By Lucian Vâlsan: “There must be no male spaces! This is not allowed!”
Or at least this seems to be the message conveyed by a significant
proportion of the European media following the appointment of
Portuguese-native Helena Costa as manager for the French Ligue 2
football (soccer) club Clermont Foot Auvergne 63.
The middle class Guardianista-style pricks that we usually call “journalists” regarded the news of Costa’s appointment as another progressive step forward
and the French press rushed to pick some statements from the (all-male)
players in the hope that they can find something to spin into some
patriarchally misogynistic conspiracy against the poor little female
coach. And they found as the left-back Emmanuel Imorou told L’Equipe
that the players have asked questions to each other along the lines of
“who is she?” and the goalkeeper characterized her naming as a “smart
media stunt” – a characterization which enraged the aforementioned
pricks even further, despite the fact that it’s the truth, an aspect
which, although uncomfortable, has even been admitted by Costa herself. Because yes, in the feminist mind, google-ing the new coach’s name and pointing the obvious is now misogynistic.
As it’s usually the case with feminist
ideologues, the issue is not the naming of Costa per se as supposedly
the first woman to coach a team in the first two divisions in Europe. By
the way, that information is also false. Duygu Erdoğan coached for
Galatasaray Istanbul replacing none other than Fatih Terim. The fact
that she spectacularly failed is a different story – but the point is
that the press rushed so hard to make ideological points out of Ms.
Costa’s appointment that they got their facts wrong. Who would’ve
thought?
You stand across from this alley for some reason or another. You are waiting for a bus, maybe a taxi or just on the street trying to get air slightly fresher than that found in your cramped apartment. And then, far down on a corner, you watch as a 900 pound Bengal tiger strolls into view and casually walks towards the mouth of that alley. Head low to the ground, muscles rippling, yellow eyes steady, it comes close to you, snorts and, thankfully, turns and disappears down into the cut between two tall buildings. It disappears into the alley directly across from you and you exhale, hard. You have been spared a terrible death.
By Michael Krieger: Glenn Greenwald is not one known for pulling punches, and in this excellent interview with GQ Magazine titled, The Man Who Knows Too Much,
he is in particularly rare form. Credit must be given to the
interviewer, who asked a wide range of very interesting questions that
allowed Greenwald the opportunity to discuss a lot more than merely his
Pulitzer Prize winning journalism on the Edward Snowden documents. From
the fact that the biggest NSA stories have yet to be published, to
thoughts on the 2016 elections, this interview really has it all.