Lost in the attention accorded to the flurry of right-wing Republican legislatures’ passing and governors’ signing blatantly partisan and extralegal redistricting bills—and, in a growing number of states, both state and federal courts ruling them unconstitutional—is “the great state of Ohio.” In North Carolina, for example, the State Supreme Court not only rule legislative redistricting unlawful, but instituted more constitutional maps. As I follow the incessant “shenanigans” (the much too soft and legally irrelevant word of the Columbus Dispatch [Editorial Board, “Our view: While your groceries go up”]) of the politically biased State Redistricting Commission. Not “shenanigans,” these are violations of the U.S. Constitution and state law. They constitute a unique and so far highly successful path of obfuscation and voter suppression.

The stage is set

Joe Motil, former Columbus City Council candidate and longtime community advocate who has begun circulating petitions to run for Mayor in the 2023 Mayoral primary election attended today’s Little Turtle “Thumbs Down” save the Turtle event. Mr. Motil was approached by Little Turtle community leaders in March of 2021 to assist them in fighting this corrupt and unethical roadway project and has been at their side ever since. 

Motil says, “It’s heartbreaking to witness the destruction of this grand boulevard that has stood here for over 50 years when Little Turtle became Central Ohio’s first planned housing development. And it is all being wasted for the benefit of a developer who used his money and political influence to fatten his bank account.”   

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2022, 4 TO 6 PM
Little Turtle Way between Longrifle Road and Blue Jacket Road

This is your invitation to witness firsthand the site of the iconic mounded, grand boulevard being leveled! Come early to see the excavation on the 2 mounds underway now. 

Little Turtle residents will rally in the Little Turtle community Monday, May 23, 4 to 6PM, to show their unity to Columbus and to the Columbus City Council members of its great displeasure with the demise of the community’s grand boulevard, a 50-year piece of Columbus history, and now the roadway’s resultant traffic congestion. The boulevard mounds are being leveled and the mature trees removed.

On behalf of the residents, we are inviting you to come out to see and document the boulevard’s destruction, as a piece of Columbus history is being erased, as well as the end of Little Turtle’s moniker as a “hidden gem.” You, as well as the taxpayers of Columbus, need to see how $6 million of our tax dollars are being spent on a roadway not wanted or needed by the residents and the disgraceful demise of beautiful greenspace and mature trees. We will not go quietly into the night.

Sunday May 22 at 2PM
Free. Registration optional but appreciated.

The real Founders of American society were not the 55 rich white male interlopers who staged a coup d’etat in 1787-9 … and whose misogynist progeny have always wanted to ban abortion.

Our true Original Founders were the Indigenous matriarchs who ran most of America for thousands of years before the first whites set foot here.

For tens of centuries they controlled their pregnancies by herbal means. The idea that any government (tribal or otherwise) could rule a woman’s uterus would evoke disbelief and contempt from men and women alike.

In fact most North American tribes were run by women. The chieftains were commonly male. But they were chosen and could be removed at will by the matriarchs, who ran the homes and gardens, raised the children and made the major decisions about the future of the tribe.

As one Indigenous matriarch has explained, the men were allowed to be chiefs because “it makes them feel important and it gives them something to do.”

There were indeed tribes where men dominated. For many white “Christian” historians, the idea that females ran any society remains impossible to comprehend.