I was able to successfully start Minecraft by editing options.txt.
changed fullscreen to "false"
excerpt from console
Client> Initializing LWJGL OpenAL
Client> (The LWJGL binding of OpenAL. For more information, see http://www.lwjgl.org)
Client> OpenAL initialized.
Client>
Client> 2013-09-26 23:36:32 [CLIENT] [SEVERE] ########## GL ERROR ##########
Client> 2013-09-26 23:36:32 [CLIENT] [SEVERE] @ Post startup
Client> 2013-09-26 23:36:32 [CLIENT] [SEVERE] 1281: Invalid value
Client> 2013-09-26 23:36:33 [CLIENT] [SEVERE] ########## GL ERROR ##########
Client> 2013-09-26 23:36:33 [CLIENT] [SEVERE] @ Pre render
Client> 2013-09-26 23:36:33 [CLIENT] [SEVERE] 1281: Invalid value
Client> 2013-09-26 23:36:37 [CLIENT] [INFO] Stopping!
Client>
Client> SoundSystem shutting down...
The GL error message in the console persists however.