That little smoke-filled room where our despair and paranoia incline us to imagine a small number of evil people run the world clearly forgot to keep an eye on the Republican Party.

A popular movement has struggled to stop such looming disasters as the NAFTA-on-steroids Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but the ouster of John Boehner as Speaker of the House puts stopping anything into play. While scholarly studies deem the U.S. government to be an oligarchy, based on whom it actually serves, petty partisan squabbling just might come riding to the rescue of democracy -- accidentally of course.

Boehner wasn't insufficiently right-wing for the other Republicans in the House of Representatives, he was just insufficiently obstinate and insufficiently anti-Obama. The new Speaker's mandate will be to oppose to the death anything Obama supports. Obama could publicly throw himself behind keeping Guantanamo open, and the place would be shut by Thursday.

It’s no secret to anyone who lives here — especially those who have ever wandered into Kafé Kerouac or the Laughing Ogre and seen the shelves of local indie comics — that Columbus has a thriving community of cartoonists and comic artists. But Bone creator Jeff Smith and comics journalist Tom Spurgeon want to let the world know what a great little city we have here, and in doing so they want to make Columbus a destination for the cartoon and comic arts.
  On October 1-3, they’re hosting the first Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), a multi-venue celebration that will encompass The Wexner Center For The Arts, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, OSU’s Hale Hall, the Cultural Arts Center and Columbus College Of Art And Design. Aside from two ticketed events — conversational panels featuring Jeff Lemire and Bill Griffith — all events, panels, and workshops are free and open to the public.

A diary is a book in which one keeps a daily record of events and experiences. Generally if read by someone other than the writer they would come away with an idea of who the person really is in their own words. They would learn the writers likes and dislikes, how and where they live and other personal information.
  Gerry Bello gives you all of that and more in his recent book “My Netwar Diaries Volume 1: Post Constitutional America.” Bello starts off like all other diaries by telling the reader how he came to start writing his diary, or rather how he came to piece together in chronological order articles that have been written by him and other creditable journalist that deal with the very real threat of Netwar to American citizens, and people everywhere. The diary dates start from May 31, 2013 to May 27, 2014.

The publisher and editor of the Columbus Dispatch like to brag about what they consider sterling journalism in the newspaper and about all the awards it has won.
   But when it comes to reporting news about their own shop, they travel the road of self-serving public relations, not journalism.
   After leaving us to read reporter Tom Knox’s articles in Columbus Business First about $10 million in budget cuts and impending layoffs, the Dispatch broke its silence in mid-September with a “news article” and columns by publisher Jim Hopson and editor Alan Miller over a two-day span that disclosed that 63 non-newsroom employees had been laid off and hinted that journalists would be let go (I’ll guess 25) after the first of the year when the Dispatch moves much of its editing and design work to Austin, Texas, where parent GateHouse Media operates a centralized editing and design shop for its many newspapers.

Jobs lost, Governor silent

The United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals don’t just ignore the fact that development isn’t sustainable; they revel in it. One of the goals is spreading energy use. Another is economic growth. Another is preparation for climate chaos (not preventing it, but dealing with it). And how does the United Nations deal with problems? Generally through wars and sanctions.

This institution was set up 70 years ago to keep nations, rather than a global body, in charge, and to keep the victors of World War II in a permanent position of dominating the rest of the globe. The UN legalized “defensive” wars and any wars it “authorizes” for whatever reason. It now says drones have made war “the norm,” but addressing that problem is not among the 17 goals now being considered. Ending war is not among the goals. Disarmament isn’t mentioned. The Arms Trade Treaty put through last year still lacks the United States, China, and Russia, but that’s not among the 17 concerns of “sustainable development.”