This morning, employees at Columbus’ 88 E. Broad St. Starbucks location delivered a letter to Starbucks’ CEO announcing that they “choose to join in the national labor movement of Starbucks stores.”

The Starbucks location in the heart of downtown is the first in Columbus to announce a union drive, joining three other locations in Ohio and more than 140 across the country in attempting to unionize. “We know your company can be better, and we choose to stay and help it grow from within,” they wrote.

The store in the Key Bank building facing 3rd street serves government employees, office workers, downtown residents, houseless community members, and tourists.

“We get a good mix of people,” says Damon Shnur who’s worked at this downtown Starbucks for nine years and is part of the location’s organizing committee for the union drive. “I think a lot of our clientele is also just very excited for us. They’re very excited about unionizing in general, but I think they will be very excited and supportive of us.”

Tuesday, March 22, 2022, 2:00 pm EDT
Cleveland State University Student Center SC 313, 2121 Euclid Avenue 44115

Despite shifting dates, Ohio is preparing for a primary that will leave an indelible mark on politics nationwide. 

Rob Portman’s decision to retire in 2021 created an open Senate seat that multiple politicians are competing to fill. With Ohio remaining solid red for the past two presidential elections, and serving as the location for a contentious special election last year, the results of the primary elections are expected to be a referendum on many things.

For Republicans, it will indicate how firm Donald Trump’s grasp is on the Republican Party. For Democrats, whether moderate liberals or the growing progressive vanguard, is the future of electoral success.

Minute by minute, Putin’s “Peaceful Atom” pushes us to the brink of an atomic Apocalypse…maybe as you read this….likely within hours or days.

Some 440 atomic power reactors now heat this planet, 93 in the US. For a half-century opponents have warned that a madman like Putin could make them spew out enough radiation to burn our species off this planet. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/science/ukraine-nuclear-power-plant.html )

We are headed precisely in that direction. The clock ticks down in real time.

Start at Chernobyl. Despite decades of industry denials that any commercial reactor could explode—-Soviet or otherwise—-Unit Four blew up on April 26, 1986. (For a gut sense of what happened, watch HBO’s five-part mini-series “Chernobyl.”)

The last of Chernobyl’s other three reactors ran through 2000. Unit Four’s blown core is still so hot the world community spent some $2 billion to cover it with a giant shield, aptly called a sarcophagus.

I recently received a phone call from Andrew Nortz who is a 6½ year resident of Blendon Township and whose one-acre property abuts a new development of 27.88 acres that is currently being cleared for 156 units of one- and two-bedroom one story apartments. He asked if I would meet with him and his wife and listen to what they had to say about how they and other neighbors were bamboozled by the City of Columbus, developers and the developers’ seasoned zoning attorneys. Andrew had read about my involvement in fighting alongside of the Little Turtle neighborhood against the jaw-droppingly unethical Little Turtle Roadway project that is just around the corner from Blendon Township.

Columbus City Council unanimously approved the rezoning of the property in July of last year. Mr. Nortz gave me a tour on March 16 of the 27.88 acres that is now being developed. He said the area is home to wild turkeys, fox, deer, owls, hawks, raccoons, numerous bird species, wetlands, natural springs and vernal pools.