Anyone looking for insight into Ilhan Omar, the prominent freshman congresswoman from Minnesota, is apt to be both pleased and disappointed by Time for Ilhan.

Norah Shapiro’s documentary does a good job of explaining how a Muslim immigrant from Somalia came to play such a big role on the national stage. On the other hand, it offers little help in understanding the controversies that have arisen since Omar arrived in Washington.

One thing is certain: Omar is not the kind of woman who’s deterred by long odds. That becomes apparent minutes into the film.

Walking into her young daughter’s bedroom, she’s greeted with the question “Are you president now?” Though that particular job is out of reach for Omar, as it is for any immigrant, the girl obviously thinks there is little her ambitious mom can’t achieve. And Omar seems to have passed this “can do” attitude on to her daughter, whose wall displays a list of qualifications needed to become an astronaut.

Weddings, over the years, have been something of a pain in the ass. From time to time I’ve done everything from a Catholic Church to a cornfield, and it’s all sort of a frontal assault on those of us who suffer from ADD. While my Keynesian philosophy appreciates weddings as an important economic driver, my inner tightwad estimates the expense of and shivers at the sight of a horse drawn carriage.

I can’t even deal with the invitations -- being commanded by people I barely know to “save the date” feels like being ordered around by a cop, which is my least favorite kind of being ordered around. Although I don’t know if I’ll even be alive in July of 2020, I now know for damned certain I’ll be spending at least one day that month eating rubber chicken with people named Todd and Andy.

But this time was different. When I walked into my office on one fine Monday in early April, I spied an envelope with “Ed” written on it carefully placed on my keyboard. Opening it, I found an invitation to the Smith-Jones Wedding, to take place on 4/20/19 at precisely 4:20 PM. There was no address, just some vague directions to a road near Legend Valley and a dubious promise of signs.

Thursday, May 2, 7-9pm, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church and University Center, 30 W. Woodruff Ave.

Since the dissolution of our former parent organization, the International Socialist Organization [ISO], we have worked to rebuild our organizing collective on a healthier basis.

Now, we are in the process of rethinking our approach to organizing and charting a path forward to building a new revolutionary socialist organization in Ohio.

We would like to invite all of those interested in initiating this new formation to contribute in this collective process of developing the kind of revolutionary organization we want and need in Columbus to fight against exploitation, oppression, and the capitalist system.

This meeting will focus on developing comrades’ ideas into proposals, which will then be voted on in the coming weeks. We will facilitate discussion by combining break-out groups to focus on specific topics, while utilizing stack to discuss among the entire collective.

Hosted by Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists.

Here I am sleeping at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington D.C. so that a coup government led by a graduate of George Washington University a few blocks from here doesn’t take the place over or send the U.S. Secret Service (and what the hell is secret about them?) to do it, and I keep wishing that the U.S. government could find the nerve to overthrow itself for a change.

The old joke is that the U.S. government is never overthrown because it’s in the one capital that doesn’t have a U.S. embassy. Not actually a joke, of course. And there’s nothing funny about 40,000 people reportedly already killed by U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. But why can’t the U.S. government create a U.S. Embassy, or short of that, a U.S. Congress? There used to be a U.S. Congress that acted powerfully to restrain various presidents, even drove Nixon to run away. There’s nothing left of it.

On April 8, two days after the death of Rubén Castilla Herrera, the team that supports Miriam Vargas gathered at First English Lutheran Church on the Near East Side. They met to remember Rubén, who started the sanctuary movement in Columbus. Miriam and her family have been living in sanctuary at First English since June. 

Miriam was overcome with grief. She met with the team as usual but could only say a few words. “He was like my father,” she said. “He was like a grandfather to my daughters.”

Reverend Sally Padgett, senior pastor at First English, did her best to comfort Miriam. “We’re still here to fight for you,” she said.

The team met again two days later to figure out how to carry on the work without Rubén, who left very big shoes to fill. “Rubén was always texting me early in the morning, asking ‘What to you need?’” Miriam said. “He brought me books in Spanish from the library. He would horse around with my daughter Camilla. He gave me strength every single day. He was my angel. I always told him that. He would always say, ‘I’m just here to help.’”