1. Chemical weapons are worse than other weapons.

This is not the case. Death and dismemberment are horrific regardless of the weapon. No weapon is being used legally, morally, humanely, or practically in Syria or Iraq. U.S. bombs are no less indiscriminate, no less immoral, and no less illegal than chemical weapons -- or for that matter than the depleted uranium weapons with which the United States has been poisoning the area. The fact that a weapon has not been banned does not create a legal right to go into a country and kill people with it.

2. Chemical weapons use justifies the escalated use of other weapons.

Does shoplifting justify looting? If a Hatfield poisoned a McCoy, would another McCoy be justified in shooting a bunch of Hatfields? What barbarism is this? A crime does not sanction another crime. That's a quick trip to hell.

3. Important people we should trust know who used chemical weapons.

No, they do not. At least they do not know that the Syrian government did it. If they knew this, they would offer evidence. As on every past occasion, they have not done so.

4. The enemy is pure evil and will answer only to force.

Saturday, April 8, 6:30-11pm
1021 E. Broad St., east side door
Join progressive friends for food, drink, and great music. Jordan Flaherty will be guest speaker at this Free Press Second Saturday Salon. He comes from a New Orleans-based journalist and actionist background and broke into his journalism profession by covering the 2000 OSU-CWA strike; he continues to cover “front line” news. In his new book, No More Heroes, Flaherty calls on social movements to organize within the reality that there are no heroes except for the ones who do the organizing. 
Free, no RSVP needed.
614-253-2571
colsfreepress@gmail.com

Last week I saw a little African-American girl who looked to be about five years old walking with, I assume her mother. I then saw other young African-American girls entering an elementary school. They appeared to be between five and eight years old.

They were normal little girls. Running, laughing and looking happy to be going to school. They were of different hues of color, some short and some tall for their ages. They wore normal clothing for children their age. Most of them had something else in common. They were wearing fake hair. Hair that was long and almost for some, touching their backside. Hair that they had to brush out of their eyes as they ran to enter the school doors. Hair in styles that made them look like little women. Hair that clearly wasn’t their own.

Ohio’s environment and the planet would be more peaceful and green if Dennis Kucinich was in charge. That was his message when the former Cleveland mayor, former U.S. Congressperson and former presidential candidate spoke Saturday, April 1 at Columbus’ 5th Annual Move to Amend statewide conference. Kucinich’s keynote was entitled “Ending Corporate Personhood and Money as Speech.” He touched on several environmental and social justice issues that could be changed if the Move to Amend movement was successful in passing a Constitutional amendment to reverse several U.S. Supreme Court decisions during the past century and thereby firmly establish that corporations are not people and that money is not free speech.

Kucinich held up the March issue of the Columbus Free Press as he referred to Harvey Wasserman’s article “Ohio’s Crumbling Nukes Face Judgment Day” about the attempt to have taxpayers bail out Ohio’s nuclear power plants. He described Free Press Senior Editor Wasserman as “one of the foremost citizen activists anywhere on nuclear issues.”

A Noise Within’s uplifting Man of La Mancha is arguably one of the best shows in town. Based on Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th century novel Don Quixote, this musical with book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh, La Mancha became one of Broadway’s immortal masterpieces, with the 1965 production winning five Tonys (including Best Musical and for its peerless star, Richard Kiley), running for 2,328 performances, with four revivals on the Great White Way.

La Mancha’s well-deserved success is due, in part, to its exquisite songs that are so beautiful this music could teach larks how to warble. But the music, lyrics and plot also perfectly captured that sixties idealism which subsequent musicals, such as Hair, would likewise come to express. Not long after Dr. King’s lofty “I have a dream” speech, Don Quixote sang about his “Impossible Dream”, wherein the aging, noble knight pledges: