Movie Against Child Abductions

Movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn reputedly once snarked: “If you want to send a message, use Western Union!” But one way socially conscious filmmakers can cleverly “sneak” messages into movies is by sandwiching their ideas into popular genres that audiences are familiar with. Film Noir and murder mysteries are good examples: Author Dashiell Hammett was a Communist Party member who put anti-capitalist notions about greed and obsession with money into works such as The Maltese Falcon. While the content of leftist filmmaker Costa-Gavras’ 1969 Oscar-winning Z depicts political assassination and the colonels’ coup in Greece, it is in form a whodunit: Who killed the Greek peace candidate?   

Columbus’ activist community lost one of our long-time social justice advocates when Gregory Gross, 66, passed unexpectedly in his sleep on August 13, 2023.

Gregory was originally from New Jersey and his family resides there. He studied here at Capital University in 1977 and shortly after, made Columbus his home. He rode his bike everywhere he went, to work and to all the activist events in the city. He often rode for charities such as the American Cancer Society (he was a survivor) and the American Diabetes Association. Another passion was jazz, and he often played sax with a local jazz band. He loved animals, owning several cats. If anyone remembers his apartment on Duncan, the ceiling was covered with homemade models of the Star Trek Enterprise.

 Hidden in the quiet struggle of many communities across the United States lies an unsettling truth: Devastating health impacts of radiation exposure from nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining. This silent crisis has impacted the lives of veterans, Indigenous communities, and downwinders alike. The invisible damage from radiation has caused myriad severe health problems, leaving generations of families struggling under the weight of medical bills, fear, and suffering.  

Updates to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), now before Congress, seek to address this issue. These bills promise acknowledgment, respect, and rectification of a deep-seated historical wrong. But more than that, they expand access for compensation to victims of radiation exposure and close unnecessary gaps in coverage and support. 

From the 78th Commemoration of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Columbus Campaign For Arms Control Peace Concert
August 13th, 2023

For far too many, the names “Hiroshima” and “Nagasaki” have been relegated, diminished, beatified, and locked away into the ever palatable and thus, readily ignorable conceptual box known as history. History with a capital H. Tragic history, yes, but past history: something that “happened.”