Dozens of teachers, support staff, and community members picketed outside of the Zanesville Board of Education (ZEA) meeting on Tuesday, September 14. The teachers’ union in Zanesville has been negotiating for a new contract since July, trying to retain their healthcare plan and secure a raise that, at a minimum, would keep pace with inflation. A federal mediator has been brought in to help facilitate movement, but things have only gotten worse.

On Tuesday, the Board accused the teachers’ union, the ZEA, of lying to the press when they mentioned the fact that their healthcare plan was on the table. The Board called their statements “blatant falsehoods,” adding that “the Board has offered ZEA a competitive salary package, well above the state and area averages.”

25 years before Israel was established on the ruins of historic Palestine, a Russian Jewish Zionist leader, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, argued that a Jewish state in Palestine could only survive if it exists “behind an iron wall” of defense.

Jabotinsky was speaking figuratively. However, future Zionist leaders, who embraced Jabotinsky’s teachings, eventually turned the principle of the iron wall into a tangible reality. Consequently, Israel and Palestine are now disfigured with endless barricades of walls, made of concrete and iron, which zigzag in and around a land that was meant to represent inclusion, spiritual harmony and co-existence. 

Thursday, September 16, 7-8:15pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

The Ohio Legislature will come back into session during September. What will they be talking about? What bills will be coming up?

Join us at 7pm on Thursday, September 16 for a discussion of what to expect this fall at the Ohio Statehouse with Tadd Pinkston of Pinkston Law, Rev. Joan VanBecelaere, and others.

RSVP for this event by using this link.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Hosted by UUJO: Unitarian Universalist Justice Ohio.

I have frequently said to a friend who was born and reared in Jim Crow Nashville that Donald Trump is the spawn of George Wallace, only taller. Like Trump, Wallace was bombastic, rude and in perpetual motion. Pugnacious and argumentative, he also wore a permanent sneer as he railed against the elites whom he imagined were looking down on him, the son of a working class family. The term “the politics of rage” was invented for George Wallace. But unlike Trump who came to politics fairly late in life, politics grabbed Wallace by the lapels at a young age, and refused to let go.

Wednesday, September 15, 7pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

What do you and your Central Ohio neighbors think and believe about our criminal justice system? Do we trust law enforcement? Can we believe in one another? How do we achieve positive change?

Explore these and other critical issues through a special forum on Wednesday, September 15, starting at 7pm, streaming virtually from partner WBNS at the Lincoln Theatre, as the Columbus Urban League and YWCA Columbus host a critical community conversation in conjunction with the National Urban League (NUL). Note: the event is now 100% virtual.

This event, the first of three to be held across the country, focuses on the first pillar in NUL’s 21 Pillars: A Comprehensive Framework for Redefining Public Safety. This cornerstone calls for community collaboration to build a restorative system and re-envision public safety in an equitable and just way — an issue highly relevant to Columbus right now.