Dear Editor,

As COVID-19 continues its spread, one thing is clear: Ohio and the nation need paid family and medical leave.

As a mother of two, this need was front and center for me after the birth of my second daughter Ellie. Home alone with Ellie a week after giving birth, I became so sick that I couldn’t get out of bed. I had no way to take care of her, let alone myself. My husband and parents had either exhausted their paid leave and vacation time or simply had none. Things escalated when I had to go back to the hospital for treatment, forcing my husband to come home from his job to help get me there.

During that time I felt so alone, frightened and frustrated. I was told by well meaning people — who couldn’t help because they had no time off left — to just stay in bed all day. That’s a fine option for someone who has adequate assistance at home, but I had a newborn and myself to care for alone. How was I supposed to eat if I couldn’t make it downstairs to get food? How was she supposed to eat?

Palestine can never be truly understood through numbers, because numbers are dehumanizing, impersonal, and, when necessary, can also be contrived to mean something else entirely. Numbers are not meant to tell the story of the human condition, nor should they ever serve as a substitute for emotions. 

Indeed, the stories of life, death - and everything in-between - cannot be truly and fully appreciated through charts, figures and numbers.  The latter, although useful for many purposes, is a mere numerical depository of data. Anguish, joy, aspirations, defiance, courage, loss, collective struggle, and so on, however, can only be genuinely expressed through the people who lived through these experiences. 

The greatest impediment to doing anything, for homo sapiens, is often that it hasn’t already been done. “Well, sure, that sounds easy enough, but I just don’t know. I’ve never seen it done and my cousin’s friend heard it was impossible.”

The greatest means of smashing through that impediment is for the thing that needs doing to have already happened. “Impossible or not, we just did it 3 feet from where you are standing, while you were standing there. Here’s the video.”

The best chance homo sapiens has of surviving includes converting the resource-draining, environment-destroying, climate-collapsing, hatred-fueling, oligarch-enabling, secrecy-justifying, nuclear-holocaust-facilitating, murderous war industry to peaceful enterprises aimed at protecting and benefitting humanity and the earth. But who doesn’t have a cousin whose friend has heard that that’s impossible?

One underrepresented voice in the police reform movement that’s swept the country this summer is that of the Black police officer. In her new memoir, “Walking The Thin Black Line: Confronting Racism in the Columbus Division of Police,” Melissa McFadden tells the story of her 24-year career, currently as a Black lieutenant with the Columbus Division of Police. 

Black officers walk a thin Black line every time they put on their uniforms. On one side is the Black community they strive to serve and protect from unjust treatment; on the other, a racist institution where they experience ongoing discrimination themselves.

McFadden shares her 24-year quest to defend her overpoliced community while coping with the personal trauma of surviving in a racist police department in this new book available now on Amazon.

See/Hear our Emergency Election Protection Zoom #18:  Everything about how the 2020 balloting is under attack:   https://youtu.be/ZzHjSEdfhI8

Donald Trump has made it clear he will not peacefully relinquish power after the coming election, no matter what the outcome. He will brand any legitimate vote count that shows him losing as “fraudulent” and proclaim himself Emperor for life.  

With the devastating departure of our beloved Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Trump’s ability to turn yet another election at the Supreme Court is now dangerously enhanced.  

Those of us opposing a permanent Trump dictatorship must first focus our efforts on making sure he is defeated in the popular vote – and that this result is accurately reflected in the official electoral outcome.