As I write this article, the total number of homicides in Columbus has reached a record breaking number of 140, breaking the previously held record of 139 in 1991. The latest victims range in age from 37 to 57 years old.  Columbus is the 14thlargest city in America with at least 860,000 residents living in this rapidly growing city.

According to the HUD’s 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, Columbus has about 1,691 homeless residents, which includes veterans, families, youth, sheltered and unsheltered and chronic homeless people. The total number for Ohio is 10,095 homeless residents. The good news for Columbus is that 2017 saw a decrease by three percent from 2016.

According to the Ohio Department of Education 2016-2017 Report Card Resources, Columbus, Ohio received D’s and F’s in all categories in education. The city schools earned an F in the Graduation Component Grade, a D in the K-3 Literacy Component Grade and an F in the Prepared for Success Grade.

Once upon a time, every medical marijuana ballot issue and legislative bill contained a provision to permit personal cultivation. In 2007, introduced, but long forgotten Ohio House Bill 343 would have allowed patients to possess 12 mature plants. Limits in the Marijuana Policy Project’s 2012 model bill were set at 12 plants AND 12 seedlings. Why then was home growing omitted from Ohio’s new law?

In June 2016, Ohio became a “legal state” with the passage of Ohio House Bill 523. The legislation established a Medical Marijuana Control Program with cultivators, processors and dispensaries, but forbade “home growing,” well, sort of. The bill itself makes just one vague reference, “cultivator license holder shall not cultivate medical marijuana for personal, family, or household use.” I guess the rest of us can? Ah no, for that one must to defer to the Ohio Revised Code where growing marijuana carries the same penalties as possessing equivalent amounts: small means minor misdemeanors, large can lead to felonies and even mandatory minimum sentences.

Below are two articles that nicely illustrate the cunning methods that ALL multinational mining, exploration, drilling, energy extractive or oil transporting corporations use to try to sanitize what in reality are greedy designs to enrich corporate stakeholders by raping, stealing, exploiting and permanently polluting the land, water and air that really has always belonged to the indigenous people and who simply want to protect what has always been theirs.

The first article illustrates how an otherwise respected major educational institution like Duke University (of Durham, North Carolina) could be easily bamboozled by financial enticements from an exploitive corporation. (Duke University was, incidentally, founded and funded by robber baron James Buchanan Duke,an exploitive tobacco and electric power industrialist that at one time acquired a monopoly on cigarettes and thus gained enormous wealth by marketing a highly addictive and deadly product.)

Little Eater, a concept restaurant designed to promote more organic, produce-based foods and support local farmers, has expanded operations into a stand-alone restaurant in Clintonville at High Street and Deland Avenue. While there are still some animal products on the menu, vegan options are significantly represented. And, everything I have tried there was excellent, bursting with delicious flavor and colorful appeal.

Their fresh, vegetable-based, seasonally inspired foods are revitalizing. Their warm soups are comfortably satisfying and they have recognized that even vegans deserve dessert. The Columbus Vegan Meetup had a delightful experience there recently and we are grateful to entrepreneurs empowering vegan access and affordability.

As humanity’s population is rapidly growing and technology is constantly evolving, it is urgent for our cultural traditions and infrastructures to evolve into a model that is consciously consistent with our values: energy efficient agricultural production and a sustainable model of human coexistence with fellow earthlings.

Your heroes aren’t perfect. That’s the lesson of The Last Jedi, the latest feature film installment in the Star Wars series. Your heroes aren’t perfect, and they can’t single-handedly save the universe. Sometimes they try to run from their problems. Often – okay, pretty much always – they make mistakes, and not just little ones. Sometimes they fail, with tragic consequences. They can help us, but ultimately we have to save ourselves.

It’s there when Rose finds Finn, great hero of the Resistance, sneaking into an escape pod because he’s convinced their ship is going to be destroyed. It’s there when General Leia slaps Poe for his showboating that ultimately worked but at the cost of far too many lives. And it’s there when Luke refuses to help Rey because his last attempt at training new Jedi went so horribly, horribly wrong.

It’s not a bad message to find us at the end of 2017, a year that, in progressive politics, has been more about movements than personalities. Heroes haven’t saved us. Leaders haven’t saved us. It’s all been down to ordinary people.