"It never gets any easier. You just go faster." ---Greg Lemond
"Don't buy upgrades. Ride up grades." --- Eddy Merckx
"You drive like shit." ---The Car Whisperer

28.8.08

Thursday Hate - Happy 40th

Why don't Chicago police have a sense of humor about anything except beating protesters? As I rode over to the Reenact '68 gathering - a gathering in which the bike cops moping over on the Balbo sidewalk nearly outnumbered the wanna-be hippies over on the lawn just to the west - I passed those police, and with wink asked, "The whole world is watching?"

Blank stares. Up against the wall, Motherfucker.



Today is the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Chicago. There were maybe 40 people in Grant Park tonight for this reenactment, arranged in a half-moon around a drum set, a PA, and a microphone. Several veterans of the protest spoke before the restless audience on the grass. It was a sad, poignant, and telling remembrance that spoke of it's lack of relevance to today's society.

Today is also the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream Speech.

It was only fitting then, and certainly no coincidence, that I have just seconds ago finished watching America's first black nominee of a major party deliver his acceptance speech at the convention.

Yet it is also fitting that the coverage of the convention on MSNBC seems to have devolved in ESPNesque pandering usually reserved for College GameDay. And as Matthews and Olbermann recap it they've basically thrown all objective analysis out the window and have turned into cheerleaders for the convention, telling all the limousine liberals exactly what to think.

Finally, it is fitting that all of the dissenters voicing their own opinions in Denver were kept far away, locked in pen, away from the media's testifying eyes.

Don't get me wrong, I ain't voting McCain. But I expect my journalists to be objective, especially in the face of the never-ending charge of liberal bias. And it is speaking and dealing with the truth openly that defeats that charge.

Still, that never-ending charge is a lethal force, powerful and ensconced in the corn fields and in boardrooms everywhere, stoic and afraid of change, and relentless in protecting their interests. And until Obama is actually elected, I'll keep my hope subdued, because the fat, old, white guy with no sense of humor and looking to crack a protester's skull, ALWAYS wins. Always has.

But still...

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