October 2009 Archives

Excerpt from "Analysis: Limbaugh's words keep him from a dream"
By JESSE WASHINGTON
AP National Writer

15 October 2009

"The league has 78 percent African-American players," Lebowitz said. "Do you bring in someone who has made racist statements to own a team that's largely made up of players the owner has made slurring statements about?"

The decision to exclude Limbaugh was made Wednesday by a group led by Dave Checketts, chairman of the St. Louis Blues, who are trying to keep the Rams in town. It came after concerns were raised by players, their union, civil rights activists, at least one NFL owner and the commissioner of the country's most popular sports league.

All franchise sales must be approved by 24 of the NFL's 32 teams -- an ownership group that is overwhelmingly white, conservative and focused on the bottom line, which could have suffered if fans or advertisers were angered by Limbaugh.

"There's an argument that says the very principles Rush espouses -- the free market -- are what did him in," said the conservative radio host Michael Smerconish. "This IS the free market. These are private businessmen who made a decision about what was in the best business interest of their thriving venture.

"It's definitely ironic. There's a bit of hypocrisy here as well," Smerconish said, citing a study that showed 70 percent of NFL owners' political contributions went to Republicans. "Through their dollars they are very supportive of the sort of politics that Rush talks."

Said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who was a loud voice of opposition to Limbaugh's bid: "It's remarkable in that he was denied by other powerful whites. At the end of the day, his own peers said, 'You are a liability.' Even the rich and powerful do not want to be identified with racism."

Limbaugh insists that he is not racist, and that comments such as one from a 2007 transcript on his Web site -- "The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it" -- have been twisted by his liberal critics, and sometimes flat-out fabricated.

Two of the racist quotes recently attributed to Limbaugh, which praised slavery and Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray, may have been falsified and then magnified in the media echo chamber.

The quotes were published in a 2006 book by Jack Huberman, "101 People Who Are Really Screwing America." Asked Thursday for the source of the quotes, Huberman said he had no comment. His publisher, Nation Books, also declined to comment.

But the record shows Limbaugh also was forced to resign from ESPN's Sunday night football broadcast in 2003 after saying of the Eagles' Donovan McNabb: "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well."

Yesterday an "idea" was announced. Promoted today as intrepid was a plan for what school systems and social service agencies call "at risk" youth. And it made the front page of The New York Times.

It took six months and a team of eight people in a global U.S. city called Chicago to figure out this $60 million seeming innovation. The idea came after sixty-seven kids died violently in 2007-2008, mostly youth of color, and after one death was captured on tape and broadcast to the world via YouTube.

The Chicago Public Schools' (CPS) plan for youth follows death, murder, and a global financial collapse, just some of the many repercussions of globalization.

"In China, a Headless Mao Is a Game of Cat and Mouse"
New York Times
6 October 2009
BY Jimmy Wang

(Left, Mao's Guilt / Gao Brothers)

BEIJING -- It's not the kind of sculpture of Chairman Mao you typically see in China. He's on his knees as a supplicant, confessing; his body language and facial expression indicate deep remorse. What's more, the head of this life-size bronze statue, titled "Mao's Guilt" and created by the artist brothers Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, separates from the body -- by design.

I'm embedding this into the Social Etymologies blog because I never want to forget this.

I never want to forget the sound of a child's uncomfortable giggle as two-by-four hits young, black bone. I never want to forget the sound of a child saying "Damn!" over and over or someone saying plainly, in the background, "They beat him to death!" I never want to forget a child say with almost Fox News fascination, "Get closer! Get closer!"

I never want to forget a young voice scream desperately "Come on, Derrion! Derrion get up! Derrion, get up!"

I never want to forget that we produced these children. I never want to forget the process and practice of that production.

I never want to forget what we have done to the kids. I never want to forget what we have not done for the kids.

Beating death Of Derrion Albert, age 16, by his peers (24 September 2009, Chicago, IL)