Seeing beyond the ‘vision thing’

I am so tired of vision-speak.

Anymore, you’re not worth your sight in business, culture, politics or the breakfast table unless you talk up the vision thing.

Act like you know where the boot hill we’re going; pretend you’re sure where we should be; concoct some bullseye story to explain how we get there then - bam - you too are a certified visionary.

Command of vision-speak, (plus boatloads of money for amplification), can get you elected governor, president, heck, even mayor with little or no experience because, after all, experience is just another word for hindsight and who needs hindsight when you’ve got crystal balls?.

Whether there are any worthwhile futurescapes in your dome - or their chances of actually seeing daylight - is irrelevant.

Because it ain’t how you see it anyway, it’s how you say it.

Spout righteously, and the wish-list of everything you and your cronies ever want out of life becomes a blueprint for the good of man.

To politicians and other unholy sees, vision-speak serves vital purposes.

A family conversation

I recently spent the past holiday with my family, and used the opportunity to talk with as many of my nieces and nephews as possible. This conversation was with my nephew Raymond who is graduating high school in a years time and saw me identify myself as “Black” on a survey someone handed to me. Raymond wanted to know “why?”, since everyone is calling themselves “African American”. Our conversation turned into a oral history lesson that lasted about an hour between myself and my two brothers. What I said to Raymond went like this.

Factory farming cattle for profit speeds the evolution of disease

This issue’s column is kindly submitted by Free Press Board member Sarah Clark. Thanks, Sarah!

Recently, the U.S. government officially acknowledged the presence of a lame cow slaughtered in Washington State that had the degenerative disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). This disease is caused by the prion, a recently understood biological concept, and represents a new threat to public health. The beef industry is guilty of distributing and actually speeding the evolution of this disease due to their grossly inhumane feeding and slaughtering practices. The majority of people are complicit in this crime because they pay to run the factory farms, slaughterhouses and rendering plants that dominate cattle farming today regardless of their inhumane nature.

Our Media update

Local:

Public Access TV: On December 18th, Rich James, Chair of the Neighborhood Network, spoke at City budget hearings. To read his prepared remarks visit www.theneighborhoodnetwork.org. In 2003 the City completed a vetting of potential contractors and the Columbus Cable Commission recommended that The Neighborhood Network receive a management contract. This happened in May 2003 but the City has not taken action on a contract. There is a larger issue at stake than the immediate service the channel can provide. The next round of cable franchise negotiations for Columbus will commence in about two years. Additionally, there are legal and regulatory challenges facing local franchise authorities that threaten the right of municipalities to collect franchise fees and secure rightful public interest requirements from cable providers for using public rights of way.

Expert analyzes proposed tire pyrolysis plant

The Ohio Sierra Club hired expert analyst Alex Sagady of E. Lansing, MI, to review the permit and plant specifications of Universal Purifying Technology (UPT)’s proposed tire pyrolysis plant. The Club has concerns about emissions from the proposed plant, as well as its proposed location at the old trash-burning power plant site in south Columbus. The site itself is highly contaminated by emissions from the former plant. Also, the permit would allow more air pollution in an area that already has the worst air quality in the city. On Nov. 28 Sagady submitted comments to Ohio EPA on behalf of the Central Ohio Sierra Club. Below is a synopsis of Sagady’s major points.

Fitrakis rings the bell on corruption and incompetence in A Schoolhouse Divided

Newcomers to the city often wonder how exactly did the Columbus Public Schools get so profoundly screwed up? If the Chamber of Commerce wanted to really give people moving into Columbus the truth of why the school system is so bad, they would include copies of A Schoolhouse Divided (Columbus Alive Publishing/Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism, $15.00) in their informational packets.

Why are the Columbus Public Schools a sinkhole of waste, fraud, sweetheart deals, corruption, and greed? The same reason bank robbers rob banks. Sitting on an annual budget of over $600 million, the school system is a piggy bank attracting opportunists whose motivation is to line their pockets instead of educating children.

In this compilation of essays from Columbus Alive, Urban Edition and The Free Press, Fitrakis turns his investigative journalist skills on the school system. From 1993 to 2003, Fitrakis takes the reader on a decade long bad trip through the morass that is education in Ohio.

Ohio awaits introduction of medical marijuana bill

Columbus, OH – Switchboards at Ohio legislator’s offices have been lighting up as activists and medical marijuana patients seek to garner support for a pending medical marijuana bill.

The Ohio Medical Marijuana Act, initiated by the Ohio Patient Network and sponsored by Rep. Kenneth Carano (D), would protect medical pot patients from prosecution if passed.

The bill awaits introduction to the Ohio House of Representatives because Rep. Carano has indicated that he intends to gain the support of four Republican cosponsors before the bill debuts in the House. In the meantime, activists and patients are busying themselves distributing educational materials and making phone calls to urge their representatives to support the Ohio Medical Marijuana Act.

Book review: How to dethrone King George

If you want to get your political juices flowing early this crucial election year, reading George W. Bush vs. The Superpower of Peace by Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis should do the trick.

  The book’s subtitle, How a failed Texas oilman hijacked American democracy and terrorized the world, effectively summarizes this compilation of Columbus Free Press columns by Wasserman and Fitrakis.

  The paperback begins with a cogent compilation of evidence that Bush would have lost both the popular and electoral vote in the 2000 presidential election if it hadn’t been for the pre- and post-election dirty work done by his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and the conservative U.S. Supreme Court, which stopped the recount of votes in the Sunshine state.

  Wasserman and Fitrakis draw on numerous credible sources to document that Bush wasn’t elected president so much as he was coronated king. The product of a royal family whose roots of power were nurtured by the profits of a banking company that allegedly laundered money for Nazi Germany, Bush quickly changed the nation’s course as if by divine right.

Democracy crumbles under cover of darkness

House Republicans bend rules, press for votes during wee hours to escape the light of accountability.

Never before has the House of Representatives operated in such secrecy:

At 2:54 a.m. on a Friday in March, the House cut veterans benefits by three votes.

At 2:39 a.m. on a Friday in April, the House slashed education and health care by five votes.

At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the Leave No Millionaire Behind tax-cut bill by a handful of votes.

At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, the House passed the Medicare privatization and prescription drug bill by one vote.

At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House eviscerated Head Start by one vote.

And then, after returning from summer recess, at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq.

Always in the middle of the night. Always after the press had passed their deadlines. Always after the American people had turned off the news and gone to bed.

What did the public see? At best, Americans read a small story with a brief

Letters the troops have sent me

Dear Friends,

I’ve been thinking a lot about our kids who are in the armed forces serving in Iraq. I’ve received hundreds of letters from our troops in Iraq — and they are telling me something very different from what we are seeing on the evening news.

     What they are saying to me, often eloquently and in heart-wrenching words, is that they were lied to — and this war has nothing to do with the security of the United States of America.

     I’ve written back and spoken on the phone to many of them and I’ve asked a few of them if it would be OK if I posted their letters on my website and they’ve said yes. They do so at great personal risk (as they may face disciplinary measures for exercising their right to free speech). I thank them for their bravery.

     Lance Corporal George Batton of the United States Marine Corps, who returned from Iraq in September (after serving in MP company Alpha), writes the following:

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