Sometimes you just have to speak your mind.

Rant #1. The Cleveland Clinic and fake news. It is well known that the vaunted Cleveland Clinic derides medical marijuana. Dr. Paul Terpeluk, Medical Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Employee Health Services, recently penned a news release attesting to “better alternatives.” The release aimed to explain why the Clinic bars its physicians from recommending cannabis under the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program (OMMCP), the regulatory body created by HB 523 to oversee medical cannabis cultivation, processing, distribution and sales in Ohio. Fair enough. Under the law, local jurisdictions, including hospitals, can establish their own policies, particularly on their premises.

That’s the real news. The fake news involved a widely circulated social media post entitled, “Cleveland Clinic MMJ Policy in a nut shell – Call the Cops!” That probably got your heart pumping! The problem? It’s fiction.

Charlottesville, Virginia, has yet to take down its racist statues (the ones all the fuss has been about or any of the other ones). Charlottesville has yet to ban guns from public events. It blames the state legislature in both of those and many other topics. But the City of Charlottesville has our public dollars invested in weapons, and it is perfectly capable of changing that.

In this case, excuses may prove hard to come by. Charlottesville has divested in the past from Sudan and from South Africa.

The City has passed resolutions in the past opposing wars and urging Congress to move money from militarism to human and environmental needs. Yet the City has our money invested in weapons companies whose weapons are used in environmentally destructive wars in which most of the victims don’t look “white” — and often used on both sides of those wars.

And the City has our money invested in fossil fuel companies — exactly the entities National Security Advisor John Bolton says will benefit from overthrowing the government of Venezuela.

“Majorities are never a proof of the truth.” – Dr Walter Hadween

“Whoever pays the piper, calls the tune.” – Ancient Proverb

“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” – Socrates

“Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.” – Excerpt from the Hippocratic Oath, which forbids physicians from administering poisons to patients.

“A recent study by the world-renowned immunologist Dr. H. Hugh Fudenberg found that adults vaccinated yearly (in the 1980s and 1990s) for five years in a row with the flu vaccine had a 10-fold increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. He attributes this to the mercury and aluminum in the vaccine. Interestingly, both of these metals have been shown to activate microglia and increase excitotoxicity in the brain.” -- Russell Blaylock, MD

TOLEDO, OH:  Fifty years after the media infamously declared “Lake Erie is dead,” Toledo voters recognize that Lake Erie and its entire ecosystem is very much alive – and as such, Lake Erie has the right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve.

Despite agricultural and industrial interests’ well-funded campaign opposing the ordinance, with a 61.37-percent yes vote on Tuesday, Toledo voters have enacted the Lake Erie Bill of Rights Charter Amendment. The law recognizes the rights of the lake and its watershed, and empowers citizens – as part of that larger ecosystem, and who have “the right to a healthy environment” – to stand up for the lake when those rights are violated.

“It was definitely a long, hard struggle to get to this day, but all the hard work and countless volunteer hours by everyone in our local community group has paid off,” stated Crystal Jankowski, a Toledoan for Safe Water organizer. “We started this more than two years ago and had to overcome election board decisions and protests in court just to get on the ballot.”

A choice must now be made.