Central Ohio Winter: Highbanks

OH IO

My brother recently retired and has been considering a move to Florida. The move hasn’t yet happened in large part because he is concerned about living in a drek-hole state (employing the trumpian tool for the assessment of geo-political entities). Governor DeSantis has focused so intensely on making Florida the home of ‘where woke goes to die’ that he has effectively alienated about half of the population of the United States. Perhaps more than half. He's definitely alienated Mickey and Minnie. I appreciate my brother’s concern. I have, however, made the case to him that while the crazy stuff is aggravating on a global scale, it rarely impacts anyone’s day to day activities or quality of life.

I have made these observations from my personal experience with living in a drek-hole state.

I could just say Jim Jordan and JD Vance, and then move on to the pretty pictures, but I have little control over myself.

A bill just passed out of the Ohio Senate would prevent local governments from closing down gun stores or taking away guns during riots and other states of emergency.

(Columbus Dispatch October 21, 2021)

While people are in the streets shooting each other, why would anyone want to limit access to more firearms and ammunition?

Drek-hole state.

My vote in congressional races has been irrelevant for many years. My state is so heavily gerrymandered that a republican is going to win my district even if he or she is dead. The supreme court returned three different congressional maps to the legislature during the redistricting process, deciding that the districts were unconstitutional. The elections arrived before the Ohio legislature did anything about it, and my vote remained irrelevant. It’s an odd feeling knowing that in our democracy that my vote might count, but that it absolutely, positively doesn’t count for anything.

Drek-hole state.

A federal jury found both former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and ex-Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges guilty of racketeering conspiracy Thursday – a dramatic outcome in the biggest public corruption case in state history. The case made it to federal court because of its sweeping scope: $61 million in bribe money paid by FirstEnergy Corp. via dark money groups to help Householder seize political power and in turn pass and defend a $1.3 billion bailout law known as House Bill 6. (Columbus Dispatch March 9, 2023)

This one is near and dear to my heart as I worked for the state agency for more than 30 years that regulates First Energy. House Bill 6 was legislation that forced state utility customers to subsidize nuclear power plants that were deregulated and open to “market competition” under previous legislation. Subsidizing generation in a competitive market for electricity is an interesting proposition. The entire situation is so much worse than has been reported in the newspapers or discussed by politicians. It has to do with the historical relationship and social contract that guaranteed a fair return on the utility companies’ investments in generation and the state’s regulation of the companies’ earnings. That critical and very expensive piece of the puzzle (for utility rate payers/customers) has been totally lost in the shuffle. I’m only not presenting those details here because I’m not allowed to throw up. I keep thinking about calling the Governor to discuss this issue with him, but I sanely let the thought evaporate as he is the supreme leader of the drek-hole state.

The details of this case are painful to think about. While the unmitigated chutzpah surrounding this case is extraordinary, this kind of nauseatingly dirty politics in Ohio is quite ordinary. And par for the course, no one from First Energy has been indicted for anything, because as noted in a previous article, while under a republican administration, regulatory agencies generally try not to hurt the feelings or cause any kind of discomfort to those being regulated.

Drek-hole state.

Relying on data from the ADL’s Center on Extremism and reported by Axios Columbus (March 16, 2023), Ohio ranked third among all states for documented white supremacist events and gatherings in 2022.

Only the third best drek-hole state. We promise to do better next year.

This one is a doozy. I’m just going to quote a chunk of the Columbus Dispatch article. (January 30, 2023).

The school superintendent of an Ohio city where neo-Nazi-themed home-schooling curriculum is reportedly being used and widely shared online says his "district vehemently condemns any such resources."

The curriculum made national news in an article published online by Vice News based on a report published last week by the anti-fascist research group Anonymous Comrades Collective.

The Vice article claims that a couple from Wyandot County created the "Dissident Homeschool" channel, a social media outlet that distributes its lesson plans for elementary students to more than 2,400 subscribers nationwide.

"Since the group began in October 2021, it has openly embraced Nazi ideology and promoted white supremacy, while proudly discouraging parents from letting their white children play with or have any contact with people of any other race," the Vice article reads. "Admins and members use racist, homophobic, and antisemitic slurs without shame, and quote Hitler and other Nazi leaders daily in a channel open to the public."

Striving to be the very best drek-hole state.

And, hey, with quality curriculum like that for home schoolers, the Ohio legislature proposed House Bill 11, the Backpack Bill. According to the Dayton Daily News (March 14, 2023).

The Backpack Bill … would make all public, nonpublic, charter and home school students eligible for a state scholarship, funded through an education savings account …. Currently, only students who live in poorly rated districts or whose parents make under 250% of the federal poverty line are eligible for Ohio’s voucher program.

The following appears on the Backpack Bill web site (https://backpackbill.com/about/):

About the Backpack Bill

Fund students, not the system

The Backpack Bill empowers families to choose the educational option that best meets their needs. The Backpack Bill ties state resources to the student so that Ohio funds students and teachers, instead of buildings and bureaucrats.

Every child is unique, and families should be empowered to choose the best educational setting to meet their child’s needs. At the same time, the Backpack Bill ensures that Ohio maintains strong funding for community and public schools.

Why the Backpack Bill?

Ohio’s education system is failing to meet the diverse needs of our children. Not only are many public schools underperforming and under educating our children, but in rural, suburban, and urban school districts, radically sexualized and politicized curriculum is being taught in the classroom.

Most of the children in these schools have no options, so the school district is nonresponsive to the concerns of parents.

The Backpack Bill takes away the monopoly from public schools and offers families a choice for the education that will best meet the needs of their children. This will also force the public schools to be more responsive to the needs and concerns of the parents and community.

BACKPACKBILL.COM IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY

The Ohio Christian Education Network, A Network of Center for Christian Virtue.

Pauline was a public elementary school teacher for twenty-five years. I was the parent of two children who attended public schools throughout their education. My observation is that there are few institutions in our society where parents have more control than the operations of the public schools. Parents vote for school boards who set policy. If there are complaints about curriculum for any reason, they are listened to and often acted upon. Parents are not shy about advocating for their children … and for their values.

Perhaps our public schools are not offering fair and impartial curriculum about Jesus … or Hitler.

Drek-hole state. Big time.

And this one is my new and all-time favorite. This one smells a lot like the DeSantis plan to kill the woke in education, i.e., distorting facts and history so white people’s feelings aren’t hurt or let’s make America white again. The legislation could be one of those things created by a don’t-think tank and sent to the woke killers across the country.

Republican Senator Jerry Cirino (Kirtland) has introduced Senate Bill 83, the Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act. According to an article in the Columbus Dispatch (March 14, 2023), the bill … attempts to eliminate bias in the classroom and diversity training mandates, requires specific American history curriculum, forbids faculty strikes during contract negotiations, requires that the course syllabus be posted online and requires that professors be evaluated based on assuring that classrooms are free from bias.

Cirino is quoted in the article as saying:

I like to think of this bill as a course correction, so we don’t end up in Ohio with our institutions more focused on social change than true intellectual diversity.

These are some additional and important points in the Dispatch article:

At the heart of the bill, in Cirino's opinion, is a push to ensure that students are free to express their views and beliefs without fear of reprisal.

Universities and colleges would have to "guarantee that faculty and staff shall allow and encourage students to reach their own conclusions about all controversial matters and shall not seek to inculcate any social, political, or religious point of view. "That’s really the whole point here," Cirino said. "What we’re seeing not only in Ohio but other parts of the country is a lack of intellectual diversity."

To accomplish that goal, he first started with another piece of legislation that passed in the last General Assembly. Senate Bill 135 will require public institutions of higher education to create formal complaint systems where students, groups or faculty could submit alleged free speech violations.

One person’s toxic twisting of history, facts and the truth is another person's intellectual diversity. As in, what in the hell does intellectual diversity even mean?

Who in their right mind would want to be a teacher in the state of Ohio – in a public school district or college. He should call this the Ohio brain drain bill as teachers decide to take their services to other states where they aren’t going to be harassed or punished for teaching accurate history and facts.

Cirino doesn’t define bias … nor does he discuss the nature of a fact. One person’s fact can, in fact, be another person’s bias. Mr. Cirino is going to be a really busy guy if he’s going to be the arbiter of those decisions. Or teachers will decide not to teach much, because who is going to protect them from having to decide all these matters about controversial issues. And, by the way, what is a controversial issue? This is all crazy land.

As Ohio is one of the consummate drek-hole states, there’s a great chance it will pass.

For about four years while I was in graduate school in the 1970s, I taught introduction to physical anthropology. A significant portion of the class covered evolutionary theory and primate and human evolution. I started each course by explaining that this was a biology class, not a theology class. Each of my students was entitled to their own beliefs about how all the universe, including human beings, came to exist. But in my class, if they wanted to do well, they were going to need to memorize and be able to regurgitate everything I had to say about evolution. I wasn’t going to entertain any recitations of origin myths from the many holy books or oral traditions. I have little doubt that my shutting down any alternative points of view would have put my career at considerable risk under this legislation. There are cases where facts aren’t open to dispute. But this proposed legislation is going to seriously muddy those waters.

I also taught a class on cultural diversity in American society for about ten years at Capital University. The woke killer police would have had a field day with me in that class. There is a difference between lack of knowledge (ignorance) and bigotry. From ten years of teaching this class and from being a minority in American society, I learned just how profound the difference can be. It is not always possible to identify in the first sentence, but by the end of the paragraph, it is as clear as day. I have an abundance of patience with ignorance. You shouldn’t be a teacher if that is not the case. I had little to no patience with bigotry. Someone lacking knowledge had the opportunity to speak their mind and we all learned from the experience. I had absolutely no patience whatsoever for bigotry. I would explain where it comes from, and I would shut it down. There was no waxing philosophic about stupid stuff. The woke police would have had me in regularly for the flogging of the woke.

If the Ohio legislature goes through with this stupidity, I would anticipate a mass exodus of the best professors at our public colleges and universities. If they have options (and they would) why would they possibly tolerate upending their careers with some crazy, impossible to define assessment tool for advancement? And what students would possibly be interested in immersing themselves in an expensive, four-year program at bizzarro world. Ohio public colleges and universities would become amazingly attractive for straight, white, Christian students. No one would complain about the dining halls being named after the 12 disciples and the athletic teams would seriously suck.

When the expression of facts can be construed as unacceptable bias or indoctrination, we are in one gigantic heap of trouble. And we are.

What happened to the small government republican party. If one can quiet the brain down from the massive efforts being devoted to intellectual diversity, it might be possible to see the excruciatingly painful irony that has befallen our republican brethren. When it comes to regulating businesses (i.e., keeping trains loaded with toxic chemicals on the tracks or utility companies from destroying the planet, or banks from running out of money), they are all about keeping the oppressive yoke off of the free marketers. And yet, the republican party has inserted itself in the most microscopic and intimate ways into what goes on in our bedrooms or between patients and their physicians or between teachers and their students. Their admiration for Putin (the war criminal) and their reticence to support Ukraine and democracy has pretty much turned the shining city on the hill into a gigantic, steaming drek pile.

Do you think it is too early for me to start my war on Christmas?

On second thought, perhaps I should suggest that my brother find a more healthy and sane landing spot.

More Lovely Dead Crap

When I go out to shoot, I never know what I’m going to get. I can anticipate by checking the weather forecast, but until I arrive at my destination, I just don’t know.

There are times while shooting when a friendly person will stop and ask me if I’m getting anything. They often stop to look at what I’m shooting because I have my large (and heavy) camera pointed straight down into the ground or directly into a bunch of dead plants. They assume that there must be some kind of animal that I’m focused on that they aren’t able to see. Otherwise, they might have to assume that they are watching a total crackpot. To the credit of humanity, most people skirt past the crackpot conclusion and assume that my subject matter involves some fascinating microscopic species. Depending on whether I want to get into a conversation, I usually tell them that I’m just making art. That’s easier and spares these friendly people a description of lovely dead crap. As to whether I’m getting anything, I usually explain that I never know until I see it on my computer. My eyesight has really deteriorated so the small screen on the back of my camera doesn’t tell me much. And even if my eyesight was great, the small screen on the back of the camera doesn’t tell anyone much.

There are times when I go out to a field where the lovely dead crap is often found in abundance and the metro park people have mowed it all down. Even I can’t find anything in a field of four-inch plant stumps. They cut down the prairies and grasslands every few years to keep the woodlands from taking over everything in the parks. There are seedlings everywhere, all the time.

When I made my regular pilgrimage to Highbanks Metropark this past winter, I found almost perfect conditions. There was bright sunlight in a clear blue sky; perfect for my backlit subjects. And sun is a big deal in the winter in central Ohio. There was hardly a breeze which is fantastic, because when shooting subjects close up, even the slightest movement is going to cause an image to be blurred. I’m shooting at a very shallow depth of field (f2.8) which means my shutter speed can be higher, but any kind of movement is going to cause an issue. Close up shots magnify movement.

When I first started to take pictures, I would go on my hike, look around, and eventually hit the shutter button regardless of whether I had a great subject. Why not, with digital cameras, it is possible to fire away at no cost. I’ve matured some. I feel no pressure to hit the shutter button unless there is something worthy of being captured. No body parts fall off if I return from a good hike with nothing on the memory card.

I absolutely loved what I was able to capture. It was just one of those magical days. There were so many wonderful abstracts (including impressionist abstracts) and the opportunity for minimalism was everywhere.

So much beauty in such a monumentally drek-hole state.

I always recommend going through my photographs full screen on your computer or phone. To do so, just click on the first image and it will expand to full screen. You will then see navigation arrows on the sides to go through the photographs.