Opinion
Pretty much anything that complicates the story of a person is a good corrective to the tendency to simplify and caricature. So, one has to welcome Craig McNamara’s book, Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today. Craig’s father, Robert McNamara was Secretary of War (“Defense”) for much of the war on Vietnam. He’d been offered the choice of that or Secretary of the Treasury, with no requirement that he know anything about either job, and of course no requirement to have the slightest notion that the study of making and maintaining peace even existed.
Columbus Police Lieutenant Melissa McFadden – whose book “Walking The Thin Black Line” exposed how the Division retaliated against her as she sought to make change from within – has won her federal racial discrimination suit against the City of Columbus.
The jury awarded Lt. McFadden just $2. Her book was also not about getting rich, as it has not earned her any compensation either.
In 2016, Lt. McFadden assisted a Black female officer in filing an EEO complaint with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission who claimed she was being unfairly treated by a white commanding officer.
The commander of the Internal Affairs Bureau at the time, Jennifer Knight, was overheard telling other officers the EEO complaint was “stupid,” and that she and others were going to retaliate against Lt. McFadden by “taking her out.”
McFadden was soon subjected to what she described in her book as the “CPD pile on.” A series of false allegations were made against her by fellow officers. She was a “black militant,” for example. She was relieved of her commanding officer duties and reassigned to the property room.
Unknown to many residents of Columbus is the curious one-sided relationship between a small revenue-generating, non-academic element of the prestigious Harvard Business School, and certain elements of Columbus’ aspirational self-appointed, private “leadership class.”
Columbus CEO reminds us of this revealing connection in its announcement “Harvard Business School calls on Columbus execs for leadership program.” (Jess Deyo, May 24, 2022) Note the curious phrasing “calls on.”
Watch salon video
The salon was available on Facebook Live as well.
The theme for the June 2022 Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon was Peace and Democracy: Do We Have Either? And the inspiration for some of the discussion was the 40th anniversary of the 1982 peace march in New York City, the largest march of its kind in US history.
Free Press Board member Mark Stansbery facilitated the salon from the Columbus Arts Festival.
This month is Pride Month! To honor LGBTQ authors, artists, creators, and stories, we've compiled a list of books to help you consume more LGBTQ authors, artists, creators, and stories in June and beyond. These 5 finest LGBTQ novels, deal with issues of gender and sexual identity.
This is the list for you if you're seeking for a decent LGBTQ book to read.
Julie, a graphic designer, manipulates what the eye cannot detect in Laura May's debut novel, The One Woman. Julie's life and her relationship with her partner Mark are mundane in every way. Until she meets Ann, that is. Ann is both a businesswoman and a sweet and loving individual. Julie is unable to deny that their chance encounter ended in attraction. The spark is uncontrolled as their past and present intersect once more in Barcelona. When misfortune strikes, Julie must choose between her love for Ann and her loyalty to Mark. Is pure love capable of withstanding the passage of time?
“They were at places that seemed safe — but few spaces in America are guaranteed safe anymore.”
This is CNN, doing its best to stay atop America’s mass shootings and keep the survivors (by which I mean us) informed. Yeah, 13 gun massacres this past weekend, at strip malls, nightclubs, graduation parties — with 16 people dying, many more injured — and the total number of such shootings so far in 2022 is 246.
“The country is on pace to match or surpass last year's total, which is the worst on record . . .”
Early twenty-first century’s continuing contradictions
With Franklinton’s increasing geographic and structural isolation came population loss: from 36,000 to 26,500 in 1950, 15,000 in 2000, and 8,132 in 2017. Government policies at all levels had negative impact which the remaining residents struggled to combat or mitigate. Redevelopment is uneven, inequitable, and incomplete. Most residents lack high school diplomas and live below the artificially low poverty levels. Almost all public elementary school students are eligible for free or reduced lunch programs.
On the one hand, the Franklinton Floodwall, finally completed in 2004, protects the area from very high crests of more than 30 feet. This released part of the area from building restrictions. Some commercial and industrial businesses grow, prompting community plans and creation of an Area Commission. As with other Columbus neighborhoods, the Area Commission is as much window-dressing as a point of community collaboration, coordination, and democratic action.
What took place between May 2021 and May 2022 is nothing less than a paradigm shift in Palestinian resistance. Thanks to the popular and inclusive nature of Palestinian mobilization against the Israeli occupation, resistance in Palestine is no longer an ideological, political or regional preference.
In the period between the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and only a few years ago, Palestinian muqawama - or resistance - was constantly put in the dock, often criticized and condemned, as if an oppressed nation had a moral responsibility in selecting the type of resistance to suit the needs and interests of its oppressors.
Jamie Galen’s uncanny incarnation of Truman Capote in the first act of playwright Jay Presson Allen’s 1989 Broadway adaptation of Capote’s writings and ruminations, Tru, is a must-see tour de force. The one-man show is set in the glitterati’s penthouse overlooking the glittering lights of Manhattan and the UN Building wherein the In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s author muses out loud and answers phone calls on Christmas Eve, 1975. At this moment critics and beau monde “pals” feel aggrieved that “Tru,” as he’s nicknamed, has betrayed their trust by publishing a chapter of his unfinished tell-all tale Unanswered Prayers in Esquire Magazine that dares tell the “Tru-th” about the lifestyles of these rich and famous “friends.”
The blood-soaked lie about the Second Amendment is simple.
Gun-lovers who hide behind it to justify “the right to keep and bear arms” criminally ignore the demand with which the Amendment’s author, James Madison, began: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.”
The bar is clear: if you are a member of an armed unit that is being “well-regulated” by the community, and if your gun ownership can be proven to serve “the security of a free state,” then under the rubric of the Second Amendment, you have a right to own a gun.
But if you cannot meet those two qualifications, you do NOT.
Madison and his contemporary white Founders—-who some on the Supreme Court have elevated to Divine status—-would be horrified to see how this Amendment has been perverted to support a never-ending slaughter of civilians—-especially children—-while doing everything to undermine our nation’s security.
The Amendment was written, in part, to justify the arming of militias often used to capture runaway slaves and slaughter the Indigenous. Those two horrifying realities most (not all) Americans would today reject.