After Midnight/Goddamn You, America

I am $7.79 richer today
an automatic deposit appeared
unexpectedly in my account

Goddamn you, America
you are a tough sonofabitch
a drag for most of us

As a writer I could give a fuck
about the popular culture
and Tom Brady's politics

Radicalism is my forte
an oyster free from the saline
of packaged and frozen dinners

I have $7.79 that is on you my
inert and disinterested America
Goddamn you and the GOP

All the money in the world
boils down to two books I sold
in the summer when a reading

Frenzy must of taken hold and
my words cast a spell of absolution
on the entire universe Amen

I needed something that $7.79
could buy like a new brain and
a real estate license and meatloaf

Goddamn you, America I never
considered working for the state
or one of your contractors etc.

I worked for 50 years on poetry
and here I am with $7.79 in
the bank thank you Amazon

Goddamn you, America $7.79
isn't a lot of money but
what the hell I'll take it


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Just the Facts, Ma'am

Listen closely to Eugene Puryear, author of Shackled and Chained.  At the tender age of 30, Puryear signals hope for the next generation of American socialists/activists who must carry on if this country is ever to recover from its post-Kennedy abuses of power.

And for all of you lefties who are even older than I am I reference Kennedy because he is my first personal vantage, and thus barometer, of experience.


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Apps Aren't for Everyone

Ha!

Celebrity culture and other nonsense, yes.

Reality?  Not so much.


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Essential Giroux

In the United States, the extreme right in both political parties no longer needs the comfort of a counterfeit ideology in which appeals are made to the common good, human decency, and democratic values. On the contrary, power is now concentrated in the hands of relatively few people and corporations while power is global and free from the limited politics of the democratic state. In fact, the state for all intent and purposes has become the corporate state. Dominant power is now all too visible and the policies, practices, and wrecking ball it has imposed on society appear to be largely unchecked. Any compromising notion of ideology has been replaced by a discourse of command and certainty backed up by the militarization of local police forces, the surveillance state, and all of the resources brought to bear by a culture of fear and a punishing state aligned with the permanent war on terror. Informed judgment has given way to a corporate controlled media apparatus that celebrates the banality of balance and the spectacle of violence, all the while reinforcing the politics and value systems of the financial elite.[3]

Henry Giroux on the transformation of pedagogy.


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Needed

Oh, and a QB.


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Hello and Goodbye

The weekend begins!

Nothing but football and suspect notes on the future of the GOP!

Enjoy yours.




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About Right

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Football Follies

As Yogi (R.I.P.) might have put it--if it's not one thing, then it must be something else.

First it was the struggle with Vernon Adams' math test from hell, which he finally passed.  Now it is the case of the mysterious broken finger that plagues his presumed All-American year.

Oregon can't escape the drama at this stage.  Play the damaged Adams, or the less-than-gifted backup Lockie?

Tough call.  I wish the staff best with this one as the Ducks prep for Utah on Saturday evening.

There is one thing I've noticed about Oregon's legion of football fans/experts, however--they will not be happy, no matter the outcome.


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D-Man's Birthday

(Dylan learning to fish a few years ago already.)

Today is my grandson Dylan's 7th birthday.  Doesn't seem possible.

Hey, happy birthday D-Man!

I know you can read this because, well, you're already in the first grade!


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Eight Days a Week

For all of my football-loving readers out there (and you are many, I know), here is a cool site that replays the weekend's best games over the course of the season.

I'm working on the Alabama/Ole Miss game that I eschewed live for something insignificant, I'm sure, in the Pac-12 on Saturday.

I've reviewed parts of the Oregon/MSU game, and Vernon Adams Jr. still didn't complete that wide-open throw that might have given the Ducks a victory! Blame it on The Finger.

Hi-def, commercial free, full or condensed games, NoonKick beats my FirstRowSports site mightily, but alas a day late.

I laugh.  Later in the college season games will broadcast live on Tuesdays and Wednesdays as the mid-majors vie for the ESPN television money.  Then you essentially get football seven evenings a week if you want to count the NFL as a viewing option, which I have done recently.

Perfect for a bored, escapist old guy with "plights and gripes as bad as Achilles"* who can't concentrate on much else.


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*Thanks to John Berryman

Essay of the Month

In the current historical moment in the United States, the emptying out of language is nourished by the assault on the civic imagination. One example of this can be found in the rise of Donald Trump on the political scene. Donald Trump’s popular appeal speaks to not just the boldness of what he says and the shock it provokes, but the inability to respond to shock with informed judgement rather than titillation. Marie Luise Knott is right in noting that “We live our lives with the help of the concepts we form of the world. They enable an author to make the transition from shock to observation to finally creating space for action—for writing and speaking. Just as laws guarantee a public space for political action, conceptual thought ensures the existence of the four walls within which judgment operates.”[1] The concepts that now guide our understanding of American society are dominated by a corporate induced linguistic and authoritarian model that brings ruin to language, politics and democracy itself.

Henry Giroux lights up the latest forms of U.S. totalitarianism, with a little help from Hannah Arendt.


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Yep

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Obey

Not sure if I've shared this one with you before.  Anyhoo, it's based on a work by Hedges, and I have no idea whether he sanctioned it or not.


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Vedder and Anang

In celebration of Cheney's speech today before the American Enterprise Institute, which is, believe it or not, the most highly organized and well-funded fascist organization in the U.S.  And in this country that's sayin' sumpin.'


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Doc of the Day

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Angry Entitled Mama

This from the message board at DuckTerritory:

Quackmama said... (original post)

Been a life long die hard Duck fan. And the talent we have now compared to what we used to have, should play a helluva lot better. They don't have the discipline, desire and attitude that they need. And yes, that pisses me off. If a player has the talent, then find a way to get it out of him. Don't know if this team doesn't have the heart or just didn't give a damn last night, but I do. As a DAF member who pays a shit ton to watch them, I want to see some damn desire and emotion out there. Not some half hearted, run through the motions, attempts by our defense. They should play a lot better and they themselves know it.

A sensible retort by Bowerz...

Well aren't you the self-entitled Duck fan we all know and love. You pay money to the DAF and now you want answers! Right? I mean...how dare they not come out of the gate fast enough after a national championship appearance!

Some of the comments on here after the first game are just laughable. Get over yourselves.

Ha, ha, ha...Clearly Mama has more money than sense, a not uncommon reality among Oregon's "elite" fans.

Those elites are in mid-season form, even if the team isn't.


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Big Day

Things I saw today, more or less in order:

Stanford is done.  The team needs a pep-pill from Condi Rice.

WSU is awful, and PSU may contend in the Big Sky.  But not if EWU and Montana have a say in the matter.

UCLA frosh Josh Rosen is a budding superstar.  Best statue since Carson Palmer in the Southland.

Grambling State hasn't been any good since Eddie Robinson died. Cal's QB is great.

Cal could be a threat for second in the Pac-12 North because everybody but Oregon sucks bad.

Oregon's defense is ba-a-a-a-a-a-d, but the offense has speed to burn. Vernon Adams is okay.

The EWU v. Montana game this year will be the game of the year, and the winner will get North Dakota State.

Arizona State is overrated.

USC has enough talent to transcend the drunken antics of Cutty "Stevie" Sark.

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Bad Beavs

Halftime in Corn Valley and OSU is whupping the mighty Wildcats of Weber State of the Big Sky Conference 6-0.

The Beavs have a reasonably good defense, but it's hard to scope it thoroughly against their equally inept FCS opponent tonight.

The Beavs' offense is abysmal, with 33 yards passing.  I've always liked Mike Riley, but he got out of Corvallis in the nick of time, leaving a hot mess for new coach Gary Andersen--who quit Wisconsin for this?

Andersen is a right-winger from Utah who doesn't strike me as being very bright.

Somebody at OSU thought it would be a good idea to paint the Beavs' logo with an obnoxious U.S. flag motif as well.

That person can't be very bright either and should be fired, and OSU should leave the Pac-12 tomorrow.  They're awful.


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It's On

I got my football.  Utah hosting Michigan.

A couple of tough, fast defensive teams with inconsistent QBs who would be water boys at Oregon.

Good games all weekend, and I've battled the admen to a tenuous draw at First Row Sports.

Michigan is threatening to score a touchdown!  But...(Michigan has a player named Butt,)

Will settle for a field goal.

Tie game, 3-3 early in the second quarter.

Utah scores a TD after a nice drive!  It's on, my time of the year and a reasonable, welcomed escape.


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FWIW

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VA

I guess I don't mind his showboat dance moves too much now that he's a Duck.  Still, I hope Frost and Helfrich pull him aside and say, "a little less of that, please."  Wouldn't surprise me if they haven't already mentioned it.  That stuff can draw an unwanted, ill-timed penalty in the image-conscious Pac-12.


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