LA Opera’s latest star-studded production, The Light in the Piazza, is a version of the musical that opened on Broadway in 2005, based on the 1960 novella by Elizabeth Spencer. This love story about an American mother and daughter, Margaret Johnson (legendary Renée Fleming) and Clara (Disney actress Dove Cameron), visiting Florence has a unique twist: Clara is developmentally challenged. While in Italy she falls in love with the Florentine Fabrizio Naccarelli (English actor Rob Houchen, a Les Mis co-star of a West End show production), son of a shopkeeper (two-time Tony Award-winner Brian Stokes Mitchell and Tony-nommed in 1998 for Ragtime; Mitchell’s film/TV work includes playing Hawaiian surfer Duke Kahanamoku in the 1999 TV-movie Too Rich).

The discussion, if one might even call it that, regarding the apparent President Donald Trump decision to withdraw at least some American soldiers from Syria has predictably developed along partisan, ideologically fueled lines. Trump has inevitably muddied the waters by engaging in his usual confusing explanations coupled with piles of invective heaped upon critics. The decision reportedly came after a telephone call with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but what exactly was agreed upon and who else might have been present in the room to report back to the intelligence community remains uncertain. Trump clearly believed that he had obtained some assurances regarding limits to any proposed Turkish military action from Erdogan, who almost immediately launched air attacks followed by ground troop incursions against the former U.S. supported Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Friday, October 18, 4:00 – 6:00 PM
Many of you have been closely watching the debate on House Bill 6, legislation passed in July, which would place a charge on the bill of every ratepayer in Ohio to bailout two struggling nuclear plants and two of the region’s oldest, dirtiest coal plants. As if that were not enough, the legislation also guts the state’s successful renewable energy and efficiency standards that we have all fought so hard to defend over the last decade. If enough signatures are collected to get this issue on the ballot, the referendum effort keeps the law from going into effect until after Ohioans cast their votes in November 2020. Location:Land Grant Brewing Company 424 W. Town St. Columbus, OH 43215.

I can't help but speculate that none other than former Gov. John Kasich was behind the selection of Otterbein University as the site for the fourth Democratic Presidential Debate Oct. 15.

Columbus Business Firstreported that it was a cryptic call from CNN to Otterbein that started the process.

It would not be surprising if Johnny Nobody whispered in his new employer's ears that his hometown of Westerville would be perfect for the roasting of his archrival President Donald Trump.

Otterbein currently provides a studio from which Kasich does his commentator musings on CNN, so he owes the university one.

Kasich is still smarting from the whipping Trump gave him in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. Johnny only carried Ohio and that only with the help of the endorsement of OSU football icon Urban Meyer.

He was on CNN, the debate sponsor, and MSNBC earlier Oct. 15 touting his new book about nothing anybody would pay to read. It should be titled: Nobody Writes About Nothing.

Johnny offered advice to candidates for president: just be yourself.

Bad advice. Most Republican voters did not like Johnny's self.

Sources of Voting Information:   
Early voting is going on right now.
Check your voter registration here. Register to vote online: https://olvr.sos.state.oh.us. 
For more information: ACLUOHIO.Org/Vote.