The East Side of Columbus – where the Columbus we know now was essentially born – has been much maligned during this modern era. No doubt calls for improvement have been echoing for some time.

The city has done plenty to facilitate the Short North. More recently attention and infrastructure funding have turned to Franklinton and South Linden.

East Side residents from the Near East to Eastmoor and out to Eastland Mall are saying, once again, don’t leave us behind.

“The city when it comes to the East Side, the plan is all very piecemeal, and frankly, half-assed. That is the only way to put it,” says Michelle Santuomo, former president of the Eastmoor Civic Association, representing the neighborhood between Bexley and Whitehall. “There’s so much that needs to get done. The city has ignored us. And I have gone down to City Council and made fools of them whenever they do their budgets. I say, ‘Where’s the money for the East Side?’

Staement from the Columbus Freedom Coalition:

The Google Doodle today honors the Greensboro Four, African American students in North Carolina who took a stand against racial injustice by staging a sit-in at a Woolworth’s counter. As you are no doubt aware this was a controversial stand. People were made uncomfortable as their world view was being challenged by the actions of these 4 young men.

I imagine that the individuals in the room on Monday January 20, 2020 at the Columbus MLK Celebration were uncomfortable. Yet it seems they were also oblivious. As they displayed utter disregard for the teaching and example of the man they had assembled to honor.

Dr King’s example of nonviolent protest was on display as members of the Columbus Freedom Coalition staged a protest at the Greater Columbus Convention Center event. I applaud CFC’s efforts. Remember Dr. King said, “The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had.’

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This weekend, Pete Buttigieg told supporters that he became a viable candidate for president “on the strength of our vision” and “the urgency of our convictions.” Such rhetoric fits snugly into a creation myth about his campaign that Buttigieg has been promoting since early 2019.

Summing up the gist of that myth, Buttigieg began this year by standing at a whiteboard and looking into a camera while he talked about the genesis of his run for the presidency. “We launched as an exploratory committee, not even a full year ago, with a few volunteers, zero dollars in the bank,” he said -- and “without the personal wealth of a millionaire or a billionaire.”

Last Monday a United States Air Force Bombardier E11A communications and intelligence gathering jet was either shot down or crashed in a remote mountainous region of Afghanistan. Almost immediately a story sourcing Taliban officials ran on Iranian State television claiming that the dead had included Michael D’Andrea, the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.)’s special Iran task force, which goes by the name Iran Mission Center.

U.S. forces were hampered by weather, Taliban gunfire and terrain from reaching the site of the crash for more than 24 hours, and the lack of any kind of definitive commentary from Washington gave the story legs. Given the news vacuum on the story, the Iranian account was picked up throughout the Middle East, to include photos allegedly taken of the downed plane and of burned corpses. Russian Media also featured the story and it was eventually even reported, though with some editorial skepticism, by the Independent and Daily Mail in the United Kingdom.