word is, lebron james was dunked on by a college player at a summer league basketball clinic. to a sane human, it's no big deal, but lebron, and the folks from nike filming, are far from sane. word is, lebron had the tapes destroyed, or nike big wigs had it destroyed, or something. what a punk this lebron is turning out to be. what, he can't even be dunked on? what's the big deal? i remember in school, the guys used to go crazy when someone got dunked on. they would say that player a "shit on" player b. well, i was always more of an r. kelly guy myself. anyway, everybody would mock the guy that got dunked on. it was as if his entire life had been reduced, and now he was nothing more than a worthless shell of his former self. and lebron is 5 years younger than me, so his high school days must have been even more extreme in this regard, especially with him dunking on everyone, and i'm sure, letting them know about it. well, guess what lb, now it's your turn, and between me, it doesn't rank up there with world hunger. but, of course, this is the world of make believe, of untold profits made, but only when the illusion of perfection wins the day. getting dunked on? hey, that's something i could do, and i only make 5 figures! but, there are fortunes in fantasy. in the world, where one only dunks on, but is never dunked on, multitudes spend millions on mediocrities. for you see, we would all like to be perfect.
we don't want to get dunked on. for shame!
but only a few of us have the power to destroy the tapes. in fact, only a few of us have the power to be filmed getting dunked on in the first place.
poor lebron, he's only a mortal after all.
just like us, only taller, faster, and stronger.
and richer.
and dunked on, destroyed film or not.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
good stuff
AMY GOODMAN: The US contract with Ecuador over one of the largest US military bases in Latin America, Manta, expires later this year. You will not renew it. Why?
PRESIDENT RAFAEL CORREA: [translated] Why renew it? Now, if you'd like, I would renew it with one condition: that they allow me to set up an Ecuadorian military base here in New York. If there's no problem with foreign bases, then let's reach an agreement on that. I think that everybody listening is going to find that impossible. And for us Ecuadorians, it also seems impossible, based on our outlook informed by sovereignty, at least with the current government, to have a foreign military base on our soil.
PRESIDENT RAFAEL CORREA: [translated] Why renew it? Now, if you'd like, I would renew it with one condition: that they allow me to set up an Ecuadorian military base here in New York. If there's no problem with foreign bases, then let's reach an agreement on that. I think that everybody listening is going to find that impossible. And for us Ecuadorians, it also seems impossible, based on our outlook informed by sovereignty, at least with the current government, to have a foreign military base on our soil.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
one of the sick, demented coup leaders (don't coup leaders tend to be sick and demented?) in honduras recently called obama the "little black man." perhaps that will piss the big biracial man off, and influence him to push for zelaya's return.
hey, i can hope, right?
hey, i can hope, right?
michael jackson's funeral cost los angeles 1.4 million dollars. there must not be any poor and hungry people there. of course, the war in iraq has cost more than a trillion dollars. there must not be any poor and hungry people there either. for surely, in a world of poor and hungry people, money would be spent to eliminate their poverty and hunger.
no one swings like zoot sims. for a taste, i recommend the first four tracks from "jazz in paris. zoot sims and henri renaud." also, dig the first part of charlie parker's album boston 1952. the first several tunes feature bird at the hi hat with a group that includes underrated monster joe gordon on trumpet, as well as mingus and roy haynes! yes, symphony sid does do his best to bother you, but there is no stopping this music. these lines are for the pink man specifically, but anyone reading can dig these albums. and if you haven't gotten hip to lala.com, get to it right now.
i wonder if there is someone out there who has heard of tommy potter, but not harry potter?
45 more dead in pakistan, thanks to us. bombs for peace made no sense when i yelled the phrase at alarmed passerby in the boston common more than a decade ago, and it makes no sense now. i've read my chomsky and blum and parenti, and i think i know a thing or two, but just what the fuck are we doing in pakistan? it's mad, which was short for nixon's "mutually assured distruction." not a word of criticism has been spoken by the obama ball sucks, who are so thrilled that "their team" is winning that they have lost whatever intellectual integrity they may have had. all i know is it ain't good folks.
went into the local cuban restaurant a couple of days ago. the food is good, it's a happening joint. i figured the politics were suspect, but they had never made an issue of it, so i gave them the benefit of the doubt. but, on this day, i found an obscure reference that i couldn't avoid. long ago, there was a film called "i am cuba." quite a classic, though a little dramatic at times. in any case, behind the counter, there was a banner which read "i was cuba." oh yeah? well, you ain't anymore! fuck you and your restaurant.
that is, until i get hungry.
for hunger, you see, makes fascists of us all.
no one swings like zoot sims. for a taste, i recommend the first four tracks from "jazz in paris. zoot sims and henri renaud." also, dig the first part of charlie parker's album boston 1952. the first several tunes feature bird at the hi hat with a group that includes underrated monster joe gordon on trumpet, as well as mingus and roy haynes! yes, symphony sid does do his best to bother you, but there is no stopping this music. these lines are for the pink man specifically, but anyone reading can dig these albums. and if you haven't gotten hip to lala.com, get to it right now.
i wonder if there is someone out there who has heard of tommy potter, but not harry potter?
45 more dead in pakistan, thanks to us. bombs for peace made no sense when i yelled the phrase at alarmed passerby in the boston common more than a decade ago, and it makes no sense now. i've read my chomsky and blum and parenti, and i think i know a thing or two, but just what the fuck are we doing in pakistan? it's mad, which was short for nixon's "mutually assured distruction." not a word of criticism has been spoken by the obama ball sucks, who are so thrilled that "their team" is winning that they have lost whatever intellectual integrity they may have had. all i know is it ain't good folks.
went into the local cuban restaurant a couple of days ago. the food is good, it's a happening joint. i figured the politics were suspect, but they had never made an issue of it, so i gave them the benefit of the doubt. but, on this day, i found an obscure reference that i couldn't avoid. long ago, there was a film called "i am cuba." quite a classic, though a little dramatic at times. in any case, behind the counter, there was a banner which read "i was cuba." oh yeah? well, you ain't anymore! fuck you and your restaurant.
that is, until i get hungry.
for hunger, you see, makes fascists of us all.
we get to choose between time and newsweek
A Normal, Minimal-Choice Election
Indonesia Gets to Pick Its Killer
By ALLAN NAIRN
The International Herald Tribune headlined it "A Proudly Normal Election" in Indonesia, and it was -- a minimal-choice election, as normally happens in most countries (Jacob Ramsay, "A Proudly Normal Election, " International Herald Tribune, July 8, 2009).
This election was a de facto choice among three mass-killing Suharto generals -- each of them old US proteges -- one of whom actually embodied the specter of something like fascist dictatorship, and people voted for the smoothest, least frightening general, the incumbent, Gen. Susilo.
But it was impossible on the ballot to vote for the poor or to vote against killing civilians, because none of the candidates, pre-screened by the establishment, stood for anything like that: these were candidates of the rich, and of murder.
Gen. Susilo had most of the army and most of the rich people behind him, so he had most of the media propaganda and also most of the campaign money.
In Indonesia a lot of poor people like the election season because they get direct cash bribes. Party messengers come to their homes and give each family several dollars, and this time everyone I met said Gen. Susilo's footmen gave the most money.
Beyond that, his two rivals were repulsive to many people. They selected as their running mates the two most hated generals in the country. One, Gen. Prabowo, has a neo-fascist style and made his name as a hands-on torturer and as Suharto's son-in-law, and the other, Gen. Wiranto, saved the army in 1998 when he threatened a Tienanmen-style massacre of demonstrators if they challenged the army after toppling Suharto.
So compared to those two, Gen. Susilo seemed less bloodthirsty, even though he's been high in the chain of command for some of the country's most famous massacres, including Jakarta '96, occupied East Timor '99, Aceh in the early 2000s, and as President he's backed nationwide police torture and army torture and murder in sealed-off Papua, and has a practice of arresting people who insult him or who hoist local independence flags. Economically, Gen. Susilo broke the law and canceled severance pay for workers, and hunger and diarrhea have been increasing nationwide, especially in Nusatenggara in eastern Indonesia.
But he's done all that smoothly. He's seen as smart, and he gets lots of foreign money. The US and investors like him because he does the necessary killing and holds down wages discreetly -- without bragging about it -- and he lets them take minerals and forests and labor while demanding smaller bribes than Suharto.
And at the same time he's made life better for city elites, lots of condos and spectacular malls. If you have money, life in Jakarta can be Valhalla. That gets him good press coverage.
But if you're poor, police thugs will come and bulldoze your home to put up those fancy condos, and your chances of working, eating, or putting your kid through primary school are the same or worse than before Susilo.
So the Herald Tribune is right, this was a normal election. There was voting but there wasn't much choice.
Allan Nairn writes the blog News and Comment at www.newsc.blogspot.com.
Indonesia Gets to Pick Its Killer
By ALLAN NAIRN
The International Herald Tribune headlined it "A Proudly Normal Election" in Indonesia, and it was -- a minimal-choice election, as normally happens in most countries (Jacob Ramsay, "A Proudly Normal Election, " International Herald Tribune, July 8, 2009).
This election was a de facto choice among three mass-killing Suharto generals -- each of them old US proteges -- one of whom actually embodied the specter of something like fascist dictatorship, and people voted for the smoothest, least frightening general, the incumbent, Gen. Susilo.
But it was impossible on the ballot to vote for the poor or to vote against killing civilians, because none of the candidates, pre-screened by the establishment, stood for anything like that: these were candidates of the rich, and of murder.
Gen. Susilo had most of the army and most of the rich people behind him, so he had most of the media propaganda and also most of the campaign money.
In Indonesia a lot of poor people like the election season because they get direct cash bribes. Party messengers come to their homes and give each family several dollars, and this time everyone I met said Gen. Susilo's footmen gave the most money.
Beyond that, his two rivals were repulsive to many people. They selected as their running mates the two most hated generals in the country. One, Gen. Prabowo, has a neo-fascist style and made his name as a hands-on torturer and as Suharto's son-in-law, and the other, Gen. Wiranto, saved the army in 1998 when he threatened a Tienanmen-style massacre of demonstrators if they challenged the army after toppling Suharto.
So compared to those two, Gen. Susilo seemed less bloodthirsty, even though he's been high in the chain of command for some of the country's most famous massacres, including Jakarta '96, occupied East Timor '99, Aceh in the early 2000s, and as President he's backed nationwide police torture and army torture and murder in sealed-off Papua, and has a practice of arresting people who insult him or who hoist local independence flags. Economically, Gen. Susilo broke the law and canceled severance pay for workers, and hunger and diarrhea have been increasing nationwide, especially in Nusatenggara in eastern Indonesia.
But he's done all that smoothly. He's seen as smart, and he gets lots of foreign money. The US and investors like him because he does the necessary killing and holds down wages discreetly -- without bragging about it -- and he lets them take minerals and forests and labor while demanding smaller bribes than Suharto.
And at the same time he's made life better for city elites, lots of condos and spectacular malls. If you have money, life in Jakarta can be Valhalla. That gets him good press coverage.
But if you're poor, police thugs will come and bulldoze your home to put up those fancy condos, and your chances of working, eating, or putting your kid through primary school are the same or worse than before Susilo.
So the Herald Tribune is right, this was a normal election. There was voting but there wasn't much choice.
Allan Nairn writes the blog News and Comment at www.newsc.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
millions cried
millions cried for the dead black man with white skin. the sharp one told mj's kids "there was nothing strange about their father." well, there was something strange about that comment. mariah carey sounded as if it was her funeral. they told us, by way of excuse, that she didn't rehearse, but i don't rehearse either before belting it out in the shower, and i even hit a correct note or two. jermaine jackson sang smile, which made me laugh. lionel ritchie again confirmed why i call him lionel bitchie. berry gordy once again demonstrated the biggest ego in the western world. at least he mentioned jackie wilson. queen latifah (hey, this isn't a monarchy!) read a poem by maya angelou, but i suspected it was written by a seven year old. brooke shields told us that michael is "undoubtedly smiling down on us from some crescent moon." perhaps, but i think there is some room for doubt about that.
and then, at the end, the daughter came to the mike. sadly, it wasn't mike jackson. she cried, and told us he was the greatest dad in the world, but at her age, it's hard to imagine that she has met every dad in the world. this display made us care and cry. it humanized mj. yes, a child losing her father is indeed a sad story. unless the child is afghani or iraqi or pakistani. if the child is made an orphan by our bombs, it is no concern. if a parent dies who didn't invent the moonwalk, then fuck their children. for you see, those tens of thousands of iraqi orphans had parents who wore two gloves, who never sold 26 million records, and weren't constantly grabbing their crotch. (at least not on stage.) these dead parents died the same color as they were born, and most were never charged with child molestation. and unlike mj, the u.s. government told them to beat it.
so, you see, this whole concern for cute children crap is rather selective. for, as we cry for blanket, many children go to bed without one, because they don't have the peanuts required to get one. selective compassion for the children of the famous doesn't impress me. and where will that compassion be next week? truth is, we don't give a shit about this child.
it just makes us feel good to think that we do. meanwhile, the orphans pile up, thanks to our wars and economic policies.
makes you think. at least until the ballgame comes on.
or until the next celebrity dies.
and then, at the end, the daughter came to the mike. sadly, it wasn't mike jackson. she cried, and told us he was the greatest dad in the world, but at her age, it's hard to imagine that she has met every dad in the world. this display made us care and cry. it humanized mj. yes, a child losing her father is indeed a sad story. unless the child is afghani or iraqi or pakistani. if the child is made an orphan by our bombs, it is no concern. if a parent dies who didn't invent the moonwalk, then fuck their children. for you see, those tens of thousands of iraqi orphans had parents who wore two gloves, who never sold 26 million records, and weren't constantly grabbing their crotch. (at least not on stage.) these dead parents died the same color as they were born, and most were never charged with child molestation. and unlike mj, the u.s. government told them to beat it.
so, you see, this whole concern for cute children crap is rather selective. for, as we cry for blanket, many children go to bed without one, because they don't have the peanuts required to get one. selective compassion for the children of the famous doesn't impress me. and where will that compassion be next week? truth is, we don't give a shit about this child.
it just makes us feel good to think that we do. meanwhile, the orphans pile up, thanks to our wars and economic policies.
makes you think. at least until the ballgame comes on.
or until the next celebrity dies.
AMY GOODMAN: Former Congress member McKinney, we only have ten seconds. But, you’ve just been deported. What are your plans right now?
CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, I would like to see the children of Gaza have the coloring books and crayons that we had on board with us. I would like to see the houses that have been destroyed rebuilt. I would like to see the lives rebuilt for the people of Gaza and I would like to see the people of Palestine have, and enjoy their human rights.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think president Obama is headed in that direction?
CYNTHIA McKINNEY: I think you can probably answer that as well as we can, because while we were in detention, the Foreign Ministry of Ireland made protests and asked the government of Israel to release its nationals, several Members of Parliament
AMY GOODMAN: …We have 5 seconds….
CYNTHIA McKINNEY: from the United Kingdom…
AMY GOODMAN: … 5 seconds….
CYNTHIA McKINNEY: …also wanted to censure Israel. Nothing from the United States.
CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, I would like to see the children of Gaza have the coloring books and crayons that we had on board with us. I would like to see the houses that have been destroyed rebuilt. I would like to see the lives rebuilt for the people of Gaza and I would like to see the people of Palestine have, and enjoy their human rights.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think president Obama is headed in that direction?
CYNTHIA McKINNEY: I think you can probably answer that as well as we can, because while we were in detention, the Foreign Ministry of Ireland made protests and asked the government of Israel to release its nationals, several Members of Parliament
AMY GOODMAN: …We have 5 seconds….
CYNTHIA McKINNEY: from the United Kingdom…
AMY GOODMAN: … 5 seconds….
CYNTHIA McKINNEY: …also wanted to censure Israel. Nothing from the United States.
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