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content /kənˈtɛnt/ • adjective

Whether adjective (in a state of peaceful happiness), verb (soothe), or noun (a state of satisfaction), the appropriate use and pronunciation of ‘content’ is  /kənˈtɛnt/

Ahem. This is known. Don’t be suckered into micro-sizing your efforts into a generic descriptor thereof.

Along the same lines, it should also be apparent that people only need to be as corporate and sanitized as they agree to be.  While in times of deceit this might be construed as a revolutionary act, self-deceit about the meaning and matter of it all can be as devious as any other form. Remember all the space afforded you, the dark nights and struggles before yours that produce the light that warms you now, that allows you to see. There’s a gem of a reminder by Susan Neiman in the NYRB, reassembling the thinking of and about Frantz Fanon:

tribalism is the simplest form of social organization. It takes an act of abstraction to become a universalist; to see the possibility of common dignity in all the weird and gorgeous ways human beings differ is an achievement we’ve forgotten how to celebrate.

Allow yourself to pull away from tendencies not your own.

Image: Author photo, Hudson River sunrise.

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Smoking the Wrong End

I couldn’t write anything for a couple of days, but not because I couldn’t top ‘pinyon’ in the subject line, thank you very much.

With all the gloating about Romney’s Doofus Act this far out from the election, we should remember not to play in their hands. The reality of Romney, the entire dimensions of its scandalous fraudulence, is the fault of the Republican Party and its insanity refineries around the southern parts of the country, as much if not more than any of it actually belongs to him. Pierce:

The biggest problem with Romney’s campaign is its utter incoherence, which stems from the fact that he had to romance a Republican primary electorate that is clearly demented. The root of the campaign’s fundamental dishonesty, which is what has led to its incoherence in the first place, is the fact that the Republican primary electorate forced Romney to renounce the only real achievement he has as an elected politician — the Massachusetts health-care reform. Once you find you have to lie about all the good you did, what does the rest of it really matter?

Yes, do tell. And now, in a bit of very hopeful convergence, what I would really like is for some reporter to ask the President what he thinks about the NFL right about now. And I would like for the President to say that, of course he likes the NFL, likes to drink beer and watch it like some others do, and so he hates what is going on now with the owners trying to turn the refs’ pensions into 401(k)s but that this sort of thing has been happening for a while now. Let’s let that discussion burst out into the open now, too, while we’re at it.

That’s what I would like.

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Radical Solutions, Inc.

That’s some kind of dystopian corporation of the future, sort of like Executive Outcomes. Remember that? Now try to dig up that Harper’s article from 1997; it’ll learn ya.

So… you wouldn’t think that an article on eliminating college football would be relevant on a blog like this. But then you didn’t name your blog this either, did you? Oh, Wall Street Journal, reminding me that Eco also stands for economy:

Who truly benefits from college football? Alumni who absurdly judge the quality of their alma mater based on the quality of the football team. Coaches such as Nick Saban of the University of Alabama and Bob Stoops of the University of Oklahoma who make obscene millions. The players themselves don’t benefit, exploited by a system in which they don’t receive a dime of compensation. The average student doesn’t benefit, particularly when football programs remain sacrosanct while tuition costs show no signs of abating as many governors are slashing budgets to the bone.

I’m down with his argument in many ways, but this part of it reminds me of a near exact parallel with the sacrosanctity of military spending in our larger budgetary reality. It is Eliot Ness. It is untouchable, all other things being up for negotiated elimination. Which is itself a reminder of what our government is becoming: an insurance company with an army.

But, to the point about college football green and the NCAA’s reluctance to part with it. No solutions are just going to prevent themselves, until the sport completes its slide toward boxing – and with solutions like, who needs problems? The idea of a triple AAA minor league paid for by the NFL seems like a no-brainer and will only take a little getting used to. In business speak, they’ve already created demand for their product, and maybe even overshot that. Time to re-route the supply.