In the spirit of Buy Nothing Day--Nov. 27 in North America and Nov. 28 in other parts of the world--the Columbus Free Press talks with Bill Talen, in the wake of his Green Party run for Mayor of New York City. Most people know him as Reverend Billy, the televangelist-styled street preacher fighting for more than 10 years now to help us cast off the demons of hyper-consumerism !

With his blond pompadour and bullhorn, he has led protests against Starbucks, and the Disney Store, while also flamboyantly opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the gentrification of neighborhoods, and the eviction of families from their homes during the recent foreclosure crisis.

In 2006 Rev. Billy came to Columbus Ohio with his Stop Shopping Gospel Choir to help with the successful campaign to get the lingerie company Victoria’s Secret to use more environmentally and socially responsible ways for making their catalogues. He is the subject of producer Morgan Spurlock’s 2007 film What Would Jesus Buy?

Columbus Free Press: What are your ideas about Buy Nothing Day. You got a lot of experience with it.

Like scores of journalists, I attentively listened as Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong delivering his closing remarks, and for the last time answering journalists’ questions. It was the conclusion of 17th Apec Economies Leaders’ Meeting in Singapore, on November 15, and Prime Minister Lee was clearly tired, although unruffled.

Mr. Lee is an impressive man. He has a commanding presence and is very articulate, despite his soft poise and humble demeanor. He speaks with the confidence of a leader of a great nation, not an island city-state, the smallest nation in Southeast Asia. In fact, Lee’s confidence is well earned, and greatly deserved, and, by any reasonable standards Singapore is indeed a great nation. His country, once a site of a small fishing village, which saw a most tumultuous history of hardship, occupation and war, is now a prosperous nation, economically notwithstanding; its GDP per capital makes it the fifth wealthiest country in the world. Singapore’s official reserve is estimated at more than US $170 billion. For a country of 4-5 million people, it isn’t too bad.

This is what I know;

The worst exposure was 16 millirems of radiation. 6 millirems is a chest Xray. The normal exposure over 365 days or one yr for employees at any nuclear power plant is 2000 millirems.

Now, PA has 20 Nuclear Power Plants, all of them leaking tritium w/o licensees and getting away with it. All of them are subject to about the same leaks during repairs. Unit 2 has been shut down at TMI and is regulated through a dummie fedral corp that Excelon has that leases it to oversee the "management of regulating the already damaged unit' which is fancy for legal papers that make it legal to continue practice of work at TMI.

U.S. government hypocrisy has grown so pervasive over the last decades that it provokes yawns and glazed looks. Senators denounce government interference in health care while partaking in their own top of the line government health insurance that they designed – at taxpayer expense. Secretary of State Clinton demanded Pakistani leaders remove terrorists from their streets while self-proclaimed anti-Castro terrorists parade down Miami’s thoroughfares – as freedom fighters, of course.

Duplicity in language coincides with stupidity of policy. In Afghanistan (which costs a million dollars per year per soldier to keep Hamid Karzai in the president business), U.S. and NATO troops pursue a vague anti-terror mission in which they have caused immense death and destruction -- with few or no results. “Send more troops to fight for the Karzai government,” scream John McCain and his ilk, while Karzai vies for a place in the Guinness Book of Records for corruption. He retains legitimacy among those who benefit directly from his theft – and the U.S. government.

The year 2009 is definitely Presidential year; Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th, and first African American President of the United States, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is appointed as the new Prime Minister of Iceland, becoming the world's first openly lesbian head of government. Morgan Tsvangirai is sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe following the power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe, the President of Guinea-Bissau, João Bernardo Vieira, is assassinated during an armed attack on his residence in Bissau.

Also, in 2009, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002. The President of Madagascar, Marc Ravalomanana, is overthrown in a coup d'état, following a month of rallies in Antananarivo. The military appoints opposition leader Andry Rajoelina as the new president of Madagascar. Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.