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Don't got to be grown

Jimmy sat down heavily on his bed taking off his shoes and socks. He lay down on his bed looking up at the ceiling. Today had been a rough day, Slim Jim called off work and he had to drive one of the cabs himself because they had gotten so backed up with calls. When Jimmy got back to the office there was a note on his desk saying that Detective Richardson had stopped by again and to call him as soon as he got back.

“Sissy!” Jimmy yelled as he flopped down in his chair behind the desk.

Sissy rushed into the room with a bottle of RC Cola in her right hand and a hotdog in the left. She took a big swig of the drink and a bite out of the hotdog and sat down in the chair in front of the desk, placing the bottle of pop on the desk and taking another bite of her hotdog.

“Man, it has been a hell of a day here without you! This is the first time I got a chance to eat my lunch, which is now dinner. This is the third time Slim Jim has called off in two months. You need to replace him boss man.”

“What time did that cop come by here?”

Monday, February 12, 2024, 4:30 PM.  Emergency Rally to Call for Ceasefire in Gaza.   Cardboard signs, hot tea and handwarmers, safe community, and calls to action will be provided.  This action will be led by progressive Palestinian and Jewish community members.  All are welcome. Location:  Outside Senator Brown’s office, 200 N. High St.  For more information you can email to hello@barriertoentrypac.com.

Monday, February 12, 2024, 5:00 PM.  Show Up for Palestine.  Join us at city hall again as we let the Columbus city council know we’re here and not going anywhere until a ceasefire resolution is passed.  Location:  90 W. Broad St., Columbus.  You must have a valid Ohio ID to enter. 

The theme of the salon was “ Building Community for Black Liberation.” It was available live on Zoom and Facebook Live.

Link to salon video

Mark Stansbery, Free Press Board member, started out the February salon by introducing Aramis Malachi-Ture Sundiata, Executive Director of the  People's Justice Project. He spoke about colonialism and how the struggle for African people began when the first African was kidnapped. Europeans attacked and enslaved the African people taking the continent's resources with force both material and human to build their own economies. . . Africans were robbed the right to produce and recruit life for themselves.”

Reprinted with new introduction for the elementary literacy education of the Ohio  State Legislature, February 2024

As a historian of literacy, I published this critique of so-called “financial literacy” on January 23, 2022. There is no such subject or object as “financial literacy.” There is reading, writing, and arithmetic together brought together to understand economic matters within specific historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. “Financial literacy,” as I made clear below, is a false product sold by marketers and bought by state legislatures like Ohio’s.

It almost certainly does little good especially for high schools. It is divorced from the study and teaching of history, economics, politics, and arithmetic itself. It is orthodox right-wing ideology, not a “life style” or “preparation” for work. It is the sold and bought and product of fears of decline.

Sunday (February 11, 2024), 12 noon
Old First Presbyterian, 1101 Bryden Road 43205. (Columbus, Ohio)

Planning for March 2, 2024 10 am Ohio Statehouse Action and March.

More info here: https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/taking-to-the-streets-ohio-poor-peoples-campaign-marches-holds-rally-to-support-policies-that-lift-from-the-bottom-fight-those-killing-hurting-the-poor-and-low-wealth/

Saturday, February 10 at 7pm on Zoom

Facebook Event
 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83906590837

Building community for Black Liberation
with
Aramis Malachi-Ture Sundiata
of the People's Justice Project
and
Jason Render & Ramon Obey
of JUST-Justice, Unity, Social Transformation
and
Julialynne Walker

And more!
Q & A included.

The farmers and landowners in Knox County need your help.

The 120 megawatt Frasier Solar Project proposed within Knox County will benefit landowners by providing them with a steady source of income by diversifying their revenue streams. It also helps them contribute to a cleaner environment, create local jobs, and support sustainable energy development in our state.

I published my first single-authored book in 1979, my first edited book the same year. Although there never was “a golden age” of scholarly publishing, many elements have deteriorated significantly since that date.

The greatest decline has come in the past five to ten years. My students, colleagues, and I all experience it. Among many factors, including changes among editors and reviewers, economic calculations rose to rule.  

The major forces are not peculiar to scholars but hold true across the spectra of professional writers. Not only do often wholly ignorant economic guesses rule, but almost all major commercial publishers now require the intermediation of a paid agent rather than direct communication with prospective authors.

Self-publishing and hybrid presses are more often than not—although not always—bottomless, deceptive, unregulated profiteers.

In the spirit of academic freedoms—plural, I propose for discussion an Academic Authors’ Bill of Rights. (For context and detail, see my essays under References below)

I published my first single-authored book in 1979, my first edited book the same year. Although there never was “a golden age” of scholarly publishing, many elements have deteriorated significantly since that date.

The greatest decline has come in the past five to ten years. My students, colleagues, and I all experience it. Among many factors, including changes among editors and reviewers, economic calculations rose to rule.  

The major forces are not peculiar to scholars but hold true across the spectra of professional writers. Not only do often wholly ignorant economic guesses rule, but almost all major commercial publishers now require the intermediation of a paid agent rather than direct communication with prospective authors.

Self-publishing and hybrid presses are more often than not—although not always—bottomless, deceptive, unregulated profiteers.

In the spirit of academic freedoms—plural, I propose for discussion an Academic Authors’ Bill of Rights. (For context and detail, see my essays under References below)

This past October at the Columbus Italian Festival, those who drove to the festival had to find parking amidst the new Italian Village condo and apartment buildings which seemingly sprouted up overnight.

As revelers walked to the grounds of St. John the Baptist Italian Catholic Church, it was evident the transformation of the old neighborhood is full steam ahead in the Midwest’s last great boomtown. But some weren’t too thrilled with the new digs or the new parking ramps, which are going to be there for a long, long time, after all.

“Everything looks the same,” some told the Free Press.

“I find it hard to believe this is how long-time residents envisioned Italian Village,” said another.

Welcome to the new Italian Village and the new Weinland Park, its neighbor to the north. Both are on the comeback, and some are calling it a success story. Many long-time residents agree with this, but because the changes came so quickly and so unequivocally, some are left wondering what could have been.