Local

Friday, February 2, 2024, 4:30 PM
Bicentennial Park, 233 S. Civic Center Dr.

Contact: Mark D. Stansbery, 614-252-9255 or walk@igc.org

Hosted by Columbus Campaign for Arms Control, Jewish Voices for Peace and others.

Blood rushed through my veins, just as it floods the streets of Gaza every second of every day. My hands shook as I raised my hand to contend the droves of misinformation and hate speech being so passively thrown around in my journalism class. 

“At least 8,000 children have died. The average age of civilians killed in Gaza is five years old. How could they have deserved that?” I asked, my shaking voice betraying my grief. A student in the back of the class straightened and looked at me, the gold of my Palestine pendant glimmering in his compassion-devoid irises. 

“Every Palestinian is a terrorist, and they all deserve to die,” he said with a grin. My heart sank to the soles of my feet as I realized that in this class of future journalists and policymakers, I was completely and utterly alone. 

University presidents, chancellors, and vice-chancellors come and go with unusual frequency today. The average tenure has fallen from 8 to 6 years. News of firings and resignations, and less often hirings fill the front pages of national and higher education dailies. At the same time, major universities seem to learn nothing from their experiences.

Although final decisions rest with Boards of Trustees or Governors—in ageless academic rhetoric, and in the case of public universities in some states final approval by elected state governors, even the pretense of a full, inclusive, clear procedural, and all major interest groups participating search is now rare. Ohio State and Youngstown State exemplify the trends toward minimal input, scant participation, and increasingly unqualified selections.

Most members of the legislature should be well acquainted with the HB 6 fiasco that ultimately led to a 20-year prison sentence for former Speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder. At the center of the scandal was the supposed need for a $1 billion, publicly-funded bailout for two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse outside of Toledo and Perry, northeast of Cleveland. To further the scam, FirstEnergy, the owner of the reactors at the time, placed them in bankruptcy in March 2018. 

In six short years, however, the two nuclear reactors have gone from being bankrupt and needing a billion-dollar bailout to Perry operating so well its current owner, Energy Harbor (EH), has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to extend its operating license for another 20 years. But as can be seen in the linked article, neither the NRC nor EH care to address pesky questions from the public such as is the energy from the Perry nuclear plant even needed in the first place? 

The City of Columbus Land Bank’s purpose is to bring vacant land and structures back into productive use. It often collaborates with the Franklin County Land Bank. Most Land Banks acquire properties that are abandoned or seized for unpaid taxes. Occasionally, property is donated. Newly acquired structures are inspected to determine if they should be demolished or rehabilitated. 

Technically, taxpayers own land bank property. However, The Land Bank in Columbus determines to whom they sell property and are tasked with ensuring the planned use complies with their own rules, city environmental code and ultimately to benefit the community. In blighted, poverty-stricken neighborhoods, the Land Bank can promote positive improvements. Yet, it seems to fail repeatedly.

The Land Bank’s process to buy their properties is complicated and exhausting – many individuals give up along the way. However, properties are being sold to investors whose job it is to master the process, then sit on property for years if not decades and resell at a profit. Some applicants pose as a single family home builder or seller then build rental units instead.

I Was Once You & You Will be a Better Me is a three-part project that will use various art forms (poetry/monologues/performing arts/music/film) to bridge the gap between parents/guardians/grandparents and their children/grandchildren. The goal of this project is to develop a better relationship between them and hopefully the community where they live by learning what each other values about themselves and each other and sharing it in an artistic way. Sessions will be held at the Columbus Metropolitan Shepard Branch Library from March 2nd to May 25th, 2024, on Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 P.M. There will be a free community event and reception in June so that the participants can perform and share their creative work with family and friends.

*Participants must live in the Northeast Area of Columbus, Ohio which includes

Zip Codes: 43211, 43219, & 43224.  Youth need to be between the ages of twelve (12) and eighteen (18) years of age.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost held a press conference January 30 to announce legislation to bring the gas chamber to Ohio so that once he is elected governor, he can resume executions - this time with horrific nitrogen gas asphyxiation.  Wow.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost held a press conference January 30 to announce legislation to bring the gas chamber to Ohio so that once he is elected governor, he can resume executions - this time with horrific nitrogen gas asphyxiation.  Wow.

Sometimes there’s a thin line between vile demagoguery and pure idiocy. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi straddled both during a Sunday appearance on CNN, when she smeared protesters who’ve been demanding a ceasefire to end Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian people in Gaza.

“The former House speaker said, without offering evidence, that she believed some protesters are connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” NPR reported.

What if you were forced to pack your belongings and leave your family, friends, career, home, and life behind? Could you say good-bye to everyone and everything you love, not knowing if you will see them again? That is what deportation is: permanent banishment from your home, family, friends, and job, from a life built over years. It is an extreme action that causes lasting harm to everyone it touches.

From 2022 to 2023, Maryam Sy, an organizer with the Ohio Immigrant Alliance (OHIA), spent hundreds of hours interviewing over 250 people who were deported to find out what they wanted the world to know.

“A lot of these people went through, I think, the hardest part of their life when they were deported,” she reflected. “Because it was like a broken hope, like the government broke their hope. They came to America to seek asylum for a better life.”