The Daily Show - Race/Off

Triple Play: Sports, Politics & Greed

Saturday, September 14, 2013 by BillMoyers.com

Triple Play: Sports, Politics & Greed
 from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

The NFL recently announced it would pay out $765 million to settle a lawsuit from thousands of former players suffering from concussions and related brain trauma. A large sum, but a small percentage of the billions the football league and other professional sports franchises haul in for their owners. The vast gap between sports tycoons and the everyday fans who shell out hard-earned cash to watch their athlete heroes on the field is yet another reflection of the gross inequality between the one percent and the rest of society and another example of how inextricably linked sports and politics are in our lives.

“There’s always so much happening in the world of sports and there’s always so many different ways in which sports not just reflects our lives but shapes our lives,” Zirin tells Moyers. “It shapes our understanding of things like racism, sexism, homophobia. It shapes our understanding of our country, it shapes our understanding of corporations and what’s happening to our cities. In so many different ways sports stories are stories of American life in the 21st century.”

Crazy Weather Sports

The infamous Mud Bowl




The even more infamous Fog Bowl




Hocky in the Snow-2008 Winter Classic




Foul Weather Football




1993 Dallas-Miami Thanksgiving Game

Mitt Romney reveals a bit too much about his Mormon faith

The more people who see this, the bigger the bullet to the head of Romney's campaign. He has been actively denying some of the things he says he believes in on this video.  It's very damning in that it's more proof that Romney WILL say ANYTHING to get elected. Even the major players of the GOP can't stand him--one of the FOX News spinners even says Romney seems like he was built in a lab by German scientists. Even though there are stacks of proof (like the following videos) showing him outright LYING, he still denies it, over and over. Is he being told to do that? Or is it his own idea to just deny everything he says if it contradicts what he's saying today? In one case, he says the opposite of what he had just said 2 minutes prior. It's unreal that this is all the Republicans could come up with. It's a joke!

The Simpsons' Mr Burns Endorses Romney

Kinda funny...

Chaos on Bullshit Mountain

100 Riffs (A Brief History of Rock N' Roll)

Planet Earth

Actor Gary Oldman "takes a stand" against acting athletes

More than half of every dollar we pay into taxes goes toward military spending

Obama's GOP Talking Points on the Economy

Toys Col. Gentleman wishes he had when he was a lad but they hadn't been invented yet

Solar Flares on the Sun Captured on Video

The Solar System - Explore your backyard

"Epithet": a short film starring Patrick Stewart

Inspired by the Young Vic theatre's recent production of Edward Bond's play Bingo, Epithet – starring Patrick Stewart, directed by Angus Jackson and written by Mark O'Rowe – tells the story of a contemporary poet with a dubious background. Filmed near the site of Paris Gardens in Southwark, where bears were baited in Shakespeare's era, it is intended for a mature audience.

Warning: contains violent imagery and language

Chipotle Commercial During Grammys About Messed up Food System Making Waves

By Marion Nestle, Food PoliticsPosted on February 23, 2012

In an op-ed in the New York Times this week, Blake Hurst takes on the Chipotle video that got national attention when played during the Grammy Awards. 

If you have not seen this advertisement for Chipotle Mexican Grill, it is well worth a look. 

Coldplay’s haunting classic “The Scientist” is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled “Back to the Start.” The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.

The video has had immediate effects.  Hurst, a former hog farmer who is now president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, notes that “The day after it ran, McDonald’s announced that it would require its pork suppliers to end the use of gestation crates.”  Unfortunately,  as Grist points out, this announcement could just be ”porkwashing” since the company neglected to say by when. 

And then Bon Appétit  Management Company announced a comprehensive animal welfare policy that phases out gestation crates by 2015.

Hurst defends the use of sow gestation crates. 

These crates do restrict pigs’ movements, but farmers use them to control the amount of feed pregnant sows consume. When hogs are grouped in pens together, aggressive sows eat too much and submissive sows too little, and they also get in violent fights at feeding time. The only other ways to prevent these problems are complicated, expensive or dangerous to the pigs.

Really?  I was a member of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.  Our report, Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America, came out in 2008.

During the course of the investigations that led to this report, we visited an industrial hog farm in Kansas where I got a first-hand look at sow gestation crates in (in)action. 

I knew about sow crates, of course, but even so was completely unprepared for the sight of a pregnant sow confined between bars that allowed her only to stand up, lie down, and eat—during the entire 115 days of her pregnancy. 

When we asked why this was necessary, we got this answer: it is easier for the managers. 

• Workers do not have to be trained in animal husbandry.

• Cleaning chores are easier. 

• Feed can be measured.

• The sows cannot fight.

• The sows cannot kill their babies.

Seeing my evident distress, Bill Niman, who was also on the Commission, offered an antidote.  The next day, we drove 100 miles or so and visited Paul Willis’s hog farm.  This is featured in another Chipotle video. 

Willis claims that his relatively free-range sows (confined in fields by electric fences) are nearly as productive.  His animals get to roll in the mud.  They do not fight and do not kill their piglets.

Yes, their meat ends up on the plate no matter how the animals are raised.  But means matter as much as ends. 

Kindness to animals is a  mark of humanity. 

Getting rid of sow crates is a good idea, and the sooner the better.      

Brazil fans of HELLBLAZER respond to SPIDERLEGS version of VENUS of the HARD SELL

(A post with comments on a Brazilian website about SPIDERLEGS' take on a fictional punk song--"Venus of the Hardsell"--by a fictional punk band--Mucous Membrane--from the pages of John Constantine: HELLBLAZER. English translation below the Portugese.--jef)

Hellblazer Fãs gravam música da banda fictícia de John Constantine

Assista ao clipe de "Venus of the Hardsell" criado pela banda Spiderlegs

Carina Toledo
04 de Julho de 2011

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John Constantine, o mago inglês da série Hellblazer, teve uma breve carreira musical no fim da década de 70, quando metade da juventude britânica queria ser os Sex Pistols. Era a banda Membrana Mucosa, com os amigos Gary Lester, Les e Beano. Assim como tudo na vida de Constantine, a banda terminou em tragédia, mas deixou um hit constantemente citado nas HQs: “Venus of the Hardsell”.

  Agora, você pode finalmente ter uma ideia de como seria ouvir Constantine. Fãs do personagem gravaram a música “Venus of the Hardsell”, a partir da letra publicada em Hellblazer Annual #1 (HQ inédita no Brasil; o letrista foi o escritor Jamie Delano). E ainda fizeram um vídeo com cenas da HQ. Assista:

A música foi gravada pela desconhecida Spiderlegs, que tenta reproduzir como seria uma bandinha britânica de garagem do final dos anos 70. O vídeo está há pouco mais de um mês no YouTube, e nas informações comenta-se que em breve deve acontecer uma regravação.

A homenagem chega em momento especial para Constantine. Além de agora dividir seu tempo entre o Universo DC normal e a continuidade diferente na Vertigo – onde em breve vai poder se gabar de ter o gibi com a mais alta numeração entre Marvel e DC -, o anti-herói terá retrospectiva em coletâneas que vão republicar Hellblazer desde a primeira edição. A Panini já anunciou que vai seguir a onda aqui, prometendo para este ano o encadernado John Constantine: Hellblazer – Origens.

Leia mais sobre Hellblazer


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Hellblazer Fans record music of the fictitious band of John Constantine

Listen to the clip of “Venus of The Hardsell” created by the band Spiderlegs

Carina Toledo
04 of July of 2011

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John Constantine, English magus of the Hellblazer series, had a brief musical career in the end of the decade of 70, when half of British youth wanted to be the Sex Pistols. She was the band Mucous Membrane, with the friends Gary Lester, Les and Beano. As well as everything in the life of Constantine, the band finished in tragedy, but hit cited in the HQs left one constantly: “Venus of the Hardsell”.

Now, you can finally have an idea of as she would be to hear Constantine. Fans of the personage had recorded music “Venus of the Hardsell”, from the letter published in Hellblazer Annual #1 (HQ unknown in Brazil; the letrista was the writer Jamie Delano). had still made a video with scenes of the HQ. It attends:

Music was recorded by the stranger Spiderlegs, who tried to reproduce as one would be in a British garage band of the end of the 70s. The video is little has more than one month in the YouTube, and in the information it is commented that soon a rerecording will happen.

The homage arrives at special moment for Constantine. Beyond now dividing its time between normal Universe DC and the different continuity in the Vertigo - where soon he goes to be able to brag itself to have the comics with the highest numeration between Marvel and DC -, the anti-hero will have retrospect in coletâneas that go to republish Hellblazer since the first edition. The Panini already announced that it goes to follow the wave here, promising for this year the bound John Constantine: Hellblazer - Origins.

It reads more on Hellblazer

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Commentaries (9)

ronaldo (05/07/2011 08:36: 50)   2★ 0  

as a rock band old guard, I loved, I found fo@#$! very good homagem… wanted to see as track in the film, in a ugly scene of treta….

Celso (04/07/2011 19:45: 58)   3★ 0  

It was valid for the homage the John Constantine, one of my favourite personages to the side of Spider Jerusalem.

Carlos (04/07/2011 18:02: 28)   14★ 0  

  I pause that it has exactly left this new bound with first histories therefore spare me is that they are all the essence of the personage, very good there this initiative of this band.

DomnRamon (04/07/2011 17:59: 47)   188★ 1  

WOOOO

Constantine is my typebof adolescence hero. Grand, at least, the initiative.

@_JJunior (04/07/2011 17:52: 07)   114★ 1 

EXCELLENT MUSIC! Much fuck. These bound (Panini origins) are the light in the end of the tunnel of Brazil!

Aklash (04/07/2011 17:49: 59)   410★ 0  

Music could have most been worked, oddly found the placed letter with the time of music…

Hector (04/07/2011 14:26: 23)   410★ 5 

Well punk, style Sex Pistols… good homage of the fans ace roots of the personage.

Aklash (04/07/2011 17:52: 43)   410★ 0

I found acceptable. the music, the initiative and the substance.

Massayuki (04/07/2011 14:20: 16)   96★ 1 

Excellent Rock'n Roll, excellent music. For the video clip they could film this sequência of the HQ.

CIA sifts through social media sites

BPA: Death by Plastic

(BPA is bad. There are 45 seconds of an NWO rant at the beginning of the video, and at 4:26 or so is a silly theory about a BPA link to homosexuality that I don't buy into, but the rest of the info is good.--jef)

Sssshhhh -- Don't Tell...

This is what my son gets for xmas...--jef