Opinion

Let us consider why the Donald Trump White House is currently considering detonating a nuclear weapon. It would be the first “test” of a nuke since 1992 and is clearly intended to send a message that those weapons sitting around in storage will be available for use. The testing is in response to alleged development of low-yield tactical nuclear devices by Beijing and Moscow, a claim that is unsupported by any evidence and which is likely a contrivance designed to suggest that there is strong leadership coming out of Washington at a time when the Administration has been faulted for its multiple failures in combatting the coronavirus.

Just when we were ready to move on to the next step in “Tips and Tools,” we have a public health pandemic with politicians and pundits predicting the whole world of work and popular activity will change. Social distancing will mean the end of meetings. Work will be remote or at home, rather than office based. Fewer will travel and the whole world will zoom into the future as masked marauders six feet apart. No one can doorknock. People won’t open their doors.

Trust me on this: not in our neighborhoods.

Drive into almost any low-moderate-income community, and I challenge you to count the masks and make a note where you happen to see social distancing. It’s just not happening in the same way. There is a real racial, age, and class divide here that is starkly visible.

Bus service for example in many cities require masks now to ride public transit. In fact, talking to the head of a regional transit authority yesterday, he said maybe half of the riders in his majority African-American city was wearing masks. Talking to the bus drivers’ union leadership, they were clear that their drivers were in no position to enforce the decree. They are drivers, not police.

Donald Trump is no accident. 

He is our Imperial Vulture come home to roost. Our Exceptional Karma. The ultimate incineration of a City on a Hill defined by arrogance, brutality, and greed. 

Trump’s willful negligence has killed more Americans in three months than did the Vietnam War in ten years. 

He’s saturated our lives with dictatorship, disease, dementia, depression. 

But we have no claim to self-pity. 

Pinochet (Chile), Mobutu (Congo/Zaire), the Greek Junta, the Shah (Iran), Somoza (Nicaragua), Diem/Thieu/Ky (Vietnam), Yeltsin/Putin (Russia), Pol Pot (Cambodia), Lord Jeffrey Amherst (Indigenous America), Salazar (Portugal), Marcos (the Philippines), Alvarado (Honduras), the Duvaliers (Haiti) … murderers, thieves, despots, liars, bigots, buffoons, puppets, thugs, butchers, hypocrites, clowns, torturers, mobsters, devils incarnate … all installed to serve American corporate interests. 

They are Trump and he is them. 

This summer, WCRS FM will celebrate ten years of broadcasting from the Free Press Carriage House in Olde Towne East. While the physical WCRS Studios have been closed for the last two months, there is reason to celebrate how far WCRS has come from its humble beginnings.

WCRS FM began broadcasting in 2007 at 102.1 FM, a low-power frequency which was accessible in the East and Northeast Parts of the Columbus Metropolitan area, and translated on 98.3 FM, a translator frequency reaching the Central parts of Columbus.

When describing what the programming that WCRS has to offer, then-Simply Living Director Marilyn Welker said in a 2008 Short North Gazette article on the purpose of WCRS, “There is such a lack of voices of different perspectives relative to community service and ethnic issues and cultural celebration. It’s not on the Columbus radio stations.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid out a lot of things about our society that are the ugly truth. One of them is that Columbus is still a city reliant on cars to get anywhere. The reduction of Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) service is living proof of that, as COTA has drastically cut back on service to focus on essential travel during Ohio’s Stay at Home Order.

On March 19, COTA’s Board of Trustees voted to make service free for the foreseeable future, and all passengers (with the exception of passengers in wheelchairs) to enter and exit through the rear door, which makes sense because it separates the passengers from the driver. Rush Hour Lines and other select routes were eventually phased out by early April. Buses were capped off at 20 passengers per bus, roughly half its normal capacity. Once a bus is at capacity, passengers standing at a bus stop are forced to wait for the next bus, which could be as long as two hours, depending on the route.

I’m adding Christian Sorensen’s new book, Understanding the War Industry, to the list of books I think will convince you to help abolish war and militaries. See the list below.

Wars are driven by many factors. They do not include protection, defense, benevolence, or public service. They do include inertia, political calculation, lust for power, and sadism — facilitated by xenophobia and racism. But the top driving force behind wars is the war industry, the all-consuming greed for the all-mighty dollar. It drives government budgets, war rehearsals, arms races, weapons shows, and fly-overs by military jets supposedly honoring people who are working to preserve life. If it could maximize profits without any actual wars, the war industry wouldn’t care. But it can’t. You can only have so many war plans and war trainings without an actual war. The preparations make actual wars very hard to avoid. The weapons make accidental nuclear war increasingly likely.

The cleverly named On the Record threatens to dethrone the so-called “King of Hip-Hop.” The 97-minute documentary may be to music mogul Russell Simmons what the #MeToo movement and Ronan Farrow’s reportage have been to that other entertainment industry icon, Harvey Weinstein. But unlike the exposes of the disgraced movie producer, Record delves into matters of race, as well as of sex and gender.

Record’s protagonist is Drew Dixon, daughter of a 1990’s Washington, D.C. mayor, Sharon Pratt Dixon, and her father Arrington Dixon was a D.C. City Councilman. Growing up in the milieu of African American politics, Dixon saw Hip-Hop as a musical genre that expressed the voices, issues and concerns of Black people through an art form and decided to pursue a career in the music business. With an ear for talent Dixon rose in industry ranks, and she became an executive at Def Jam, the Hip Hop label co-founded by entrepreneur Simmons, who is also African American.

Joe Motil, a former City Council candidate and outspoken critic of the Columbus Police Department states that, “  It really should  come as no surprise that Black America and others who have lost all faith and hope with how police officers continue to avoid being properly prosecuted,  have begun displaying their built up anger with combative  protesting.”

Motil states that,” Here in Columbus and other cities across the country, the media’s attention is once again centered on the actions of protesters and not where it should be.  The media should be questioning city leaders and police chiefs about what they are doing to ensure that rogue police officers shall be properly prosecuted and justice to Black victims and their loved ones will be served.”

As Wendy’s greenhouse defense crumbles, allies look to hold company accountable at tomorrow’s annual shareholder meeting…

Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster to Wendy’s: “Given the life-or-death stakes of unsafe working conditions under COVID-19, how can Wendy’s justify its continued failure to join the Fair Food Program?”

Last week, we posted a reflection on the news of a massive COVID-19 outbreak at a greenhouse in upstate New York owned by Mastronardi Produce, one of the largest greenhouse growers in North America and, according to an article from 2019, a supplier to Wendy’s. The overcrowded housing conditions – with workers staying in budget hotels “where they lived four to a room and slept two to a bed” – were the perfect Petri dish for the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus. The outbreak was so severe that it is even being blamed for the death of the husband of one of the hotel employees who cleaned the farmworkers’ rooms and contracted the virus as a result.

Here’s an excerpt from last week’s reflection:

This is so much bigger than personal accountability.

Yes, the four police officers present at the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis were fired the next day. The case is being investigated by the FBI. And the mayor of Minneapolis and lots of other politicians are talking about “values.”