State

The Voters First campaign scored another victory against Issue 2 opponents’ ongoing effort to mislead and confuse voters. Today the Ohio Elections Commission found probable cause that the Ohio Republican Party was purposely lying voters about state Issue 2 in a recent campaign mail piece.

The Ohio Elections Commission unanimously found probable cause and the Commission will conduct a full hearing on October 4th.

Issue 2 supporters accused reform opponents of continuing their ongoing campaign to intentionally misrepresent Issue 2 to voters with false statements. The Elections Commission found probable cause to hold a hearing on the first statement, “Some of the members will be chosen in secret.” The Ohio Republican Party has also agreed to discontinue their use of the second false statement, “They’ll have a blank check to spend our money.”

Madeline ffitch was arrested for blockading an entrace way to a fracking wastewater injection well site.
Madeline ffitch, a 31-year-old Millfield, Ohio woman who is outraged at the impact fracking wastewater is having on her community, blocked the gates to the Ginsburg wastewater injection well site on Ladd Ridge Road, west of Athens, Ohio. ffitch was arrested this morning for trespassing while locked to two 50-gallon cement filled drums, effectively shutting down the well site.

Through this protest, ffitch is demanding that the ODNR test fracking wastewater, keep out-of-state fracking wastewater from being brought to Ohio, and ask the State of Ohio to end the conflict of interest between big energy companies and state regulatory agencies.

A Tragedy?
When people use the word “tragedy,” they ordinarily mean something completely bad and sad, like the mass killings in the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Almost as many human beings were killed during the eleven-day uprising in Lucasville (ten) as in the Aurora movie theater (twelve). But does the word “tragedy” adequately describe what happened at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility?

I think the correct answer is, Yes, but in two different ways. One of the meanings the dictionary gives for “tragedy” is “a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair,” a “calamity,” a “disaster.” The dictionary gives an example: “the tragedy of the President’s assassination.”

And certainly the Lucasville Uprising was such a tragedy. The ten persons murdered were unarmed and outnumbered. They never had a chance.

History books often contain a chapter that tries to answer the question: What caused such-and-such a revolt or revolution?
For example: What caused the “Boston Massacre” in 1770 when British troops stationed in Boston fired on a crowd that was pelting them with frozen snowballs and oyster shells? What caused the “Boston Tea Party” of 1773 when chest after chest of tea imported from Great Britain was thrown into Boston harbor? (Hint: There had not been a new tax.) What caused the beginning of actual warfare at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775?

The truth is that it is very difficult to be sure why human beings suddenly throw caution to the winds, and, knowing that there may be enormous consequences, take a stand and risk everything. Unsure as to the real causes of a rebellion, the historian may take refuge in a chapter title like “The Gathering Storm.”

Let’s see if we can do better regarding the causes of the longest prison uprising in United States history in which lives were lost, at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) in Lucasville, April 11-21, 1993.

The Authorities’ Account of Causes

“We’re fighting for our families,” shouted Steelworkers (USW) District One Director Dave McCall, speaking at the Saturday rally of hundreds of striking Husky Energy refinery workers in Lima, Ohio. “The right-wingers like to talk of ‘family values. Well, real family values, the right to be able to spend time with our families, is what this fight is all about, and we are united, strong & we’re be here one day longer than this company that wants to take that away from us!”

McCall was speaking to a spirited crowd of striking USW refinery workers and supporters at the Stand Up-Fight Back Solidarity Rally, July 14, in Lima, Ohio. 230 members of USW, local 624 have been on strike since May at the Husky Energy refinery there, mainly over “family issues,” including ending of forced overtime, hiring a full workforce, maintaining their right to flexible scheduling practices so that they can spend time with their families and numerous safety issues.

This past week, braving blazing 100 plus degree temperatures and universal condemnation from the local, corporate owned media, Columbus bus drivers and maintenance workers, members of United Transportation Union, local 208, carried out a successful two day strike against COTA (Central Ohio Transportation Authority).

The largely African-American UTU workforce had been working since November without a contract, and no progress had been made in negotiations until a Federal Mediator was brought in a month ago. However, members of UTU, concerned with safety and economic issues had set a deadline of July 1 to settle or to walk. The union did not want to strike but felt they had to take a stand for economic justice and public safety or, as public workers, they’d continue to be made scapegoats for an economic crisis caused by corporate greed. “Our members live in this community and whatever they earn, they spend in this community,” said TWU, local 208 President Andrew Jordan. “We are active contributing members of the Columbus community and we’re working to make this area better, stronger and safer.”

Our electric from American Electric Power came back on Thursday (July 5th) about 8 p.m. So we and our neighbors were about six days without power. We have been learned from the media that hundreds of thousands of households in AEP’s region of responsibility were without power following the big storm. The power outage coincided with a record-breaking heat wave that covered the mid-west.

Needless to say, we felt great relief when the air-conditioners and lights came back on. This catastrophic event, alas, is not the last of such severe weather events.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies monitors global surface temperatures on a continuing basis. In a report made available in January of this year, Goddard Institute scientists found that the year 2011 was the ninth hottest year on record, that is, since 1880. Nine of the ten hottest years have occurred since the year 2000. According to an article by Douglas Main for the Christian Science Monitor (July 3), "the first five months of 2012 have been the hottest on record in the contiguous United States." Temperatures in June and July are surely going to buttress this warming trend.

John Eley, aged 63, is due to be executed in the US state of Ohio on 26 July for a murder committed in 1986. The prosecutor who obtained the death sentence, one of the judges who passed it, and the detective who obtained Eley's confession, oppose his execution.

To run a competitive campaign for a seat on Columbus city council, which consists of 7 members elected citywide (i.e., “at large”), a minimum of $250,000 is necessary. To raise that kind of money, political contributions are needed from big-money donors, who almost always want something in return. Partly because of these relationships between candidates for municipal office and wealthy contributors, almost all academic research on the at-large model of governance finds that it unduly strengthens the influence of well-funded and well-organized constituencies at the expense of regular citizens. It is historically and widely considered a mechanism of control by the power elite of a community.