It was my senior year in high school — many years ago — and I was seated, along with many of my football teammates, on the auditorium stage. It was a pre-game rally before 1500 classmates and teachers. The auditorium was filled with energy. The main speaker was a much revered former outstanding athlete at Central High School. A man in his 50’s, he spoke with passion about the upcoming football game. It was exciting! However, I found myself feeling revulsion as he concluded his speech by saying, “Go out there and Kill, Kill, Kill!”, repeating the last three words numerous times as the audience joined in.

Granted that the speaker did not mean his exhortation to be literal, it was emblematic of an attitude that has prevailed in this Nation since its inception — and even before. Aggression is the path to solving differences and the use of aggressive and demeaning language is one of the means employed to facilitate the use of aggression. No, I have not lost sight of the vignette being about a football game — however, I am concerned that it is illustrative of a much more serious game — WAR!

US goes on punishing Younous Chekkouri for, well, nothing really….

hat do you say about the blameless man who was held at the Guantanamo concentration camp for 13 years, without trial, without charges against him, without credible evidence that he had done anything remotely deserving of 13 years of torture and isolation, with no hope of anything remotely like justice?

In the lead-up to the November 3 referendum on pot legalization in Ohio, reputable mainstream polls show it winning.

Then, amidst the usual “glitches” that distinguish the Buckeye State’s electronic elections, it officially failed by a 2:1 margin.

The outcome is a virtual statistical impossibility.  But it fits a pattern that has made Ohio elections infamous since the 2004 “selection” of George W. Bush over John Kerry.  

As in 2004, this year’s balloting was supervised by a Secretary of State with a heavy partisan stake in the outcome.

In 2004, the presidential voting was supervised by J. Kenneth Blackwell, who simultaneously served as the co-chair of Ohio’s Committee to Re-Elect Bush and Cheney.

In 2015, the general voting was supervised by Jon Husted, who vehemently opposed pot legalization and threatened legal action against the sponsors of the referendum.  

“I’m here to stand up for people who don’t make a decent wage,” said Genelle Rhynehardt, who works as a janitor in the Huntington Center in downtown Columbus. “People have to earn more to better their communities and better themselves.”

A member of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1, Rhynehardt was speaking on November 10 at a #FightFor15 rally on the steps of Columbus City Hall. It was one of 230 solidarity protests held across the U.S. as part of a national day of action. Fast food workers went on strike in 270 cities, demanding a $15 an hour wage and the right to join a union.  

The current minimum wage is not a living wage, Rhynehardt said. “For people to try to live on it and live on welfare at the same time is not fair. We want to be able to stand up for ourselves financially, to be able to go to the grocery store and not rely on food stamps.”