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A huge pile of colorful fruit

Sunday, November 4, 4pm, Boulevard Presbyterian Church, 1235 Northwest Blvd.

The Neighborhood Services, Inc. Food Pantry is excited to present its annual Church Choir Concert Fundraiser! Featuring the combined talented vocals of several Columbus-area churches, join us for an afternoon of music and community as we come together to the blessings of the Thanksgiving season.

This event is free or pay-what-you-wish so please join us in choral jubilation!

Neighborhood Services, Inc. (NSI) had been founded in 1965 by churches in the University District in response to the growing needs of nearby neighbors. From its humble beginnings, NSI has grown into one of the largest hunger assistance service providers in Columbus, Ohio. NSI primarily serves working low-income families and individuals, unemployed individuals and their families, and single heads of household with young, dependent children in the Columbus community.

Hosted by Boulevard Presbyterian Church and the Neighborhood Services, Inc. food pantry.

 

 

Some are inclined to recognize that Trumpies are dwelling in an alternative universe in which neither climate collapse nor nuclear apocalypse is a concern but terrifying wild hoards of Muslim Hondurans are skipping and dancing into the Fatherland armed with gang symbols, deadly rocks, and socialistic tendencies.

Others are alert to the fact that the so-called “mainstream” — the viewpoint of pro-status-quo, anti-improvement institutions — is also fabricated in a wishful dream factory. As exhibit one, I offer: Veterans Day.

A Bravura, Colossal Opera of Activism

 

To support his musical habit and pay the bills, for 20 years among other day jobs composer Philip Glass was a cab driver in New York City. But being a hack finally paid off in 1980 as the Glass ceiling was shattered when Satyagraha burst upon the Schouwburg’s stage in Rotterdam, Holland.

 

There’s a tendency to look down on opera as a centuries’ old art form that’s an outdated medium for old maids, stuffed shirts and all-around fuddy-duddies. But Glass’ revolutionary Satyagraha gives the lie to that clichéd canard. Through mesmerizing music, magisterial stagemanship, surreal scenery, radical politics and more, this three-act, three-hour-plus operatic extravaganza about Mohandas K. Gandhi’s (tenor Sean Panikkar, Pennsylvania-born son of immigrants from Sri Lanka) struggle for social justice is a tour-de-force. 

 

In 1939 the luxury liner St. Louis brought 937 desperate, mostly Jewish refugees to Miami. They were fleeing the Nazi Holocaust. They had already been turned away by Cuba.

Amidst a Red Wave of "nationalist" hate, American "conservatives" screamed that these people were poor, didn't speak English and would take away our precious resources.

So Franklin Roosevelt did not let them into the United States. The ship was sent back to Europe. Nearly every Jew on it perished in Hitler's concentration and death camps.

Throughout Germany, Poland and everywhere else Hitler spread his hate, fascists were marching into synagogues like the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, gunning down Jews.

Today a caravan of desperate refugees is making its way from central America. They are fleeing a slaughterhouse of fascist murder and violence, as well as desperate poverty imposed by the relentless exploitation of imperial corporations.

Candidates have their campaigns energized by Trump, but it may be for good or bad. Some candidates would like to accept his endorsement softly, but that is not possible. Trump’s endorsements may harm their chance of election because:

·       He and the Republican leaders still want to rescind or weaken the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obamacare). They have no viable replacement. ACA is becoming more popular as more people benefit from it.

·       He wants to reduce the benefits from Social Security and Medicare, which is financed solely by FICA Withholding Tax on the workers first $118,500 of earned income.

·       He is a racist and bigot, being against people of color, Hispanics, Muslim, LGBTs; and now apparently Jews, evidence, his inappropriate response following the mega bombing and the mass murders in Pittsburgh.

·       He is a consummate liar.

·       He is desperate this last week before the election. To crowd the real issues out of the news, he is making impossible proposals and promises to the dwindling number of his supporters.

Back of white man with white cop hand putting handcuffs on him

This essay poses reply to the polemics being waged against Ohio Issue 1, which are gaining strong momentum across media channels in the run-up to the election. These include the Issue’s rejection by judges of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, reported on the front page of the Dayton Daily News on Oct. 29, in lamentably one-sided coverage; State Rep. Jim Butler’s blunt stance voiced at a recent Oakwood City Council meeting; and Dayton attorney Diane DePescale’s oversimplified editorial in the Oakwood Register on Oct. 24; to name a few.

These criticisms do give voice to some nontrivial arguments and concerns inherent in an amendment initiative, and deserve our full attention. But too many of these are tableaux of selective truths designed to stoke fear or appeal to the comforts of status-quo, pass-the-buck politics. We would be served better by recommitting the conversation to honest critical debate based on facts, intellectual bona fides, and reasonable discussion of the amendment’s social-legal purposes and consequences.

Words 1960s coffeehouse with a peace sign for the zero and details about the event

Friday, November 2, 7:30pm, King Ave. United Methodist Church, 299 King Ave.

Civil Rights Sit-Ins. Bell-Bottoms. Anti-War Marches. Student Power. Afros. Mini-Skirts. Hippies. Riots. Space Flights. The Generation Gap.

Those hallmarks of the turbulent 1960s will be rekindled on Friday, November 2 at this year’s annual “Spirit of the ‘60’s Coffeehouse.”

Bill Cohen will lead a candle-lit, musical, year-by-year journey through that era, with familiar 1960s folksongs, “news reports” of sixties happenings, displays of anti-war buttons and posters, and far-out sixties fashions.

Plus, Bill will also challenge the audience with sixties trivia questions.

Proceeds from the suggested $10 donation (at the door) will go to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Refreshments will be available at no additional charge. Free parking will be available on the streets and in the lots just south and west of the church.

The show begins at 7:30pm in the church basement but get there early for a good seat.

This program is suitable for adults and mature teens.

Older man with black hat, white hair and beard, sunglasses, sitting on a chair on stage with his arms spread wide with lots of tattoos and a red rock and roll electric guitar on his lap

One of the unrecognized benefits of music is its value as an anthropological tool. Music functions as the soundtrack of a culture, identifying norms and taboos and painting a vivid picture of the lives of its listeners. Music is also invaluable for keeping tabs on the present. For example, according to insideradio.com, there are an estimated 118 million country music fans in the United States. Other than folk legends about a place called “Tennessee” and some unpaid water bills, we know very little about these people.

In the early 70’s, anthropologists Steve Goodman and David Allen Coe performed the first real musical research on the subject, the results of which were eventually published in song format as “You Never Even Called Me by My Name.” According to Goodman and Coe, country music fans in the 70’s were a primitive culture centered around mama, trains, trucks, prison and getting drunk.

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