While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case.

Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on August 6, "Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day" is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavor.

My daughter, Alison, who is 36 years old, flew into town the other day (angel that she is) and I can’t let go of the wonder and miracle of it all . . . being alive.

I had intended to write a column this week about the nature of the U.S. security state and the country’s trillion-dollar, only minimally challenged annual “defense” — actually, offense — budget, but then I came upon a journal entry I wrote in 1988, when my daughter, who is a stained-glass artist and poet living in Paris, was 2 years old.

Was this the birth of her career?

I wrote:

“Oh gosh, here it is, the morning of my 42nd birthday. I just dropped Alison off at Katy, Patrick and Erin’s. For some reason, she was real reluctant to go this morning. She was feeling her own brand of tension and disorientation. When Alison gets disoriented, she has to find some small, tangible, happy thing to focus on — for instance, the stained-glass teddy bear in Katy’s porch window. To psych herself up for her day at the babysitter this morning, Alison had to say, ‘I’m going to see the teddy bear!’ And imitating me as we walked down the sidewalk toward Katy’s house, ‘Where’s that teddy bear?’

Thursday, August 25, 5:30pm, Gemüt Biergarten, 734 Oak St.

Join the Central Ohio Worker Center for our summer happy hour. Bask in some solidarity, have a drink, eat a hot pretzel, stand on tables and yell about unions, whatever it takes!

Hosted by Central Ohio Worker Center / Centro de Trabajadores de Central Ohio.

Facebook Event

On August 17, 2022, Columbus Dispatch announced that “Some parents who want to find an alternative to current public and private schools are looking at something called ‘classical education.’” 

Those few words are both misleading and revealing. No evidence is presented about any parents “looking,” other than the founders/promoters of the foundling retail—private—franchises of Columbus Classical Academy and Heart of Ohio Classical Academy. Is the name meant to evoke –or be confused with—Columbus’ highest-ranked private school, the Columbus Academy, another common marketing ploy?

More compelling, “something called ‘classical education’” misrepresents and exaggerates the relationship of this new marketing campaign to either “classical” or “education.”

Joe Motil, former Columbus City Council candidate and 37-year community advocate who is  circulating petitions to run for mayor in the 2023 May primary election states that, “As a [former] school board member, president of City Council and mayor, Andy Ginther’s decades-long practice of handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in tax abatements to corporate Columbus and luxury real estate developers has defunded public education to the point where CEA members have said enough is enough. If those on the receiving end of tax abatements and TIFs paid their fair share of property taxes, a bargaining agreement between the CEA and School Board would have been settled by now.”   

Motil continues, “The CEA’s decision to strike has been a longtime coming. Ginther, City Council and School Board members for too long have sacrificed much-needed property tax revenue and the educational needs of our city’s public schools and children, to fill the bank accounts of developers and  provide corporate welfare to our city’s wealthiest and most 'beloved' companies.”