Why not kick off Superbowl Weekend by watching some sports movies? I’ve put together a list of 10 personal faves for you. Hey…save some of that guac for me (no double dipping). Bend it Like Beckham – Writer-director Gurinder Chadha whips up a cross-cultural masala that entertainingly marries “cheer the underdog” Rocky elements with Bollywood energy. The story centers on a headstrong young Sikh woman (Parminder Nagra) who is upsetting her tradition-minded parents by pursuing her “silly” dream to become a UK soccer star. Chadha weaves in subtext on the difficulties that South Asian immigrants face assimilating into British culture. Also with Keira Knightley and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Breaking Away – This beautifully realized slice of middle-Americana (filmed in Bloomington, Indiana) from director Peter Yates and writer Steve Tesich (an Oscar-winning screenplay) is a perfect film on every level. More than just a sports movie, it’s an insightful coming of age tale and a rumination on small town life. Dennis Christopher is outstanding as a 19 year-old obsessed with bicycle racing, a pretty coed and anything Italian.
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Yours truly has a reputation for being tough on grading students. It is true. I am tough. And for a reason. Social science is hard. Getting a grade in it is not something you have a right to. You have to show that you master the material. You have to earn it! One of the […]
How ’bout them eggs, MAGA? Oh heck, look at this: The Trump bump in consumer confidence is already over. Tariff threats, stock market swings and rapidly reversing executive orders are causing Americans across the political spectrum to feel considerably more pessimistic about the economy than they did before President Trump took office. Consumer sentiment fell about 5% in the University of Michigan’s preliminary February survey of consumers to its lowest reading since July 2024. Expectations of inflation in the year ahead jumped from 3.3% in January to 4.3%, the second month in a row of large increases and highest reading since November 2023. “It’s very rare to see a full percentage point jump in inflation expectations,” said Joanne Hsu, who oversees the survey. Republicans have come off a postelection surge in confidence, she said, and Democrats and Independents also seem to believe that economic conditions have deteriorated since last month. Morning Consult’s recent index of consumer confidence, too, fell between Jan. 25 and Feb.
Apparently it’s now illegal for the press to cover live events that the government doesn’t want them to cover. Good to know: The Federal Communications Commission is investigating San Francisco-based KCBS for its coverage of immigration enforcement actions in San José last month, sparking concerns from press freedom advocates and drawing right-wing backlash to the radio station. In an interview on Fox News, Trump-appointed commission chair Brendan Carr said he opened the investigation after KCBS shared the live locations and vehicle descriptions of immigration officials on Jan. 26. “We have sent a letter of inquiry, a formal investigation into that matter, and they have just a matter of days left to respond to that inquiry and explain how this could possibly be consistent with their public interest obligations,” Carr said. First Amendment advocates worry the FCC investigation will have a chilling effect on news organizations reporting on the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans.
In two month’s time, 10 years would have passed since the Robodebt scheme was introduced into Australia via a flawed cabinet submission in April 2015 and the federal budget of that year. Robodebt was described in a 2023 BBC article as a “costly failure of public administration” within which “extensive, devastating and continuing” wrongdoing was Continue reading »
Will Australia’s Paris Agreement emissions reduction target for 2035 be consistent with a 1.5oC-world? The US wants a fossil fuel future; China wants renewables. Whatever … coal consumption is still rising. Australia’s contribution to a 1.5oC world Along with all the other nations that are signed up to the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, Continue reading »
Since the beginning of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, numerous scenes have repeatedly appeared before cameras and the eyes of the entire world, depicting blatant assaults on humanity and constituting brutal crimes that are unforgivable under any law, jurisdiction, or pretext. These scenes include attacks on defenceless children, medical teams, women, and the elderly. Continue reading »
In recent decades, the West has witnessed a growing trend among increasingly hubristic US leaders to proclaim the United States as “indispensable.” This rhetoric reflects a mindset often seen in declining empires: the belief that their peak is yet to come, despite mounting evidence of decay. To counter such self-deception, ancient Roman leaders employed a Continue reading »
When Donald Trump proposed recently to “clean out” Gaza of its entire population, you might have thought what you heard was a plan to “ethnically cleanse” Palestinians from their lands – I mean, it’s right there in that word. But not according to most of the media. An analysis of the Dow Jones database of Continue reading »
Ridicule is a tonic these days 🚨 BREAKING NEWS: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker says he’s going to rename Lake Michigan to “Lake Illinois.” Donald Trump is going to go nuts. Lmao!!! 🤣 pic.twitter.com/2BGI4NFiXh — CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) February 7, 2025 What would I do without Mike Luckovich?
Right whales get their rights back, abortion providers are handed a shield, Trump has an antitrust moment, and a tractor company is told to repair its values.
Break, throw, kick, scream As Paul Krugman said Friday, what the Musk and Trump are attempting is a self-coup with “the full support of every Republican in the House and the Senate.” “The president is openly violating the law and Constitution on a daily basis,” Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College, told The New York Times: “We’re talking about the idea of whether the president has to follow the law at all,” Nyhan said. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d have to say about the United States, but here we are.” The GOP has not only rejected democracy, as David Frum predicted tardily six years ago., but the American experiment itself. The very idea of it. All that’s left of the Republican Party is crumpled bunting. It’s not clear if their goal now is the return of the monarchy or feudalism. Oligarchy is too soft a term. Trump wants to be king. He’s always wanted to be king. But Musk? He and his Silicon Valley chums want to be gods. Ill-tempered ones at that. And a large faction of our neighbors, both the complacent and the violent, are prepared to allow it.
Palestinians from Gaza responded with outrage to Trump’s proposal to expel them from their homes.
The post “You Don’t Own Gaza, Donald Trump”: Palestinians Vow to Remain and Rebuild appeared first on The Intercept.
Yanis Varoufakis joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to explain how capitalism is dead and a new form of capital, the title of his new book, “Technofeudalism,” has arisen and holds power akin to the feudal lords of medieval times.
The post Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism | On The Chris Hedges Report appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
For most of the Gaza “war” official civilian casualty numbers were in the mid tens of thousands. They rose quickly at first, then they rose slowly, which was odd, because as time went by there were fewer and fewer hospitals, less food, less clean water, less medicine and less of Gaza that wasn’t rubble. There was every reason to expect the death toll to accelerate.
It now seems like the death toll is around four hundred thousand, perhaps higher, out of an initial population of 2.2 to 2.3 million.
The official numbers were offered by Hamas and they were obviously wrong, on the face of it. I don’t entirely know why, but there are some likely possibilities:
As Trump attacks foreign spending on “woke” initiatives, a GOP-aligned outfit has largely escaped scrutiny, despite using taxpayer funds to sponsor “transgender dance performances” and what it called the “largest published survey of LGBTI people in Bangladesh.” According to documents obtained by The Grayzone, the US-funded International Republican Institute sees gay and transgender people as uniquely disruptive actors who can be deployed to manipulate political realities overseas, stating, “LGBTI people tend to participate in social change activities to eventually bring […]
The post Why did Republicans fund ‘transgender dance’ in Bangladesh? first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post Why did Republicans fund ‘transgender dance’ in Bangladesh? appeared first on The Grayzone.
The Oregon Zoo has an adorable new baby: The long wait is over. After more than 20 months of pregnancy, Rose-Tu, a 30-year-old Asian elephant at the Oregon Zoo, gave birth at 4:29 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Staff are keeping their distance to give the pair time to bond, but the calf appears to be a healthy, strong female, weighing in the vicinity of 200 pounds. “We couldn’t be happier with how everything is going so far,” said Steve Lefave, who oversees the zoo’s elephant program. “This was one of the smoothest births I’ve ever seen. Rose knew just what to do. She helped her baby up right away. The kid was standing on her own within 15 minutes and took her first steps soon after that.” Zoo staff had been on baby watch since Jan. 29, when Rose-Tu’s progesterone levels dropped to near zero, indicating labor should begin soon. Rose experienced early labor throughout the day on Feb. 1 and began showing signs of active labor a little after 3 p.m. Veterinary staff have yet to conduct their first check-up, but once Rose and her calf are ready, they’ll weigh the baby and confirm its sex.
