Class struggle... anybody!? Anyone!?

Congress axes $8.6bn from food stamps in farm bill

Richer farmers get bigger subsidies in immediate snub to Barack Obama's State of the Union call for action on inequality

• Dan Roberts in Washington

• theguardian.com, Wednesday 29 January 2014 11.51 EST

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/29/congress-86bn-food-stamps-farm-bill


Congress has agreed to cut $8.6bn from the federal food stamp program while increasing government subsidies for richer farmers, dealing a swift rebuke to Barack Obama's call for a year of action on economic inequality.
Within hours of the president's State of the Union speech, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to adopt the measures as part of a wide-ranging farm bill that passed by 251 to 166 votes and has already been endorsed by the Senate’s Democratic leadership.

The cuts to federal food stamps come on top of a $5bn cut in November and will reduce payments to 1.7 million of the poorest Americans by an estimated $90 a month.

Republicans had sought even higher cuts but ...

Corporations...corporations!!

"Corporations... corporations... all is corporations!"

We typically becry the negative impact and self-indulgent domination of corporate cultures, that is if our heart is in the right place, the place of the common man. But maybe we should rethink that and instead direct our energies towards accepting and humanizing corporations in his service. The secretive, autocratic, self-serving, actions of governments these days do not seem to be an option.

The tragi-comical display of government, from Ukraine to Syria, to Israel as always... You cannot make this stuff up: Rodman & Kim Jung-un; professional heavyweight boxer Klitschko on the barricades... Netanyahu referring to settlements as "a few houses"...

Gosh, what happened to empathy?

Just think what Walmart has done for poor people: enabled them to participate in what vicious, uninsured capitalism denies them the decency of. While secluded academics gratuitously talk, cozy in their offices, polishing their retirement plans, with nothing to offer.

===============================

Man Utd drops down football rich list http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25844751

23 January 2014 Last updated at 01:57 ET

Man Utd pushed out of football rich list top three

By Bill Wilson Business reporter, BBC News

Recent commercial deals should boost United's coffers this season

Manchester United has dropped out of the top three in Deloitte's football rich list for the first time.

Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich were in the first three places in Deloitte's list, which is based on revenues in the 2012-13 season.

Real Madrid, with revenues of 518.9m euros (£444.7m), topped the list for the ninth year in a row, breaking a record previously held by Man Utd.

French champions Paris Saint Germain took fifth spot in the table.

Despite falling down the pecking order, United's revenues increased from 395.9m euros to 423.8m euros.

The total combined revenue for the top 20 richest clubs rose 8% to 5.4bn euros, the report found. The list only looks at revenues accrued and does not take into account club debts.... [more, click on link above]

By the way: look what that nasty Man U Vidic is doing to that nice Chelsea Torres...

Only two kinds: fiction or not!

This is why the new English lite./'creative writing' term: 'creative non-fiction' is both damaging and pseudo-theoretical: it is a kowtow to popular culture's turning minds into other commodities for the sake of profitmaking - apparently with the enthusiastic complience of literature departments. 'Housewives' and 'Kardashians' are fiction and if academic theory cannot help the populous understand that, it is complicit in the swindle.


===========================

A Fictional Barrier Is Healthier

By Farnoosh Torabi

Updated January 16, 2014, 8:48 PM

 

Long before reality TV, I remember watching the fiercely decorated women of "Dynasty" plot and prance around their big, fancy mansions. Later in my tween and teenage years, my interest turned to soap operas. My favorite: the chic, sun-kissed cast of "Santa Barbara." Soaps offered an entertaining escape to where budgeting constraints and bad hair days didn’t exist, where we could see how the "rich" lived, and experience -- even if just for an hour a day -- a part of their fictional lives that seemed vastly more exciting than our own. I, along with millions of other devoted viewers, aspired to emulate their lives in minor ways via shoulder pads and tanning, but did the programs really shape our perceptions of true wealth and success? Not really.

After all, these shows were just make-believe.
Years later, reality hits like Bravo’s "Real Housewives" series and E’s "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" continue to capitalize on our curiosity for wealthy living but with a potentially troublesome twist: presenting “real” people and their V.I.P. lives that seem filled with designer labels, exclusive vacations and personal chefs.

 

The Carringtons of the TV series "Dynasty" were a fictional rich family, unlike the Kardashians, the featured family of a successful reality show.Monty Brinton/CBS

 

It's extreme and all for show, but I fear some viewers are falsely making the connection between the materialism and trivial plot lines and what it really means to be and act wealthy. Without a clear fictional barrier, like the one I had in Krystle Carrington (played by the singular Linda Evans), viewer aspirations could become misguided and even delusional. In today’s age of YouTube success and overnight stardom, it's easy for many of us to feel, more than ever, that it is possible to become "just like them." This aspiration fuels the billion-dollar market of reality star merchandise sold every year. From magazines to books, perfumes, clothing, vodkas and even ready-made cocktail lines, reality stars are cashing in on their believing fans.

Especially at risk are the impressionable 18- to 29-year-olds who are largely tuning in and spending whatever time and little money they have to feel more aligned with their favorite reality stars. Many young adults are watching from their parents’ living rooms or basements, longing for the day they can live independently. This group is struggling to find work or, perhaps, stringing together a few part-time jobs to make ends meet. Others are saddled with insurmountable debt. Taking a break to watch the Kardashian sisters fight over, say, a missing Birkin bag from Kim’s closet, is at best, some escapism. At worst, it sends the message that when you’re rich, you, too, can afford to be neglectful of a $25,000 handbag. Isn’t wealth fun?

When it comes to achieving and maintaining true wealth, we need to work better on the message we send to the world, especially young adults. Being truly rich is not that sexy, at least not all the time, as these produced and edited shows would like us to believe. Instead, real wealth takes hard, hard work. It is being and feeling financially secure, having ample savings to support your family in good times and in bad. It means investing wisely and delaying gratification. It means being comfortable with who you are and making efforts to give back to the world. In the end, I suppose true wealth entails a lot of boring stuff that wouldn’t score high in the ratings, but nevertheless, it is what's important and real.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/01/16/why-we-like-to-watch-rich-people/when-watching-the-wealthy-a-fictional-barrier-is-healthier 

Happy 2014!

It's time to challenge the notion that there is only one way to speak English

Harry Ritchie
The Guardian, Tuesday 31 December 2013 04.00 EST

http://gu.com/p/3ybhb

Why do we persist in thinking that standard English is right, when it is spoken by only 15% of the British population? Linguistics-loving Harry Ritchie blames Noam Chomsky

 

___________________________

 

We welcome this attention to linguistics. The fundamental conundrum being, however, that

 

a. a culture will only sustain itself by nurturing a standard, + b. sensibly, the cultural mode must be based in inclusivity allowing for the standard's embrace of different configurations of expression, = c. where do we draw the line?

 

As a music student in Copenhagen in the 1970s I recall a fellow student from the dark, inhospitable, all too godly, inners of Jutland having to take a course in 'getting rid of your accent.' There's only so much abuse the Danish treasure of poetic folk-psalms can take! In that particular case, probably, a separate language. Danish also approaches English in grammatical structure the further west you go from Copenhagen. For example, eventually, the two genders en/et disappear in a simple, useful 'a.' It makes sense, then, that farmers there are known not to say much. In regards to any topic they just look at the weather and intuitively know what each other is thinking.

 

Now, Copenhagen, as we know, is awash in cultural snobbism; which means a viewpoint such as Richie's is refreshing for any standard.   

 

While we shouldn't solely 'blame' Chomsky, Richie paints a just picture of what must be academic snobbism:

 

"Chomsky also played a significant part in creating a subject that managed to avoid engagement with culture and society. He turned grammar into an technical subject full of jargon and algebra studied on whiteboards by men with beards, leaving everyone prey to the pernicious drivel of the traditional grammar guardians, who belong to the 15%. "

 

So much for the why. Where, how do we draw the line?