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It’s Marvel’s turn to mess things up

Guy dressed as superhero with star on chest and big A on forehead mask standing against stormy sky saying in a word bubble "Hail Hydra"

For the last several years, Marvel Comics has been getting things (mostly) right. While DC has been stopping lesbian marriages and wallowing in nostalgia for the days when Batgirl was assaulted and crippled just to make Batman mad, Marvel has been putting out some relatively progressive books. But now, after years of popular additions to their character lineup, they’ve decided it’s time to walk that back. Because, according to Marvel’s Senior Vice President David Gabriel at the recent Marvel Retailer Summit, “What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity.”

That’s come as a surprise to anybody who has been watching the internet embrace characters like Kamala Khan, a Muslim girl who took on the mantle of Ms Marvel and whose book is written by an actual Muslim woman, and Miles Morales, a Black Hispanic boy whose run as Spider-Man in the alternate Ultimate universe was so popular he was brought into the mainstream continuity.

Vegas ruined: one man’s search for the origins of Nu Metal

Guy with dark beard, sunglasses and sword next to a silver statue of a half-naked warrior with metal helmet

Spring break in Downtown Las Vegas. As is typical of my well rounded personality, I was calmly minding my own business and not causing any trouble. My serenity was even more impressive given a streak of rotten luck which included a closed video arcade and the tragic disappearance of DuPar's Restaurant. More significantly, the shark tank at the Golden Nugget pool was temporarily sans sharks due to “routine maintenance on the waterslide.” This caused a bit of tough sledding, given that said sharks were the major selling point in getting my family to stay at this particular hotel (along with the arcade and the restaurant).

You might think that my luck would be evened out by success at the tables, but you would be wrong. Despite a mathematically impeccable betting strategy, my one night out ended in swift defeat at the El Cortez craps table.

Nevertheless, I retained my composure and set a positive example for other downtown revelers like a good Ohio boy should.  I was comforted by the fact that I had intelligently insisted on a room facing the rear of the hotel instead of the noisy Fremont Street Experience.

Save the Short North

Big tall building with arms looking like it is throwing up on a short building

Many people agree the Short North is not what it used to be. Once upon a time it was cool, soulful and local. It was more Paul Volker than Thomas Kinkade. The independent art galleries took center stage, but now they are being overwhelmed by expensive condos, overpriced t-shirts, $10 cocktails, and a desire to attract people who have lots of money to burn.

“It’s not really an arts district anymore, a lot of uniqueness is gone,” says Allen Geiner, who is helping spread the hashtag #SavetheShortNorth across social media. “Easton is great where it is. We don’t need the Short North to turn into another Easton.”

The Short North’s trend towards becoming a gated country club is plowing forward as development up and down the strip explodes. There are over a dozen developments in planning stages or under construction. Most are mixed-used, meaning a combination of condos, offices, retail and parking. Within the next five years the Short North could see hundreds of new residents and over 50,000-feet of new retail.

Free Press Heroes

Guy with cap and guitar covered with stickers with his fist in the air in front of a crowd of people

Free Press Hero: Brian “Clash” Griffin

Unperturbed by driving rain, subzero temperatures and scathing heat -- he plays on. Unintimidated by police presence be they in person, on horses or bikes, or aggressive counter-protesters - he plays on. Unrelenting in his intensity as he participates at every rally -- Brian “Clash” Griffin plays on. He was there when we demonstrated outside Governor Bob Taft’s church, trying to stop the execution of an innocent man, Johnny Byrd -- playing until his fingers were frostbitten. When they started the Iraq War and we were attacked by pro-war fanatics during weekly peace vigils at 15th and High -- he played on. In solidarity with Occupy Columbus at the Statehouse -- he played on. He marches with his guitar in the Pride Parade, Black Lives Matter marches, the recent (and very wet) People’s Climate March, and the list goes on. Brian Griffin infuses enthusiasm at every gathering as he often makes up a cause-oriented song on the spot. The Free Press is in awe of Brian’s persistent and consistent musical presence and are inspired by the soundtrack he provides to our lives. “We are gonna rise up!”

Be sure to vote in May 2 primary election

Orange voting sign

Tues, May 2, 6:30am-7:30pm, many locations in Franklin County and elsewhere
It's a primary so it is a nonpartisan race and you can vote for any candidate you want. 
Franklin County Board of Elections, 614-525-3100
vote.franklincountyohio.gov/

ComFest Wants You!

A fist with the words Community Festival
ComFest is just a few weeks away (June 23-25), and volunteers are needed! The festival is and has always been operated tip to toe by volunteers from the community rather than by paid staff. Organizers volunteer their time throughout the year to plan the event; musicians and artists volunteer their talent; community leaders and activists volunteer their expertise to lead workshops; and citizens volunteer a few hours of time during the event to make it all run smoothly. 
  This is a simplified but accurate overview of how ComFest works. Volunteers are needed to set up and tear down tents and structures, pour beer, sell merchandise, assist stage managers in moving bands on and off stage, work on clean up/recycling teams, and maintain the mellow to keep everyone safe throughout the weekend. ComFest provides volunteers with a tee shirt displaying the current 2017 logo and slogan, and a token for each hour of service good for vendor food and beverages.   

Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year American Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul by Clara Bingham (Random House, 2016)

Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year American Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul by Clara Bingham is a valuable contribution to further understanding and popularizing the radical upsurge of the 1960s. The book is an oral history and we hear from well-known figures of the time such as Ericka Huggins, Tom Hayden and Robin Morgan as well as others like Vivian Rothstein, Wesley Brown and Jan Barry who did significant work mostly behind the scenes in one or more of the movements that together made up The Movement. Though the focus of the book is the one-year period from the summer of 1969 to the summer of 1970, the interviews cover ground going back much earlier and thus provide many important insights about context and individual development.

How the Russia Spin Got So Much Torque

A new book about Hillary Clinton’s last campaign for president -- “Shattered,” by journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes -- has gotten a lot of publicity since it appeared two weeks ago. But major media have ignored a revealing passage near the end of the book.

Soon after Clinton’s defeat, top strategists decided where to place the blame. “Within 24 hours of her concession speech,” the authors report, campaign manager Robby Mook and campaign chair John Podesta “assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”

Six months later, that centerpiece of the argument is rampant -- with claims often lurching from unsubstantiated overreach to outright demagoguery.

Slandering Populism: a Chilling Media Habit

Donald Trump frowning with hand on Bible at swearing in ceremony

I imagine I’m not the only political and media observer sickened by the dominant (“mainstream”) corporate media’s habitual reference to xenophobic, right-wing, white-nationalist, and neo-fascist politicians like Donald Trump, Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage, and Marine Le Pen as “populists.”  Populism properly understood is about popular and democratic opposition to the rule of the money power – to the reign of concentrated wealth. It emerged from radical farmers’ fight for social and economic justice and democracy against the plutocracy of the nation’s Robber Baron capitalists during the late 19th century.  It was a movement of the left.  As the left author and journalist Harvey Wasserman notes:

 “The Morgans, Rockefellers and their ilk had captured the industrial revolution that dominated the U.S. after the Civil War. The farmers of the South and West fought back with a grass-roots social movement…They formed the People’s Party. Its socialistic platforms demanded public ownership of the major financial institutions, including banks, railways, power utilities and other private monopolies that were crushing the public well-being.”

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