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PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS ON HOW THE 'FREE TRADE' CASE FOR OFFSHORING AMERICA'S JOBS HAS COME UNGLUED Roberts on the sensational exposure of the faked "gains" and phantom stats of the free traders. Who was America's most anti-imperialist president? Try Grover Cleveland! JoAnn Wypijewski on the unlikely hero of Hawai'i's restoration movement. Alexander Cockburn reports on evangelical Christians in crisis amid fresh onslaughts by forces of darkness. The Warbler's Parable: Rosa Miriam Elizalde on the black-masked visitors to Cuba defying the US economic blockade.
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Today's Stories June 23 / 24, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Robert
Fisk Alison
Weir Robert
Fantina Dave
Lindorff June 22, 2007 Andy
Worthington Sherwood
Ross Eliana
Monteforte Robert
Weissman Richard
Rhames Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy
Baroud Ehud
Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon David
Michael Green Kathryn
Webber Website
of the Day
June 21, 2007 Peter
Linebaugh Natsu
Saito Ron
Jacobs Saree
Makdisi John
Stauber Scott
Liebertz Tom
Clifford Robert
Jensen Michael
J. Smith Jeb
Sprague Website
of the Day
Omar
Barghouti Andy
Worthington Margaret
Kimberley Robert
Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Rannie
Amiri Stephen
Lendman Dave
Lindorff David
Swanson Anne
Dachel Website
of the Day
June 19, 2007 Ralph
Nader Dr.
Shepherd Bliss Bill
and Kathleen Christison Jeff
Leys Dave
Zirin Chris
Floyd Ben
Terrall Anthony
Papa VIPS Linda Flores Website
of the Day
John
Ross Paul
Craig Roberts Martha
Rosenberg Norman
Solomon Don
Santina Isabella
Kenfield James
Brooks Eva
Liddell Sam
Husseini Akiva
Eldar Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn John
Halle Robert
Fisk Andy
Worthington Uri
Avnery Fred
Gardner Saul
Landau P.
Sainath Missy
Comley Beattie Alan
Gregory Walter
Brasch Website
of the Weekend
June 15, 2007 Alan
Farago Andy
Worthington Michael
Simmons Franklin
Lamb Gary
Leupp John
Ross Website
of the Day
June 14, 2007 Michael
Donnelly
Faisal
Kutty Harry
Browne Charles
Jonkel Steven
Higgs Bruce
Dixon Bruce
K. Gagnon
Website
of the Day June 13, 2007 Glen Ford Marjorie Cohn Bill Christison Charles Jonkel Silvia Cattori Richard Gott Firmin DeBrabander William S. Lind Keith Rosenthal Website of the Day June 12, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair Paul Craig
Roberts P. Sainath Ralph Nader Omar Waraich Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Malini Johar
Schueller Ramzy Baroud Website of
the Day
June 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Norman Solomon Eva Liddell Rannie Amiri Rachel Voss Christopher
Brauchli D. K. Wilson Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn George Ciccariello-Maher Saul Landau Robert Fisk Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Ward Boston Conn Hallinan Leonard Peltier Lawrence Davidson John Ross Kate Allan Fred Gardner Stephen Fleischman Monica Benderman Geoff Bailey Missy Beattie Patrick Dyer Tim Lengerich James Irani
Gary Leupp Michael Tillery Michael Simmons Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig Roberts William Blum Joshua Frank Lance Selfa Dave Lindorff Lawrence Ferlinghetti Website of the Day
Marjorie Cohn Soldz, Reisner
and Olson: Soldz, Reisner
Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Silvia Cattori Carl G. Estabrook Ellen Taylor Corporate Crime
Reporter Brenda Norrell D. K. Wilson Kevin Zeese Website of
the Day
Alain Gresh Gary Leupp Steven Sherman Bruce Dixon Corporate Crime Reporter Brian M. Downing Ron Jacobs George Bisharat Nicole Colson Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Jonathan Cook David Vest Robert Fantina Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury John V. Walsh Richard Cretan Adam Engel William S. Lind Myles Hoenig Jim Minick Website of
the Day
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zahi Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day 
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Weekend
Edition Mark Kizla / Childs WalkerOf Gangstas and Spearchuckers, Sex and ZulusBy D. K. Wilson
I want to know why Kizla equates hip-hop with J.R. Smith's behavior rather than immaturity. I want to know why Childs Walker and/or a copy editor at the Baltimore Sun thought spearchucker was an okay word to use. because I think I might already know. Both these men made egregious mistakes in their columns. Both men opened themselves to charges of both ignorance and racism. Does Kizla understand hip-hop as a cultural phenomenon and a way of life? No. Does Walker know what a spearchucker connotes? If somehow he didn't, he surely does now. I can't answer the question of why each of these men chose their respective paths. But I can say their thoughts and feelings committed to print are endemic of greater societal problems in the Western world. I can also say their thoughts and feelings are enabled by too many of the black men who also cover and write about the games athletes play. Additionally, the question is being put to athletes: if the media is so wrong in their assessment of you, why don't you fight back? Ask Chad Pennington. Ask Ken Griffey, Jr. Ask Barry Bonds. Ask Terrell Owens. Ask most any professional athlete. They will all tell you the same thing: it's not worth the trouble to fight. It's not worth trying to fight an antagonistic press corps that, as soon as you stand up to them, will band together and make a concerted effort to ruin your career if they can. So reporters write what they want without compunction while athletes feel hamstrung by the very members of the press hired to report their exploits. But the problems are even deeper than that. There are athletes who only spout the lines provided for them by agents; products of diction coaches with eyes only for the endorsement prize. There are athletes who say whatever they must just to get by, whose hearts are hardened with distrust for anyone other than them, sadly teetering on the boundary of the land of hate. Their eyes never quite meet reporters'. They stand stiffly or sway nervously, waiting for the interrogation to be done. There are athletes afraid to speak because the very words that come from their mouths will belie the fact of crooked institutions that demanded only excellence on the court or on the field but never in the classroom; just one step ahead of an Outside the Lines report or an NCAA investigation. And there are the athletes who are so world-weary that by too tender ages, they are tired of the game. Feted so young, criticized for losing too early, given savior status at the first flash of the promise of the legend not a making of their own; so soon will they be crushed under the weight of ineffective teammates, angry crowds of paying spectators who buy into the hype and feel betrayal each time the ball rims out, or the pass falls incomplete, or when the losses mount, or there's a crack in what they feel should be impenetrable armor. Is anyone surprised weed and
alcohol can be an athletes' best friend? They are paid little when compared with the athletes they cover. The food provided for them sometimes merits a hazard label; buffet is used out of habit, spread is what the food does in intestines. It's a wonder a study of gastronomic tract ailments related to sports reporters has never been undertaken. Then after each game they must deal with athletes who remain in the throes of the adrenalin rush that enabled them to once again perform their on-going and seemingly never-ending dance for sometimes less than caring spectators who expect nothing short of brilliance for the too-expensive tickets that just might tip their credit card balance beyond their monthly means--just for a night of forgetting the gorilla that sits on their back while they toil in their cubicles Monday through Friday. Some nights, when the play
ends just right, the post-performance moments can be golden.
There is a glow in the clubhouse or locker room that everyone
shares. Those are the nights that make everyone's participation
worth a month's anticipation at doing it all over again. Some
nights are so full of loss that the silence and hushed voices
that the story writes itself just by the pain etched on the performers
faces. They too are well aware of what they must be conveying
without so much as a word to the horde of scribes who know the
story before a word is uttered. Those nights too make it worth
tomorrow's game because they are the ultimate test of each person's
allegiance to the other; athletes, writers, and many spectators
get too little sleep that night wondering how the pitch was missed,
the layin was blocked, how the pass was dropped. And the next
game cannot come soon enough. More often the games are what they are. Another in a string of 16, 82, or 162. It was what it was, neither a complete victory nor a potentially debilitating loss. All participants are left wanting. The interplay between all parties is joyless. The questions are too many and the answers are never satisfactory; even in victory everyone loses. It is always just after a string
of games like these that the eruption takes place. One busted
play, one wrong quote, one wrong question, and it is as if the
world just creaked to a halt. Emotions become inflamed and exchanges
become contentious. For the athletes interviews are too long.
For the beat reporters they are not long enough. Everyone is
angered by the scene. But suddenly there they are. They become the all-knowing authority, the experts, peddlers of whatever their minds conjure for the moment. Their motto is write first, ask questions later. Too often from their perch comes not the wisdom of the observers' perspective but words of the ultimate outsider, seemingly secretly ever-jealous of the beat people--except for the pay--and the athletes who dance their every game dance. This is where Mark Kizla walks into the black mind of J.R. Smith. This is where Childs Walker or the copy editor or the night editor who exhumed the word spearchucker from its hateful, racist grave enter. Kizla imagines scads of young
black, black men of which J.R. Smith is a part. In his mind's
eye he sees a parking lot filled with Escalades. Smith and his
cohorts, known and unknown are dressed in their white wife-beaters,
five-sizes-too-large jeans saggin' just so and pimp-strollin'.
They are on the hunt for women in hooker shorts with extensions
cascading down their bare backs. In Kizla's mind Smith is grinding
with a Hershey-skinned woman-ho' to gansta rapper symphonies,
Cristal in one hand, her waist in the other. Walker and crew sees them pounding the rock, running and jumping over and over, and they envision the veldt and these long, black, black men stride for stride with their striped or spotted prey. And for both Kizla and Walker they are just one step ahead of the police and scorned lovers. And their 21-century Cadillacs with their shiny 24's always have the smell of sex. Just as they did in the imagination of a white man-- in 1964. D. K. Wilson writes for the dynamic sports site The Starting Five.
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CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
