Why does it seem, ever since the Charlottesville incident, that so many racist roads lead to Ohio? James Alex Fields, Jr. of Maumee, Ohio, ran his car into the counter-protestors, killing Heather Heyer and injuring several others. The “Huffington Post” of the white supremacist movement, The Daily Stormer website, is the creation of Worthington’s own Linworth High School graduate Andrew Anglin. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are 27 white supremacist groups in Ohio.

It may not be just the overt racist groups we should consider – sometimes the haters could be civil servants, like firemen from northeastern Ohio, as the following story reveals.

Shawnee Township Fire Chief Todd Truesdale’s 45th birthday inspired his fellow firefighters to throw him a party with a Nazi-themed birthday cake – decorating the cake are the words “German Fire Dept” encircling a swatiska, on the left-hand corner sits a tall replica of an oven also with a swastika on the side, and cake decorating frosting depicts presumably Jewish people marching toward the oven.

Thank god there are no statues to the Rolling Stones.

Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in the market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he's doin' alright
Hear him whip the women just around midnight

Brown Sugar how come you taste so good
Brown Sugar just like a young girl should

Ahem. When I first heard the first verse, first two words, I had no idea what the hell a “gold coast” was. So, having nothing else to do in study hall, I got a pass and went to the library and looked it up. Huh, Ghana. Interesting.

Ghana has had the unfortunate (or perhaps fortuitous--Indians have been known to toast “two cheers for colonialism”) of having been colonized by the British, Germans, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese and Swedes. A veritable colonialist gang bang which inspired a colonialist rock'n'roll song of sexual exploitation a couple centuries later.

Drums beating cold English blood runs hot
Lady of the house wonder when it's going to stop
House boy knows that he's doin' alright
You shoulda heard him just around midnight

My name is Micah Naziri. I am a doctoral student; have penned numerous published articles and books; I am months away from getting my PhD and then beginning teaching part time at a local university; I am a business man, a real estate investor and an activist.

Last Saturday, August 19, I was asked to attend a protest in the City of Columbus. Myself and a small group of activists with largely executive protection, martial arts and military backgrounds, were asked to be at the Christopher Columbus statue protest at Columbus City Hall in dual roles as activists and security. The concern was that an incident like the domestic terrorist attack in Charlottesville would happen here.

As we have at numerous other protests where security was needed, we showed up wearing relevant political anti-racism t-shirts and concealed our lower faces in the event that local Neo-Nazis showed up and took pictures to identify us. We had visible, legally-carried weapons – not to intimidate the public or the police, but to intimidate the Nazis who had pledge to counter protest.

After a long and courageous battle with cancer, Mary Beittel went passed away the morning of Saturday, August 19th. She was loved by many and will be missed. Mary and her husband served for over three decades as the leadership partnership which created and managed The Open Shelter in Columbus. Mary and Kent were were stalwart champions for the homeless, those caught in poverty and those marginalized. Mary worked best in the background and had strong organizational skills in keeping the books and handling finances. She balanced Kent's passion and outspokenness with quiet effectiveness and calming steady management. They were great partners and loved each other protectively. She loved working with people who were in desperate and chaotic situations, giving them hope and an opportunity to recover her life. She had a great sense honor and was stubborn in her mission to stand up for those who live on the edge. The Free Press offers condolences to her family and honors her as a Free Press hero.

Losing your wife is tough enough. Imagine losing your wife and subsequently being told you’re no longer fit to raise your son.

That’s the situation the title character faces in Menashe, an intimate story set in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn. Directed and co-written (in Yiddish) by Joshua Z. Weinstein, the film is said to be inspired by the real-life experiences of its star, Menashe Lustig.

We first meet Menashe, a clerk in a Hasidic grocery, nearly a year after his wife’s death. We learn he’s been forced to give up his adolescent son to his married brother-in-law, Eizik (Yoel Weisshaus). Why? Because according to his rabbi’s reading of the Torah, the boy is better off being raised in a two-parent household.

Menashe chafes against the order because he loves his son, Rieven (Ruben Niborski), and is lonely living on his own. However, there’s little he can do about it short of remarrying, which he seems unprepared to do. If Menashe tries to take Rieven back, he’s warned, the boy will be expelled from the local Hasidic school.