Dennis Kucinich was a hero of mine.

His newly released book, The Division of Light and Power (Finney Avenue Books), is all about how he became a hero to me nearly five decades ago when he was first a Cleveland City Councilman and then, for one glorious but controversial term, was the mayor of Cleveland, then the largest and most powerful city in Ohio.

The book is well worth reading if you, like me, were old enough to be aware of Kucinich's rise to power. If you are younger and want to learn about the era, the book will enlighten you as well.

I was living 60 miles to the south in my hometown of Ashland, Ohio. We got all of our TV and much or our radio from Cleveland, not to mention the Cleveland Plain Dealer, then the largest and most powerful newspaper in Ohio.

With vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant dropping to 39%, it is absurd to pursue a return to normal in the office. Make no mistake about the danger: the Delta surge forecast to grow much worse in the next few months. Indeed, the CDC is asking vaccinated people to wear masks and moving toward recommending booster shots.

Saturday, July 31, 10am, this on-line event requires advance registration

Dr. Paul Song was most recently on the faculty of the Samuel Oschin Cancer Center at Cedars Sinai Medical Center [in Los Angeles, California] and currently sees Medicaid and uninsured patients at Dignity California Hospital [also in Los Angeles, California].

Dr. Song is the current President of Physicians for a National Health Program California. He served as the co-chair of the Campaign for a Healthy California from 2017 to 2018 and was the very first visiting fellow on health care policy in the California Department of Insurance in 2013.

He is the chief operating officer/chief medical officer of NKMax America, Inc., a subsidiary of South-Korean-based ATGen Global, where he oversees all translational research and clinical programs. He is also the chief medical officer of Hawkeye Bio.

The new three-year labor deal between the City of Columbus and Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Cap City Lodge #9 shows once again our local law enforcement union is dictating its demands to the community instead of the community demanding the Columbus Division of Police become a more professional law enforcement agency so we don’t repeat the summer of 2020.

FOP Cap City Lodge #9 has repeatedly said the Division of Police is one of the best trained police agencies in the nation with phenomenal officers, as union President Keith Ferrel professed during a recent press conference.

The Free Press agrees the job of police can be dangerous and takes its toll on officers. Drug and gun epidemics continue to marginalize and terrorize areas of the community. The Free Press family has several members who work with at-risk youth and often interact with Columbus police, and their experiences have been positive for the most part.

Perhaps the best possible thing we could acknowledge being is a “divided nation.” Failing to do so justifies — or at least avoids noticing — all manner of violent cruelty and repression in the name of so-called democracy, from the jailing of whistleblowers who reveal U.S. war crimes and global criminality, to the lynching of men and women of color . . .  to the waging of endless war.

Oh, and so much more!

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the empire it purports to be (because it’s the greatest country in the world), one nation under the God of Money (who happens to be a white male), with liberty and justice for a few — and probably not for you or your parents, little kid!”

This is the pledge of allegiance we don’t teach to schoolkids, but it’s the one under which they live — some more than others, of course.