To the Editor:

In recent weeks, some misinformation about The Ohio State University African American and African Studies Community Extension Center (CEC) was published and broadcasted in the media and I want to take this opportunity to set the record straight.

First, let me reaffirm my commitment as the chair of the Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS) and the commitment of The Ohio State University to the building of a new Community Extension Center, which will be located at Mt. Vernon and Monroe. It is true that two years ago an alternate plan included a proposal for a new location at Mt. Vernon and Champion, but that plan was immediately rejected.

For the past two years, I have been talking to anyone and everyone who would listen about the “OSU Triangle” on the near eastside as my vision for growth and development in the Bronzeville/King-Lincoln District.

Can you walk your way back to emotional health? Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspooon) gives it a try in Wild. 

Divorce, disease and her own misbehavior have separated the young woman from the people who’ve been closest to her. Since her life lacks direction, she arbitrarily gives herself one: north. On a morning in the mid-1990s, she sets out to hike the Pacific Crest Trail all the way from California’s Mojave Desert to Washington state.  

It’s a grueling trek, as we learn from an early flash-forward. Cursed with a backpack that’s too heavy and boots that are too small, she pauses on a rocky mountain ledge to examine her bloodied feet.  

But though her walk is both lonely and dangerous, Cheryl’s greatest challenge is coming to terms with what lies behind her. Thanks to a constant stream of flashbacks, we learn that she had a supportive husband (Thomas Sadoski) but cheated on him with a series of strangers. We also learn that she never appreciated her plucky mother (Laura Dern), who has now disappeared from her life. 

In Nintendo’s ongoing effort to make adult fans of the Pokémon video game series feel old, the gaming giant has released a revamped version of the third generation of its ridiculously popular handheld RPG series. Following the 2004 remake of the original Red/Blue as FireRed/LeafGreenfor the Game Boy Advance and the 2009 remake of Gold/Silver as HeartGold/SoulSilverfor the DS, Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire continues the trend of updating older games in the series to fill time between newer releases. But is Hoennworth revisiting? 

The original Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire is now—brace yourselves—12 years old. Pokémon games have always been some of the absolute best of Nintendo’s handheld offerings, even the best among the RPG genre regardless of publisher or platform, with gameplay that can be as simple or as complex as you want it and hundreds of hours of “endgame” breeding, leveling, and Legendary-hunting. But after the incredible Gold/Silver, which introduced a boatload of new features and even included the entire original game’s map after you completed the new one, Ruby/Sapphire felt lackluster. It was merely really good. 

When you think of Antarctica, you probably picture ice, snow and penguins. You don’t normally think of people, other than the odd intrepid explorer driving his dogsled across a frozen landscape.  

And yet a few thousand human beings do work in bases spread across Antarctica during what passes for the continent’s summer. And nearly 700 stay through the winter, when the sun never rises, the winds blow fiercely and the temperature dips far, far below zero.  

Anthony Powell’s documentary Antarctica: A Year on Ice shows what it’s like to be one of those rare individuals who dare to spend 12 months on the continent at the bottom of the world. It’s fascinating both visually and psychologically.   

Who are these folks? Scientists, of course, but New Zealander Powell trains his camera on what one visitor refers to as “normal people”: firefighters, mechanics, shopkeepers.  

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me

Pastor Martin Niemoller, speaking about Nazi Germany

First, they’ve come for the people of color.  

America’s police forces increasingly serve as a a private corporate army, beyond the reach of the law.  

But our nation is distracted by race.  And millions of white Americans are under the illusion that what was done to Michael Brown and Eric Garner can’t happen to them.

These un-prosecuted killings of African-American men go way beyond racial prejudice.

They are the calling card of an Orwellian state: