A photo from the US v. Costa Rica World Cup qualifying match currently in progress.
Who’s the genius who decided on Denver in March? UGH!
Day of the Dead (Journalists)
The Mexican chapter of the Article 19 organization has set up an amazing special site [in Spanish, yet very graphical and easy to navigate] in observance of the Day of the Dead, honoring the fallen journalists who have lost their lives in the pursuit of truth amid Mexico’s drug war.
Here is the rationale of the project, via Artículo 19:
The Day of the Dead is a Mexican folk tradition dating from pre-Columbian times, based on the belief that people’s souls return from the underworld to visit their families and loved ones. The tradition continues to this day with a mixture of indigenous beliefs with Catholic traditions.
The colors, the music, the food, and the the celebrations take place to honor the people who no longer exist in the material world but remain alive in the spiritual realm.
Therefore, here at Article 19, we want to remember on this day the deaths of 71 journalists murdered for reasons relating to their journalistic work, pay homage to them with an altar as a sign that they have not been forgotten, and as a continuing demand for justice for each of them.
FJP: As we have noted before, Artículo 19 has been doing an outstanding job at documenting violence against journalists across Mexico. Kudos.
Pet Peeve: ‘Los’ in translation. The correct name in Spanish of said Mexican tradition is Día de Muertos, not Día de los Muertos.
Images: Papel Picado (perforated paper), by Artículo 19.
Former Undocumented Immigrant Leo Manzano Wins Silver Olympic Medal for U.S.
On Tuesday, Mexican-born American runner Leo Manzano won a silver medal in the men’s 1,500-meter final, running the fastest time ever by a U.S. athlete at the Games. Manzano, 27, entered the U.S. at the age of 4 without papers, according to LetsRun. He didn’t gain legal residency until 10 years later.
“Silver medal, still felt like I won! Representing two countries USA and Mexico!”, Manzano tweeted shortly after his win. Most of his tweets throughout the Olympics have been in both Spanish and English.
All the feels right now, guise.
What would happen if Iran had the bomb? Nuclear apocalypse? Not quite.
Scott Peterson answers the question.
We’re all born wanting the freedom to imagine a better and more beautiful future. But modern America has become a place so drearily confining and predictable that it chokes the life out of that built-in desire. Everything from our pop culture to our economy to our politics feels oppressive and unresponsive. We see 10 million commercials a day, and every day is the same life-killing chase for money, money and more money; the only thing that changes from minute to minute is that every tick of the clock brings with it another space-age vendor dreaming up some new way to try to sell you something or reach into your pocket. The relentless sameness of the two-party political system is beginning to feel like a Jacob’s Ladder nightmare with no end; we’re entering another turn on the four-year merry-go-round, and the thought of having to try to get excited about yet another minor quadrennial shift in the direction of one or the other pole of alienating corporate full-of-shitness is enough to make anyone want to smash his own hand flat with a hammer.
—Matt Taibbi (via mrypwrs)
To most Americans, the first Monday in September means a three-day weekend and the last hurrah of summer, a final outing at the shore before school begins, a family picnic.
But Labor Day was born in a time when work was no picnic. As America was moving from farms to factories in the Industrial Age, there was a long, violent, often-deadly struggle for fundamental workers’ rights, a struggle that in many ways was America’s “other civil war.”
It was a war fought when 12-hour days and six-day weeks were routine. Wages were low; there were no sick days, pensions or holidays. There was certainly no unemployment insurance. Any attempts at organizing were met by the combined wrath of business and government. The business of America was business.
That conflict, a period in which thousands of workers died in America’s unsafe and unsanitary factories and mines, and hundreds more died in riots and pitched battles over workers’ rights, is the little-noted history behind this holiday.
(Source: azspot)
