State

At midnight on Friday, the 2013 Budget Sequestration cuts went into effect, making CMHA’s “neighborhood-transformation-by-demolition” strategy even more risky and speculative than before.

According to the OMB Report issued on September 12, 2012 pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, the HUD Choice Neighborhoods “Transformation Initiative” is “sequestrable” (page 68). And according to a brief issued by the United Neighborhoods Centers of America (“A selection of programs that would be impacted by a March 1, 2013 sequester and their estimated cuts”), the HUD Choice Neighborhoods program that CMHA expects to finance the “transformation” of the Near East Side would be cut from $120M to $21.6M through sequestration, effective at midnight, tonight. Thus, a substantial source of money being counted upon for the neighborhood’s PACT redevelopment may not really be there.

"Turn off the lights!" My dad would remind us. For the 1000th time. Yes, we took it for granted. But that was our way of life. Saving energy, saving electricity, saving the world — one light at a time.

Tofu or fish every night for dinner with a huge, huge bowl of salad and brown rice. Same dinner, every night.

Drive? Why not walk, or bike? It wasn't even a question. If we could walk there, we would. If it was only an hour bike ride away, we were biking it. The longer one could go without being in a car, the better. The more we saved, preserved, reserved, the better we were doing our jobs as daughters of Mother Earth.

As an actual hippy child, not just one of the 60s, I got to attend social action camps, political rallies, political conventions and speeches, and best of all – political concerts.

A hippy child did not have a television. If they did, it was placed sneakily in front of the treadmill for exercise or in the basement for movies, only.

If I ever ate meat it was not in the sight of my father. I didn't even learn how to cook it until I was 25.

In international law, there is little doubt that torture is a war crime. The United States, along with 149 other nations, has adopted the protocols of the Geneva Conventions. Despite an attempt by the Bush administration to define torture differently than the rest of the world, in 1993 the UN agreed that the protocols defined in the Geneva Conventions had passed into customary international law, and is thus binding on non-member states. This would make any attempts to re-define torture by any state, member or non-member, irrelevant within any international accepted legal framework.

In 1975, the World Medical Association issued the Declaration of Tokyo, which specifically prohibits physicians and psychologists from participating in torture. Closer to home, the State of Ohio has specific rules about patient rights, including laws regarding standards of care and patient confidentiality.

New Matamoras OH – Ohio residents and allies from numerous environmental groups including Earth First! have disrupted operations at Greenhunter Water's hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” waste storage site along the Ohio River in Washington County. Nate Ebert, a 33-year-old Athens County resident and member of Appalachia Resist!, ascended a 30 foot pole anchored to a brine truck in the process of unloading frack waste, preventing all trucks carrying frack waste from entering the site.

Over one hundred supporters gathered at the facility, protesting Greenhunter’s plans to increase capacity for toxic frack waste dumping in Ohio. Greenhunter is seeking approval from the Coast Guard to ship frack waste across the Ohio River via barge at a rate of up to half a million gallons per load. The Ohio River is a drinking source for more than 5 million people, including residents of Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Test results from multiple frack waste samples reveal high levels of benzene, toluene, arsenic, barium, and radium, among other carcinogenic and radioactive chemicals.

According to NBCi.com, at least 10 people were arrested.

After more than a year of negotiations, the Sierra Club and Franklin County have reached an agreement to settle the Club’s claims that Franklin County is violating the federal Clean Water Act.

In June of 2011, the Sierra Club filed a sixty-day notice of intent to sue Franklin County and seventeen townships in federal court for illegal discharges from private sewage systems within Franklin County. Failing septic tanks and aerators are responsible for this contamination. The discharges have been contaminating Franklin County waterways with human and other waste, posing an environmental and public health threat.

The Sierra Club believes the agreed upon measures will form an important beginning in improving the health of Franklin County’s waterways and its residents. Although this settlement won’t completely eliminate the problem of contamination from home sewage treatment systems, it is certainly an improvement and will go a long way toward establishing a county program to eliminate sewage pollution from our waterways.

Feb 15th, 2013, Youngstown Ohio-"I did break my hunger strike, with none of my issues satisfied" said Cornelius Harris, in a message to supporters sent on Monday. He says he "felt it was better to come off and do some ground work rather than risk my overall health". Mr Harris had been on hunger strike since January 4th, making him the longest known hunger striker at Ohio's super max prison, Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP).

While on hunger strike, Mr Harris also went to trial, defending himself against criminal charges stemming from incidents of violence with OSP correctional officers. He was facing 9 felony charges, including two counts of aggravated attempted murder. He represented himself, arguing that the fights were self-defense against guards who were systematically harassing him and regularly threatening his life. A jury found him not guilty of the most serious charges, but the judge sentenced him to 32 years for the remaining assault and weapons possession charges. The maximum sentence Judge Maureen Sweeny could have given Mr Harris was 36 years.

Friday, February 8th, Mahoning County, OH-The jury largely sided with hunger striking super max prisoner Cornelius Harris in his criminal trial this week. Harris was facing nine felony charges stemming from fights with guards at The Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP). Harris has long maintained that these fights were actually initiated by guards who have targeted him for harassment and abuse. Earlier this week, a jury found largely in Mr Harris' favor.

Mr Harris initiated his hunger strike on January fourth, and went to trial later in the month. He represented himself, and part way through the trial he was transferred to Franklin Medical Center (FMC) because of his deteriorating health due to the hunger strike. Mr Harris says he has lost about fifty pounds, and is experiencing sharp pains in his legs. Doctors report that he is close to suffering serious medical problems like organ failure because he has refused food for so long.

An Ohio prisoner named Cornelius Harris (also known as Soja) has been on hunger strike at Ohio State Penitentiary since Jan 4th. He is at Correctional Medical Center (CMC) in Columbus. They haven't force fed him, but they warned him his organs may fail if he doesn't come off hunger strike soon.

OSP Warden David Bobby refused to comment on the situation when contacted.

Mr Harris' demands are to be given greater opportunity to "step-down" or reduce his security level and an end to targeted harassment and violence from guards. Specifically, he is looking for more frequent security reviews, recreation time with at least one other prisoner, physical contact with visitors, and more time out of his cell. All these things would allow him to prove that he is not a danger to himself or others and can eventually get off of 5A, the highest security level in Ohio.

In June of 2012 Mr Harris wrote a detailed account of his mistreatment by OSP staff. This account is available at RedBirdPrisonAbolition.org. He is currently facing criminal charges based on some of these incidents. His trial was interrupted because of his medical condition and transfer to CMC.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has just released an environmental assessment (EA) for allowing radioactive waste metal to be mixed with the nation’s scrap metal stream. Talking points are below.

In 2000 under President Clinton, a contaminated metals moratorium was put in place, disallowing radioactive metal from being mixed with the nation’s scrap metal stream. Outspoken public concern over proposals to add radioactive metals into our scrap metal led to this moratorium. The EA proposes to change that moratorium.

Americans clearly did and do not want ourselves, and particularly our children, to be arbitrarily exposed to unknown amounts of deadly radioactivity for no better reason than the convenience and profit for a few.

Note: This is Essay 7 in the series I have been writing on “Re-Examining Lucasville.” Two persons, one an experienced journalist and the other a prisoner at Lucasville in April 1993, have said the same thing. They believe the main idea that should tie our thoughts together is: THEY DON’T KNOW WHO DID IT!

That is, five men have been sentenced to death for murdering ten victims during the occupation of L-block, but the authorities (the State of Ohio, the Lucasville Special Prosecutor, the several Assistant Prosecutors, and the Ohio State Highway Patrol) do not know who actually committed the homicides.

Instead, the authorities have gone after the men who they believe were “leaders” of the eleven-day occupation of L-block. They have been able to get away with their claims because of the Ohio doctrine of “complicity,” which allows courts to sentence people to death if they were present at the scene of criminal conduct or were otherwise involved.