THAT'S WHO! YOUR HALF-TIME ENTERTAINMENT

It's Super Bowl Sunday, a holy day of obligation for sports fans. Two teams--the Colts, the champs of the American Football Conference, and the Saints, the champs of the National Football Conference--will fight it out for four quarters for world domination. Or something like that.

Yesiree, Bob. Super Bowl XLIV is here, but more important than the clash of teams--and those overly expensive commercials in between plays--is the halftime entertainment. This year they've brought some real champions. As you make another sandwich, or wash down Wendy's famous Buffalo wings with more beers, a truly magnificent rock group, one of the very best of all time, will take the stage. The Who. While the teams are off the playing field, off-screen, back in the locker room getting iced, shot up with steroids, playing with toy boats in the jacuzzi, and engaging in all that good old fashioned, all-American homoerotic towel-snapping, the mighty Who will hit the Thunderdome. Even as old geezers, these lads can blow anybody away. They know about staying power. These teams have been playing for how long? Payton Manning wasn't even born till 1976! The Who have been chewing up fans since 1964! I can't wait to see the looks on the faces of those uber-fans with their rainbow wigs and team blankets and comfy couch cushions.

Have fun with the game and let's hope it's a good one, and not some lop-sided contest. Even so, pay attention to half-time. Don't get lost in your snacks.

Let's face it, football is okay but ain't rock and roll.

UPDATE:

Coach Payton and the Saints go marching in. Somebody pour Gatorade on this guy.

Okay, it was a good game after all, and the underdog Saints came from behind to win 31-17. Beer flowed, guacamole was gulped, and Wendy's famous flaming chicken wings sizzled. The Who were great, and here's the halftime show:

OBAMA IN THE LIONS' DEN

This is the Obama we voted for. Last Friday, he traveled to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore for a Q and A session and bitch-slapped challengers with wit, facts and candor. He was like a professor with a classroom full of cocky freshmen who, throughout the hour and a half class, proved they didn't know shit. One newspaper reported that Obama walked into the lion's den and mauled the lions. He dealt with their questions expertly, took on their critiques, and lectured them for playing petty politics.

According to the Washington Post, "after Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) spent several minutes blaming Obama for the increase in the federal deficit to $1.35 trillion, the president interrupted and asked, 'You're going to let me answer?'

"'The whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign,' Obama told him. 'That's not true, and you know it's not true.'"

Huffington Post reported that it got so good, FOX News cut away twenty minutes early. Huff-Post provided the complete transcript and video HERE.

SO LONG, HOLDEN

Chapter 1

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is how I died, and what my lousy life was like, and that I wrote a book that was beloved by teenagers and all, and by phonies who didn't even read it, and how I became a recluse with writer's block and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, you'll read all about it in the phony tributes and eulogies by a bunch of sanctimonious critics in all the fancy papers. Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything.

I'll just tell you about dying and how, when you're dead, they really fix you up and tell warmhearted stories even if you were a bastard and a real pain in the ass, because that's the way they do it, but if I had my way they'd just dump me in the river. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery where people are always sticking flowers on your stomach on Sunday. Who needs flowers when you're dead? I hate the whole arrangement, and the critics are the worst. They bring flowers, all right, big phony flowery words even though all the time you were alive they were saying you'd never write again, you're a has-been, and your book doesn't bare rereading, plenty of catty cruel stuff, but then you die and they say what a great guy you were and it's pretty crumby.

It's funny. All you have to say is something nobody understands and they'll say you're profound and you're the voice of a generation and then all of a sudden they'll turn on you, and say crumby things and keep saying them until your dead as a doornail. Maybe it's because they're going to die someday, too, and they don't want people saying all the bad stuff after they're dead, saying they picked their nose or cheated on their taxes or acted like selfish arrogant bastards, no, they want people to make up lies when they're sitting in their casket all powdered up. They do that when you're dead, it's like insurance, because they expect the same, even if they treat you bad your entire life and it's pretty crumby. It will make you blue as hell, I swear to God.

Anyway, I better get going. It's terrifically cold and I've got a long way to go.

HC

HOWARD ZINN 1922-2010

Howard Zinn, from "You Can't Be Neutral On a Moving Train," 2004

We were sorry to hear about the passing of radical historian and activist Howard Zinn. He was probably best known for his book, The People's History of the United States, which is required reading in many schools throughout the country. Recent projects have included a television version of his book, "The People Speak," which ran on the History Channel in 2009, and a narration for his 2004 biographical documentary, "Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train."

Howard Zinn in the Army Air Corps, WWII

Not just an armchair philosopher, this professor worked tirelessly for civil rights and peace since he returned from World War II, where he served as a bombardier and was awarded the Air Medal. After the war, Zinn went to NYU on the GI Bill, where he got his bachelor's degree, and then received his master's and doctorate at Columbia. He wasn't content to be just another timid soul in Academia, and Zinn served on the executive committee of SNCC, the most militant civil rights group of its time, and was an early active opponent to the Vietnam War. He actively opposed the Reagan contra wars in the 1980s, and the Iraq war(s), and remained an opponent of conservatism, injustice, militarism, rampant capitalism and corporate power until his dying day.

"He's made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture," said fellow dissident Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, in the Boston Globe. "He's changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can't think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect."

Chomsky added that Dr. Zinn's writings "simply changed perspective and understanding for a whole generation. He opened up approaches to history that were novel and highly significant. Both by his actions, and his writings for 50 years, he played a powerful role in helping and in many ways inspiring the Civil rights movement and the anti-war movement."

Howard Zinn and Walter Mosley talk about the history of America on C-SPAN

"TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

-Howard Zinn

Visit HowardZinn.org.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

Musicians from 156 countries got together to sing the Beatles' classic, All You Need is Love, to raise awareness about AIDs in Africa. Okay, maybe it's sentimental and maybe Starbucks--who put this together--wasn't entirely selfless about the project--but this is a good cause and hopefully some money will be raised with every damn crappaccino they sell even if it's probably only a few pennies. Even so, it's nice to hear people from all over the world uniting for something other than war. So, with those caveats, we're singing along. Love, love, love.