When I arrived at the speech there was a weird sort of vibe. Yes, some of the respected presenters and their fans were represented. But, there was also a large group of people who had helped facilitate the event and it appeared their main job was to party.

As the speakers presented their opinions I noticed something odd behind the scenes. There was a strange contest going on. In hiding, there were young men and women who were participating in a perplexing event. They would sit in huge lovely chairs with a number of tubes placed into their bodies that gave them the different realities they needed to enhance their understanding of the events of life. The ones they would like a better understanding of, and those they could give a shit about.

Spectators were kept aware of the progress by a huge technologically advanced computer monitor. This behemoth kept track of gains and losses against poverty, human rites, and international domination.

People at the festival loved it.

I happened to meet one of the young party people who had organized the event. We met on three evenings after the days events.

After the first day she said, “What a message. Haiti is on the way back… ” I said, ” I don’t think so. Haiti was poor before, this hurricane has made things worse and it would be a long time before even their former life would be preserved.” She asked, “how do you know this?”

“Because, I’m a social worker.”

Then she said, “Well at least the world is focusing more on human rites than repression.” I said, ” I don’t think so. What about Neda Soltani, a 16 student during an uprising in Iran? What about Tibet and China? Repression sill continues.”

She asked, “How do you know this?”

“Because, I’m a social worker.”

She then asked is their never a time to party and have fun and I answered, yes there is.

On days off and holidays. I said. Also, whenever you have worked for a civil rights movement that has changed the world for better.

She asked, “How do you know this……”

P.S. My sad attempt to write an album cover story like Peter Gabriel.

Over the past few months, more and more gun owners have been gathering at restaurants and coffee shops like Starbucks with guns strapped to their hips, intimidating fellow patrons.

While it is legal to carry a gun into an establishment, it is also legal for that establishment to opt out of letting its customers carry weapons into their business. I know in Columbus, many businesses have signs on the front door stating “No Weapons Allowed.”

If five dudes are sitting in Starbucks packing heat and not wearing badges, I would feel uncomfortable.


You’re not carrying a gun into Starbucks because you feel threatened, you’re showing off.

I have the right to lay a big fat slobbering kiss on my girlfriend in public, I don’t do it because I think it makes me look like an idiot. Just because you have the right to do something, doesn’t mean there aren’t situations where it’s inappropriate.

I’m not against guns and I’m sure this scenario does not apply to most gun owners. But I am for intelligent gun laws and responsible behavior.

But the big question is, why does Starbucks allow this? You can sign a petition here to let Starbucks know you find this policy unacceptable.

This is my case for why the Columbus Blue Jackets are worth saving.

Here’s what might happen if the CBJ do leave.

“It’s easy to figure out what happens to the Arena District if the Blue Jackets leave—just go back to the year of the lockout,” said team president Mike Priest. “I think you’ll find the answer to how important (the team) is as an anchor tenant.”

Priest is referring to the 2004-05 season, when the NHL suspended games during the lockout. The city lost upwards of $700,000 in income tax from the team’s $34 million payroll, while the impact on the Arena District from the loss of hockey traffic was even greater.

The public needs to be educated on the worth of having the Blue Jackets in the Arena District. This from Mike Rose, one of the co-chairs of Forward Together.

“We’re not seeing retraction, we’re seeing growth,” said Rose…

Here are the figures.

Using 2006 data, researchers at the John Glenn School of Public Policy at The Ohio State University identified more than $630 million in investments in the Arena District. As a result of these investments, the Arena District is home to more than 170 businesses that employ more than 5,500 people and generate sales of $1.6 billion annually. Conservative estimates identify $30 million generated in state and local taxes annually.

But the Blue Jackets have a terrible lease agreement and are losing 12 million a year.

In November of 2009, Stephen A. Buser, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of Finance at The Ohio State University released a research study that said the following regarding the Blue Jackets lease.

a) The Blue Jackets are required to make annual payments of approximately $5 million to use the Arena. Other NHL teams typically pay much less, or nothing at all.

b) The Blue Jackets are responsible for managing the Arena on a year round basis. As a result, the Blue Jackets are required to absorb arena operating losses on the order of $4 or $5 million per year. Other NHL teams typically either have no such responsibility, or the amount of the loss is shared with other parties.

c) The Blue Jackets have either limited access, or no access, to certain types of revenue sources that other NHL teams typically enjoy. Examples identified by MZSports that are especially significant in the case of the Blue Jackets include lack of access to payments for naming rights to the Arena, lack of access to parking revenues for hockey games and/or non hockey events, and only limited access to revenues from the sale of founder suites and personal seat licenses in the Arena.

I think this is solid evidence that the Blue Jackets have been an economic plus and are worth saving. In his report Dr. Buser gave 20 suggestions to help the CBJ. So far, there has not been much talk about implementing any of them. Hopefully, Forward Together can change that.

Of course the biggest thing that has to happen is the Blue Jackets need to start winning.

Sources:
Carrying the flag
Report on the Blue Jackets

My only guess is that the Jackets have been getting blown out in some of their recent games. The players may have tuned Hitchcock out and general manager Scott Howson felt like he had to make a change.

One player who did not tune Hitchcock out appears to be captain Rick Nash.

“It’s terrible news,” Jackets captain Rick Nash said. “It’s terrible news, it’s terrible we couldn’t play better, and the coach had to be fired. Hitch put this market on the map. We didn’t really have an identity before he got here.”

Based on the results of last season, the Jackets most successful, I believe he should have been given another year to try and turn it around.

The last comprehensive study on food emergencies was in 2005. Here are the new numbers.

People who received emergency food through the Mid-Ohio Foodbank in 2009 increased by 28 percent since 2005. Nationally the increase was 46 percent.

Of the 248,000 people who received help through Mid-Ohio last year, the food bank found that:

About 43 percent said they had to decide between making rent or mortgage payments or buying food - 48 percent more than in 2005. More than three-fourths - about 76 percent - of adult clients younger than 65 were unemployed…

…A growing number of adults who use pantries once had good jobs. About 18 percent of those seeking assistance said they had managerial or professional positions; in 2005, just 9 percent did.

Matt Habash, President of the Mid-Ohio Foodbank said many of those asking for assistance are former donors. He called the situation “alarming.”

Source: Number of people seeking emergency food help surges in central Ohio

We know that President Obama supports sensible measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children.

Unfortunately, in his first year in office, the President showed no signs of leadership on the issue.

We understand that the President had a lot of important issues on his plate. However, he has a responsibility to speak about the serious problems facing our nation. And gun violence is a major problem. More than 110,000 people are killed and injured each year by guns.

Time after time, however, President Obama evaded this issue. In fact, he signed into law more repeals of good gun policies than President George W. Bush. That is why we gave him a failing grade for the first quarter of his term. Click here to read the report.

Please e-mail the President to urge him to join with us to solve the problem of gun violence.

The year started with statements being removed from the White House website that repeated support for gun violence prevention laws Candidate Obama had expressed during his campaign.

Then, after horrific, high-profile shootings last spring, President Obama and his staff studiously avoided any mention of guns.

When his cabinet members, Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, expressed support for reasonable gun laws, they were quickly muzzled and backtracked from those statements.

In May, President Obama, without any indication of concern, signed legislation letting people carry concealed weapons in national parks. This fall, he signed legislation that allowed guns in checked luggage on Amtrak trains.

President Obama can still improve his grade by taking action to make our families and communities safer, but he needs to hear from you.

Please e-mail the President to urge him to join with us to solve the problem of gun violence.

Sincerely,

Paul Helmke, President, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

Here is a summation of Obama’s Brady Center report card.

Brady Background Checks: F
Gun Show Loophole: F
Gun Trafficking: F
Guns in Public: F
Federal Assault Weapons Ban: F
Standing Up to the Gun Lobby: F
Leadership: F

Before the speech, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Janetta King, Strickland’s policy director, spoke in a conference call with health and human-services advocates. The advocates were told that while they are appreciated, they would hear nothing from the governor about help for their struggling programs.

If you appreciate someone you do not slash their budgets. Substance abuse services have taken large budget cuts under Strickland, but mental health services have been decimated.

In the past two years, mental-health programs have been among the hardest hit by state budget cuts. As a result, thousands of people have been cut off from services from local mental-health agencies…

This is foolish. The research is overwhelming regarding treatment and prevention. It saves money in the long run.

Pamela S. Hyde, former Ohio mental-health director and newly appointed by President Barack Obama as administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said such cuts are costly in the long run…

…Hyde said $1,500 spent on mental-health and substance-addiction treatment can result in $11,000 in avoided taxpayer costs down the road. Typically, those costs result from emergency-room care, hospital treatment and imprisonment.

But Strickland is a psychologist and should know this. Maybe he was a really lousy psychologist and that’s why he became a politician.

Source: Mental-health advocates upset Strickland’s speech omitted them

In Columbus 19.9% of respondents answered yes.

Youngstown was #3 at 24.2% while Toledo was #13 at 20.8%. Cleveland and Cincinnati did not make the top 25.

Nationally, 18.5% of respondents answered yes.

I found it interesting that nationally, the highest month of food hardship was November. The month of the Thanksgiving feast.

You can find an adobe document of the research here.

Let’s set the stage. In 1964 Stanley Kubrick released a movie called “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.” It is an anti-war and anti-nuclear film. If you haven’t seen it you should. It’s a Cold War classic black comedy.

Here’s the famous seen with Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb horseback.

According to the McClatchy Newspapers the U.S Air Force filmed a response. It was discovered by William Burr, a senior analyst in charge of the nuclear-history documentation project for the National Security Archive, an independent research organization at George Washington University. There is no evidence the film was ever released to the public.

A link to the site can be found here. This is the video in three parts.

Again. It was a different time. It’s just that I am not sure the times have changed that much.

P.S. I’m guessing somewhere Stanley Kubrick is smiling.

Interestingly, opposition seems to come from those not linked to Columbus.

In an online article that I suspect will appear in the paper today The Columbus Dispatch reported this.

In the Mahoning Valley, where they rejected last fall’s pro-gambling constitutional amendment, there’s lingering resentment that Youngstown isn’t on the list of casino cities.

Toledo is not happy either.

In Toledo, which did make the list, some online pundits have questioned why Columbus is the only city getting a second look at locations.

Here’s my quick flippant answer. We were the only one of the four cities slated for a casino to see the deception. Gambling interests which had seen four ballot initiatives fail in the past used the specter of a bad economy and the promise of jobs to create a perfect storm that allowed Issue 3 to pass.

One of my favorite bloggers said this in The Columbus Dispatch article.

“Some here feel if there is going to be a ‘do-over’ that one should be allowed to happen here,” Lisa Renee Ward, who runs a Toledo-based blog called Glass City Jungle, said via e-mail.

I hope this is a ‘do-over’. It’s chance to revisit a terrible decision by Ohio voters that was secured by a campaign of fear, money, and unsubstantiated promises.

A new constitutional amendment should appear on the next ballot that actually reflects the sober reflections of the Ohio electorate.