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Top of Mind
Last week, we talked about how Columbus Pride lost corporate funding this year. Big brands pulled out. The community didn’t.
Enter Pride on High, the ultimate parade-watching experience that lets you snag a front-row seat to one of the best Pride celebrations in the Midwest and fund LGBTQ+ youth services while you do it.
It’s happening this Saturday, June 14. Gates open at 9:30 a.m. and tickets are on sale now (but close Friday at noon, don’t wait unless you like regrets).
With three locations, Hyde Park, Parlay, and El Vaquero, you get shaded seating, drinks, food, real bathrooms (a rare Pride luxury), and a soundtrack hosted by local icons like NBC4’s Colleen Marshall, MojoFlo’s Amber Knicole, and Patron of Pride 2025: the one and only Virginia West.
Gif by PoochofNYC on Giphy
But the best part? 100% of your ticket goes to a local LGBTQ+ nonprofit of your choice, Stonewall Columbus, Kaleidoscope Youth Center, Equitas Health’s Mozaic Project, or Equality Ohio. In other words: you’re not just watching the parade, you’re keeping it (and the services behind it) alive.
Because when sponsorships fade, it’s community support that keeps the flags flying.
So buy a ticket. Watch the show. Support the cause. And if glitter gets on your mimosa? Consider it a donation with flair.
Scarlet Letter Trivia
Question: What was the "Mechanical Turk," famously demonstrated in the 18th century?
A) An early steam-powered automobile
B) A clock that could tell fortunes
C) A machine that played chess against humans
D) A device that automatically played musical instruments
Club Pilates: Resistance Is Fun!
If you've ever wondered what it feels like to stretch, sweat, and rethink your entire relationship with your core, all in under an hour, welcome to Club Pilates.
With six locations across Columbus and a studio full of spring-loaded machines that look like they were designed by a very kindhearted chiropractor, Club Pilates offers low-impact, high-intensity workouts for pretty much everyone. Whether you’re a fitness junkie, a stressed-out parent, or someone whose hamstrings are actively plotting against them, there’s a class here that will meet you exactly where you are, and then gently push you past it.
The instructors? Trained for hundreds of hours. The equipment? Equal parts science and sorcery: Reformers, TRX straps, Exo-Chairs, and those half-ball Bosu things you’ve seen at the gym but never dared approach.
Club Pilates started in San Diego in 2007, but they’ve since built a global community of people who just want to move better, live longer, and feel stronger. Their mantra? You can start anytime. Which, for a few of us, translates to: “No, really, it’s okay that your New Year’s resolution started in June.”
To prove it, our writer Jacob (hi) signed up for a class, mic’d up, and filmed the whole thing. There’s a moment involving a resistance band, a balance ball, and a deep personal reckoning. Watch it. Then sign up and experience the strange joy of realizing your hip flexors are, in fact, real muscles with feelings.
More than just a fitness brand, Club Pilates is part of Xponential Fitness, a massive wellness network that spans barre, cycling, yoga, and more, but the vibe inside the studio is personal, local, and grounded in real community. They’re not shouting at you from a treadmill screen. They’re guiding you, breath by breath, to a version of yourself that stands taller, feels better, and maybe even remembers to stretch after meetings.
So if you're looking for a workout that doesn’t just burn calories but builds balance, inside and out, Club Pilates is worth a visit.
The Wells That Keep Giving
How clean water, community-led change, and a little bit of grit are transforming life in Samburu
In 2005, Kristen Kosinski flew to Kenya with a mission: to empower women and girls. She didn’t bring a savior complex or a branded campaign. She brought curiosity, and she listened.
Again and again, across villages and manyattas, she heard the same word: water. Or rather, the lack of it. It wasn’t a side issue. It was the issue. Water shaped everything: health, education, equality, and hope. Without it, girls couldn’t go to school. Mothers couldn’t keep their families healthy. Communities couldn’t grow.
That first trip led to four wells. And then seventy-five more. Fast-forward to today, and The Samburu Project has drilled 155 clean water wells, impacting over 100,000 lives in rural Kenya. And they haven’t stopped there.
More Than a Well
The Samburu Project doesn’t drop a pump and call it progress. They’ve built a holistic, community-driven model:
Clean water first.
Then comes hygiene education, well-maintenance training, and women-led leadership teams to ensure sustainability.
Next: school attendance increases, health outcomes improve, and local economies grow.
Every well is surveyed, drilled, and maintained with Samburu residents at the helm. Local contractors. Local committees. Local resilience. It’s not charity, it’s collaboration.
And the numbers speak for themselves:
90% of all wells drilled since 2006 are still functioning.
Women now spend less time fetching water and more time leading businesses, attending workshops, and raising educated daughters.
Entire communities are healthier, stronger, and more economically stable.
The Ripple Effect
If you think clean water is a simple fix, consider this:
A child dies every 85 seconds from a water-related illness.
Samburu women used to walk 12 miles a day for water.
Girls dropped out of school to help, if they ever got to start.
Clean water doesn’t just quench thirst. It creates time. Space. Opportunity.
Built on Values
What sets The Samburu Project apart is its core ethos:
Female Empowerment: Everything starts with and centers women.
Community Engagement: Locals decide, lead, and sustain the work.
Sustainable Impact: Wells are built to last, and they do.
Reliable Partnerships: They walk the walk, then walk with others.
They’re also aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — not just the one about clean water, but the ones about quality education, gender equality, sustainable communities, and climate resilience.
Want to Help?
You don’t need a drilling rig. You need an idea and a little drive.
Through the [do it] FOR WATER campaign, people have turned birthdays, yoga classes, bake sales, and bike rides into fundraisers. It’s grassroots giving with a global impact. And it works.
You can also donate directly, sponsor a well, or help fund long-term maintenance efforts. Every drop counts.
Because when a Samburu girl gets to attend school instead of spending her day collecting water, when a mother no longer has to boil every drop just to keep her child alive, that’s change. That’s legacy.
That’s the power of a well.
👉 Learn more and support the work at The Samburu Project
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Healthy, done honestly. That’s the Visionary way.
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Buckeye, Meet Bot
Ohio State bets big on AI, and yes, your Philosophy paper might include ChatGPT now
Starting this fall, every Ohio State student will be expected to speak two languages: the one tied to their major... and the one spoken by machines.
It’s all part of OSU’s new AI Fluency Initiative, a campus-wide effort to embed artificial intelligence education into every undergraduate program. From business to biology, teaching to theater, if you’re enrolled, you’re now expected to know your way around both Shakespeare and a chatbot.
The goal? By 2029, every OSU graduate will be “AI fluent,” which we assume means being able to both collaborate with and critique generative AI tools without accidentally plagiarizing CliffsNotes meets Skynet.
What This Actually Means
New general ed courses are coming. First-year seminars are getting AI modules. And across every department, students will be taught how to use, and not misuse AI. That includes:
Creating lesson plans with generative tools (education majors)
Writing papers with chatbot assistance (ethics and philosophy)
Reflecting on prompts, revisions, and just how much AI actually helped
Instructors are also being equipped through the Michael V. Drake Institute and a new grant program. Because while students might be “digital natives,” faculty are still navigating what’s helpful vs. what’s “the AI wrote my homework and my future career plan.”
So, Why Now?
AI is no longer optional. In 2024, 26% of teens used ChatGPT for schoolwork, double the rate from the year before. And in many industries, being AI-savvy is now as expected as knowing how to format a PDF.
Ohio State isn’t the first to integrate AI into higher ed, all 14 public universities in Ohio have started exploring it. But OSU is the first to go all-in, across all majors, and do it with structure. According to President Ted Carter, “every job, in every industry, is going to be impacted by AI.”
This is not a drill. This is the curriculum.
The Tension Beneath the Code
Of course, there are concerns. Some students say using AI feels like cheating, or at least like someone else is taking the wheel. Others say they don’t trust the output or feel ownership over the final work.
Professors like Steven Brown (Philosophy) and Subbu Kumarappan (Economics) are testing new ways to incorporate AI while keeping integrity intact. Their assignments ask students to evaluate, revise, and think, not just copy and paste.
Because the real danger isn’t students writing with AI. It’s students graduating without ever learning how.
Or as Brown puts it:
“It would be a disaster for our students to have no idea how to effectively use one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created.”
So yes, you might be writing essays with robots. But you’ll also be expected to think for yourself. Because the bots can generate answers, but they can’t ask the right questions.
Not yet.
Trivia Answer:
C) Correct answer: A machine that played chess against humans
Explanation: The Mechanical Turk, created by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770, was a fake chess-playing machine that appeared to beat human opponents. Inside the machine was a hidden human chess master controlling the moves.
Arrivederci
