A Note on COVID-19 and Voting

In-person voting may look different this year in response to COVID-19. Be sure to check your polling place in advance, as it may have changed. You may also be required to wear a face mask, and there will likely be markers to keep you distant from the other voters. If you have questions, be sure to check with your county’s Board of Elections. For more information about voting by an absentee ballot, read this article.

Turn on the news or read a newspaper today and you will see political candidates and public officials making the rounds throughout the country trying to earn your vote. While the issues and formats are much different today, those candidates and public officials are participating in America’s time-honored tradition of democracy.

Joe Motil's public testimony given at October 12 Columbus City Council meeting regarding the creation of a Northeast Community Reinvestment Area:

The creation of this Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) reeks of the same special treatment and sole purpose of giving a favored developer a tax abatement while trying to disguise it as a tool to encourage development in a risk-free area of Columbus. This CRA is similar to those given to luxury real estate developers Wagenbrenner for creating a CRA at the Quarry and Grandview Crossing and Preferred Living for the Kenny & Henderson CRA. All three are located in risk free development areas and were established for the sole purpose of providing developers an unnecessary 15-year 100% tax abatement for their new housing projects.   

Metro Parks spent $12 million of taxpayers money to benefit the Quarry development. And millions more in property taxes will be paid out by the public over the years to maintain this taxpayer paid amenity for this developer. But virtually no property taxes will be paid by this developer and dozens of others throughout Columbus that don't pay their fair share of property taxes.

“FTP: Drunk PowerPoint Nite,” a fundraiser for Columbus Community Pride

Thursday, October 15, 8-10pm
This on-line event requires advance registration
Facebook Event

Especially in the days of virtual schooling and working from home, doing a slideshow presentation isn’t on most regular agendas anymore. But have no fear, your opportunity for visually-driven public-speaking has arrived! Make a slideshow (PowerPoint, Google Slides, whatever) about anything you want and share with the “class” of your LGBTQ+ peers.

What’s your favorite conspiracy theory? What’s your most controversial opinion? Introduce us to your favorite celebrity, or your best friend. Teach us about your college major, your current job/research, or the historical events that fascinate you. Make up your own drinking game. Build a trivia board, or a choose-your-own adventure story. The options are endless, so long as you can encompass it in a shared screen on a Zoom call!

And for a little added difficulty/fun factor, we encourage you to be a little inebriated.

Wednesday, October 14, 6:30-8pm, this event will be occurring via Zoom
Racism and police violence with no justice for people like Breonna Taylor; 200,000 COVID-19 deaths and still no stimulus check; wildfires ravaging the west coast. This system is killing us.
Working people, especially black people, are facing evictions, unemployment, climate change, a health crisis, and racist violence from the police and right-wing. We need the Climate Strike and Labor movements to step up and support Black Lives Matter and the struggle against the capitalist system as a whole.
Join Socialist Alternative as we discuss how we can build a movement to fight back against racism, climate change, and the pandemic, and why we need a new party that truly represents working people.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. So sayeth the book of Jeremiah, and this time I might even believe it. The chill has cut away at this most claustrophobic of summers, as an election puts a pit of dread in everyone’s stomach. As Dylan said in Desolation Row, when you asked how I was doing, was that some kind of joke? 

It probably isn’t fair to view music through the prism of the time you first hear it. Or even rational really. Your favorite winter album might have been written by the pool at Caesar’s Palace. But that’s how we hear music, and into this autumn of discontent comes Linden Hollow with their new release “Light the Lanterns.” 

The album is darkly lush, with brooding piano intros building to soaring choruses. Singer-Songwriter’s Rebecca McCusker’s keening lead vocals, often augmented by tight layers of harmony from Paige Vandiver and Emily Ng, run from childish curiosity to outright witchcraft. Ng’s violin adds haunting texture. But don’t write this off as folk music – when Vandiver’s drums kick in Linden is fully capable of rocking out.