In this era of Columbus development explosion, Freep has often been critical of the mixed-use condominiums jammed into some of the city’s most unique neighborhoods.

We also feel some recent developments were much needed in certain areas, such as Italian Village and Grandview. But did the city have to allow off-campus to turn into a lame corporate piano bar and Clintonville’s Indianola Avenue into a Siberia-looking gulag loaded with condo boomers?

Speaking of Indianola, Freep has criticized the city’s lack of effort to save Olympic Pool, which of course was destroyed for a high-end condo with a stunning view of I-71. Clintonville realtor Joe Jackson of Keller Williams Realty told the Freep he just learned – and confirmed just last week – the owners of Olympic Pool had tried to gift the pool to the city, but the city refused.

The city helped save the Crew, but the team’s new stadium could cost the city $100 million. With that commitment we feel saving Olympic and rehabbing it into an updated water park would have been worth any lack of long-term profitability.

Could anything have saved Olympic?

Well-known local human rights activist Esther Flores is this month’s speaker at the Free Press Second Saturday Salon. The Free Press Salon is a gathering place for progressive people to socialize, network and have a good time. At most salons, there is a presentation on a political or social justice issue. Esther is a registered nurse, founder of the non-profit 1DivineLine2Health, and an advocate for the needy in her West Side neighborhood.

At the salon Saturday, March 14, Esther will speak about her work with 1DivineLine2Health and how they “provide care to the sick who have no access to healthcare via a line of compassionate messengers who deliver healing to victims of human and drug trafficking.” The Salon runs from 6:30-11pm and you can hear Esther’s presentation at 7:30pm. The Free Press Second Saturday Salon is at 1021 East Broad Street, is free, with no RSVP required. Join local progressives for food, drink, music, art and good company.

California’s Super Tuesday primary on March 3 comes amid an atomic struggle whose outcome will hugely impact the nation and world, including the global climate crisis, the Green New Deal and the outcome of the 2020 election.

Ground Zero is Diablo Canyon, nine miles west of San Luis Obispo. Ringed by earthquake faults, the two big atomic reactors there are less than 50 miles west of the infamous San Andreas Fault. Since their mid-1980s opening, the Diablo Canyon reactors have become a symbol of everything the global No Nukes movement opposes, provoking more civil disobedience arrests (over 10,000) than any other U.S. reactor site.

The two reactors are also in the vortex of a revolution in green tech. All other California nukes have since shut down. Meanwhile, new solar and wind installations accounted for some 1,700 megawatts of new green capacity last year alone. That’s nearly three-quarters the total power of the two Diablo nukes combined.

Calling on Sherrod Brown

There was an organized commotion outside Senator Sherrod Brown’s office on High Street on January 29 to call attention to National Sanctuary Action Day. A few dozen people from the support group of Miriam Vargas, who is currently in Sanctuary in a Columbus church, joined together to amplify the voices of people living in Sanctuary around the country and to urge the Senator to meet with them.

The protestors held a banner that said “Keep All Families Together,” and gave speeches calling for the local legislators to take action in support of undocumented people. Miriam has questions she wants answered by Senator Brown: What is the senator doing in Congress to push for immigration reform? How can they build a path forward toward legal residence for all people currently in Sanctuary?

Why does universal health care scare so many otherwise rational people?

Why aren’t people more scared that the worker slapping the bun on their burger makes minimum wage, doesn’t have health insurance, and can’t afford to stay home from work when they have a cold or the flu?

Why don’t U.S. citizens feel they deserve healthcare, mandated maternity leave, universal childcare, free college tuition and a clean environment? These programs are routinely expected in most other developed countries. The U.S. is the outlier, with a small group of elites convincing the population that the necessities of life must be purchased in a market economy rather than part of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

People in the United States are comfortably sandwiched in between a friendly Canada, a (semi) friendly Mexico – despite President Donald Trump’s xenophobic attacks – and two massive non-hostile oceans on each side. The vast majority of residents speak just one language and have had only the limited option of choosing between the same two major political parties since 1864.