Beatles Marathon Man

Young white man with both arms up in the air singing at a mic

Man of the Year 2018: Joe Peppercorn, purveyor of our annual dozen-hour Beatles Marathon at the Blue Stone, an event of such precise performance by him and his merry band of precision players I could've sworn I was in Liverpool's The Cavern or Hamburg's Star-Club or even Shea Stadium 1966.

Oh, and Abbey Road Studio. Joe, his lads and his lasses, did a technically killer job of recreating the George Martin sounds the Fab Four concocted so brilliantly and so seemingly effortlessly.

But absolutely get one thing straight: Marathon #9 was no cheesy stroll down memory lane, trading hollow nostalgia for an actual feeling. The band's superb, sure, but only a true believer could bring the soul of the Beatles to life.

Huntington Bank does NOT welcome Cannabis Cash

Green dollar sign with joint being he vertical sign through the S

"Anyone who walks into a Huntington [Bank] branch should feel welcomed. … We hold ourselves accountable to the highest ethical standards in how we operate, hire and train colleagues, and interact with the communities we have the privilege of serving." – Statement emailed to CBS MoneyWatch from Huntington Bank on 12/19/18.

Bah Humbug!

Huntington National Bank (HNB) doesn’t discriminate against or mistreat the communities they serve … yeah, right. There’s one distinct group of citizens they don’t want. Those customers risk having their lives turned upside down.

August 17, 2018 seemed like any other summertime Friday. Chores and yard work awaited. The doorbell rang. The mailman handed me a pen to sign a certified letter from Huntington Bank.

Mind you, I was a Huntington Bank customer for 42 years. Wedding checks were deposited into my account as was Social Security. The account paid for kindergarten crayons and college tuition. Never an overdraft or bounced check. By any banking standard, I was a model customer.

From Beyond Nuclear: Stop nuclear waste dump on the beach! Sign the petition

Birds eye view of a beach with ocean waves and a lot of buildings on the coast

Now you can also act to do something about it. 

My View from the Weeds: Herbalists Without Borders

Drawing of the Earth with lots of flowers around it and the words Herbalists Without Borders on a sash going across it

Herbalism is the people’s medicine – allowing people to grow medicine alongside their food and take charge of their health. Herbalists Without Borders (HWB) People’s Clinics give people access to help and refers them to ongoing help when needed. It is the holistic ER that so many need but have not been able to access before.

What is HWB? It is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) that focuses on delivering heath care and food justice worldwide through a fifteen specific projects: they deliver trauma training for practitioners, run community herb apothecaries and people's clinics, and they practice international borderless medicine (similar to Doctors Without Frontiers in places of famine or war).

HWB hosts medicinal seed saving projects and community gardens, have a veterans’ resiliency holistic clinic in Washington D.C., and run the Keepers of Herbal Traditions Project in Puerto Rico.

A Retrospective of Duty to Warn Columns from 2015 (That are Still Relevant)

I usually try not to pay too much attention to the ubiquitous and repetitious, end-of-year summaries that media outlets feel compelled to publish in the week leading up to New Year’s Day. Not a lot of original journalism gets done during the last week of the year. The week after Christmas is vacation time for a lot of newspapers’ employees. Recycling old news reports from the past year is something even a newspaper’s unpaid interns can do.

Bernie Sanders Starts Mentioning the Military Budget

Bernie Sanders has added the existence of foreign policy onto the bottom of emails like the one below, after having posted

Reflections on 2018, Forecasting 2019

In many ways it is painful to reflect on the year 2018; a year of vital opportunities lost when so much is at stake.

 

Whether politically, militarily, socially, economically, financially or ecologically, humanity took some giant strides backwards while passing up endless opportunities to make a positive difference in our world.

 

Let me, very briefly, identify some of the more crucial backward steps, starting with the recognition by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in January that the year had already started badly when they moved the Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight, the closest it has ever been to ‘doomsday’ (and equal to 1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclear weapon matching the US capacity). See ‘It is now two minutes to midnight’.

 

New Year's Predictions and Resolutions

Painting with pink circles in three rows going up coming off hands

Resolutions:

I want to write more about music and less about politics. While responses to our current regime is dominating everything, unless some Republican's switch sides... is there anything you want me to write that would tell you something you don't know heading into 2020.

Research the names, history and roles of major intelligence agencies. We know the CIA is the United States Intelligence agency. The Russian GRU is the name that applies to which was once the KGB. What about our neighbors Canada, and Mexico? Seems like China's intelligence agency would probably be part of the conversation. A better understanding of how the world is intertwined might help us understand the reality we live as we watch our internet and cable news.

Health Care Policy Breakthrough: Ohio Legislators Hear Public Testimony on “Medicare for All Ohioans”

Lots of white people sitting in rows on wooden seats

The “Offense Book of Books” kicks off their publication during three events in January.

Every once in a while something good seemingly falls into your lap. The proponent hearing on HB 440, the Ohio Health Security Act (OHSA) in the House Insurance Committee on December 5 and 12 was pure serendipity.

The OHSA would provide payment for all necessary health care for all Ohio residents for life. It includes inpatient and outpatient hospital care, preventive care, mental health, vision, hearing, prescription drugs, dental, medications and medical devices, emergency services-including transportation, rehabilitation, hospice care, home care and other necessary medical services as determined by any state licensed health care practitioner. It is “Medicare for All for Ohioans.”

Co-sponsors of HB 440 are Ohio House Representatives Teresa Fedor and Bernadine Kennedy Kent.

Geek Speak: The Offense rises again

Black and white old newspaper with photos of guys from a band and words The Offense and The Del Byzanteens

The Offense was an alternative music fanzine published by Tim Anstaett that appeared between April '80 and March '82, according it its Facebook Event page. Anstaett covered the punk and alternative music scene in Columbus from 1982 through 1989. Some Columbus-ites will remember the campus scene when Crazy Mama’s was the place to be.

The Offense was “…one of the longest-running and most prolific punk fanzines of the midwest. The fanzine was one of the primary sources in the US for information on post-punk and goth acts of the time as well, with features on Nick Cave, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Wolfgang Press, and other acts. This run includes the rare unnumbered Cave Report issue, a one sheet issued to report on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' visit to the Midwest,” writes www.divisionleap.com.

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