A balcony collapses in a synagogue and sparks a women’s uprising in the first offering of the 2017 Columbus Jewish Film Festival. Despite venturing into the hazardous intersection of religion and gender politics, The Women’s Balcony has been described as a “feel-good comedy” that you don’t have to be Jewish to love.

Then again, you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy the majority of films in this year’s lineup, said festival co-chair Sandy Meizlish. Though some deal with the aftermath of the Holocaust and likely have the most resonance for Jewish audiences, he said, others have more universal appeal.

Meizlish cited Mr. Gaga, a documentary about Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, who pioneered a groundbreaking dance style called Gaga. The screening will be presented in conjunction with BalletMet, which recently performed one of Naharin’s works. “It was a compelling performance,” Meizlish said.

For the last several decades, since we got enough distance between us and World War II for them to be a hypothetical threat rather than an active one, Nazis have been stock villains. And so normally no one would think it controversial to use them as cannon fodder in a video game. That was certainly not the controversial thing about any of the previous games in the Wolfenstein series – they were part of the whole fuss over video game violence, but no one singled out the Nazis as unfair targets.

But we don’t live in sensible times anymore. No, this is 2017, and Bethesda’s decision to go all-in on the Nazi-killing aspect of the new Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus has brought all the worst people out of the woodwork to complain.
 

Where's the soundtrack? You can't have a revolution without the right music.

In high school I wanted to join the S.D.S. So bad and I loved Abbie Hoffman and here's a few of my hate-my-father's-Republican-guts revolutionary playlist:

The MC5's "Kick Out The Jams," though I never knew the words was by its very explosive punk-soul jail-guitar-doors was Detroit proletariat punk rock revolutionary. Now the Left hate's the working class--go figure.

The Jefferson Airplane's 'Volunteers' and 'We Can Be Together' were totally right on musical manifestos for life in Year One of the New Order – co-ops, weekly love-ins, pig-free zones encompassing entire states, no hassles, organic everything and weed, weed, weed. Free of course.
 

Ohio House Bill 381: This bill introduced in October is new attempt to bail out Ohio’s two nuclear power plants, Davis-Besse and Perry on Lake Erie. Proponents say it has more support than the previous incarnation, HB 178 introduced earlier this year, since it asks for a smaller subsidy. Both bills have an entirely fictitious premise, which they call ZEN, or zero emissions nuclear. Nuclear power has zero emissions? Enormous amounts of carbon dioxide are produced in the front and back ends of nuclear power. While the nuclear chain reaction itself does not release greenhouse gases, it produces the deadliest substance on earth – radioactive waste. HB 381 would be paid for by increasing ratepayer electric bills. Call your Ohio House Member and tell her/him NO to HB 381.  

In these dark days of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” it’s hard to trust any politicians. How can we tell apart the ones who spout bald-faced lies from those who actually tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Fortunately, we now have a science-based tool for telling which politicians are comfortable committing to the truth, and which are not, to help guide our votes in the Columbus City Council and Board of Education elections.