The Mop Closet of American History

“They were quiet, and just staring, blankly,” she said. “There were just blank stares and no expressions on their faces.”

Welcome to hell, as presided over by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

This image bears deep reflection. It doesn’t change. Children are taken from their parents, jammed into cages. They have no lives left.

The speaker is Dr. Sara Goza, new president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who recently toured some emigrant detention facilities, including CBP’s Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas. “The first thing that hit me when we walked in the door,” Goza said, according to NBC News, “was the smell. It was the smell of sweat, urine and feces.”

SCRAPS Theater Review

As earthquakes struck SoCal a theatrical aftershock rocked the L.A. stage on July 6 with the West Coast premiere of Scraps. Geraldine Inoa’s brilliant, powerful play is at the cutting edge of the stage and screen cycle of productions reacting to the surge of police and vigilante killings of African Americans and/or the judicial system’s unjust mistreatment of Blacks. And Scraps is among the best of these works protesting racial injustice and inequity perpetrated (and perpetuated) by those perps/twerps - the “men” in blue and in robes (sometimes black, sometimes white).

 

Inspired by Michael Brown’s murder, Inoa’s Scraps focuses on how these injustices reverberate in the minds and lives of loved ones left behind after these discriminatory slayings occur. This may surprise some because according to racial tropes, African Americans aren’t sophisticated enough to have unconscious minds, but Inoa begs to differ. 

 

Demand U.S. Legislators Defund Harmful Immigrant Enforcement Policies

People outside at a rally holding signs saying Children out of detention and End Mandatory Detention Now
From Unitarian Universalists Justice Ohio - Demand U.S. Legislators Defund Harmful Immigrant Enforcement Policies.  From the Friends Committee on National Legislation:  "The administration has demanded more money for harmful immigration enforcement policies and Congress has funded them.  The supplemental spending bill (H.R. 3401) Congress just passed was more of the same. It provides money with no guarantee that it will be spent to protect children, not further militarize our border. This approach is worsening the humanitarian crisis. Congress is home this week for their Independence Day recess. It’s important that they hear from you. Urge them to divest from enforcement spending and instead, invest in true humanitarian assistance."   Three Steps to Dropping by a Congressional Office: 

The Obama Wars

By “the Obama wars” I don’t mean some overgrown infants on television screaming racist insults or pretending that opposing racism requires cheering for Obama.

I mean: the widespread indiscriminate murder of human beings with missiles — many of them from robot airplanes — let loose to threaten any non-white country on earth by Obama and expanded by Trump. I mean the catastrophic destruction of Libya — still continued by Trump. I mean the war on Afghanistan, the vast bulk of which was overseen by Obama, though Bush and Trump have had minor roles. I mean the assault on Yemen, begun by Obama and escalated by Trump. I mean the war on Iraq and Syria escalated first by Obama and then by Trump (following the de-escalation locked in place by Bush though Obama fought it tooth-and-nail).

Near East Side Riots – 50 Years Later

Street scene with a tower and trees and a lightpost and electricity poles

The Near East Side has become one of the trendier places of Columbus in recent years. However, it was only a half-century ago this month that the Near East Side had a completely opposite story to tell. A story that has helped give the neighborhood a negative perception for decades. The Near East Side of 2019 is a long cry from the Near East Side of 1969. Or is it?

The day was Monday July 21, 1969, the day after the historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing.  David Chesnut, a 69-year-old white businessman on 832 East Main Street fatally shot Roy Beasley, a 27 year-old Black sanitation worker for the City of Columbus who lived in the home directly behind Chesnut’s dry cleaning business, The Pad and Pillow Place, when the two got into an argument over Beasley’s three children playing on Chesnut’s property.

My View From the Weeds: Reclaiming the Right to Heal Without Big Pharma

Red medical box with a white cross on the front full of flowers

Independence Day each year serves as a reminder of the liberties afforded to U.S. citizens and consumers. Yet in 2019, when the word medicine is used the first thing that comes to the mind of many Americans are the pills doctors prescribe for them, available at a pharmacy. The truth is hidden from public view: most modern pharmaceuticals were created by synthesizing phytochemicals from herbs and plants.

The roots of herbal medicine weave throughout history and cultures. Archeologists have found evidence that the use of herbs goes back to the paleolithic era, 60,000 BCE. Sumerian tablets carved into stone and ancient Egyptian texts highlight the use of herbs and plants for medical purposes. In fact, the origin of the word medicine comes from the greek word fármako. Often referred to as the father of herbal medicine Hippocrates declared in ancient Greece, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”

A return to Put-In-Bay

Neon sign with a parrot, palm trees, and the words in script Jimmy Buffet and the word in large capitals Margaritaville

Against my better judgment, in a couple of weeks I’ll be taking a trip up to Put-In-Bay with the family of one of my daughter’s friends. I say better judgment, because the last time I went there I ended up spending nine boring hours with some guy named Mitch, who owes me money. Ah yes, island culture. Boating culture. Buffet Culture.

When I was 18 I had a job bussing tables at a place up at Crosswoods called Cantina del Rio. On Fridays and Saturdays they would have live acoustic music at the bar. The acts differed, but it was always more or less the same set. The only real question was whether they would open or close with Margaritaville. 

In college one of my friends got free tickets to see some guy named Pat Dailey play at Promo West and I got dragged along. We knew nothing about the guy. This local college rock band opened up and played a song about being too stupid to effectively communicate in a relationship, or something equally insubstantial.* They had like nine guitar players, and there was this weird scene where this gigundus band tore down and was replaced by just one guy with an acoustic guitar.

Who’s UA’s Kelly Kullberg? A wolf among the flock

A yellow street sign that shows a family running across a street and the words CAUTION against trees and the words below What Would Jesus Do?

What would Jesus do about the undocumented immigrant crisis at our southern border?

He would walk with them to America but then hold up his hand and proclaim, “Stop Here!”

He would also create a far-reaching network of pro-Trump Facebook pages, including Blacks for Trump and lie that he’s African American. 

For us at Freep, this is not the Jesus we know. But for Upper Arlington’s Kelly Kullberg, a far-right Evangelical celebrity of sorts, this is her Jesus, as she transforms him and the scriptures into political weapons.

Deep within the American heartland there are a host of Evangelical Christian strongholds, and no doubt, Columbus is one of them.

Two local congregations or megachurches, both with thousands of devoted followers, stand out. There’s Rod Parsley and his World Harvest Church, which sort of looks like a massive menacing spaceship, in Canal Winchester. In Westerville there’s the main campus of the Vineyard, which recently announced that its congregation raised $13 million in six weeks to build five more campuses.

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