Global

“So you want to disarm cops LOL yeah that’s an intelligent thing to do the gang bangers would love that surely they will unilaterally disarm too.”

I’m used to semi-anonymous sarcasm by now, like this Huffington Post comment beneath a recent column I wrote on the militarization of the police and the possibility of disarmament, and I have no interest in “fighting it out” with the guy. But there it is, perfectly preserved: an impulse homage to Big Fear, wrapped in unexamined certainty. This is fast-draw morality, made in Hollywood.

I take this moment to highlight it because it’s so typical and, for that reason, the first line of defense of the status quo of violence: this instant acceptance of the idea that our enemies are continually stalking the perimeter of our lives, waiting to invade, to commandeer our way of life the moment we lower our weapons.

Judging by the #GamerGate hashtag currently infesting Twitter, you’d think there had been some kind of actual scandal involving the video game industry, the media…something. But what the last week in gaming culture has seen is actually the final extinction cries of sad man-boys who think they’re the only ones who should be catered to in an industry that not only needs but genuinely wants to be inclusive.

It’s barely worth mentioning the non-scandal that started this latest wildfire of unchecked straight-white-male privilege except to highlight just how foolish and overblown the whole thing is. The match that set this one off was a blog post by the angry ex-boyfriend of an outspoken indie game developer, whose posted chat logs revealed that she had cheated on him with someone I will generously call a “games journalist”. Given a chance to both slut-shame AND proclaim that this is why women aren’t welcome in gaming, the grosser parts of the internet (read: Reddit) exploded.

The internet is the lifeblood of what’s left of global democracy.

It’s under attack as never before. We must act.

It’s time for the hactivists to mobilize.

When the British slaughtered eight Americans at Lexington and Concord, farmers grabbed their guns and picked off 250 Redcoats as they marched back to Boston.

With guerrilla tactics learned from the Indians, the farmers shot from behind rocks and trees and then flowed back into the woods to fight again further down the road.

They began a Revolution in both modern warfare and the demands of a people determined to be free.

Today the corporations are marching again---this time to choke off the last gasp of a free media.

The prime culprits are “internet providers” like Comcast, Time-Warner, PacBell, etc.  They did not invent or develop the internet. That was done with public money and communal institutions.

They have simply, as always, used their ill-gotten billions to warp, buy and steal a public trust. Now they want it all. They need to be stopped.

When he looks at senior Alana Gaither, Otterbein University football coach Tim Doup doesn’t see the first female football player to score points in the Ohio Athletic Conference or the holder of the female record for the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s longest field goal, according to MaxPreps.com.

 What Doup sees is a great place kicker. Nothing more. “As an athlete, she is no different than anyone else, to be honest,” says Doup, whose team opens the season Sept. 6 against St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y. “At first, it was a little different. You do get some reactions from the guys. ‘Is this for real?

Do we really have a female kicker?’

 “Now I forget sometimes I have a female on the team to be quite honest. The only thing different is she dresses somewhere else. She is one of the guys.”

 “None of my coaches have ever treated me differently,” says Gaither, who made 32 of 40 extra points and 5 of 6 on short-range field goals during the last two seasons with the Cardinals. “I’m a human being who can kick a football and that’s all that matters to them.”

Columbus is a very geeky city — so geeky, in fact, that it’s home to not just one long-running annual anime convention, but two! Over the weekend between August 22nd and 24th, the Hyatt Regency Hotel played host to the smaller and younger but no less ambitious of the two, Matsuricon.

The Ohio Roller Girls closed out their regular season with a tough pair of victories over the Steel City (Pittsburgh) Roller Girls on Saturday August 30. This was easily one of the more physical bouts of the season. Both the All-Star charter team and Gang Green landed another point in the win column, with the All Stars advancing with a buy in the first round of the playoffs. The Eastern playoffs are a 16 team double elimination tournament to be held in Evansville, Indiana from September 19 through 21.

OHRG All Stars vs Steel Hurtin'

The charter team matchup between Columbus and Pittsburgh began without a whisper of points for our hometown heroines as Steel Hurtin's defense held the All Stars scoreless for first six jams. Ena Flash, a player not often seen in the jammer position finally got Ohio on the scoreboard for three points in the seventh. Ohio chipped away at Pittsburgh's lead for another two jams and until the Smacktivist took advantage of a power jam to land three grand slams and pull the All Stars ahead 28 to 24 at the end of the tenth.

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America By Kiese Laymon

Many fine authors hail from the South, that most distinctive region in the country. It seems that southerners have voices and story telling skills like no others in America. Kiese Laymon, a son of the south, joins the long line of southerners who have dazzled us with their literary skills.

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America isn’t a book about suicide per se; it’s a collection of searing essays about the daily, slow death and dying marginalized people go through as they come to grips with the harshness and hopelessness of their lives.

President Obama has authorized surveillance drones over Syria, and is threatening to begin airstrikes in Syria, along with the ongoing strikes in Iraq. All without Congressional approval. The Syrian government has said that airstrikes in its airspace would constitute an act of aggression. Tell President Obama: Don’t bomb Syria or Iraq!

We’ve seen the pictures and read the news. ISIS is certainly frightening, and we’re deeply concerned about the people of Syria and Iraq. US military intervention in the region has historically been counterproductive. We've seen this from the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. What’s needed is a political and humanitarian solution to the crisis, not more violence.

Remarks at North Carolina Peace Action Event in Raleigh, N.C., August 23, 2014.

Thank you for inviting me, and thank you to North Carolina Peace Action, and to John Heuer whom I consider a tireless selfless and inspired peacemaker himself.  Can we thank John?

It's an honor for me to have a role in honoring the 2014 Student Peacemaker, iMatter Youth North Carolina. I've followed what iMatter has been doing around the country for years, I've sat in on a court case they brought in Washington, D.C., I've shared a stage with them at a public event, I've organized an online petition with them at RootsAction.org, I've written about them and watched them inspire writers like Jeremy Brecher whom I recommend reading.  Here is an organization acting in the interests of all future generations of all species and being led -- and led well -- by human kids.  Can we give them some applause?

In the 1920s and 1930s, anybody who was anybody tried to figure out how to rid the world of war. Collectively, I'd say they got three-quarters of the way to an answer. But from 1945 to 2014, they've been ignored when possible (which is most of the time), laughed at when necessary, and on the very rare occasions that require it: attacked.

What a flock of idiots the leading thinkers of a generation all must have been. World War II happened. Therefore, war is eternal.  Everyone knows that.

But slavery abolitionists pushed on despite slavery happening another year, and another year.  Women sought the right to vote in the next election cycle following each one they were barred from.  Undoubtedly war is trickier to get rid off, because governments claim that all the other governments (and any other war makers) must go first or do it simultaneously. The possibility of someone else launching a war, combined with the false notion that war is the best way to defend against war, creates a seemingly permanent maze from which the world cannot emerge.