Author Archives: surfikdon

Why Republicans Cannot Grasp That "Redskins" Is Offensive

by surfikdon Posted on January 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Every once in a while a small controversy comes along that helps explain a big problem. This National Football League season has provided such a controversy. The name of Washington D.C.’s football team, the Redskins, is under fire. “Redskins” is an offensive term and therefore inappropriate for the team representing our nation’s capital. That’s kind of obvious, right?

Most Republicans don’t think so. They defend the name, as they do other Native American-based team names, such as the college football champion Florida State Seminoles, calling them tokens of “honor.” They claim that the names celebrate a “heritage” and “tradition” of “bravery” and “warrior-spirit,” and they publicly wonder: What’s the problem?

The Onion, that fine news source, captured it in one neat, snide sentence: “A new study… confirmed that the name of the Washington Redskins is only offensive if you take any amount of time whatsoever to think about its actual meaning.” So what’s keeping Republicans from thinking about it?

For one thing, Republicans tend to wear a set of blinders, crafted and actively maintained by the party’s functionaries and its media priesthood. They also suffer from mental roadblocks shared by American whites more generally, including a thin, often myth-based “knowledge” about Native Americans. Collectively, all of this blinds Republicans to what it’s like to be on the receiving end of power at home and abroad.

That said, the GOP’s power brokers know the party is facing a demographic time bomb, so why do they let their media minions form an offensive line to protect the Redskins name? Nationally, the Republicans’ short-term hopes and long-term survival may hinge on whether they can manage to make the party welcoming to non-whites. Yet they proudly wear these blinders, as I once did, continuing to “honor” American Indians–as they never would a team called the Whiteskins, the Brownskins, the Blackskins, or the Yellowskins. Here’s a little breakdown on why.

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Why Republicans Cannot Grasp That "Redskins" Is Offensive

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How a Local "Ganjapreneur" Bummed Oakland’s High and Cheated the City out of Thousands

by surfikdon Posted on December 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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Derek Peterson and Dhar Mann (pictured at right)

In 2011, a Lamborghini-driving 26-year-old named Dhar Mann became a national media sensation when he partnered with a Morgan Stanley investment banker in an audacious plan to create weGrow, a vertically integrated marijuana conglomerate better known as the “Walmart of Weed.” Shortly after I wrote the first detailed profile of Mann, however, he split with Morgan Stanley’s Derek Peterson amid mutual accusations of unpaid debts and financial shenanigans. Peterson charged Mann with running “a fucking hydroponzi scheme.”

Now it looks like he wasn’t exaggerating by much. Yesterday, Mann pleaded “no contest” to five felony counts of defrauding the City of Oakland, the Oakland Tribune reports. The scion of a wealthy taxi monopolist and a major local political donor, Mann was accused of pocketing some $44,000 in city redevelopment funds that he was supposed to use to fix up several of his properties. According to court documents, Mann submitted checks to the city that he’d supposedly written to contractors but that were in fact redeposited into his own bank account.

Mann won’t face jail time, but still must resolve an Oakland civil suit seeking $345,000 in civil penalties and damages.

Though weGrow got a lot of media attention, it was never very popular among the Bay Area’s pot cognoscenti, who saw the company’s materialistic and confrontational image as a liability to their wider goal of a truce in the drug war. But now it looks like it was Mann himself, not anti-drug crusaders in the federal government, who planted the seeds of his demise.

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How a Local "Ganjapreneur" Bummed Oakland’s High and Cheated the City out of Thousands

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These Beautiful "Place-Hacking" Photos Will Give You an Adrenaline Rush

by surfikdon Posted on November 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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They call themselves “place hackers”—urban adventurers who get a thrill (and bragging rights) from exploring forbidden spaces: old military bases, sewer systems, decommissioned hospitals, power stations—even the odd skyscraper under construction. Just like backpackers, they have an ethical code: no vandalism or theft, take only photographs, leave only footprints. “The idea behind urban exploration is revealing what’s hidden,” explains Bradley Garrett, author of the recent book Explore Everything: Place Hacking the City. “It’s about going into places that are essentially off limits and, because they are off limits, have been relatively forgotten.” The goal is not just to explore, he adds, but to document and share as well. To wit: Check out these 12 amazing photos from Garrett’s book.

Effra Sewer, South London

Saint Sulpice Church, Paris

King’s Reach Tower, London

New Court Building, London

Ritz-Carlton Residences, Chicago

Legacy Tower, Chicago

Temple Court Building, London

Legacy Tower, Chicago

Lost Kingdom Water Park, Riverside, California

GLC Pipe Subways, London

Skyscraper Crane, Aldgate East, London

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These Beautiful "Place-Hacking" Photos Will Give You an Adrenaline Rush

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The Worst Wildfires in a Decade Pour Acrid Smoke Over Sydney

by surfikdon Posted on October 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the Atlantic Cities website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Going outside in many parts of southeastern Australia right now is like sucking on a stogie filled with smoldering grass and bark. The countryside is alive with flame from nearly 100 rampaging blazes, which are drawing strength from feverish weather to slam a dirty-black lid of smoke over Sydney.

This breakout will go down as the worst regional fires in a decade. More than a third of the fires are out of control and behaving erratically thanks to screwy yet strong wind patterns. The Sydney Morning Herald has put together a timeline of events from Thursday, and it’s laden with cruel portents:

7am Day begins with warnings. There were 65 fires in NSW, 25 uncontained. Forecasts of hot and windy conditions….

3pm Multiple fires through the Blue Mountains. Ash starts to fall across Sydney….

6pm Parts of fuel store set alight at Blue Wren Drive near Wyong. Reports of explosions.

6.40pm RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons: ”This is as bad as it gets. We may be counting homes lost in the dozens or hundreds.”

While the situation on the ground must be nerve-racking, from space it looks fairly terrible, too. The above image, taken on Thursday afternoon by NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows the earth spewing smoke like a titanic beater with a blown head gasket. The blazes are outlined in red; the largest in this shot is the State Mine fire at top left, a sower of destruction to more than 50,000 acres of land.

“In addition to the threat posed by the fires, the image shows that smoke pollution was a problem in populated coastal communities,” says NASA. “The densest plume of smoke hangs directly over Sydney, though the brighter white streak is probably a cloud.” Aside from the smoke, the locals are also having to deal with burning embers falling onto their properties, according to the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. That agency is advising people to stamp out any spot fires they see, and also to (in very good advice) find shelter “if the fire impacts on your property. Protect yourself from the heat of the fire.”

Here are photos from local observer Maarten Danial of the glum scene in Sydney:

And this is a zoom of the NASA image over the vicinity of Sydney. You can almost see a city (on the coast below the densest white cloud) through all that haze:

While the situation on the ground must be nerve-racking, from space it looks fairly terrible, too. The above image, taken on Thursday afternoon by NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows the earth spewing smoke like a titanic beater with a blown head gasket. The blazes are outlined in red; the largest in this shot is the State Mine fire at top left, a sower of destruction to more than 50,000 acres of land.

“In addition to the threat posed by the fires, the image shows that smoke pollution was a problem in populated coastal communities,” says NASA. “The densest plume of smoke hangs directly over Sydney, though the brighter white streak is probably a cloud.” Aside from the smoke, the locals are also having to deal with burning embers falling onto their properties, according to the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. That agency is advising people to stamp out any spot fires they see, and also to (in very good advice) find shelter “if the fire impacts on your property. Protect yourself from the heat of the fire.”

Here are photos from local observer Maarten Danial of the glum scene in Sydney:

And this is a zoom of the NASA image over the vicinity of Sydney. You can almost see a city (on the coast below the densest white cloud) through all that haze:

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The Worst Wildfires in a Decade Pour Acrid Smoke Over Sydney

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