For those of you living under rocks, in caves, or on the moon, here's a little piece of info you've been missing (for the rest of you, I'm sure you're aware of this already): Borders Books & Music is closing this week. They took the first steps towards liquidation last week. It's been an iconic A2 store since 1971, but 40 years on, they had overstepped their bounds. I worked there for a few years about 10 years back, & the downtown #1 store was fantastic. It was always crowded, the selection was great, & the employees really knew the inventory. I made a few friends there that I still run into around town too. It's sad to see it go, but I must admit, I hadn't bought anything there in quite a while. My recent avoidance of the store wasn't for the reasons the media has been reporting though. It has more to do w/ a general avoidance of corporate stuff like that.
The news is all about the competition from Amazon. However, no brick & mortar store will ever compete w/ a web-site so when they started trying to do that, they were setting themselves up for failure. Discounted prices, focusing on best-sellers, constant expansion, & a shift towards non-book stuff compounded to bring about this less-than-sudden change. As a Monday morning quarterback, it's easy to say, "They should've done...." but it's not that simple. We're talking about the livelihoods of a lot of people. Of course, not as many per store as when I worked there, since the staff had been shrinking over the last 10 years. Had they maintained a staff that actually knew about books, rather than a skeleton crew of automatons, they may have been able to avoid the vacant sales floors & shrinking stock. There I go w/ the Monday morning quarterbacking though.
Hopefully, this will give people the kick in the ass they need to start supporting local businesses again. Malcolm X was talking about this issue in 1964. Of course, people scoffed @ him as a fringe lunatic. Kucinich has been talking about this for years... again w/ the Fringe lunatic status though. Be they grocery stores, coffee shops, book stores or what have you, I'm gonna go out on that same lunatic limb & remind you to start patronizing the local stuff.
Here's a fun little quote from Malcolm X for you:
You and I have to make a start and the best place to start is right in the community where we live. So our people not only have to be re-educated to the importance of supporting black business, but the black man himself has to be made aware of the importance of going into business. And once you and I go into business, we own and operate at least the businesses in our community. What we will be doing is developing a situation wherein we will actually be able to create employment for the people in the community. And once you can create some employment in the community where you live it will eliminate the necessity of you and me having to act ignorantly and disgracefully, boycotting and picketing some practice some place else trying to beg him for a job. Anytime you have to rely upon your enemy for a job - you’re in bad shape.
He's clearly talking about economics from a racial standpoint, but however we look @ it, the idea of keeping money in the community is @ heart of his claims. Whether we're shipping money to Arkansas, Minnesota, or SE Asia, it's leaving Michigan. Only by keeping it @ 'round these parts will we be able to employ the people 'round these parts. It will probably mean spending a little extra on a daily basis, but in the long run (be they books, vegetables, or cars) the products we buy here keep the cash here. This is the same argument we've been making for organic vegetables, for local farming, & for local restaurants for years. Only when one of the big boys goes under, do poele start paying attention though.
Is this really just a plug for Nicola's? No, but already, I've seen Borders employees in there looking for work. And as you start shopping locally, remember that I'll be moderating a Sci/Fi panel tomorrow @ Nicola's w/ Sarah Zettel, Jacqueline Carey, & Jim Hines (Sarah live in Ypsi & Jim is an EMU English Dept. grad). I've never moderated anything before, so you can come out tomorrow night & watch me trip over my words. It should be pretty cool.
Showing posts with label current events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label current events. Show all posts
Monday, July 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The Death of 2 Arsenal Fans
Much has been made of bin Laden's death on Sunday night, & I promised yesterday that I'd bring y'all my thoughts, thoughts you've no doubt been anxiously awaiting. However, I also want to talk about the Arsenal season & summer transfer prospects. They fit nicely together because it's pretty clear that while he was living in London in the early 90's, he spent more than one Saturday afternoon on the Clock End of Highbury singing the songs & crushing the skulls of hapless Tottenham supporters. I tend to believe he probably spent more time in expensive boxed seats & less time street fighting. Although, between his time w/ the Mujahideen & Al Qaeda, I suppose he needed something on which to take out his tendencies towards violence. One would think that he would target the rich, West-End Chelsea fans more than the North London Spurs folks... or East-End West Ham dolts for that matter. It has even been suggested that he spent 6 of his years in hiding by hanging out in the Arsenal trophy cabinet since no one has looked in there since 2005.
Although Arsenal haven't won anything since that 2005 FA Cup, one might have though the US military was having a similar drought in its search for bin Laden until late Sunday evening when the news came over the wire that they'd recovered his body. I was sitting on the left end of the bar @ Sidetrack when the story broke, which means, I didn't really have a good view of the sub-titles so I was a tad confused @ first. My initial understanding was that his body had been found. Then it seemed like he was assassinated. However, as Obama finally gave his speech, the military intel got its story straight & they said he was shot in a fire-fight... a firefight in which no American forces were wounded. Whatever the truth really is, the fact is that he's dead & people around the country went bat-shit crazy celebrating. Of course, he'd been wanted for years, & the search was long & difficult, but the joy people felt just made me uncomfortable. I wish it'd been possible to arrest him instead. Obama kept talking about justice being done, but justice is only done in a court of law... not by covert ops agents. Others have suggested that a trial would have been too expensive, but considering the money we've already spent on this, it'd have been a drop in the bucket. Still others were afraid that a trial would have given him access to the media or worse still the possibility of acquittal. To that, one only has to realize he had access to the media for the last 10 years & rarely used it, & if we have so little faith in the legal process, what the hell are we fighting for? We might as well get rid of it & just bring back lynchings if we're only willing to press charges against those we know we can convict. not that conviction would have been tough. Hussein was convicted & Milosevic & McVey.
While the cheering seems to have been in bad taste, the whole thing smacks of political posturing. Bush found Hussein just in time to secure his re-election, & now Obama gets bin Laden the week after he released his long form birth certificate. of course, had bush gotten him 4 years ago, the same people who were celebrating would have been complaining about the political timing leading up to the last election. (Just as those who would have loved it then are now looking to conspiracy theories to discredit Obama's involvement. Regardless of the timing, banging pots & pans & lighting off fire-works to celebrate a death is something w/ which we here @ Drifting into Deep Water can not accept.
The other thing we cannot accept is a summer w/o some proper signings @ Arsenal. They came close this year, but after losing the League Cup Final & then getting eliminated from the FA Cup & The Champions League in the same week, things fell apart. Fabregas has run his course, & his surprise injury this week seems to signal his departure from the club. He should have been allowed to leave last year since they won't get as much money this time as they would have & his heart was clearly not into this year. Eboue, Diaby, Arshavin, Almunia, & Squillaci also need to be shown the door (& Bendtner, but I've said that every year since 2007).
This means, a center back in order, a back up goalie, a right back & some sort of goal scorer.
Center back options: Gary Cahill from Bolton, Mamadou Sakho from PSG, Phil Jagielka from Everton would be nice. I read today that an offer for Sakho has already been made... we'll see.
Goalie: I've seen rumors that Bufon might come in, but I would prefer Neuer from Schalke or Stekelenburg from Ajax. However, they might hurt the development of Szczęsny who has come along nicely this year.
Right Back: van der Wiel from Ajax would be a nice improvement on Eboue, but then so would Danny Devito or John Goodman or Zombie bin Laden.
Attacking options: At the moment, the rumors seem to be pointing to Eden Hazard from Lille or Benzema from Real Madrid.
There's also a rumor circulating that Barcelona will ship cash plus Macherano for Fabregas. That's not a bad deal, & it'd be a huge upgrade from Diaby.
As far as the captaincy goes, as Fabregas leaves, it'll probably go to van Persie, but I wonder if Vermaelen or Song would be better. I like the captain to be towards the back so as to have a good view of the squad. Henry was captain during his last 2 years @ Arsenal, but it didn't work well.
Oh, & the 2nd Arsenal fan to die this week? We lost a chicken. I went outside to feed them this morning and one was dead. It's so sad. I'm sure they supported Arsenal because they're pretty dumb but faithful. And they're pretty. They may not win, but they lose beautifully... just like Arsenal.
Although Arsenal haven't won anything since that 2005 FA Cup, one might have though the US military was having a similar drought in its search for bin Laden until late Sunday evening when the news came over the wire that they'd recovered his body. I was sitting on the left end of the bar @ Sidetrack when the story broke, which means, I didn't really have a good view of the sub-titles so I was a tad confused @ first. My initial understanding was that his body had been found. Then it seemed like he was assassinated. However, as Obama finally gave his speech, the military intel got its story straight & they said he was shot in a fire-fight... a firefight in which no American forces were wounded. Whatever the truth really is, the fact is that he's dead & people around the country went bat-shit crazy celebrating. Of course, he'd been wanted for years, & the search was long & difficult, but the joy people felt just made me uncomfortable. I wish it'd been possible to arrest him instead. Obama kept talking about justice being done, but justice is only done in a court of law... not by covert ops agents. Others have suggested that a trial would have been too expensive, but considering the money we've already spent on this, it'd have been a drop in the bucket. Still others were afraid that a trial would have given him access to the media or worse still the possibility of acquittal. To that, one only has to realize he had access to the media for the last 10 years & rarely used it, & if we have so little faith in the legal process, what the hell are we fighting for? We might as well get rid of it & just bring back lynchings if we're only willing to press charges against those we know we can convict. not that conviction would have been tough. Hussein was convicted & Milosevic & McVey.
While the cheering seems to have been in bad taste, the whole thing smacks of political posturing. Bush found Hussein just in time to secure his re-election, & now Obama gets bin Laden the week after he released his long form birth certificate. of course, had bush gotten him 4 years ago, the same people who were celebrating would have been complaining about the political timing leading up to the last election. (Just as those who would have loved it then are now looking to conspiracy theories to discredit Obama's involvement. Regardless of the timing, banging pots & pans & lighting off fire-works to celebrate a death is something w/ which we here @ Drifting into Deep Water can not accept.
The other thing we cannot accept is a summer w/o some proper signings @ Arsenal. They came close this year, but after losing the League Cup Final & then getting eliminated from the FA Cup & The Champions League in the same week, things fell apart. Fabregas has run his course, & his surprise injury this week seems to signal his departure from the club. He should have been allowed to leave last year since they won't get as much money this time as they would have & his heart was clearly not into this year. Eboue, Diaby, Arshavin, Almunia, & Squillaci also need to be shown the door (& Bendtner, but I've said that every year since 2007).
This means, a center back in order, a back up goalie, a right back & some sort of goal scorer.
Center back options: Gary Cahill from Bolton, Mamadou Sakho from PSG, Phil Jagielka from Everton would be nice. I read today that an offer for Sakho has already been made... we'll see.
Goalie: I've seen rumors that Bufon might come in, but I would prefer Neuer from Schalke or Stekelenburg from Ajax. However, they might hurt the development of Szczęsny who has come along nicely this year.
Right Back: van der Wiel from Ajax would be a nice improvement on Eboue, but then so would Danny Devito or John Goodman or Zombie bin Laden.
Attacking options: At the moment, the rumors seem to be pointing to Eden Hazard from Lille or Benzema from Real Madrid.
There's also a rumor circulating that Barcelona will ship cash plus Macherano for Fabregas. That's not a bad deal, & it'd be a huge upgrade from Diaby.
As far as the captaincy goes, as Fabregas leaves, it'll probably go to van Persie, but I wonder if Vermaelen or Song would be better. I like the captain to be towards the back so as to have a good view of the squad. Henry was captain during his last 2 years @ Arsenal, but it didn't work well.
Oh, & the 2nd Arsenal fan to die this week? We lost a chicken. I went outside to feed them this morning and one was dead. It's so sad. I'm sure they supported Arsenal because they're pretty dumb but faithful. And they're pretty. They may not win, but they lose beautifully... just like Arsenal.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Censors & Censures
Forgive me if the title of this post sounds like a title of a Freaks & Geeks episode, but we've been rewatching the series over the last couple weeks so it's been on my mind. The 1st half of the title refers to the hotly debated publication of a new edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The two books are being published together in an attempt to reconcile the narrative structure & bring together Tom Sawyer & its prequel. When Coppola did this w/ the Godfather films, it went over like a lead balloon. The problem w/ the Twain texts isn't so much w/ the chronology (since they're pretty linear anyway), but w/ New South's decision to expunge the "offensive" language. The rationale behind this is that schools are banning the books because of the use of the word "Nigger" (& to a lesser extent, "Injun"), & so w/o these words, kids will have more access to the texts. The flaws in this argument are obvious, but it also leads to the possibility of this occurring in other texts. We can remove all images of violence against animals from Moby Dick, Hamlet can serve cake to his uncle rather than plot to kill him. The names in 19th century Russian epics can be simplified to Bob & Sally.
Of course, the irony here is that, while everyone in the media is upset about this, no one is using the word. They're saying things like "The 'N-Word' is being replaced w/ the word 'slave'." If the media can't use the word in what is supposed to be a frank discussion of the word, maybe New South is actually on to something. However, the fact of the matter is that the word is part of the language, certainly part of the culture in which the books take place, & the violence inherent in this history shouldn't be erased. Furthermore, we should be as offended by the attempt to dislocate the history from the texts as we are by that history of violence or by the attempt to censor the language.
I read Huck Finn in high school, & I really didn't like it. It was only when I was in grad school that I was able to understand why it's such a big deal. The idea that removing a couple racist words (while no violent or sexist imagery is being removed) will make it a more fulfilling book for kids is ridiculous. If they are to read the book, let them read the actual text. They're going to struggle w/ most of it anyway. It's a tough book to read. Tom Sawyer is easier to read, but then again, it's not being taught as often, probably because it's simply seen as an inferior text. Be that as it may, they're both being censored by New South, but you should do yourself a favor & reread a full, uncensored version this winter... you won't be sorry.
Along with the news of this censorship, there's been a lot of talk over the last couple of days about censuring Sarah Palin in response to the shootings in Arizona. I've even seen on web-sites & on Facebook people suggesting that she should be brought to trial. First of all, who would be doing the censuring? Fox News? TLC (home of Sarah Palin's Alaska)? Harper Collins (the publisher of her less than stellar new book, America By Heart)? Not bloody likely. More to the point, it isn't fair to be blaming her. Sure, she's not that bright & she's been one of the leaders of this ridiculous right-wing agenda, but even if the shooter did it because he was influenced by her, that's obviously not what she had in mind when she suggested people should not retreat, they should reload. She was speaking metaphorically, & she can't be held accountable when one crazy guy takes her literally. sure, she had a picture w/ targets on specific Congressional districts, but she didn't really want those people shot. If we can blame her for this type of thing, we can probably blame Huck Finn for the racism common among today's youth. We can blame Iron Maiden when a kid kills himself. We can blame a video game when a couple kids flip out like this guy in Tucson. On the other hand, we don't even know that he was really influenced by her. He claims that The Communist Manifesto was one of his favorite books. Does The Communist Manifesto make people do these things? I've read it a few times but never went on a killing spree. In fact, many of you have read it too. He also claims to love The Wizard of Oz & that we should return to the gold standard. Can we then blame L. Frank Baum.
Certainly, the tenor of the political dialogue has gotten heated & Palin has been a major contributing factor, but if we start these kinds of witch-hunts, we'll be just as bad as the people who censor Huck Finn or just as bad as Palin, herself. Besides, if it really comes down to a 22 year old's inability to distinguish a literal reading from a metaphorical reading, maybe we need to blame English teachers... uh-oh.
Of course, the irony here is that, while everyone in the media is upset about this, no one is using the word. They're saying things like "The 'N-Word' is being replaced w/ the word 'slave'." If the media can't use the word in what is supposed to be a frank discussion of the word, maybe New South is actually on to something. However, the fact of the matter is that the word is part of the language, certainly part of the culture in which the books take place, & the violence inherent in this history shouldn't be erased. Furthermore, we should be as offended by the attempt to dislocate the history from the texts as we are by that history of violence or by the attempt to censor the language.
I read Huck Finn in high school, & I really didn't like it. It was only when I was in grad school that I was able to understand why it's such a big deal. The idea that removing a couple racist words (while no violent or sexist imagery is being removed) will make it a more fulfilling book for kids is ridiculous. If they are to read the book, let them read the actual text. They're going to struggle w/ most of it anyway. It's a tough book to read. Tom Sawyer is easier to read, but then again, it's not being taught as often, probably because it's simply seen as an inferior text. Be that as it may, they're both being censored by New South, but you should do yourself a favor & reread a full, uncensored version this winter... you won't be sorry.
Along with the news of this censorship, there's been a lot of talk over the last couple of days about censuring Sarah Palin in response to the shootings in Arizona. I've even seen on web-sites & on Facebook people suggesting that she should be brought to trial. First of all, who would be doing the censuring? Fox News? TLC (home of Sarah Palin's Alaska)? Harper Collins (the publisher of her less than stellar new book, America By Heart)? Not bloody likely. More to the point, it isn't fair to be blaming her. Sure, she's not that bright & she's been one of the leaders of this ridiculous right-wing agenda, but even if the shooter did it because he was influenced by her, that's obviously not what she had in mind when she suggested people should not retreat, they should reload. She was speaking metaphorically, & she can't be held accountable when one crazy guy takes her literally. sure, she had a picture w/ targets on specific Congressional districts, but she didn't really want those people shot. If we can blame her for this type of thing, we can probably blame Huck Finn for the racism common among today's youth. We can blame Iron Maiden when a kid kills himself. We can blame a video game when a couple kids flip out like this guy in Tucson. On the other hand, we don't even know that he was really influenced by her. He claims that The Communist Manifesto was one of his favorite books. Does The Communist Manifesto make people do these things? I've read it a few times but never went on a killing spree. In fact, many of you have read it too. He also claims to love The Wizard of Oz & that we should return to the gold standard. Can we then blame L. Frank Baum.
Certainly, the tenor of the political dialogue has gotten heated & Palin has been a major contributing factor, but if we start these kinds of witch-hunts, we'll be just as bad as the people who censor Huck Finn or just as bad as Palin, herself. Besides, if it really comes down to a 22 year old's inability to distinguish a literal reading from a metaphorical reading, maybe we need to blame English teachers... uh-oh.
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