which is surrounded by active earthquake faults near San Luis Obispo.

DeSantis and Newsom could face off in the 2024 race for the White House.

DeSantis is an extreme pro-corporate social conservative known nationwide for his bigoted “Don’t Say Gay” pubic school mandate. He’s primarily identified by his MAGA-style attacks on human rights, voter access, democracy, abortion rights, social justice and more.

In most mainstream polls, DeSantis now runs a strong second to Donald Trump for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination. He’s already raised tens of millions of dollars and built a high national media profile.

In the outpouring of reporting and opinion writing about today’s unprecedented campaigns for unconstitutional book banning and suppression of free speech, on the one hand, and locally-rooted, one shop at a time, unionization drives, on the other hand, a fundamental common element is not acknowledged. Resistance to book bans and censorship of curriculum and reading materials in classrooms and libraries, and efforts to unionize are most often locally-based among groups and individuals whose interests often align.

Their connections on multiple levels are seldom recognized. Despite the continuing lack of communication and coordination, the terrain of single institutions includes campaigns to organize graduate students, undergraduate student workers, faculty, staff, and librarians, and also local bookstore employees. They strikingly overlap. They cry for connections and commonality: genuine coalitions crossing vertical and horizontal spaces. Local and state activists tell me about much more inter-union and intra-institutional cooperation than the media report. (Thanks to Matt Ides and Thomas Johnson for comments on their relevant experiences over many years.)