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Public Education, Mass Transit and Taxpayers Continue to be Cheated

Big white government building with tall gray statue out front and some greenery in the foreground

COLUMBUS, OH –Columbus City Council Candidate Joe Motil and longtime outspoken critic of the city’s tax abatement policies was encouraged to see that other reputable U.S. news organizations are reporting about the counterproductive and unnecessary use of tax abatements to Fortune 500 companies and their subsidiaries that take place nearly on a daily basis here in Columbus, Ohio. An article in today’s Bloomberg Businessweek titled, “When Midwest Startups Sell, Their Hometown Schools Often Lose” talked about the Columbus Education Associations (CEA) decision to protest Columbus City Councils $55 million tax abatement giveaway to CoverMyMeds. CoverMyMeds is owned by pharmaceutical giant the McKesson Corporation which reports profits of $2 billion most years.

 

Book Review: Arthur Ashe: A Life by Raymond Arsenault

Black and white photo of young black man with afro playing tennis

I had the pleasure of meeting Arthur Ashe in the early 1980s. It was in a little tennis shop in a strip mall somewhere on Bethel Road. He was representing his brand, Le Coq Sportif, and the store was full of white children who weren’t even born when Ashe was on the professional tennis circuit. In fact, he and I were the only two black people in the store. I had just come from a tennis lesson, and we chatted about that briefly. He signed my copies of two books he had written, stopping to look at a photo of himself after heart surgery, and a poster for my tennis instructor, Dick Fryman. He couldn’t have been more gracious.

RAID - Resistance Against Immigrant Detention

Guy in blue jacket with words ICE on the back putting another guy in handcuffs

On Friday, August 16, at 4PM RAID will be holding a rally at the Ohio Statehouse to demand an end to ICE activity in Central Ohio and nationwide. We intend to use this rally to bring the public’s attention back to the detention of our immigrant community and demand freedom for those detained as well as an immediate cease to ICE raids and detention efforts.

We are Central Ohio grassroots activists dedicated to supporting immigrant communities affected by unethical detention of the state. Through direct action, community awareness, and support, we intend to keep our neighbors and community members safe from raids and deportation by abolishing ICE and closing the camps and detention centers.

Voter Forum Featuring Columbus City Council Candidates

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Thursday, August 15, 2019, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Calling all the S.E.X.Y. Voters come and be EMPOWERED ! Ask questions of the Candidates asking for YOUR vote!  Location:  1561 Old Leonard Ave., Columbus 43219. Hosted by WTF? Weigh The Facts. Facebook

Thailand Proudly Produces Its First Medical Marijuana

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Unwilling to allow the public to get zonked or
profit from recreational marijuana, Thailand has instead produced its
first pharmaceutical THC and CBD oils, tablets, oral sprays, chocolate
wafers and traditional potions after recently legalizing medical
cannabis.

This first line of weed-based products puts Thailand on the cutting
edge of Southeast Asia's legal marijuana industry, a lucrative
advantage if allowed to flourish.

If recreational marijuana is legalized and freely grown, it would
create an extremely profitable domestic and international market
possibly bigger than this mostly agricultural country's rice, sugar
cane, or tapioca crops.

South Korea is ahead of Thailand in producing legal medical cannabis
products for domestic use.

India offers relatively small, decades-old legal "bhang" sales for
recreational use solely within that country and made from otherwise
illegal marijuana.

Proud of the tiny amount they created, the government organized a

Jail Vote Training – ACLU People Power

Purple background and white words People Power Action Event

Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 6:00 PM
Did you know? Many individuals who are detained in jails do retain the right to vote. In Ohio, only those in jail or prison following a felony conviction lose the right to vote. But while those awaiting trial can still cast a ballot, few are able to do so because officials do not have voting programs in place. Join All Voting is Local and the ACLU of Ohio for a training to learn how you can help register voters currently detained in Ohio’s jails.  At this training you will learn:  What are jails – who is in them and who runs them; How to help voters register and request an absentee ballot; and, How to build an effective volunteer team.  Refreshments Provided.  Location:  Columbus Metropolitan Library – Northern Lights Branch, 4093 Cleveland Ave., Columbus 43224.  Register here. 

Vaccines and the Liberal Mind

“Instead of demanding blue-ribbon safety science and encouraging honest, open and responsible debate on the science, liberal blogs shut down discussion on this key public health and civil rights issue, and silence critics, treating faith in vaccines as a religion; the heresy of questioning dogma meets with anathema and excommunication.”…”Many vaccines contain dangerous amounts of known neurotoxins like mercury and aluminum and carcinogens like formaldehyde, that are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, autoimmune problems, food allergies and cancers that might not be diagnosed for many years.”…“No matter how toxic the ingredients, how negligent the manufacturer or how grievous the harm, vaccine-injured children cannot sue a vaccine company!”….” Pervasive financial entanglements with vaccine makers and the other alchemies of agency capture have transformed the FDA and CDC into pharmaceutical industry sock puppets.” -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

 

FEFU AND HER FRIENDS REVIEW

Originality is among those attributes I admire and cherish most in the arts, and Maria Irene Fornes’ Fefu and Her Friends is very singular on several fronts. First of all, the Cuban-born, Obie Award-winning playwright’s characters are all female, and this is far less common than mixed gender or all male casts, such as in Jason Miller’s That Championship Season, first produced in the 1970s, as was Fefu. This casting and the fact that the bard is a woman indelibly stamps Fefu with a distinctly feminist point of view. As such, Fefu deals with gender issues, sexual politics, as well as with same sex relationships.

 

Pax Christi USA - End Nuclear Weapons by Joining the Back from the Brink Campaign

Big orange and white explosion in the middle making a mushroom cloud and words Join the Back from the Brink Campaign Prevent this

On the 74th anniversary of the United States imposing nuclear devastation on Hiroshima, Japan, Pax Christi USA launched its Back from the Brink: The Call to Prevent Nuclear War Campaign.  We believe that the massive death, damage, years of suffering, and pure adulteration of humanity and creation caused by nuclear weapons should never happen again. Therefore, the goal of this campaign is to get your local government (state, city, town, or county) to adopt publicly a "Back from the Brink: The Call to Prevent Nuclear War" resolution. Places around the country are already doing this. Phase one of the campaign will be August 6, 2019 through August 9, 2020, and we invite all PCUSA regions, local groups, and individuals to participate. The campaign, modeled on the larger United States Back from the Brink initiative, is endorsed by numerous faith, civic, and peace groups.

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