The Sierra Club is continuing its legal actions against the City of Columbus Department of Sewers and Drains, (DOSD), which has been illegally dumping untreated raw sewage into Central Ohio rivers and basements.

The Club has compiled these statistics from its records search: 3 billion gallons of raw sewage and industrial waste bypassing Columbus' two sewage treatment plants each year, 900 illegal cross connections of sewer lines into stormwater lines, 800 illegally unreported sanitary sewer overflows, and 10,000 reported basement sewage backups in the last 5 years. The city also has issues of illegality surrounding combined sewer overflows (where stormwater and sewage flow in the same pipe and can mix in wet weather) and a 13-inch unpermitted sewer bypass pipe at the Jackson Pike Wastewater Treatment Plant. To get a perspective, the current bypass pipe at the plant is 8 inches in diameter. The city maintains that this new pipe is part of its floodwall project.

The Sierra Club has been disappointed that neither Mayor Coleman nor any City Council members have so far been willing to stand up and question the actions of the DOSD.

To all people of good will round the world,
    Love and Peace of Christ be with you.

    We are addressing President Bush and all the American people as human beings, not as a president of United States. We presume that as Christians you have hearts full of love and compassion. You will pity our Iraqi children, our elderly, and our youth that have no hope in a better future and a decent life. We, Dominican sisters and brothers in Iraq, are living and sharing with our people in their sufferings. The Iraqis have been going through hard times for twenty-three years, for they have witnessed two disastrous wars. If President Bush starts another military attack against Iraq, we think this will be a catastrophe. We believe that you can feel the danger that is looming over the Iraqi civilians. That is why millions of people from different countries round the world are demonstrating, writing letters and trying to put pressure on President Bush not to initiate a new military attack.

The Coshocton County Coalition for Peace and Social Justice held a peace rally and march on Feb. 15, 2003. This was the first anti-war demonstration held in Coshocton. Three guest speakers and two coalition speakers addressed the demonstrators, who numbered about 40. The crowd consisted of college students from Muskingum College, local residents young and old, as well as some clergy and other professionals. General speaking topics addressed non-violent opposition to war, the just war theory, misinformation disseminated by the administration to fuel war fever, and the call to activism on peace and social justice issues.

John Michael Houser, known to many as Mike, died in February. Mike, 57, was an activist who had gone on the Freedom Rides of the 60's and was at the Chicago 1968 convention. Michael, who was notably unmaterialistic, was also a member of the CPA, the Communist Party of America. He worked also with the local CWA union. Many of us will miss Mike.

It started like any other routine day at the Reflexions on Front hair salon on December 17, 2002. The proprietor, Randy Hubbard, prepped his salon for his early customers. The phone rang -- it was one of his regulars wanting to schedule an appointment. While on the phone, Hubbard heard a loud knock on the door. He wondered why a young man with close-cropped hair, who looked like an FBI agent, was at his door. Hubbard's salon is located on the ground floor of Columbus' FBI office building at 500 S. Front St.

Still on the phone, Hubbard opened the door and was blasted with the following question: "Why is your flag upside down?" Hubbard paused and thought about telling him that he placed it upside down following the November re-election of Governor Bob Taft, whom he opposes, as a sign of the state's distress. Instead, he simply replied, "None of your business." Hubbard says the man, he later learned was a military liaison to the FBI, shouted back, "You're a jackass!"

Hubbard admits he swore back and told the military man, "The day you start paying the rent you can hang the flag any way you want."