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The gift that keeps on living

At this time of year, people are obliged to shop and spend lots of money to buy each other gifts. Occasionally, some of them even get something they actually want. If rampant consumerism is not your style, I commend you! On the other hoof, if you feel compelled to get your loved one a pet this holiday season, I have some advice for you.

There are hundreds of imprisoned animals at the Franklin County Humane Society and the Animal Shelter in Columbus. They live in cages, get little love or exercise and have nothing to look forward to but a trip to the gas chamber – if no one chooses them for a pet. I’m sure most of them are healthy, but some may be a bit ragged around the edges and are the least likely picked for a new home.

Columbus sewage headworks = $100 million fiasco

The Headworks would collect and should pre-treat incoming sewage for Southerly. The Central Ohio Sierra Club has testified and written to OEPA that it is premature to proceed at this time without first having a permit issued for the Southerly Plant. The Headworks project needs to be reworked to save public dollars and to allow for the creation of a truly efficient sewage treatment program.

This new Headworks project would not eliminate plant bypasses. It would pump up to 300 million gallons/day, but the plant can only process 172 mgd. Southerly cannot handle the flow it already has. The key to a proper Headworks lies in restricting solids, which requires new digesters. These must be the first item on the books, and digesters are not even being proposed—a glaring omission. Southerly needs a high treatment process with equalization tanks and digesters and very large primary tanks. The grit tanks being proposed are undersized and will plug in a storm.

'Democracy brief' calls on courts to eliminate corporate 'personhood' and bill of rights protection

The Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) posted a “Model Legal Brief to Eliminate Corporate Rights” to its website on October 10, making it available to help citizen groups create winning organizing strategies by stripping constitutional protections from corporations and preventing them from governing their communities.

Richard Grossman, co-founder of POCLAD, authored the brief with Thomas Linzey, Esq., director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, (CELDF) a public interest law firm in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Dan Brannen, a Santa Fe attorney.

The Brief was created to support community leaders and citizens across the United States who are confronting the array of judicially bestowed constitutional rights wielded by corporations. The Brief not only challenges “corporate personhood” – the theory that corporations possess the constitutional rights of people and therefore may use the Bill of Rights to get courts and police to deny people’s fundamental rights, but also confronts the powers corporations wield under the Commerce and Contracts Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

A message from Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier #89637-132
USP-Leavenworth
PO Box 1000
Leavenworth, KS 66048-1000
September 19, 2003

Greetings Sisters, Brothers, Friends and Supporters,

Well, we have just completed another round in the courts. I understand oral arguments went very well in Denver today. Barry, one of my attorneys, was able to brief me on the legal issues that were argued before the court.

The one legal issue that I was most concerned about was the secret parole hearing that was held without my or my attorneys’ knowledge.

Let me explain.

Reefer Rumble smokes out Ohio Valley

Cincinnati, OH – The second annual Cannabis Cup, renamed the Reefer Rumble after threats of legal trouble from High Times, took place on October 11th on the outskirts of the Queen City. Modeled after similar cannabis judging events like Amsterdam’s Cannabis Cup, the Reefer Rumble was a grand ball for cannabis growers and connoisseurs alike. Patrons sampled numerous varieties of the Ohio Valley’s finest strains of cannabis while enjoying an evening of everything pot.

The true value of the Reefer Rumble lay not in the copious amounts of cannabis consumed, but in the bold act of defiance that the celebration represented. In an age of unparalleled persecution of pot smokers the Reefer Rumble showed all who were in attendance that prohibition is but a passing nightmare.

California clarifies Compassionate Use Act

Sacramento, CA – On October 12th Governor Gray Davis signed S.B. 420 into law creating medical marijuana guidelines for the state of California.

Medical marijuana has been legal in California since voters enacted Proposition 215 in 1996, but until now there have been no guidelines as to what constitutes medical use.

The new law establishes a possession standard of eight ounces dried marijuana, six mature plants and twelve immature plants. Additionally, S.B. 420 establishes a voluntary statewide registry for medical cannabis users. The ID system has been created in an effort to protect legitimate medical marijuana patients from arrest.

Activists in California are split in their sentiments about S.B. 420. Ed Rosenthal, the self-proclaimed “Guru of Ganja” remarked, “I don’t believe that police, prosecutors or any part of the criminal justice system are stakeholders in making the policy decisions regarding people’s health.” Yet Jeff Jones, executive director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, has called S.B. 420 “one of the best things that’s happened to our movement.”

Drug war Briefs: Supreme Court defends medical marijuana

Washington D.C. – On Tuesday, October 17th the Supreme Court declined to hear the Bush administration’s request to penalize doctors prescribing medical marijuana.

The Bush administration was seeking to revoke the licenses of doctors who prescribe medical marijuana in accordance with state law.

This is the latest chapter in the ongoing battle of states rights to medical marijuana. Since 1996, nine states have legalized marijuana for medical uses, but the federal government has insisted on enforcing federal marijuana prohibition despite voters’ efforts to determine their own laws regarding medicinal marijuana.

The decision by the Supreme Court is being heralded as a victory by the medical marijuana movement because doctors can continue to prescribe medical marijuana without fear of reprisal.

Lighten up liberals! Michael Moore advises

The problem with the modern American liberal is that they take things too darn seriously, says Michael Moore. The director of the Academy Award wining Best Documentary, Bowling For Columbine and author of the best-selling book, Stupid White Men was in Columbus October 30 as part of a 39 city tour to promote his new book, Dude, Where’s My Country?

Invited by the Students for Economic Labor and Justice, Committee for Justice in Palestine and the Council for Graduate Students, Moore spoke to a standing-room crowd of over 400 wildly enthusiastic students at the Ohio Union East Ballroom. Moore delayed his remarks step out to the front lawn of the Ohio Union to address a crowd of another 400 or so whom had been turned away. He told both audiences, “There’s hope that things are going to change and we’re going to remove George Bush.”

By an odd coincidence, the author of Dude, Where’s My Country was in the city at the same time as President Bush, the dude Moore says stole the country in the election of 2000. The president was in Columbus for a Republican fund-raiser.

Halliburton’s Iran connection

Halliburton Corp., the oil field services company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, told the New York City Comptroller’s office Monday that it won’t scale back its business dealings in Iran, despite concerns from the City’s Comptroller William Thompson about “corporate ties to states sponsoring terrorist activity,” which could force the New York City Police and Fire Departments to pull its $23 million investment in the company.

The Comptroller’s office, on behalf of the New York City Police and Fire Department pension funds, in a resolution last March urged the boards of directors of Halliburton and General Electric and ConocoPhillips to set up committees to review its operations in terror-linked countries, specifically Iran. Halliburton helps build drilling rigs in Iran’s southern oil field.

  Thompson accused the firms of setting up offshore and United Kingdom subsidiaries to sidestep U.S. laws against doing business with Iran and Syria, countries that Washington says sponsor “terrorism.” Shareholder value is threatened by possible negative publicity, public protests and a loss of consumer confidence, he said.

Reflections of a virgin activist: March on Washington October 25th, 2003

Like so many Americans, I do feel frustrated, angry, and disheartened with the current government. Many friends, colleagues, and acquaintances have shared their sense of betrayal by George W. Bush. For the first time, I decided to actually act, to do something. Writing two letters a week to various politicians and companies didn’t seem like enough. I marched on Washington DC with the A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition last October 25th.

Having never done this before, I was hesitant and wary. Getting on a bus of complete strangers to protest our military’s occupation of another nation, what am I doing? I could get arrested. My dad’s going to flip! My students could see me on the television. What am I going to pack? I’ll admit, it was a little thrilling. By Friday the 24th, I was telling everybody about it not to sell my beliefs or obtain a reaction, but simply out of anticipation. Reactions were intriguing.

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