This week CoolCleveland heralds the advent of summer: Story Club Cleveland takes on the theme of “freedom,” CIA’s Cinematheque celebrates a summer of W.C. Fields, Mentor Marsh hosts a family-friendly hike with CMNH, and the Geauga Park District takes hikers to a gorge formed 300 million years ago. Then to raise the stakes, we suggest you take a firefly walk at the Liberty Park Nature Center, explore new music with No Exit, and enjoy some scenery and giggle out loud on the Comedy Train.As the gerrymandered minority swings the pendulum too far to the right, it seems they have finally left behind the common-sense middle, and in the process have unleashed a rising blue wave. Locally, this could mean electing Nan Whaley as Ohio’s first governor to replace the struggling, callous and heartless Mike DeWine and his pro-gun, anti-choice and anti-family views, as CoolCleveland commentator Anastasia Pantsios explains. And don’t forget to check out her PHOTOSTREAM of last weekend’s Rally For Women’s Rights at the Free Stamp, where fists, and voices, were raised.
CoolCleveland correspondent Jenna Thomas interviews Juanita Brent, the newly elected vice chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, and you’ll enjoy CoolCleveland commentator C. Ellen Connally’s review of the must-read, Allow Me To Retort. Apparently, we’re all going to have to raise our voices to retain our freedom. Are you registered to vote?
Art House, Inc. has had an incredible year of programming through the NEA Big Read. We are so grateful to all the organizations with whom we collaborated.
Join us for some of our workshops, summer camps, and events, including Community Culture Night, Creative Fusion, and our Creative Garden project. https://www.arthouseinc.org/
Governor Mike DeWine’s response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade was a press conference announcing that the state would throw some bones such as “parenting classes” and “mentoring” to women forced to become parents against their will.
He did not mention things they truly need to be able to raise a child without facing poverty, despair and hopelessness: affordable childcare, paid parental leave, a living wage. If these had been enacted decades ago, more women who chose to abort for economic reasons might have had their babies. But DeWine didn’t care then. He’s only pretending to care now.
Ohio has never elected a woman governor, and it’s long past time. Democrat Nan Whaley (r. above, with Senator Sherrod Brown and Connie Schultz) is far more in line with the opinions of a majority of Ohioans on the two issues that obsess that GOP-dominated state legislature: abortion and guns. She’s desperately needed to restore this failing state… Read more here.
As a Democratically controlled county in a Republican-controlled state, organizing towards turning Ohio blue is even more critical for abortion-access supporters.
Recently, CoolCleveland correspondent Jenna Thomas spoke with incoming vice chair of the county party and State Representative Juanita Brent:
“Ohio definitely can be turned blue. We are not a red state, we are a purple state, but it comes with intentionality. You can’t think of it as a hit-it and quit-it, where it’s just going to happen and we can just walk away. It is going to have to be constant relationship building, constant showing up, constant education on what’s going to be on the ballot…” Read the exclusive interview here.
What? You didn’t know there was another primary on August 2? Yes, there is, thanks to the determination of the Republican members of the redistricting commission to hold out on producing legal maps until they were allowed to use illegal, unconstitutional ones.
Tragically, they succeeded. While they managed to secure (also illegal) congressional maps by the May primary, they hung on and kept bickering about the state legislative maps. So that election had to be kicked down the road until August.
You probably don’t even know who your state senator and representative are — and part of their strategy is to confuse you. But it’s the state legislature flooding the state with guns, banning abortion and scapegoating trans kids, so PLEASE vote – and help your family, friends and neighbors. Find out who’s on the ballot and register to vote if you haven’t already done by Googling “board of elections” and your county name. Go here for the Cuyahoga County BoE. Read more.
WED 6/6 Rough Terrain Northeast Ohio was all forest, streams and wetlands when settlers arrive. But a Geauga Park District takes hikers to a gorge formed 300 million years ago.
Author Elie Mystal is a columnist for The Nation, and a frequent commentator on MSNBC. In his recently published book, he sets forth his interpretation of the United States Constitution. Peppered with salty language and cogent constitutional arguments, AllowMe to Retort – A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, (The New Press – 2022), analyzes various provisions of the Constitution from the perspective of Black Americans.A graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard College of Law, Mystal wastes no time setting forth his premise. In the first sentence of the introduction, he shouts it out. “Our Constitution is not good” and “was designed to create a society of enduring white male dominance.” Read more.
