On Saturday, November 16, dozens of Ohio college students, activists and immigrant advocates will go to Morrow County Jail in Mt. Gilead, Ohio, to protest the county’s contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The demonstration will be held from 11:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. and will involve testimonials from those personally affected by ICE actions.

Corrections Facility Administrator Captain Sara Fulk emphasized at a Morrow County Commissioners meeting that expenses are increasing. “The cost of everything is up,” said Fulk. “The costs of meals, utilities, and wages have all increased.” ICE brings detainees from many central Ohio counties to the Morrow County Jail. A Kenyon College student involved in organizing the protest stressed that Morrow County residents should know that their municipal tax dollars are subsidizing ICE operations in Ohio.

Thursday, November 14, 2019, 7:00 – 9:00 PM
Did you know many individuals detained in jails have the right to vote? In Ohio, people only lose the right to vote while incarcerated after they have been convicted of a felony. So while citizens awaiting trial or convicted of a misdemeanor can cast a ballot, few are able to simply because jail officials do not have voting programs that encourage people to exercise their right to vote. In fact, at any given time, roughly 750,000 Americans in jails are legally allowed to cast ballots. Join All Voting is Local, Indivisible OH12, and Indivisible Westerville for a training to learn how to help register voters in Ohio's jails. Location: Westerville Public Library, 126 S. State St., Westerville. Facebook.

I don’t know if somebody dumped a bottle of sanity solution into Rhode Island Sound or what the reason is, but Brown University, which has military

Veterans For Peace, an organization that speaks truth to war like nobody else, is attempting to reclaim Armistice Day, the Nov. 11 holiday that was flipped on its head 65 years ago when it was renamed Veterans Day — and became a celebration not of the end of war but of its perpetuity.

The name change occurred in 1954. The Korean War had recently “ended,” the Cold War and the nuclear arms race were seriously revving up and, of course, that other world war, nine years past, was still vividly a part of everyone’s consciousness. There was near-infinite cynicism about the whole idea of “the war to end all wars” . . . yeah, sure, what a joke. That’ll never happen.

It’s impossible in U.S. society not to frequently encounter the demand to vote, no matter what, no matter for whom, as a basic civic duty. Voting is supremely important, we’re told, a right, a responsibility, a moral requirement, something people died for which if you don’t use (even if it’s useless) you will effectively be pissing on their graves. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said “If everyone would vote, it wouldn’t matter what the billionaires wanted.”

Let’s accept all of that at face value for the sake of argument. Let’s suppose it is our primary duty as members of society to vote. Personally, I always do, and it takes about 5 minutes out of my year. Sometimes I even promote candidates, and one might ask why that isn’t a supreme duty too, since it can impact how and whether numerous other people exercise their sacred duty to vote. Or we could extend that line of thinking further and ask why it isn’t the duty of each of us to work to change our culture so that only better candidates can get nominated, since that seems relevant to our duty to vote for some of those candidates. But I want to ask a different question at the moment.