Mental health, suicides and addiction were serious problems before the pandemic, and the fallout threw gas on a raging fire.

Thankfully, the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS), with help from the federal government, rolled out ‘988’ back in July, a nationwide suicide and crisis lifeline. Ohioans in all 88 counties can now call or text 988 for free 24/7 crisis support.

“Mental health is just as important as physical health,” said Gov. Mike DeWine back in July.

“The 988 program is the front door into Ohio’s behavioral healthcare response,” stated OhioMHAS in a press release.

This mental health hotline, which was previously the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, fielded nearly 80,000 calls from Ohioans in 12 months prior to the 988 roll out. OhioMHAS is predicting 988 could receive 200,000 calls from Ohioans for its first year.

Friday, August 19, 2022, 7:30 PM
Location:  Overbrook Presbyterian Church’s social hall, 4131 N. High St., Columbus 43214. 

He will be doing hit songs made famous by the likes of Chubby Checker, Ricky Nelson, the Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke, Paul Anka, Del Shannon, Fabian, the Drifters, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and others. 

Beautiful doo-wop background vocals will be added by the Harmonettes (Jackie LaMuth, Renilda Marshall, and Teresa Schleifer.)  And we’ll be backed by instrumental wizards Brian Szuch on electric lead guitar and Renilda Marshall on bass.  Plus, we’ll have fun with trivia questions about 1950’s songs, fads, and singers.  And, as usual, we’ll have a couple surprises that will be pretty “neat,” to use the parlance of the times.  

We’re suggesting $15 per person donations at the door, with proceeds going to senior citizen programs of the Clintonville Resource Center.  In other words, we’re doing “oldies but goodies” music to help “oldies but goodies” people.  

By day, young women show religious devotion through purity and perfection. By night, they form a vigilante girl gang, roving the streets of Brazil to punish sinners. When an attack goes wrong, Mari (Mariana Oliveira) is forced to confront her inner demons.

Mari and her friends broadcast their spiritual devotion through pastel pinks and catchy evangelical songs about purity and perfection, but underneath it all they harbor a deep rage. By day they hide behind their manicured facade, and by night they form a masked, vigilante girl gang, prowling the streets in search of sinners who've deviated from the rightful path. After an attack goes wrong, leaving Mari scarred and unemployed, her view of community, religion, and her peers begin to shift. Nightmares of repressed desires and haunting visions of alluring temptation become undeniable and the urge to scream and release her paralyzing inner demons is more powerful than ever before. A neon-tinged genre-bender that gives provocative form to the overwhelming feminine fury coursing through modern life.

Kendrick Lamar’s Schottenstein Center show’s futuristic art-film introduction led into a Stevie Wonder warmness which explored the Diaspora of entertainment, human experience and culture during Kendrick’s complete captivating performance.

A series of dancers entered a catwalk which in flesh form and mimed Lamar’s Big Steppers album namesake.

After the first of a series of large square objects accompanied this waltz, next unveiled the Compton performers’ entrance of rapping from a piano the song “United in Grief” from Kendrick’s newest album which explores the layers of traumas our society inflicts on itself.

Whether it’s racism or basic human mistakes…

Kendrick performed “N95,” “Element,” then “Worldwide Stepper’s.”

I was impressed with the Terry Gilliam-meets-Dave Hammons opulence.

The second I had fallen into field trip to museum zone… Kendrick returned us to the Compton beaches by nailing “Backseat Freestyle” in which the stacked Schott erupted with glee after being seduced with the cerebral build-up.

“Backseat Freestyle” extols Hip Hop celebration of sexual prowess.

Texas and Arizona have begun busing refugees at their border – at a cost of millions – up to a couple liberal Northern cities . . . let’s see how they like it!

Texas, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, “has had to take unprecedented action to keep our communities safe” – you know, from the hordes of rapists or whatever storming across America’s insecure border, which of course is 100 percent the fault of President Joe Biden.