January 17, 2022

Djokovic circus unleashes toxic chain reaction of mistrust and resentment

The world No 1 fought his deportation case with trademark resilience which has unleashed forces larger than him

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/17/djokovic-circus-unleashes-toxic-chain-reaction-of-mistrust-and-resentment



Novak Djokovic fought the Australian government in the same way he fought his rivals on the tennis court: with defiance and stone-willed refusal, with every tool at his disposal and every last fibre of his being, with an unshakeable and messianic belief in his own supremacy. He contested his deportation as if it were a crucial break point, as if it were his last stand against total oblivion. This time, however, something startling happened. He lost.

Djokovic is unused to losing. When he does, he tends to explain it away as the product of his own failings. He courteously congratulates his opponents, but ultimately leaves you with the impression that he decides who wins and loses. His collection of trophies and records – 20 grand slam titles, the most weeks at world No 1 in the history of men’s tennis – suggests he is probably right. But implicit in that too is an assertion of control and individual impregnability: this is my business, and I will deal with it myself.

The problems arise when you begin to conflate the hard white lines of the tennis court with the messy compromises of the world at large. Djokovic would hardly be the first professional athlete to labour under the delusion that his superior sporting ability confers some kind of elite virtue, a firewall against judgment and scrutiny. Nor would he be the first to confuse his athletic gifts with expertise in other fields: lifestyle, health and medicine, even politics. “I can show you how to change not just your body but your whole experience of living,” he promises in his 2013 book Serve to Win: part-autobiography, part-nutrition guide and a presage of the Instagram influencer culture that bundles up diet, mental health, body-narcissism and alternative medicine into a shiny, sellable package.



No athlete is obliged to stay in their lane. But anybody who leverages their fame, power and privilege in this way has a responsibility to do so with care, to reckon with the consequences of their choices, to recognise when they have become counter-productive. And perhaps the most disquieting aspect of the last fortnight, as the Djokovic circus rolled out of Melbourne Airport and on to our smartphones and television screens, is the way Djokovic’s choices have unleashed forces and currents far larger than him, or indeed tennis: a toxic chain reaction of mistrust and resentment that could lead us into some extremely dark places.

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January 17, 2022

Glorious Din - Leading Stolen Horses (Full Album - 1985) Superb Post Punk Goth Rock Band

Label: Insight – R 41585
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1985
Genre: Rock
Style: New Wave, Goth Rock, Post-Punk


















How A Boy From The Sri Lankan Jungle Formed The Greatest Punk Band You’ve Never Heard

https://cvltnation.com/boy-sri-lankan-jungle-formed-greatest-punk-band-youve-never-heard/

January 16, 2022

The Gun Club - Fire of Love (Full Album - 1981)

Label: Ruby Records – JRR 102
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 31 Aug 1981
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychobilly, Blues Punk

January 16, 2022

Cro-Mags - The Age Of Quarrel (1986 - Full Album)

Label: Profile Records – PRO-1218, Rock Hotel Records – PRO-1218
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1986
Genre: Rock
Style: Hardcore Punk

January 14, 2022

Abby Finkenauer (running against nazi fossil Grassley in IA): Kyrsten Sinema is a sellout.

https://twitter.com/Abby4Iowa/status/1481727018379386885


Abby Finkenauer
@Abby4Iowa
Kyrsten Sinema is a sellout.

I’ve got some thoughts and it’s time we hold nothing back. RT if you're with me!

January 14, 2022

Schumer just said on the Senate floor that Tuesday they WILL vote on a rule change, so Manchin

and Sinema will be forced to vote No (on democracy).

Make those obstructionists OWN it.

https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1481825808717078531

January 13, 2022

If Dems Don't Save Democracy Now They Won't Get Another Shot

Look at Texas, which is now counting prisoners as a way to build up local Republican districts, for a sense of how bad things could get.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/if-dems-dont-save-democracy-now-they-wont-get-another-shot



We all heard the warnings, about how Democrats were just going through the motions as Republicans mobilized to reshape America’s electorate through sweeping, hyper-partisan gerrymandering. We may even have dismissed them as hyperbole. But no longer. Those warnings are now an urgent, brutal reality.

In Tennessee, state Republicans are preparing to split the Democratic stronghold of Nashville into multiple GOP-dominated districts. Tennessee now offers the roadmap for Republican legislatures in states like Kentucky, Florida, and Arizona to divide and conquer Democrats’ most reliable voter bases. The result will be an undemocratic new era where Republicans enjoy a completely artificial and almost insurmountable electoral advantage in the House of Representatives.

While President Joe Biden rallied party morale with a powerful speech backing voting rights legislation in Atlanta on Tuesday, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s Freedom to Vote compromise bill doesn’t go far enough to protect American elections from Republican meddling. Democrats must strengthen its election protection provisions or prepare for a lasting wound to our electoral process and a shellacking in November—one that would be surely followed by even more Republican hijinks to fix the game in their favor.

As the national conversation turns to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s ambitious and fast-approaching Jan. 17 deadline to pass a serious voting reform package, there’s no time to waste in beefing up the softer parts of Manchin’s otherwise admirable bill. In its current form, the Freedom to Vote act would mandate uniform rules for congressional redistricting—and, critically, it covers maps that have already been enacted this cycle. It also boosts transparency around the redistricting process and restores the ability to sue in court over partisan power grabs like what Republicans have planned for Nashville.

snip

January 13, 2022

The Bold Economic Move Joe Biden Refuses to Make

Stymied by Congress, the president could make $1 trillion in student loans disappear all by himself.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/01/biden-student-loan-debt-cancellation/621224/



As senator Elizabeth Warren sees it, President Joe Biden can solve a lot of problems—for millions of Americans financially, and for himself politically—with a single move that neither Senator Joe Manchin nor any Republican in Congress could veto. The president, she says, should unilaterally wipe out up to $50,000 in student-loan debt for every federal borrower in the country. Warren has been beating this drum for just about two years, ever since she unveiled the proposal in a bid to outflank her rivals—including Biden—in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. The senator from Massachusetts has won influential converts to her cause over the past year, most notably Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

But Biden is not one of them. “I will not make that happen,” he bluntly told a questioner asking about the proposal at a town hall a few weeks after he took office. The president’s political fortunes are very different now than they were then. His ambitious social-spending agenda, already chopped in half, has stalled in the Senate. Biden’s approval ratings have fallen to the low 40s, and with the pandemic raging and Congress bickering, his window for mounting a comeback in time to save his party’s majorities in the midterm elections is shrinking. In Biden’s struggles, progressives like Warren see an opportunity to make a fresh case for action that would prove popular with voters whom Democrats need to turn out this fall.

“I believe the president should cancel student-loan debt because it is the right thing to do for people who have debt and the right thing to do in our economy,” Warren told me by phone last week, having recovered from a mild December bout (“a day and a half of the flu and I was done,” as she described it) of COVID-19. “But,” she added, “even someone who disagreed with me should take a very serious look at the polling data right now.”

Since the spring, Biden has lost some support on the left and even more among independents, but no group of Americans has soured faster on the president than younger voters, according to a recent analysis of polling data by The Economist. That same cohort—Gen Zers and Millennials—is where support for student-debt forgiveness is strongest, surveys have also shown. “One of the hardest things for an elected official to do is demonstrate to people that they can count on that elected official to be on their side,” Warren said. “Canceling student-loan debt for more than 40 million Americans would persuade a lot of young people that this president is in the fight for them.”

snip

January 13, 2022

Dorothy Ashby & Frank Wess - In a Minor Groove (1958)

Label: New Jazz – 8209
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album, Mono, Deep groove
Country: US
Released: 1958
Genre: Jazz
Style: Post Bop, Cool Jazz

January 13, 2022

Ronnie Spector: a life in pictures

The singer who defined the sound of mid-century girl groups as the frontwoman of the Ronettes has died at age 78

https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2022/jan/12/ronnie-spector-a-life-in-pictures