Opinion

Texas and Arizona have begun busing refugees at their border – at a cost of millions – up to a couple liberal Northern cities . . . let’s see how they like it!

Texas, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, “has had to take unprecedented action to keep our communities safe” – you know, from the hordes of rapists or whatever storming across America’s insecure border, which of course is 100 percent the fault of President Joe Biden.

If Columbus, Ohio had a free (almost) daily press, this essay would be published in Columbus Dispatch. But it does not. As many readers are aware, I am banned from the unedited Opinion page of our local USA Today/Gannett outlet because I expressed the truth on its own readers’ comments site. I called the Opinion page “muddled” and “uninformed,” which no one can deny. As a result, the “Opinion and Engagement Editor,” who had published my essays and letters regularly and accepted my advice, summarily banned me from its pages. This contravenes both the First Amendment and USA Today’s own thin Statement of Standards. Neither Dispatch nor USA Today/Gannett cares about that. The Opinion page makes it clear that truthfulness, facts, or clear English expression are not concerns.

Last October, The Free Press asked when, if ever, Columbus Division of Police Chief Elaine Bryant would discipline Deputy Chief Jennifer Knight for sustained charges of retaliation against Lt. Melissa McFadden.  

Read the complete story here: https://columbusfreepress.com/article/will-chief-bryant-keep-her-promise-and-hold-police-officers-accountable

In the ten months we have been waiting to learn of Knight’s discipline, McFadden has won a federal lawsuit against the city and the Division proving discrimination and retaliation involving other actions taken against her by Knight and others. McFadden will be promoted to Commander on August 19th, an event delayed due to the discrimination proven to the jury in the federal lawsuit. 

I ate a wonderful meal yesterday [8-12-2022] at Ranchero Kitchen, a Salvadorian restaurant at 984 Morse Rd. [just east of I-71]. That restaurant had been recommended to me several years ago by a friend; however, I am so rarely in that part of town that it had taken me quite a while to be able to actually eat there. One of the many organizations with which I am active had scheduled a "social event" 2½ miles east of Ranchero Kitchen so I decided to take Uber to Ranchero Kitchen, to eat there, and then to walk from there -- for about forty minutes -- to my "social event."

Ranchero Kitchen evidently used to have a website but now does not have a website [in spite of the fact that Google Maps says that they have a website]. There is a Facebook page that reportedly includes "menu, prices, and restaurant reviews" but I had not been able to find any of those things on their Facebook page. Someone, thankfully, has taken photographs of the extensive menu that is available at Ranchero Kitchen and has posted those photographs to Google Maps. I always like to be able to study a menu in advance of a visit to a restaurant.

The August Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon had the theme “Health, Housing and Hope - building a multiracial national movement.” It was on Zoom and live on Facebook.

Watch the salon video here.

Free Press Board member Mark Stansbery facilitated the salon, and introduced the first speaker, Bob Krasen of the Single-Payer Action Network (SPAN-Ohio). Bob talked about US legislation that would pay 100% of cost of full health care for everyone – HR 1976, Senate Bill 4204 – Medicare for All. The legislation has been held up because of powerful lobbyists, mostly Big Pharma and insurance companies, added Dr. Alice Faryna, also of SPAN-Ohio.

"Nope" is the third film from writer/director/producer Jordan Peele. "Get Out" and "Us" are exceptionally well-crafted films catered toward the horror/psychological thriller genre. "Nope" was inspired by Steven Spielberg's "ET," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and M Night Shyamalan's "Signs." Some of  Hollywood’s most famous directors have taken flying saucers and mixed science fiction to create cinematic magic UFO stories. Peele's third feature is right on par with his predecessors. "Nope" does have a horror vibe, but this time around, Peele taps heavily into Sci-Fi.

The Haywood family name dates back to the very first "assembly of photographs to create a motion picture," currently, the Hayword Ranch is known for training horses for film and television productions. After the mysterious death of their father, estranged siblings Emerald Haywood (KeKe Palmer) and OJ (Daniel Kaluha) inherit the Haywood ranch. OJ is trying to keep the business afloat and maintain his father's legacy, while Em would rather find fame and fortune in Hollywood.

I last saw Councilmember Shayla D. Favor on Tuesday, August 2nd. She and I had arrived at our mutual polling location at the Blackburn Community Center to cast our ballots in the Democratic primary election. As luck would have it, we’re registered in the same district, District 1. 

Our exchanges over the previous two months had been contentious if cordial, negotiable if slightly adversarial. As Chair of Housing and Health and Human Services, her office had the keenest interest in Camp Shameless, a houseless camp for which I advocate as a member of a local nonprofit called FIRST Collective, a group of activists making art, creating social infrastructure and fostering community through mutual aid.

My position as an executive committee member with the Columbus Coalition for Rent Control has put us in a place of needed negotiation given Councilmember Favor’s position as well. 

I last saw Councilmember Shayla D. Favor on Tuesday, August 2nd. She and I had arrived at our mutual polling location at the Blackburn Community Center to cast our ballots in the Democratic primary election. As luck would have it, we’re registered in the same district, District 1. 

Our exchanges over the previous two months had been contentious if cordial, negotiable if slightly adversarial. As Chair of Housing and Health and Human Services, her office had the keenest interest in Camp Shameless, a houseless camp for which I advocate as a member of a local nonprofit called FIRST Collective, a group of activists making art, creating social infrastructure and fostering community through mutual aid.

My position as an executive committee member with the Columbus Coalition for Rent Control has put us in a place of needed negotiation given Councilmember Favor’s position as well. 

On a shrugged-off afternoon of YouTube wandering, I came upon this: “Is There Life After Death?”

Hmmm . . . well, is there?

Turns out it was a presentation by five professors at the University of Virginia, moderated, good God, by John Cleese. I more or less had no choice but to click the link and listen — and doing so pushed me into places I’d never been before, into a universe of questions and wonder. This wasn’t so much because I learned anything new. It was because these profs, who belonged to the university’s Division of Perceptual Studies, were neuroscientists groping to understand the nature of consciousness beyond the physical realm.

Perhaps consciousness isn’t sheerly a manifestation — a side effect — of the brain’s physical functioning. Could “something” exist beyond the brain? If so, what?

On the 9th of August, 1945, an all-Christian B-29 bomber crew, took off from Tinian Island in the South Pacific, with the blessings of its Catholic and Protestant chaplains. In the plane’s hold was the second of the only two nuclear bombs to ever be used against human targets in wartime. The primary target, Kokura, Japan, was clouded over, so the plane, named Bock’s Car, headed for the secondary target, Nagasaki.

St. Mary’s Cathedral, located in Nagasaki City’s Urakami River district, was a massive structure and a landmark easily visible from 31,000 feet above. The cathedral was one of the landmarks on which the Bock’s Car’s bombardier had been briefed for weeks before the mission. The cathedral was briefly seen through a break in the clouds, and the drop was ordered. The bomb exploded in a searing fireball as hot as the sun 500 meters above the church.

The legendary Urakami Cathedral was Ground Zero for the Nagasaki bomb on August 9, 1945