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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI."

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

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Tuesday

Sep262017

Akhilleus I Is Responsible for NFL Protests

By Akhilleus II

Politicizing sports? Nothing new there...

I've been running across (wish I could say that was literal) a slew of whiny wingers complaining that the NFL (blahs and blah supporters) are "politicizing" a "great American" sport. Something that's NEVER been done.

Oh, please.

Grow up. And go to the library, if you know where it is, and grab a couple of history books.

Sports and politics have always been intertwined.

The first recorded sports event had a political caste to them. After Patroclus is killed in battle, as Homer recounts in grisly detail in Book 16 of the Iliad (and Book 17, in the fight over his body), Akhilleus decrees that funeral games will be held in honor of his friend. The games, which include archery, wrestling, boxing, races, and a chariot contest, could easily have passed for the first Olympic games. These games become a point of solidarity for the Achaeans whose ranks had become splintered. The tide of battle turns dramatically after the funeral games. After killing Hector, champion of the Trojans, Akhilleus allows Priam's people nine days to prepare his funeral rites (another political event). The sporting events in the wake of these deaths are inextricably tied to the politics of both camps.

In recent decades, we've seen a long list of politically charged connections with sports. John Carlos and Tommie Smith's Black Power salutes at the '68 Olympics in Mexico City. The Battle of the Sexes between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in '73 (watched it with my roommates in college). The entrance of Jackie Robinson into Major League Baseball. The stripping of Muhammad Ali of his boxing crown and his banishment from the sport for years because he was black, Muslim, and anti-war. Jesse Owens' feats at the 1936 Olympics in Munich. Babe Didrikson's breakthroughs against misogynistic rules in professional golf. And amazingly, even though Babe was a star in the thirties, it's only very recently that girls were allowed to compete with boys in football and baseball.

This weekend I attended an MLB game. I noted, once again, that there is not just one, but two built-in segments of the game in which nationalistic sentiment predominates. We're all familiar with the singing of the national anthem--which, of course, is fine--but if you haven't been at a professional baseball game for a while (since Dubya made not saluting the flag--and himself--tantamount to treason, after the 9/11 attack, a tragedy that his insouciance and stupidity allowed), the seventh inning stretch has been co-opted, from a friendly and slightly goofy time for standing, stretching, and crooning "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" into a second rigid kowtowing to the xenophobic concept of America First, when a stodgy, religious singing of "God Bless America"is required. Everyone is instructed to rise, doff their caps, and demonstrate, without fail, their eternal patriotism.

Professional football games are even more overtly politicized. And not by Colin Kaepernick neither. Every single game in the NFL has an overt military presence, including things like flyovers by military jets.

The only people who don't think that's a political statement are those who fully agree with it.

Why can't they ever "Honor America" by bringing out teachers, or moms and dads, or nurses, or writers, or painters, or community organizers? Or blog editors?

And who can forget the YOU-ESS-AY cheers by American nationalists at Olympic games? There is nothing wrong with cheering on your team and your country. I do it too. But when it becomes xenophobic, the change in tenor is noticeable and angry.

In 1980, Jimmy Carter banned American athletes from competing in the Olympics to stick it to the Soviet Union.

That wasn't political?

Sports, especially in America, have become a primary venue for politicization, it's impossible to deny the connection, whether you agree with the leanings or not. For some, like the Trumpbots, it's all fine, as long as the leanings are in the direction of Whites First, America First, Blow up the Browns and non-Christians.

But as soon as the political wind blows from a non-white part of the field....Oh christ...these people are politicizing sports! Call out the fucking National Guard!

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@Akhilleus II: According to this story by Keith Hopkins in History Today, the Romans -- who of course borrowed much of their own culture from the Greeks -- also took up the Greek tradition of funereal games.

"In 65 BC, for example, Julius Caesar gave elaborate funeral games for his father involving 640 gladiators and condemned criminals who were forced to fight with wild beasts. At his next games in 46 BC, in memory of his dead daughter and, let it be said, in celebration of his recent triumphs in Gaul and Egypt, Caesar presented not only the customary fights between individual gladiators, but also fights between whole detachments of infantry and between squadrons of cavalry...."

You can see here how Julius morphed the memorial tradition into a celebration of his military (and political) power. It's so ... Trumpian.

September 26, 2017 |

Marie Burns

Many thanks to both of you!

September 26, 2017 |

PD Pepe

@Akhilleus II and @Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I wish each of you had been history teachers ~ and political science teachers ~ in my school. Almost your every posts brings new insight for me in both of those topics and then, how they are intermingled with current events. Thank you!

September 26, 2017 |

Mushiba

I am probably the only person in America that is pissed off at having to pledge allegiance at every meeting I attend. Summer soldiers think they are doing something patriotic and I guess this pious activity makes them feel good.
I pledged allegiance back in '52 and then ended up on a troop ship. That should be adequate.

September 26, 2017 |

carlyle

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