Saturday, September 07, 2013

Syrias debate

Isn’t it heartwarming to see John McCain, the former POW, and John Kerry, the former anti-war protester, united in their drive to pound the shit out of Syria? Henry Kissinger must be busting his buttons.

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There should be little honest doubt remaining across the land that the presidency of Barack Obama is a giant slap at the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. It’s a cynical, calculated perversion of King’s message of non-violence, civil disobedience, economic justice, socialism, and citizen self-governance. And still, the visual juxtaposition last week of the 50th anniversary of the Freedom March with the ramping of war on Syria was still harsh enough to be utterly blinding. If there was ever a measurable anti-war movement in this country, it died with King. The Democrats’ push for war again is appalling. Salon’s David Sirota accurately calls the political maneuvering in Washington “red-versus-blue tribalism in its most murderous form.”

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Interesting stat from a research group called Civic Economics out of San Francisco: For every $100 spent at a local business, $45 will wind up staying in that community. With chain stores, only $13 stays in the local economy.

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If, as Slate.com argues, quarterback Robert Griffin III is a transformative athlete, “ushering (his) sport into a new era athletically, aesthetically, and culturally,” one major thing is going to have to change beyond the generally brittle quality of his right knee—and that is the name of his team. How will the historical footage of Griffin’s game play years from now, long after the “Redskins” moniker has been resigned to the ashbin of time? It won’t play at all is how. Not to a corporate media and its corporate sponsors. Highlights of Griffin’s gridiron escapades will be bound in storage tighter than the celluloid prints of the Disney film “Song of the South.” It is astonishing that Washington owner Dan Snyder fails to see this.

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On a Deadspin article this week called “Why Your Team Sucks—Washington Redskins,” the last in a series of preseason NFL team reports, club owner Dan Snyder is chided by both author and commenters. Along comes "Doug," who leaves this brilliant comment:

"Remember that one kid in school who was popular only because he had money and nobody ACTUALLY enjoyed spending more than 30 seconds in his presence? And everyone was just about to wash their hands of him completely but then his folks got him a Camaro for his 16th birthday? And then everyone wanted to hang out with him again, right up until the point where he wrapped the Camaro around a telephone pole, at which point everyone felt justified in just writing him off as a complete dipshit for good? 

"The Redskins are that kid and Robert Griffin III is our Camaro."

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This is the highly-recommended web series "Ask a Slave," in which the actress answers questions actually posed to her when she worked at Mount Vernon as a re-enactor. Didn't George Washington free all of his slaves?

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