The Nation Mar-10-17-14

Hunger Games?
 I am a huge fan of the Olympics. I love the different events and the competition among nations and athletes. A big part of my love of the Games was because I thought of them as so much cleaner than US professional sports. Your February 10 issue on Sochi pretty much shattered that illusion—especially Andrew Jennings’s article on the IOC and Samantha Retrosi’s “The Cruelty of the Olympics.” I still watch, but… a bit of the magic is gone. I’ll not complain, though. It was a great eye-opening issue, and I’m better off if I have fewer illusions.Aaron Bennett Somewhere In Cyberspace
 _________________________ It’s true. The magic of the Olympics is gone. It’s like Disneyland now; we’ve all seen the man behind the curtain. It’s all constructed. We…

@chrislhayes
Impeach winter.
 @KatrinaNation
Consumed with True Detective...Woody & Matthew...and consumed w/building a progressive future.
 @scATX
We are on the verge of having 5 clinics in a state of 26 million. Know why? The GOP. Know who tried to stop that? WENDY DAVIS.
 @JessicaValenti
“Davis was wearing a fitted black dress & high heels.” I long for the day a reporter writes that a male politician wears clothing THAT FITS.
 @KathaPollitt
“Can Wendy Davis Have it All?” Can you imagine NYT mag editorial meeting that came up with that sexist cliché hed?
 @EdgeofSports
Anyone who says they “fight for the future of journalism” has to fight for a paid future. Or just those who can work for free will do it.
 @brycecovert
Min wage worker: “I don’t feel like I have anything for myself. After 22 years,…

The proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable into a telecommunications behemoth is the media equivalent of “too big to fail” banking. If the largest cable provider in the United States is allowed to merge with the second-largest, people living in major cities, suburbs and small towns across the country will find themselves even more tightly locked into a dysfunctional relationship with a monopolistic corporation focused on maximizing profits rather than serving local citizens. At the same time, the new cable giant will own national news, entertainment, sports and Spanish-language networks. With its dominance of communications in population centers, its networks and its defining role in digital communications (as a prime provider of Internet service), a single corporation will be in an unprecedented position to dictate the development and…

In November 1992, Vanity Fair published an article about the bitter breakup of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen that concluded: “A gripping courtroom drama may be in the making, one that would undoubtedly give tabloid TV its highest ratings ever. Or things could be settled overnight. Left unresolved, however, is the healing process.” The timbre of that conclusion, a combination of hoped-for salaciousness and therapeutic cliché, is typical of its author, Maureen Orth, a journalist breathless for the lurid detail, who years later would relay as fact any story of priestly perversion an accuser or his personal injury lawyer fed her. 
 Trampling on an accused priest’s due process rights doesn’t matter to a lot of people, even civil libertarians. Ordinarily, an overgrown gossip column with pretensions wouldn’t matter either,…

Whenever death or scandal visits a famous actor or director, conservatives find a way to blame liberalism. Did addiction kill Philip Seymour Hoffman? Not according to National Review’s Ben Shapiro. He blamed what he called “libertinism,” explaining that “the Hollywood demand is for more self-abasement, less spirituality, less principle, less [sic] standards.” He then added: “[W]ithout a sound moral structure around those in Hollywood who have every financial and talent advantage, the path to destruction is far too easy.”
 The comment recalled nothing so much as Newt Gingrich’s 1992 observation that “Woody Allen had non-incest with his non-daughter because they were a non-family. It’s a weird situation, and it fits the Democratic Party platform perfectly.” The connection? “The left-wing Democrats will represent the party of total hedonism, total exhibitionism, total…

US courts continue to imprison people for being poor, and private probation companies are profiting from the practice. 
 The initial charge in such cases is usually only a misdemeanor, according to a new Human Rights Watch report focusing on Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. In Georgia alone, private probation companies collect a minimum of $40 million in fines each year.
 Take the case of Thomas Barrett: after failing to pay a $200 criminal fine for shoplifting a $2 can of beer, Barrett racked up more than $1,000 in extra fees to his probation company. So he was jailed. At the time, Barrett was selling his own blood plasma twice a week to raise money. 
 —Carla Murphy Colorlines.com…