Author's archive
The Professional Is the Political 0
Responding to a Wall Street Journal article whose author wistfully yearns for the good old days of “apolitical” big time sports, Justin Levin points out that such times exist only in Never Never Land. He explains why the national anthem is played before every pro baseball and football games (hint: it was a politicized decision). An excerpt:
Pete Rozelle, the commissioner of the NFL, and Spike Eckert and Bowie Kuhn, the commissioners of baseball, worked to put their sports on record in support of the Vietnam War, while laboring to silence those in the game who disagreed. While many believe that before the protests of the last year, the national anthem and other patriotic elements of sporting events symbolized unity, they are actually remnants of this campaign to interject sports into a bitterly divisive political debate.
Plus ca Change 0
David Farmer has heard it before. A nugget:
It was echo of the stinging voice of Alabama Gov. George Wallace that I heard in Alabama last week.
The speaker was President Donald Trump, but his words carried themes from the not-so-distant and ugly past.
Taxing Thoughts 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Peter Ubel explores why people hate taxes, despite that fact that, as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., once pointed out, taxes buy civilization.
What he finds is not what you might expect.
All Coked Up 0
More stuff you can’t make up.
A gunman “dressed as a Coca-Cola bottle” yesterday robbed a Kentucky restaurant, police report.
Misdirection Play, Freedom of Screech Dept. 0
There has recently been much moaning about “freedom of speech” on college campuses amongst the right-wing puniditocracy. Upon a close reading, most of it falls into the “much ado about not much of anything” category and generally seems designed to use ad hominem arguments to discredit ideas, as in
- “Oh, look! Their clothing is unkempt! I shall fall upon my fainting couch clutching my pearls as I refuse to listen to a word they say!”
In other words, it’s a misdirection play.
Joe Patrice refuses to be misdirected.
He tells us of a flying visit by Attorney-General Jeff Sessions to Georgetown Law School. Some students were invited, then uninvited to the event, apparently because they might have had the temerity to disagree with the views of Sessions and his sponsors.
Patrice suggests that the sequence of events illustrates the right-wing selective perception on freedom of speech. The whole story is rather convoluted, so follow the link for the details, but here’s the lesson Patrice draws from it:
Lies and Lying Liars 0
Paul Krugman explains lies have a way of catching up with liars, with the loathsome Graham-Cassidy bill being just one example. A nugget:
The answer is that Republicans have spent years routinely lying for the sake of political advantage. And now — not just on health care, but across the board — they are trapped by their own lies, forced into trying to enact policies they know won’t work.
Follow the link for the complete article.
Facebook Frolics 0
The Register explains why, in the “social” media industry (and it is an industry, not a service), cluelessness is not a bug; it’s a feature. A snippet:
Of course not. Facebook, like its rival Google, thrives on the income of ignorance and contrition.
To prevent money laundering, financial institutions must comply with know-your-customer laws.
Facebook and Google know everything about their product – the people who use their free services – but as little as possible about everything else, because knowledge goes hand-in-hand with liability.
The Unmasking 0
Jenee Osterholt points out what was obvious to anyone who paid attention. An excerpt:
Donald Trump is the president America deserves.
He’s forcing the country to take the mask off, to confront its systemically oppressive ways, to deal with the fact that xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, able-ism, anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia and, yes, racism, are real. Say it with me: Racism is real.
(snip)
Perhaps this is what happens when a rich reality TV star who gets off on debasing and firing people storms into the White House. Or maybe we’re watching the institutional racism that has been remixed and masked in mass incarceration, mortgage discrimination, redlining and more stack together like Voltron and become a president.