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Words Columbus Media Insider

You have news organizations that represent, even protect the public, and you have ones that buddy up to powerful institutions.       

The Columbus Dispatch showed just how far in the buddy-up tank it is with Ohio State University July 12 in the way it reported the 5.5 percent tuition and 6 percent housing increase that will drive the total cost of attending OSU to over $26,000 annually.

The Dispatch downplayed the fact that incoming OSU students and their parents were told they must pony up an extra $1,500 just six weeks before classes start.

The newspaper adopted the university's spin that a big tuition increase held steady for four years was a good deal. It sounds like it until you factor in the hundreds of students who will play the inflated rate for a year or two and then drop out. Not to mention that hundreds of other students take 5-6 years to graduate. They will pay an even higher rate for the fifth and sixth years.

Hand typing onto a cellphone

A victim is a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency. They may suffer from the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency. Victimization, according to the dictionary, is “to single (someone) out for cruel or unjust treatment.”

As individuals, we can sometimes find ourselves, because of our personal beliefs, emotions or ignorance, becoming the perpetrator of our own victimization. Social media, in my opinion, has enabled individuals who tend to feel victimized by their family and society, with a powerful tool that will either help them overcome their victimization mentality or keep them feeling they are victims who will remain victims. 

Hand holding joint

“We're setting sail to the place on the map from which no one has ever returned. Drawn by the promise of the joker and the fool by the light of the crosses that burned. Drawn by the promise of the women and the lace and the gold and the cotton and pearls. …  You will pay tomorrow. You’re gonna pay tomorrow … Save me. Save me from tomorrow. I don't want to sail with this ship of fools.” – World Party, 1985

Blonde woman in pink with Code Pink crown holding a sign that says End racism Stop Sessions

Wednesday, August 2, 11:30am-1:30pm
Columbus Citizen Police Academy, 1000 N Hague Ave, Columbus, Ohio 43204
*****Emergency Call to Action*****
Jeff Sessions is a fascist, racist man who has no place in the White House. Sessions has white supremacist ties, a racist and homophobic legislative record, and a history of opposing voting rights, however, is the top law enforcement officer in the country.
When Sessions was up for a federal judgeship in 1986, Coretta Scott King — the late widow of Martin Luther King, Jr. — begged the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote against his appointment. Senators on both sides of the aisle ultimately considered him too racist for the job, based on his disparaging comments about African Americans. He reportedly said the NAACP and ACLU were “Communist-inspired” and “un-American,” calledone of his black staff members “boy,” and joked that the worst thing about the KKK was its marijuana-smoking members.
In 2007, he argued that immigrants “create culture problems,” steal jobs from Americans, and that their “numbers cannot be too great.”

Three photos showing people sitting on the floor and the words Sit in to #Stop Trumpcare

Free Press Heroes

This month the Free Press honors the dedicated people holding weekly demonstrations at Republican Senator Rob Portman’s office in an attempt to keep him from voting to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In particular, five brave and dedicated occupiers even camped out at his office overnight on July 6. In addition, the Free Press recognizes the group of ADAPT individuals who joined local activists continuing the vigil on July 7 who were brutally attacked and arrested by the Columbus Police. The Columbus Police made national news by throwing a woman out of her wheelchair. The police also confiscated a disabled woman’s scooter and refusing to release it (for no apparent reason) for a week. Thank you to Junto Unsilenced, Socialist Alternative, DSA, Ultraviolent, Planned Parenthood and other groups organizing the Portman actions for all of us. Shame again, on the defiantly deplorable Columbus Police.
 

The Free Press Salutes

Mushroom cloud in a circle

Nuclear News: One good, two bad -- Take Action Now

Good News: Historic Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons Adopted at United Nations

The United Nations Draft Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted on July 7, 2017. The Treaty commits signatory governments to criminalize all forms of nuclear weapons research, manufacturing, testing, possession, use or threats to use nuclear weapons, among other provisions. At least 130 countries participated in the negotiations, with only one voting against. Nuclear-armed states, including the United States, did not participate. The Treaty will be opened for signature on September 20, 2017. The Treaty will enter enforcement 90 days after at least 50 countries have ratified it.

Bad News: Congress pushing through a “Mobile Chernobyl” Bill

Cupcake-looking desserts, round, each one a different color, yellow, brown and dark brown with white chocolate chips on a blue plate

Marlee’s Beany Baked Goods is an exciting, new vegan treat business entering the Columbus food scene with a high protein bean and oat based alternative to conventional wheat flour-based baked goods. She does chocolate brownies, blondies (with vegan white chocolate chips) and no-bake cookies. She is also experimenting with a new, red velvet brownie made with beet juice. Super stoked to try that since her initial offerings are fantastic, and everyone is raving about them. She is happy to provide modified recipes for other avoidant dietary needs such as no-oil, no-sugar or make other baked goods, upon request.

Marlees Beany Baked Goods are now available daily at the Yeah, Me Too coffee house on Indianola.

Person in a white sheet with two eye holes against an eerie gray background

I wasn’t bowled over by last year’s Ghostbusters remake, which seemed like a waste of a good cast. Even some of its fans seemed to like it mainly because it broke new cinematic ground by portraying women as competent professionals rather than man-obsessed flakes. This helped to make up for the fact that it wasn’t a great comedy.

That said, I wouldn’t have minded seeing the Ghostbusters team regroup long enough to interrupt the chief spirit’s reign of terror in A Ghost Story. Frankly, I don’t think the spirit himself would have minded, as he leads a pretty dreary existence. In fact, “reign of terror” is a misnomer—it’s more like a reign of tedium.

In the version of the spectral world created by writer/director David Lowery (Pete’s Dragon), ghosts have the ability to travel backward or forward through time, but they’re confined to one geographical location. Thus, the unnamed spirit in question (Casey Affleck) spends his days hanging around the ranch-style home he inhabited with his equally unnamed partner (Rooney Mara) before being killed in a traffic accident.

Spiderman laying on his back

No longer will we have to explain to our less superhero-obsessed friends why Spider-Man doesn’t do things with the Avengers in the movies even though he’s a Marvel character. After his appearance in Captain America: Civil War, we finally have the first collaboration between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios in an attempt to help Sony make a Spider-Man movie that’s not awful. And – surprise surprise! – Spider-Man: Homecoming is actually pretty good.

Homecoming benefits quite a lot from being part of the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spider-Man works best in a setting filled with other superheroes. There have been entire comic series based on him teaming up with other characters because friendly, chatty Peter Parker plays off them so well. So while Iron Man stops short of stealing the show, his constant involvement in the background gives everything else a context that the previous Spider-Man movies have lacked.

Yellow triangle with security camera with an eye on the screen above black words on yellow saying Jonathan Coulton Solid State excalamation point

I have been a Jonathan Coulton fan for a few years. I can’t even remember where I heard of him first – his body of work entertains songs about science to pure satire of anything ranging from pop culture to politics.  One thing is for certain, I’m sure that I found him on the internet. Jonathan Coulton began his career by building a fanbase primarily on the internet. A place where once society believed would be a water hole for us to gather and exchange ideas, to be connecting and finally united. Our current political state has proven how difficult that dream has been to accomplish, now more than it has ever been. The main underlying theme for Solid State, Jonathan Coulton’s ninth studio album, is that of coping in a dystopian but rather in the present future. Many of the songs sound as though they would be a setting in a distant world of a Post-Modernist’s nightmare, but hits very close to home with how things actually are. In interviews, Jonathan expresses how this is the idea behind his concept album, but doesn’t really delve into the political aspect of it.

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