Opinion

The killing of seven Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza on August 10 has prompted verbal condemnations, yet has inspired little to no substantive action. This has become the predictable and horrifying trajectory of the international community's response to the ongoing Israeli genocide.

 By eliminating Palestinian journalists like Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqeh, Israel has made a sinister statement that the genocide will spare no one. According to the monitoring website Shireen.ps, Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists since October 2023.

Our esteemed Laureate MIMI GERMAN opens proceedings with another of her great poems.

We follow with the high-road low-down from America’s Mayor, HEIDI LAMPERT, of Waldport, Oregon’s raging no-MAGA battlefield.

We are reminded that while in Alaska, DONALD TRUMP was told by VLADIMIR PUTIN to get rid of mailed-in ballots—& thus democracy---which Trump immediately began to demand.

Lifetime activist DIANE CAMERON celebrates a 10:1 victory over Maryland’s Highway From Hell in a monumental triumph from the hard-core grassroots.

From Long Island the legendary KARL GROSSMAN tells us how safe energy activists defeated up to ten insane atomic reactors, a victory for the ages.

Co-convenor MYLA RESON reminds us that NY politician Andrew Cuomo has direct investments in Nano-Nuclear’s latest multi-million-dollar doomed-to-fail scam operation.

From engineer STEVE CARUSO we get a warning that the Russians control at least 25% of the world’s uranium resources, right up Trump’s radioactive alley.

From the great VINNIE DE STEFANO we get the latest down-under news from the freed (but not pardoned) and still very active Julian Assange.

In a landmark decision on Tuesday evening, August 19, Whitehall City Council unamimously passed an ordinance that simultaneously bans conversion therapy for minors and legalizes LGBTQ+ inclusive non-discrimination protections. This makes Whitehall the 37th location in Ohio to pass an LGBTQ+ inclusive non-discrimination protections and the 14th location to ban conversation for minors.

This critical step ensures legal protection from discrimination in the City of Whitehall for all residents, including those who are LGBTQ+, and it ensures that LGBTQ+ youth in Whitehall will no longer be subjected to the harmful and discredited practice, which has been widely condemned by medical and mental health professionals.

This article first appeard on Rachel Coyle's Substack

Late last week, The Ohio State University announced its newest policy to prevent students from voicing their political opinions on campus:

There are few things more important than our homes. Alongside providing our shelter, homes are where we make memories with friends and family — where bonds are formed and strengthened.

Unfortunately, the right to a home in America is under threat. Rents have skyrocketed, homelessness is rising, and home ownership is increasingly unattainable for most Americans.

There are multiple causes, but one culprit stands out: classic Wall Street greed. Massive private equity corporations and hedge funds are buying up homes by the thousands — houses, apartment buildings, and mobile home parks alike — and then jacking up rents.

This trend accelerated after the 2008 financial crisis, when investment firms snatched up homes in foreclosure and began renting them to the growing number of people locked out of ownership.

The result? An epidemic of corporate slumlords.

This article first appeared on Simply Living.

At 91, Ellen Baumgartner speaks with a quiet grace and a deep well of wisdom that comes from a lifetime of caring for people, for community, and for the Earth. As one of Simply Living’s early founding members, Ellen helped shape the organization’s spirit of grassroots action and connection.

Roots of Compassion

Ellen grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, where her father served as a Congregational minister. Diversity was a natural part of her childhood — a third of her graduating class in 1952 was black, and prejudice was never part of her family’s values.

On Sunbury Road, where the city begins to thin and green again, the Agler Freedom House sits modestly behind a line of trees. Its windows are plain, the white clapboard siding unadorned. The casual passerby might miss it entirely. But the ground beneath it carries a memory older than the city of Columbus itself.

In the mid-19th century, this house stood on a quiet stretch of road that was far from quiet in its purpose. Runaway slaves – men, women, and children – moved through here at night, guided by whispered directions and the promise of safety. The Agler family, white abolitionists in a hostile state, took them in. Basements became bunkers, kitchens became waystations.

The people who stopped here weren’t simply “runaways” – they were fugitives under federal law, risking life and limb for the radical act of freedom. They were also freedom seekers, part of a network of the defiant and the determined that would come to be called the Underground Railroad.

More than 150 years later, another kind of traveler found his way to the same door.