(Click "Like" If You're Against Extinction!)

• Sorry for the bleggalgaze yesterday, in my defense (a) it needed be vented and (b) it's a tradition on the first slowest day of the week the first week of the Blog Days of Summer. There's more above.
• Hey, help Zen win some money!
• Today in Fine Metaphors Abounding: The Spanish are fond of seeing football through a political prism, with what happens on the field often said to mirror what happens off it. So when Real Madrid and Barcelona conceded eight goals between them in 24 disastrous hours, eventually getting knocked out of the Champions League, the joke was inevitable and came laced with a bitter sting. Under the right-wing Madrid-supporting prime minister José María Azna, the joke runs, Real Madrid won; under the left-wing Barça-supporting José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Barcelona won; and under the current incumbent, Mariano Rajoy, the Germans do. The shift in power is complete and so, too, is Spain's subjugation. Economic and political power was one thing, but now this. No Spanish teams reached the European Cup final and none even got so far as the quarter-final of the Europa League. The Germans, by contrast, have two European Cup finalists, full stadiums, cheap tickets, rude economic health ... they'll even have Pep Guardiola next season. What have Spain got?
• Capitalism as protectionism.
• The climate of capitalism.
• Dennis the Peasant is 70 today.

• UPDATE! I meant to mention it, forgot, was reminded, it's this guy's 195th.
• Division by religion.
• Children are our future.
• Capitalizing on terrorism.
• US imperialism IFAQs.
• Obama's cowardice.
• Red lines. It's entirely possible if not probable that Obama serves Power as much by being a weak moron as a complicit widget.
• The self-description of my latest twitter follower says: I like self shots and I have many hot topless photos of myself on my blog. I'll take her word on it.
• Future.
• Urban permaculture.
• But yes, W & C, thanks, I heard, verily heh, who cares? plus it's a sign I've done something right.
• Someone else with a Sarah in his past. Seriously, the overlaps are remarkable.
• Maggie's awesome weekly links.
• { feuillton }'s awesome weekly links.
• The New Inquiry's awesome weekly links.
• Beckett, for those of you who do.

 

SESTINA: LIKE

A.E. Stallings

Now we’re all “friends,” there is no love but Like,

A semi-demi goddess, something like

A reality-TV star look-alike,

Named Simile or Me Two. So we like

In order to be liked. It isn’t like

There’s Love or Hate now. Even plain “dislike”

Is frowned on: there’s no button for it. Like

Is something you can quantify: each “like”

You gather’s almost something money-like,

Token of virtual support. “Please like

This page to stamp out hunger.” And you’d like

To end hunger and climate change alike,

But it’s unlikely Like does diddly. Like

Just twiddles its unopposing thumbs-ups, like-

Wise props up scarecrow silences. “I’m like,

So OVER him,” I overhear. “But, like,

He doesn’t get it. Like, you know? He’s like

It’s all OK. Like I don’t even LIKE

Him anymore. Whatever. I’m all like ... ”

Take “like” out of our chat, we’d all alike

Flounder, agape, gesticulating like

A foreign film sans subtitles, fall like

Dumb phones to mooted desuetude. Unlike

With other crutches, um, when we use “like,”

We’re not just buying time on credit: Like

Displaces other words; crowds, cuckoo-like,

Endangered hatchlings from the nest. (Click “like”

If you’re against extinction!) Like is like

Invasive zebra mussels, or it’s like

Those nutria-things, or kudzu, or belike

Redundant fast food franchises, each like

(More like) the next. Those poets who dislike

Inversions, archaisms, who just like

Plain English as she’s spoke — why isn’t “like”

Their (literally) every other word? I’d like

Us just to admit that’s what real speech is like.

But as you like, my friend. Yes, we’re alike,

How we pronounce, say, lichen, and dislike

Cancer and war. So like this page. Click Like.