It’s hard to picture many tears being shed for elected Ohio Republicans who hitched their political wagons to Rep. Larry Householder — removed by his peers as House speaker on Thursday, then indicted for racketeering — only to find themselves driverless, less than three months from their next election, and without much campaign cash because Householder controlled most of it and it’s now part of a federal case.
Sometimes you have an overwhelming advantage conferred by gerrymandering and corruption, and sometimes the bear eats you.
Please, please tell us that no one actually believed that Kroger is adding a “Black Lives Matter tax” to customers’ bills, as somebody tried to assert via a forged grocery receipt that went viral on Facebook. Because of a nationwide shortage of coins, the grocery giant is not giving coin change, instead allowing customers to choose whether to store up the value on a loyalty card or donate it to food banks. That was the real extra charge on the receipt that was altered to say “BLM tax.” We hope this is a wake-up call for people who get swept up in social-media outrage. But our hopes aren’t up very far.
The Central Ohio Transit Authority is supporting central Ohio during the pandemic in the best way it can: continuing to operate without fares for the foreseeable future. Even as more office workers do their jobs at home, cutting into COTA’s revenue, front-line workers who need the bus to get to work no doubt can use the savings they’re seeing. It’s an excellent use of the $50 million in federal CARES aid that COTA received.
No doubt, lots of Ohioans will miss the rides, the gooey fried food, the crowds, the entertainment and even the midway games of dubious fairness that usually make up a county fair. But if you’re one who has pined for the more wholesome days when fairs were about farm kids showing off the results of their hard work, this is your year. Gov. Mike DeWine’s pandemic-related order limiting the events to junior-fair livestock showings at least will give the kids more of the spotlight they deserve.
Who knew? The same pandemic that has millions spending more and more time looking at screens as they work from home and visit via Zoom also seems to be driving increased sales of … books. The real ones, with paper pages that you turn by hand. All through April they were flying off the shelves of stores like Target and Walmart, open during the shutdown because they sell groceries and other essentials. If this rediscovery of the pleasures of reading persists, it will be a good COVID side effect.
Slow down, Ohio. Speeding drivers apparently have taken what could be a pandemic benefit — reduced traffic — and turned it into more highway deaths. An Ohio State University study of drivers in Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland found increased instances of speeding, including “extreme speeding” of 25 mph or more above the limit.
— Columbus Dispatch; Online: https://bit.ly/2XqdHwO
