Pugilist Transformations

"In the ensuing war, particles of divine light-substance are imprisoned in the darkness."-- John Kevin Coyle, Manichaeism and Its Legacy

Examiner.com put out one of its mass memos last week about Google News crackdown on thinness of content, which points to the problem of hyper-linking. I consider myself an ethical writer regardless of my proclivity toward lack of reticence, but even my head is spinning at this point about original sources, and I have no direct contact with Examiner's editing staff, this in order to learn what they would like me to change.

Boxing is yet another metaphor for the industry's delight with its cannibalistic dark side, which is why we have so many films about the sport and liberal outrage about who, and what, it spits out. Raging Bull takes a slightly different timbre on this, as it is more about the awe and artistry in Marciano's fury, darker than Stallone and his perpetual hound dog lovable pull the girl in. Di Niro's variation on Marciano forces us to pose questions about rage, self-destruction, homicidal intent, without benefit of easy answers. Scorsese has his elevations, and the hard schematics from Humphrey Bogart's final years on which to draw, or Anthony Quinn's pustule diction in Requiem. The Harder They Fall (1956) picks its bones in a few easy places, and is an early indictment of sports media collusion with graft, but the real issue is Bogart's character, trying to square his conscience 30 odd years before Spike Lee hopscotched out of Brooklyn with a chip on his shoulder. There are subtexts within subtexts, as Bogart, I think, is also saying something about his status in the industry, the syndrome he and Lauren  virtually manufactured with single-handed charisma, and who really holds the reigns of capital in the studio system.

Yesterday I mentioned the senior advocate over me after John spiraled at my former place of employ, and, if I were still talking to Dan, my issue wasn't, and still isn't, matriculating the black welfare class upward. My issue was that I took a job where a black girl from the hood had supervisory authority over me to the point that we all reached a limit. I'm not Hillary Clinton, but I had graduate credits which I had hoped to complete when I was at Matrix, and had to toddle about like a goose in leg irons with a senile queer and a black girl who had no desire to matriculate herself further; I did-- hence my hydrochloric acid toward attempting to trust Philadelphia ADAPT later. My civil liberties have been violated repeatedly; my trust betrayed, repeatedly. Acceptance is one thing, but outrage isn't born in a vacuum.