January, 2017 archive
The Wages of Failure 0
Big-time sports leaves Gina Barreca scratching her head. A snippet:
So you can imagine how I felt when I learned that the football coach at my university was recently awarded $3.4 million when it was decided he was no longer right for the job. My first thought was to compare this coach to Marla Maples, who married Donald Trump and gave birth to a Trump child. Ms. Maples was reportedly paid as much as $2 million when her relationship terminated. It seems to me that with a $3.4 million payout, the football coach didn’t get severance; he got alimony. And he didn’t even have to go through labor.
As my two or three regular readers may recall, I got fed up with the corruption of big-time football and stopped paying attention to it several years ago (and please note, I do not allege that the players are corrupt, no it’s not them, not at all).
I will tell you something, well, two somethings. After a very short while, you don’t miss it, and it’s amazing how many wonderful things you can find to do on a weekend afternoon when you’re not glued to the tube watching large men run into each other at high speed.
Turnabout 4
Badtux points out that it’s a cultural thing.
“If You Don’t Talk about It, It Must Not Exist” 0
At the Des Moines Register, Derrick Keith Rollins, Jr., reflects on how Donald Trump got elected, despite (or more likely because of) his blatant appeals to racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and all around hate-fullness. Here’s a bit:
First, we’ve refused to talk about it.
For the last 30 to 35 years, the strategy by mainstream popular culture — i.e. white culture — could largely be summed up as: “I don’t see color.”
Follow the link for the complete article. It is worth your while.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is a family value.
Finding Comfort by Overlooking the Obvious 0
The corporate media seem to have concluded that Donald Trump’s victory came from support by the “white working class.” The are using the phrase “working class” to avert the eye from the key word in that phrase: “white.” Chancey Devega explains:
Historically, to be white was to be the quintessential American. In the United States, whiteness also proceeds from an assumption that white people are always and forever to be dominant and consequently the most powerful of all racial groups. This is white identity politics as both a practice and ideology. It is also the not-so-subtle meaning of Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again!”
Follow the link for the rest of Devega’s article.
