I went over to Columbus punk outfit Yuze Boys’ north campus house early last week. They were in the middle of recording their demo which will be released on Athens’ punk label, “Gnarly As I Wannabe.” We sat down, and somehow landed on the subject of sex in automobiles. I just thought we were just building rapport. Yuze Boys’ drummer Winston Hightower divulged that he “had sex in a soccer mom’s van.” It wasn’t with a soccer mom. I did not find out if Winston’s sexual partner played soccer or perhaps had a sibling who did. Perhaps that makes me a bad reporter. Bassist Kyle Bergamo likes to have sex up against the wall. Anyway. This conversation led to pertinent info: Yuze Boys formed because Nervosas’ Jeffrey Kleinman was living behind Cafe Bourbon Street in his van. He was having sex in the aforementioned van, stealing wi-fi to watch King of the Hill, and “getting work done.” Kleinman quipped that “he has a big van.” Bourbon Street is near their East Oakland home where the other three Yuze Boys live. Front man Alex Mussawir (Goners) said “Jeff get over here.”

‘Tis Midwinter, and that means network television is either showing reruns or airing new miniseries to fill time until the regular shows return from their mid-season breaks. In the case of Agents of SHIELD, the television arm of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the angst of waiting to find out just what the heck is going on with Skye and Raina is lessened by a new spin-off prequel series all about one of the founding members of the organization, Agent Peggy Carter.

The MCU excels at giving characters the kinds of stories they need to be in, and so far Marvel’s Agent Carter is much more of a postwar spy story than a superhero one, a period piece set in the aftermath of World War II. Unlike Agents of SHIELD, this is a firmly pre-Avengers world, and the only superhero it has known is the now-MIA Captain America. There are no Asgardians or Inhumans here. But there is a Stark: Howard, Iron Man Tony Stark’s father, who is every bit as brilliant and badly behaved as his son. The “super” element here isn’t aliens or magic but good old super-science.

A common question I receive is about having a low libido. All genders experience it. Some worry they have forgotten how to have sex. Some wonder about a drop-off and how to satisfy their partner when they just aren't feeling it.

A married woman in her 50s describes, “I want sex, I want to be touched, but it takes me a long time to really get into it. Sometimes before I can get ramped up, he's lost interest and doesn't want to try any more. And, sometimes that's okay. I'm happy to have a good partner and he's not that sexual. Sometimes I really want to try and have sex.”

A partnered woman in her early 40s said, “I once had a weekend fling (totally okay with my boyfriend). I wasn't having sex with my boyfriend and even with this fling, it took him all afternoon of being playful, teasing, seductive to finally flip the switch from OFF to ON. But, once it was on - WOW! I came back to my boyfriend in a heightened state. Then, it didn't last. There just wasn't the time for an afternoon of play to get me to respond.”

“Black lives matter!” became the rallying cry among activists calling attention to the recent police shootings of black citizens in Ohio and across the country.

Demonstrators against police brutality took advantage of the busiest holiday shopping day of the year by staging a “die-in” at Easton mall on December 20, the Saturday before Christmas. Sixty or so activists gathered in the Easton mall food court, unfurled a banner proclaiming “Black Lives Matter,” and struck death poses on the floor.

That same day, the usual holiday hustle at the Beavercreek Walmart was disrupted as nearly 200 protesters and activists took to the aisles to demand justice for the late John Crawford III, a 22-year old black man shot and killed by the local police department earlier this year, as reported by Reilly C. Dixon on columbusfreepress.com. A dozen protestors were arrested and charged with obstructing official business and criminal trespass.

The powerful global response to the terror attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo must now face a terrifying reality: It’s a horrible thing when an organ of free speech is assaulted and journalists die.

It will be an apocalyptic thing when it happens to an atomic reactor and whole continents are irradiated, with children first to suffer, a death toll in the millions and eco-economic impacts beyond calculation.

For decades our global security apparatus and its attendant media mavens have pretended that the radioactive elephant in the room of global terror does not exist. But after Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, 9/11, Charlie Hebdo and so much more, a terrible reality has become all too clear.

We have seen four American-designed reactors explode and three melt at a single Japanese site. A severely escalated thyroid cancer rate has followed, with more health disasters yet to come. Some two dozen sibling GE reactors currently operate in the U.S.