Global

Super Bowl 50 will be the first National Football League championship to happen since it was reported that much of the pro-military hoopla at football games, the honoring of troops and glorifying of wars that most people had assumed was voluntary or part of a marketing scheme for the NFL, has actually been a money-making scheme for the NFL. The U.S.

ernie Sanders has shown in Iowa that he’s a viable candidate … and more. Considering Bernie was down 50 points just a while ago, Iowa has sent a clear signal that this campaign must be taken seriously.

But the terrain will quickly shift. Bernie will obviously do well in New Hampshire. Then the race will move to southern and bigger states, where Hillary may have an edge.

But we’re not talking about demographics. The real terrain shift that concerns us is from a caucus state to ones where the votes are counted on electronic voting machines.

The key strategy in question is “strip and flip,” i.e., the stripping of electronic registration lists, and then the flipping of the vote count on machines that have no reliable system of verification.

The “strip & flip” realities are simple enough:

STRIP:

“It was also a shock to the system that a candidate universally known in Iowa, with deep pockets and long experience, could come close to losing to a relative unknown who was initially considered little more than a protest candidate.”

Just think of it! The tiny, tightly controlled consciousness that calls itself The World’s Greatest Democracy got all rattled and discombobulated by the behavior of Iowa caucus participants this week, because a large number of them — virtually half of the participating Democrats — cast their vote for an old socialist, well outside the zone of official approval.

As she looked around the room at the gathering of collegiate women’s soccer players at the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) All-American banquet last January in Baltimore, Capital University senior Mariah Richards couldn’t think of a better way for her athletic career to end.

Richards became the fifth Crusader to be recognized as an All-American in the program’s history and shared NSCAA Scholar All-American honors with teammate Maura Fortino.

“It took me a while to realize what it means to receive that honor,” said the Massillon Jackson graduate who helped guide Capital to a 15-5-1 record, its third consecutive Ohio Athletic Conference championship and the second round of the NCAA Division III tournament last fall. “It was a closure to one of the biggest parts of my life.”

The center back, who was recently accepted into the University of Louisville’s School of Dentistry, knew her soccer career would end eventually. However, the OAC Defensive Player of the Year never envisioned it’d take timing, teamwork and a trip in a four-passenger airplane to allow her to play in her final game.

Last winter's Agent Carter mini-series – a spin-off of Marvel's Captain America movies and a prequel of sorts to the Agents of SHIELD TV series – managed in its too-short eight episodes to be one of the best shows of the year. Airing during SHIELD's mid-season break, Agent Carter outshone the longer-running show with its post-WWII style, charming cast, and much more cohesive plot.

Fortunately, ABC saw fit to give the world another Agent Carter mini-series, this time with 10 episodes. But can it live up to the first one? Two episodes in, all signs point to Yes.

I was in attendance at a conference in Beirut last year when it was reported that Syriza, the left-wing Greek party, originally founded in 2004, had just done the impossible—or at least what we all thought was impossible. There was talk about ending austerity measures and Greece leaving the Eurozone: Grexit. Surely, a people’s victory in the US was just around the bend?

The basic story of the poisoning of the children of Flint, Mich., through the water they drink is now pretty well known, but as more details come out, it keeps getting worse. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, after passing a big tax cut for the rich and corporations on coming into office, had to find cuts to make up for the lost revenue.

In Flint and other cities, he essentially nullified democratic elections, deposed elected mayors and city councils and installed his own agents with virtually dictatorial powers. The “emergency manager” of Flint decided that the city could save money by discontinuing its water supply from Lake Huron and instead drawing it from the toxic Flint River. He then failed to treat the new water with additives needed to keep the city’s old pipes from leaching lead. When people objected to the brown, smelly water filled with particles that was coming out of the taps, the governor’s men reassured them the water was safe. All of Flint’s children were exposed to water with elevated levels of lead.

No, the cornfields are not full of dumb blondes (except when Fox News shows up), but it truly is hard not to be sexist in Iowa.

For example, I think it's reprehensible to take tens of millions of dollars from murderous kingdoms and dictatorships and then waive restrictions on selling them weapons including the weapons that Saudi Arabia has been using to slaughter men, women, and children in Yemen. And this makes me a sexist, or so I'm told.

In my view, parroting every war lie of Bush and Cheney was disgusting enough, but then pretending you meant well and didn't understand, even though once the war was begun you voted over and over again to fund it, is literally criminal as well as a moral abomination. Taking so many millions of dollars from war profiteers just makes it worse -- at least in the eyes of us sexist fans of Jill Stein.