Reefer Madness is alive and well. Remember the drug war when truth didn’t matter? Apparently, those who represent us at the statehouse vehemently oppose cannabis being on the ballot. So, to sway public opinion, they copped their legislative authority to pass a ridiculous resolution filled with faulty facts.

Yep, on October 10th, with nary an announcement nor a hearing, Ohio Senate Republicans – all of 23 them – introduced an passed that very same day, along strict party lines Ohio Senate Resolution 216 (S.R. No. 216), whose Long Title is: “To express the Ohio Senate's opposition to Issue 2 on the November 7, 2023, statewide ballot, which would legalize the use and retail sale of recreational marijuana; to identify the problems, risks, dangers, burdens, and costs it would bring to Ohioans, employers, and communities; and to encourage Ohioans to vote against the measure.” Gee thanks.

Labels are central to the politics of media. And no label has been more powerful than “terrorist.”

 A single standard of language should accompany a consistent standard of human rights, which the world desperately needs. “If thought corrupts language,” George Orwell wrote, “language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.”

 No amount of rhetoric from its defenders and apologists can change the reality that Hamas engaged in mass murder. What Hamas horrifically did to more than 1,000 Israeli civilians of all ages two weeks ago meets the dictionary definition of terrorism.

Don’t Tell 

On the way to East High School, we stopped to pick up Annie at her house on Long Street. She used to live in an apartment in Poindexter Village, now she lived a few doors down from the Reverend Phale D. Hale, Sr. family. Another famous family on the East Side and in the state. Rev. Hale had been the President of the NAACP and was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. I thought it was cool that he lived in my neighborhood. It showed where his heart was, with his people.

Annie was glad to see us, well, me at least. Jean didn’t particularly like Annie and made sure we both knew it. She wasn’t outright mean, but she insulted Annie every chance she got. Like the time when Annie got a new haircut. I thought it was cute, but Jean told her she looked like a black orphan Annie from the movie. When Annie and I entered the lunchroom that day Jean started singing “the sun will come out tomorrow” and everybody laughed and those that knew the song started singing with her. I was mad, but Annie wasn’t. She started singing it too.

In the last week, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther shows signs of an incumbent in a tight race desperate to prove he deserves another shot at his job. If he were even slightly engaged with everyday people, he wouldn’t need the polling firm he’s hired to learn about what matters to people in the city he is paid to lead.

Selected voters in Columbus recently received a survey (or “push poll”) from a market research firm, EMC Research, paid for by the Friends of Ginther campaign ($55,000 paid to EMC Research on July 27, 2023). What these polls lacked in ethical research, they made up for in creative rewriting of history, attempting to create a fiction of Andy Ginther as having “worked tirelessly to fight crime” in Columbus with only two examples to offer the public of his effort.