Happy 420!!! There is much to celebrate this year. Full legal adult use in Ohio! Home grow! Possible rescheduling, better still descheduling! Reproductive rights! Ohio accomplished much in 2023 that we can crow about in 2024.

But we didn’t do it alone. They say many hands make light work. It takes a village. In truth, to arrive where we are today required thousands of our fellow citizens coming together over a span of 50+ years. What we did last year, began in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and so forth.

And, we climbed proverbial mountains to get there. The tears. The fears. The heartbreaks. The impediments. The injustices. Yet, here we are, still standing, better than we ever were before.

Despite countless obstacles, we should still show gratitude for what we have and what we gained. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to us, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to our advancement, we should include all things in our gratitude.”

In 1927 Sergei Eisenstein – the wunderkind of Soviet cinema, whose 1925 Potemkin swept the globe – was reportedly pressured to cut Leon Trotsky out of October, aka Ten Days that Shook the World, the film he was commissioned to make celebrating the tenth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, by Joseph Stalin, who was then engaged in a faction fight with Trotsky and the Left Opposition. Almost 20 years later, after Stalin had butchered Lenin’s Central Committee, Eisenstein directed Ivan the Terrible to great acclaim, winning the State Prize of the Soviet Union – Stalinskaya Premia. However, Eisenstein’s sequel, Ivan the Terrible, Part II, was banned – the betrayer of the Russian Revolution realized that Eisenstein intended Ivan to be a not-so-subtle veiled reference to Stalin. Eisenstein never lived to see the release of his masterpiece in the late 1950s after Stalin’s death and Khruschev’s “thaw” opened the USSR up, because, it’s believed, that the Kremlin put so much pressure on the filmmaker that the 50-year-old suffered a heart attack and died in 1948.    

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, stands to protect Americans from government abuse of power.

Although Members of Congress, the Administration and the Supreme Court take an oath to uphold the Constitution,  U.S. government agency officials in the FBI, CIA and NSA, acting under the color of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance  (FISA) Act, routinely search and retain information on Americans' phone calls, emails and texts, without a required warrant. 

Let’s Close This Case 

Detective Richardson looked over the recent information that he received regarding Booker T’s case. This case had been difficult to solve, however the pieces of the puzzle were fitting into place. His interviews with both Shelia and Jimmy had been productive. He believed Shelia didn’t know about her daughters and their connection to Smooth until he told her today. That removed the only motive he felt Shelia had to murder Smooth. So, he checked her off of his suspect list. He was surprised that she didn’t know about Jimmy’s daughter, considering Annie was Sara’s best friend, but that was a minor detail.

Jimmy on the other hand, had been surprised. Jimmy started the interview cocky, smirking when questioned about Smooth and their last encounter. He stopped smirking when Richardson asked about his daughter, Annie. “When was the last time you saw your daughter?”

Jimmy jumped up from the chair, looking at Richardson in shock. “What does Annie have to do with this?”