George Bernard Shaw once observed that all - [sic] he referred to - as "progress," - depends upon the unreasonable man or woman.

His argument was that the reasonable man/woman adapts themself to the world whereas the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themself. In the current political crisis surrounding our ongoing - should've been settled two plus weeks ago plus election, I find myself at a loss as to what he meant by "progress" in that adage as I watch the machinations of the defeated sitting lame duck president and the cult of Covidiot unreason that panders to him and his unlawfulness and supports this.. frankly, Tripe.

What used to be the party of Lincoln almost in its entirety in the body politic refuses to admonish this dangerously reckless, feckless despot and his refusal to accept the votes of the American populace on Nov. 3, almost three weeks ago; something never seen by myself as a septuagenarian. Note: my milestone birthday only slightly preceded the election!

Now via telephone the sitting lame duck, attempting to coerce a Republican election canvasser in a predominantly African-American Wayne County, MI. into not certifying the election results. Note: she attempted vis-a-vis a sworn affidavit the following day to reverse her prior first, non certification, then certification! WTF?

Enter Lindsey Graham: the most disingenuous yet.Threatening a secretary of state! 52 US Code - 20511 could slap his ass in jail for 5 years for his collusion with this scheme. Trust he's all lawyered up on the taxpayer's dime.

Jon St.Laurent No. Bridgton, Maine

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Letter to the Editor: What used to be the party of Lincoln - Daily Bulldog

The socialist says, Lets talk about it. When you get into socialism you will be told by the communist: My way or youre dead. Communism is the goal.

The state will determine who is allowed to have children, which children are to be born and when it is time to die.

A quote from George Bernard Shaw: I also made it quite clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner, but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.

Health care for the elderly? No elderly, no problem.

Communist tactic: Accuse your opponents of your own evils. The DNC/CPUSA are examples of all the names they have called President Trump. They are the liars, hypocrites, frauds, homophobes, bigots, racists. Donald Trump is an honest man, a man of moral integrity. He is a leader! One of We the People.

President Trump, stay the course. This past election is a fraud put forth by the DNC/CPUSA and the RINOs. It is intended to destroy this great nation and turn it into a communist state.

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Letter to the Editor: First socialism, then communism - North Platte Telegraph

In last Sundays Inquirer, Pastor Nicolas ORourke, the organizing director of Phillys Working Families Party and a leader of the local progressive movement, penned an op-ed confirming that, now that the election was over, the jockeying for political IOUs had begun.

It was our work, our connections with voters, and our vision that brought [Joe Biden] to victory, ORourke wrote. Biden owes our movements a great deal of thanks for getting voters out to the polls for himAs usual, the Democratic Party played to a mythical swing voter while taking Black and brown voters for granted.

In a post-election joint statement, local progressive and Democratic Socialist leaders, like Councilmembers Helen Gym, Kendra Brooks and Jamie Gauthier, as well as state rep Liz Fiedler and State Senator-elect Nikil Saval, echoed ORourkes clarion call.

Tell me if this isnt an apt description of what we need right now: A liberalism without elitism and a populism without racism.

Politics is about understanding when you have leverage, and then cashing it in. Make no mistake what ORourke et al are up to. Some might call it spin; theyre going about the business of trying to build leverageeven when the facts arent on their side. Because any fair-minded analysis of the election has to conclude that, yes, Trumps petulant voter fraud claims are specious, but so too are these progressive victory laps.

The truth is, Bidens outperformance of Hillary Clinton in the pragmatic center of our politics was the difference between winning and losing. According to exit polling, Biden won independents by 14 points (Trump won them last time) and won 64 percent of self-described moderates. He also did eight percentage points better than Clinton with working class voters. He took 36 percent of white voters without a college degree, up 6 percentage points over Hillary. Not only that, Biden significantly outperformed Hillary among seniors and in the suburbs. Despite record turnout of 65 percent, on the other hand, Philadelphia actually produced less of a plurality for Biden than Hillary had posted.

This tells us a number of things. For one, that Bernie Sanders was wrong when he proffered that, if only ever more progressives turned out, a new majority would emerge: The key to this election is can we get millions of young people who have never voted before into the political process, many working people who understand that Trump is a fraud, can we get them voting?

Related from The Philadelphia Citizen:

I Call Them Momola and the Mensch

Catching up with Delaware Rabbi Michael Beals, also known as Joe Bidens rabbi

Ruy Teixeira, the progressive demographer, explained the difference-maker in a smart New Yorker autopsy. The theory that Biden would win, to a great extent, because he could reduce the white, non-college deficit turned out to be true, he tells John Cassidy.

In other words, the masses arent as progressive as the progressives would have us think. We need more data on this, but it seems likely that, as vulnerable swing state congressional candidates have complained, calls to defund police, embracing socialism, and a seeming tolerance of looting were a drag on down-ballot Democrats. (Sanders and his local acolytes are keen to tell us that public opinion polls show a majority of Americans supporting Medicare for All, for example, but they leave out that, when told that such a program would result in 160 million Americans losing employer-based healthcare and the obliteration of the health insurance industrywith its tens of thousands of middle class jobsit kinda loses its progressive appeal.)

It should come as no surprise that, post-election, a phalanx of interest groups are now boxing each other out in the hopes of cashing in their chits. Its natural, on some level, harkening back to the famous JFK quote: Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. Its also a sign of the times. Politics has become a short-term I got mine game.

But beyond all the spin, there just may be a harbinger of hope in this years election results. It will take some doing, but Biden has the opportunity to be the first politician since Robert Kennedy to build a coalition driven by both African-American and white working class support.

In other words, the masses arent as progressive as the progressives would have us think.

This was the strategy presciently laid out two years ago for Democrats by Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive, independent think tank. In a Century Foundation report titled The Inclusive Populism of Robert F. Kennedy and an op-ed in The New York Times, Kahlenberg held up Kennedys stirring 1968 presidential primary campaign as a model for a worker-based, multi-racial political coalition thatand tell me if this isnt an apt description of what we need right nowoffers a liberalism without elitism and a populism without racism.

Yes, Kennedy was the beloved brother of a martyred president, but, during his inspiring run of primary victories prior to his tragic assassination, hed found a message that resonated with groups that had long been purposely set against one another. And so this scion of a dynastic family set out trying to persuade both groups that they were stronger together. We have to convince the Negroes and the poor whites that they have common interests, RFK told legendary New York newsman Jack Newfield.

Related from The Philadelphia Citizen:

Winning and Losing On Election Night

Whos up? Whos down? And is there a path forward for a President Biden to change the tone of our politics?

And so we got Kennedys populism without racism when hed call out wealthy tax cheats on the stump, just as we got his liberalism minus the elitism when hed call himself an Opportunity Democrat and argue for rewarding work rather than perpetuating a welfare system that, he held, had demeaned its recipients. Hed hold up the innovative public/private economic revitalization program hed instituted in Brooklyn as an example of what it means to invest in people, at the same time that hed condemn the lawlessness of looting without apology, always reminding voters that law-abiding inner city residents and businesses deserve the same expectation of safety as those in the suburbs.

Kennedy was a uniquely gifted politician, with a more finely-attuned ear than even his brother. (If youre unfamiliar with the 68 Kennedy campaign, read Jules Witcovers account of it, 85 Days: The Last Campaign of Robert Kennedy, or just check out this moving video.

Rather than pander, he challenged the voter, as at Notre Dame during the Indiana primary, when Kennedy was booed by his anti-war base for wanting to abolish college draft deferments. Youre getting the unfair advantage while poor people are being drafted! he bellowed. Once, when asked by a college student who was going to pay for the social programs he was proposing, he responded, you are, before connecting his response to an ethos his otherwise odious father had instilled in the Kennedy brood: To whom much is given, much is required.

This was, in its frankness and its soaring, heartfelt rhetoric an atypical campaign. Kennedy would close his stump speeches by appealing to the inner idealist in all of us: As George Bernard Shaw wrote, Some men see things as they are and say why/I dream things that never were and say why not? (During a torrential downpour in Indiana, the candidate ad-libbed: As George Bernard Shaw wrote, head for the buses! he yelled, leading a run to shelter.)

Could Kennedys upstart and ill-fated 68 campaign provide something of a roadmap for Joe Biden, a way to unite Blacks and working-class whites on a common agenda? Kahlenberg thinks so. During one of the debates, Trump was goading Biden and saying he wouldnt even say the words law and order, Kahlenberg said when I caught up with him earlier this week. And I thought Bidens response was pitch perfect, and something right in keeping with Robert Kennedy. He said, Im for law and order, with justice. A lot of Democrats wont say the words law and order because theyre afraid of sounding racist. Of course, when Trump says those words, it is racist. But Biden putting those three things togetherlaw, order and justicewas perfect, because its where Americans are.

Biden has the opportunity to be the first politician since Robert Kennedy to build a coalition driven by both African-American and white working class support.

Building such a coalition wont be easy, of course. It would mean that progressives, when in conversation with whites who shower after work, would have to resist the urge to effectively say, What you dont understand about yourself is by telling a middle-aged factory worker he is privileged. It would mean that AOC, et al give up trying to force utopian policies on those who represent unsafe districts. It would mean being okay with universal policies that disproportionately benefit African-Americans, as opposed to those that directly target African-Americans; think, student debt forgiveness or the $15 minimum wage as opposed to reparations for slavery, likely a non-starter without control of the U.S. Senate.

For Biden, it would mean governing from the middle outsomething he was clear about in the election, and rewarded for, especially by African-American voters. Rather than paying back individual groups by pursuing, say, D.C. statehood and the slashing of federal police funding, hed do well to prioritize an infrastructure plan that puts Black and White workers to work, together.

If he does that, and if progressives dont go to war with the Biden administration, which would only presage the surrendering of the House in 2022, they will be embarking on a vision first given voice by a star-crossed pugilistic idealist in the turbulent Sixties: You know, Ive come to the conclusion that poverty is closer to the root of the problem than color, Bobby Kennedy said then. I think there has to be a new kind of coalition to keep the Democratic party going, and to keep the country together: Negroes, blue-collar whites, and the kids.

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Is Joe Biden the new RFK? - The Philadelphia Citizen

C

oronavirus is a battle against pathogens and spike proteins. But it is also a battle against misinformation and anxiety. Now that a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech could be approved next month, and a large trial of the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine has shown it is effective, public trust is suddenly imperative. Foolish fictions or unnecessary anxiety about vaccination are no longer just odd theories touted by people ignorant of medicine. They could be much more dangerous than that.

There is a lot to be done before we can safely land back in the lives we once led. An approved vaccine will be a major logistical challenge for a government that hardly inspires confidence on that account. Storage will be needed for those vaccines that are only stable at minus 70C. Mass vaccination centres will have to be established rapidly, in sports halls and car parks, to match 10 million doses to the public. Even if capacity is built for 1.2 million doses to be administered a week, it will take five months to vaccinate everyone over the age of 65.

Yet the major problem might be rhetorical. Research by the Vaccine Confidence Project has that, in this country, only 52 per cent of people are confident that vaccines are safe. One study found only a third of British people would be willing to get a coronavirus vaccine. The same is true elsewhere. A Gallup poll found only 58 per cent of Americans willing to be vaccinated and only 54 per cent of the French are currently happy to take the jab. A sceptical public could yet prevent herd immunity through vaccination which looks like our best option to beat the virus. The Prime Ministers Covid communication has been erratic, veering between baseless optimism and apologetic gloom about lockdown. Flanked by his chosen scientific experts, Boris Johnson now faces a task of persuasion. He needs to take on each objection to the vaccine and calmly debunk them.

People will naturally worry that safety might have been compromised in the tearing hurry for a vaccine. In fact, the current researchers are standing on the shoulders of many who have gone before. The existing technologies are being adapted to Covid-19. Science does not start with a blank sheet of paper every time. The process of regulatory approval has, indeed, been speeded up, but that does not mean its hurdles have been lowered. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is emphatic that this is not the case. All vaccines approved will be closely monitored, as is the usual practice, and then reviewed in a years time.

Mr Johnson needs to show us that the chance of death or serious side-effects are undetectably small. The process has included the large trials, with 30,000 volunteers in the case of Pfizer and Moderna, in which side effects, which usually manifest quickly, would have shown up. The Prime Minister will also have to educate us in the prevalence of coincidence. During a mass vaccination programme some people will die of heart attacks and strokes on the same day. It will be easy for anyone looking for false associations to suppose that one event caused the other.

Along the way Mr Johnson will have to remind the public that there is no reputable evidence to link vaccination programmes with autism, no spooky links to 5G masts, and no evidence that children can be overloaded with vaccines and no evidence that vaccines help to transmit epilepsy, diabetes, or hepatitis. All that conspiracy theorists need these days is an internet connection and their lie can travel the world before the truth has got its boots on.

The anti-vaccine band have a recognisable strategy. In any range of scientific studies there are likely to be outliers, studies which stripped from context, appear to suggest that a vaccination is unsafe. Or, if no such experiment is available, they select refuted studies and appeal to the authority of pseudo-science. If they do not have even that to go on, they make it up.

Vaccination is, in fact, one of the greatest contributions to public health that has ever been devised by human ingenuity. The late Victorians introduced compulsory vaccination in Britain in the face of clever flapdoodle from high-profile fools such as George Bernard Shaw. The anguish averted is incalculable. Smallpox has been eradicated worldwide and polio and measles are close to extinction. We need to be calm about Covid. We can just about glimpse the road out of the woods. Lets take it.

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The vaccines are on their way. Our next task? Persuade people to take them - Evening Standard

Tom Zuehlke wears many hats at West Allis Village Playhouse. He directs and produces and serves on the theater companys board of directors. Off the Cuff spoke with him about past and future.

You have been Board Secretary for 20 years for the playhouse. What has that been like for you?

Being on the board has been a real rollercoaster ride for me. During my time as secretary, the Village Playhouse has gone through a myriad of changes. In 1999, we lost our venue on the Milwaukee County grounds when the Plankroad School was demolished. For the next 15 years, we were a vagabond troupe, performing in a variety of venues, including church gymnasiums and library basements, other theater companies, or anywhere we could find a stage.

Then in 2014, several Village Playhouse members purchased what is now our home at Inspiration Studios in West Allis. It was a challenge to survive those homeless years, but it created opportunities to produce theatre in different ways. To have a thriving community theatre is an often difficult-always rewarding task, which has been both anguish and fun for the board members.

You have also directed and produced shows since 1984. Describe these roles and how they came to be.

I was first hired to direct Our Town in 1984. I was a Theater Studies major at UWM, and took classes in acting, lighting, Theater History and Stage Management. My directing classes made me realize this was a way to incorporate every aspect of theater. It was natural to take on the producers role since I then got to put together a complete team. Getting everyone to be part of the big picture process is most enjoyable.

Stay on top of the news of the day Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.

Have you ever performed in productions?

I have. Mostly at UWM I did some Shakespeare, then other classics such as Camelot. I did The Scottish Play with the old Milwaukee Players and a traveling company called Theatre-RX which did shows for medical professionals. Also, a touring production of Love Letters. With the playhouse, I have only acted in one full-length play, but have performed in several one-acts in our festivals. Most recently, I was in a one-person show, which I wrote, titled, An Evening with Me, as a fundraiser for Village Playhouse.

What is most gratifying about these roles?

When the final light fades, and the sold-out audience rises to acknowledge what theyve experienced, that is most gratifying. It doesnt happen often, but when it does- Wow!

Do you feel a comradery with the performers?

Absolutely! As an actor, director or producer, you are a team. You stay long after the final curtain falls. I have several friends from that first VP show I did in 84, and the list continues to grow. My theatre friends are my extended family.

What is the line-up for the next 6 or 7 months?

In December, we will be producing a radio play version of Little Women. This will be a virtual performance only. Come January, our virtual shows will be two, one-act plays which would have been part of our 35th Annual Wisconsin Playwrights One-Act Play Festival (which was cancelled in June). We plan to return to live shows in February with a yet-to-be-determined play. March will be the last of the one-acts from last June, and in April, were doing three George Bernard Shaw pieces: Overrules, How He Lied to Her Husband and Passion, Poison and Petrification. June will see us return to the stage with our 36th Annual Playwrights Original One Act Festival.

For more information on Village Playhouse and their performances, please go to VillagePlayhouse.org. The playhouse is located at 1500 S. 73rd St.

Nov. 20, 2020

9:02 a.m.

Original post:
Village Playhouse Has Run Planned Through June, 2021 - Shepherd Express

Farrar Straus Giroux, 769 pages, $40

Alex Ross capacious and enthralling new study, Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music, is perfectly timed. Richard Wagners music, particularly that for his epic, doom-suffused opera, The Ring of the Nibelung, could easily supply our brutalist era with its big-screen soundtrack, starting with the exhilarating Ride of the Valkyries and closing with the orchestral Sturm und Drang of its over-the-top finale, in which celestial Valhalla goes up in flames, the Rhine River overflows its banks, and the age of gods and heroes reaches its apocalyptic end.

Without serious competition, Wagner (1813-1883) is easily the most divisive of all the great composers. To some listeners, his music sounds bombastic, long-winded, and boring 90 percent of the time and yet redeemed by the sheer wonder and transcendent beauty of that remaining 10 percent. Other listeners worship, if only metaphorically, at Bayreuth, Germany long the home of an annual Wagner festival like so many Parsifals genuflecting before the Holy Grail. Yet still other opera devotees, aware of Wagners anti-Semitism, refuse to listen to his music at all. It doesnt help either that the so-called Sorcerer of Bayreuth was the favorite composer of the Third Reichs unspeakable Fhrer.

While I am hardly The Perfect Wagnerite as Bernard Shaw titled his monograph interpreting the Ring as a parable of class struggle I have seen two different stagings of The Flying Dutchman, own CDs of the major operas, can never quite remember whether Here Comes the Bride rings forth in Lohengrin or Tannhauser (its Lohengrin), and find that even now my pulse races and my palms break out in a sweat whenever I hear the Love Duet or the Liebestod that ecstatic vision of love after death from Tristan und Isolde.

I first discovered Wagner, indeed discovered opera, through Tristan. I still remember feeling slack-jawed with amazement as Ludwig Suthaus and the electrifying Kirsten Flagstad, in a celebrated performance directed by Wilhelm Furtwangler, finally surrender to their aching love for each other and almost literally sing their hearts out, their voices intertwining, sobbing, soaring as the two are carried away by wave upon wave of overpowering desire, their rapturous transports finally climaxing in soul-shattering cries of release, while the full orchestra blankets the ill-fated lovers with crescendos of voluptuous sound. In that little record-listening booth at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, I quickly understood why Victorian mothers refused to allow their daughters to hear such music. This wasnt just a 40-minute duet, it was aural sex.

Alex Ross first book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007) garnered widespread praise. His second, Listen to This (2010), assembled columns from The New Yorker magazine, where he is music critic. Ross tells us that he began work on Wagnerism in 2008, adding that the extensive research for this cultural history of art and politics in the shadow of music became the major educational experience of his life.

In Wagnerism, the reader will duly find a potted biography of the composer and, scattered throughout, synopses of his operas, but mainly this is a far-ranging survey of how various people and institutions responded to Wagners music and used it for purposes of their own. In these 700-plus pages you will learn what Wagner meant to Nietzsche and Baudelaire, to the modernists James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and Thomas Mann, to 19th-century occultists, symbolist painters, pioneering feminists, and gay poets, to revolutionary Russians and Nazi apologists, and even to the visionaries behind Apocalypse Now and Star Wars.

Wagners exceptionally lively afterlife derives not only from, in Willa Cathers phrase, his ever-

darkening, ever-brightening music, but also from his use of multivalent symbolism, especially in the Ring cycles Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung. In 2020, for instance, these music dramas seem to anticipate the political turmoil of recent times, as they track the thefts and shady deals that lie behind excessive wealth, the ethical impairment resulting from the hunger for power, the heartless exploitation of an underclass, the flouting of sexual prohibitions, and, more than anything else, repeated betrayals of trust.

Ross points out that the composer himself appears to have invented that key object of modern fantasy, the accursed ring of unimaginable power. Whats more, Wagners libretto is a work of literature, as witnessed in a majestic bilingual edition available this fall from the Folio Society.

Throughout his book, Ross draws on the research of numerous scholars and specialists (always acknowledged) and quotes well from his older sources. John Ruskin described the comic opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg as sapless, soulless, beginningless, endless, topless, bottomless. To knit together the elements of In Search of Lost Time, Proust employed Wagner-style leitmotifs, such as a haunting musical phrase by his imaginary composer Vinteuil. Speaking of Siegfried, Ross himself wittily concludes, that stupidity is his tragic flaw. He calls Parsifal a sacred opera with a spooky heart, links its eerie Mass-like ritualism to the esoteric ceremonies of Theosophists and Rosicrucians and notes that Philip K. Dick responded profoundly to its religious syncretism. A chapter on early Black Wagnerians includes that ardent Germanophile, W.E.B. Du Bois.

In Wagners operas, sums up Ross, we see the highest and the lowest impulses of humanity entangled. In Wagnerism, however, those impulses aesthetic, sexual, philosophical, and political are deftly teased out, then enticingly presented for the general reader. The result is a superb example of cultural history and, given its themes, a work surprisingly relevant to this plague-ridden, watershed year.

Continued here:
Signs of the times: "Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music" by Alex Ross - Santa Fe New Mexican

Todays birthdays

Linda Evans, actress, 78

Graham Parker, rock singer, 70

John Parr, musician, 68

Elizabeth Perkins, actress, 60

Kim Wilde (pictured), singer and gardening expert, 60

Steven Moffat, TV writer and producer, 59

Kirk Hammett, Metallica guitarist, 58

Nadia Sawalha, TV presenter and actress, 56

Gavin Peacock, former footballer and pundit, 53

Owen Wilson, actor, 52

Chloe Sevigny, actress, 46

Anthony Ant McPartlin, TV presenter, 45

1477: William Caxton issued the first dated, printed book from his printing press in Westminster it was Dictes or Sayengis of The Philosophres.

1626: St Peters in Rome was consecrated.

1910: There were more than 100 arrests when suffragettes tried to storm the House of Commons.

1916: The first battle of the Somme ended.

1926: George Bernard Shaw refused to accept the Nobel Prize money of 7,000 awarded to him a year earlier. He said: I can forgive Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

1928: The first Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie (pictured above), was shown.

1933: BBC Radios In Town Tonight was first broadcast.

1987: The worst fire in the history of the London Underground killed 31 people at Kings Cross.

1991: Beirut hostage Terry Waite and American Thomas Sutherland were released by their pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad captors.

I only started reading at 17, and it completely changed my outlook and mentality. I just wish I was offered the opportunity to really engage with reading more as a child, but books were never a thing we could budget for as a family when we needed to put food on the table Footballer Marcus Rashford (pictured) on the launch of his new book club

So many books, so little time American rock musician Frank Zappa

View original post here:
On this day: November 18 - Metro Newspaper UK

1307: William Tell reputedly shoots an apple off his sons head with a crossbow in Switzerland.

1477: First English dated printed book Dictes & Sayengis of the Phylosophers by William Caxton.

1497: Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reaches the Cape of Good Hope.

1626: St. Peters Basilica is consecrated, replacing an earlier basilica on the same site.

1686: Charles Francois Felix operates on King Louis XIV of Frances anal fistula after practising the surgery on several peasants.

1738: France and Austria sign a peace treaty.

1745: Bonnie Prince Charlies Jacobite troops occupy Carlisle.

1820: Antarctica is sighted by US Navy Capt Nathaniel B Palmer.

1905: George Bernard Shaws Major Barbara premieres in London.

1906: Anarchists bomb St. Peters Basilica in Rome.

1909: The US invades Nicaragua.

1916: General Douglas Haig finally calls off the first Battle of the Somme after more than 1 million soldiers had been killed or wounded.

1918: Latvia declares independence from Russia. On the same day, Belgian troops re-enter Brussels.

1922: Death of French author Marcel Proust aged 51.

1926: George Bernard Shaw accepts the Nobel Prize for Literature but refuses the prize money, saying: I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

1928: Release of Walt Disneys first sound cartoon Steamboat Willie with Mickey Mouse.

1929: An earthquake in the mid Atlantic breaks the transatlantic cable in 28 places.

1932: Wallace Beery and Fredric March win the Oscar in the first ever tie for Best Actor at the fifth Academy Awards.

1936: Germany and Italy recognize the Spanish government of General Franco.

1939: The IRA explodes three bombs in Piccadilly Circus.

1941: British troops attack Tobruk, North Africa.

1943: 444 British bombers attack Berlin.

1950: South Korean President Syngman Rhee is forced to end mass executions.

1951: British troops occupy Ismailiya, Egypt.

1956: Morocco gains independence. On the same day, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev tells Western ambassadors: We will bury you at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow.

1961: US President John F Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.

1967: A ban on the movement of farm animals across the whole of England and Wales comes into effect in a bid to stop the spread of foot and mouth disease. On the same day, the government devalues the pound prompting prime minister Harold Wilson to say the immortal phrase this will not affect the pound in your pocket in a TV broadcast.

1970: Joe Frazier KOs Bob Foster in Round 2 for the heavyweight boxing title.

1972: Guitarist Danny Whitten dies of a heroin overdose aged 29.

1973: Singles chart:

Album chart:

1976: Spains parliament establishes democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.

1978: The bodies of 914 members of the Peoples Temple Christian Church including cult leader Jim Jones are found in Guyana after a mass suicide.

1983: Argentina announces its ability to produce enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

1987: 31 people die in a fire at Kings Cross station.

1989: More than 50,000 people take to the streets of Sofia in Bulgaria demanding political reform.

1991: Church envoy Terry Waite is freed by Islamic extremists who kidnapped him in Beirut in 1987. American Thomas Sutherland is also released. On the same day, the Croatian city of Vukovar surrenders to the Yugoslav Peoples Army and allied Serb paramilitary forces after an 87-day siege.

1997: Gary Glitter is arrested by British police in a child porn probe.

2000: Michael Douglas marries Catherine Zeta Jones in New York. On the same day, Queen guitarist Brian May marries EastEnders actress Anita Dobson in London.

2002: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.

2003: US President, George W Bush makes a state visit to the UK. On the same day, composer and orchestral arranger Michael Kamen dies of a heart attack in London aged 55. Also, Police raid Michael Jacksons Neverland ranch following allegations of sexual abuse of a 12-year old boy. Also, the Local Government Act 2003, repealing the controversial anti-gay amendment Section 28, becomes effective.

2011: Former Filipino president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is arrested and held at Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City under charges of electoral sabotage.

2015: French police raid a terrorist cell in Saint Denis, killing two, including the leader of the Paris terror attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud. On the same day, New Zealand rugby star Jonah Lomu dies aged 40.

2016: Singer Sharon Jones of the Dap-Kings, dies after a battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 60.

2017: AC/DC guitarist/songwriter Malcolm Young dies aged 64 after suffering from dementia.

BIRTHDAYS: Brenda Vaccaro, actress, 81; Margaret Atwood, author, 81; Con (Conleth) Cluskey, singer/guitarist (The Bachelors) 79; Linda Evans, actress, 78; Herman Rarebell, drummer (The Scorpions) 71; Graham Parker, singer-songwriter, 70; Oscar Nunez, actor, 62; Cindy Blackman Santana, drummer, 61; Elizabeth Perkins, actress, 60; Kim Wilde (Smith), singer, 60; Steven Moffat, TV writer, 59; Kirk Hammett, guitarist (Metallica) 58; Peter Schmeichel, MBE, goalkeeper, 57; Owen Wilson, actor, 52; Megyn Kelly, journalist, 50; Chlo Sevigny, actress, 46; Ant McPartlin, TV personallity, 45; Damon Wayans, actor, 38.

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It happened today - this day in history - November 18 - Yellow Advertiser

Wednesday, 25 November 2020 Travel

18 Nov, 2020 05:07 PM5 minutes to read

Man-made nature: Wairakei Terraces near Taupo. Photo / File

New Zealand's unique location on the fringes of the Pacific plate make it one of the most thermally active and exciting places on the planet. Spilling over with choices of geothermal-powered days out, we have chosen a selection of paid and free hot-water experiences to enjoy around the country.

Te Puia Geothermal Valley, Rotorua

Rotorua's geothermal reserve, Te Puia percolates not only with geothermal activity but also Mori culture, crafts and hospitality. The Whakarewarewa valley has been welcoming visitors to experience the natural attractions for 170 years, making it one of the original seats of kaitiakitanga. It was formally set up as an institute to foster Mori arts and culture in the 1960s and today it has been vested to Rotorua iwis as a home for traditional carving and cuisine. Restaurant Ptaka Kai offers cooking from traditional hangi earth ovens on selected Fridays and Saturdays.

A day at the valley is the place for immersion in traditional crafts and the energy generated by more than 500 geothermal wells. One of which is world heritage treasure the Phutu geyser. Living up to its name, the "big splash" is the largest in the southern hemisphere.

Price: Day pass - $60 per adult, $15 per child tepuia.com

Wairakei Terraces, Taup

The thermal spas inspired Victorian writer Rudyard Kipling to create a whimsical story for the Herald in 1892, about a hot pool that showed a window on to the other side of the world. While this was creative licence, natural mineral spas do provide an insight into New Zealand's geothermal past and 1000 years of human habitation around the hot pools. The man-made terraces are a more recent edition from 2001 - but they look the part.

Price: $25, adults only (14 years and over) wairakeiterraces.co.nz

Orakei Korako, Taup

Accessible only by boat, the "Hidden Valley" on the banks of the Waikato is some way off the geothermal highway. However, the stunning rainbow waters and sulphur pools will make you feel like you've detoured to Mars. You'll not have any opportunity to bathe in the acidic waters however there are some unique sights. These include the Ruatapu thermal cave and unpredictable sapphire geyser.

Price: $39 per adult, $15 per child under 16 orakeikorako.co.nz

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Hell's Gate, Rotorua

Tikitere or Hell's Gate in Rotorua is all about volcanic mud, glorious mud. Health buffs from around the world have come to bathe in the stuff. Or, to simply stare into the mesmeric, primordial pools. Reportedly the Gates and many of the thermal features gained their name from God-fearing Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw in 1934.

From diabolical hot pools to Hell's kitchen - today a full-day experience comprises of thermal spa treatments and eating kai cooked in a geothermal hngi .

Price: Mud bath $79 per adult or $25 for general entry to the sulphur spa hellsgate.co.nz

Tarawera, Rotorua

The cleft mountain, Mt Tarawera still bears the scars of the 1886 eruption. Once home to pink terraces, the natural spa pools were obliterated in a violent explosion that killed more than 100 people and buried entire villages. The Te Wairoa archaeological site ($30 adult ticket) provides a glimpse into the darker side of New Zealand's geothermal activity.

While the impressive terraces are sunk at the bottom of Lake Rotomahana, there are still hot springs and thermal beaches on the shoreline which are completely free to visit along the DoC Trail. However you may wish to avoid the 30km hike and splash out on a water taxi.

More extravagant still, the luxury Solitaire Lodge offers a two-night thermal springs and boat transfer package from $3500 a room.

doc.govt.nz; solitairelodge.co.nz

Otumuheke, Taup

The Otumuheke Stream pools are crystal-clear gem on the edge of Taup. A free day out near the Huka falls, natural hot water mixes with the cool Waikato River creating a perfect bathing location. The spa park is within 30 minutes' easy walk from the town centre with onsite changing and locker facilities. Pack your togs and a towel. lovetaupo.com

Welcome Flat Hot Springs, West Coast

The North Island doesn't get the monopoly on hot springs. Among New Zealand's most southerly hot pools, the Welcome Flat Hot Springs is also one of the most scenic. Sit back and bathe in the alpine views of Aoraki's Sierra Range. Getting there is not so easy. At the end of a seven-hour walk on the Copeland Track, south of Fox Glacier. It's a multi-day hike.

There is a DoC Hut and Campsite near the hot pool track for $20 a night, but booking is required.

Kawhia Hot Beach, Waikato

You'll dig this. About an hour south of Hamilton on the other side of Kawhia, you'll find a thermal experience at the ocean's edge. Like the Coromandel's Hot Water Beach, but with a fraction of the crowds, take a spade and dig at low tide to unearth your own, instant thermal spa. You'll have to dig around until the temperature is just right, but you'll always be able to cool down with an ocean dip.

For more New Zealand travel ideas and inspiration, go to newzealand.com

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Original post:
GO NZ: New Zealand's best hot springs, geysers and geothermal attractions - New Zealand Herald

The texts started coming into Mike Brown during the pandemic lockdown. Young Black coaches were reaching out to the Warriors top assistant coach looking for information and advice. Not only on basketball Xs and Os but also on career strategy.

So, Brown started a weekly Zoom video call, beginning with about 15 participants and eventually growing to about 140 who aspired to NBA coaching or front office jobs.

People wanted to know how to get better, how to learn the job, Brown said.

General manager Bob Myers heard about the calls and asked if he could join. Brown was happy to share his boss, and the participants peppered Myers with hard questions about minority hiring and representation and their paths forward.

It was the most important Zoom call Ive had in my life, Myers said. It taught me a lot. Their questions were very pointed and very fair. Those are the conversations we need to have.

In the wake of the 2020 social justice and Black Lives Matter movements, sports is undergoing a reckoning. As the sports world takes a prominent role in pushing for equality, teams are taking a hard look at themselves and evaluating their own makeup.

The Bay Area is a birthplace for sports activism, a region where barriers for inclusion are historically broken. But a look at its key franchises shows how little progress in diversifying the power structure has actually been made.

Currently, no African Americans hold any key power positions head coach, general manager, team president or owner with any of the regions professional sports teams. Only Stanford, in terms of prominent local sports programs, has a Black person in the power seat actually two: athletic director Bernard Muir and head football coach David Shaw.

Head counting and race tallying is an uncomfortable process. However, there can be no progress made on inclusion without actually examining the ways in which teams hire and promote.

In my opinion, its 100 percent fair to count, Brown said. The least it will do is make people aware. And from there its up to each individual team to make the change.

What diversity local teams have in their most powerful positions comes in ways other than by hiring African Americans. The San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi is a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim. Paraag Marathe, the former president of the 49ers and now the president of 49ers enterprises, is Indian American.

But you have to dig deeper into the staff directories and organizational charts to find more diversity. There is Oakland As assistant general manager Billy Owens, passed over by the Giants and more recently the Angels as a GM candidate, but he is not a recognizable face of the team. The As have never had a Black manager or GM.

The Giants were the first National League team to hire a Black manager in Frank Robinson. For 10 seasons, Dusty Baker was the face of the team, and was replaced by Felipe Alou. But over the past two years, as the Giants have revamped their entire front office, hiring a new GM, manager and 13 assistant coaches, diversity has not seemed to be a priority.

For all the publicity the Giants received for hiring Alyssa Nakken, baseballs first female full-time coach, a deeper look at the staff reveals little minority representation. The final two coaching hires were Antoan Richardson, their only Black coach who grew up in the Bahamas, and Nick Ortiz, their quality control coach, who is the only Spanish speaker on the extensive staff.

Seeing whats happened in the country this year has caused everyone in a position to hire to audit their own process, Zaidi said. Weve all learned a lot and recognized the imperative to change.

The Giants have a diversity, equity and inclusion council that has been incorporated into weekly executive committee meetings in recent months. Zaidi said that diversity will be a greater emphasis in future hiring. But, he added, the proof is in the pudding.

The Warriors recently hired former player Shaun Livingston to work under Myers as director of player affairs and engagement. The move brought in a widely respected member of their championship teams. But the hire also helps with diversity.

He was hired because of who he is, his character and his background, Myers said. But to be honest, its a step in the right direction.

The top layers of the Warriors management are all white men; though David Kelly, the chief legal officer, is Black, coach Brown is the most visible non-white non-player in the organization.

The 49ers are owned by a white family, with a white GM, white team president and white head coach. Years ago, Terry Tumey was the director of football administration; now vice president Keena Turner is the most visible Black person in the front office. According to a recent study by The Athletic that broke down coaching staffs by diversity, the 49ers are currently in the top third of the league in terms of diversity, with 42% of its staff made up of minority coaches (10 as opposed to 14 white coaches).

Neither San Jose franchise, the Sharks nor the Earthquakes, has an African American in its most visible positions of authority.

How can this be the portrait of a place that shaped generations of athlete activists, from Tommie Smith and John Carlos to Colin Kaepernick? Where decision makers such as Al Davis and Bill Walsh pushed for inclusion? Where revolutionary thinkers such as Curt Flood and Bill Russell have roots?

Sociologist and civil rights activist Harry Edwards has devoted most of his life to studying diversity in sports. Ask the UC Berkeley professor emeritus about progress and you will get a history lesson that begins with the causes behind desegregation on the field and how that differs from integrating positions of power. He speaks of the moves made decades ago by Raiders owner Davis and 49ers head coach Walsh.

But its not enough to have the drama of the individual act, Edwards said. Al Davis hired the first modern era Black coach, the first female CEO, the first Latino coach. But once he was gone, who stepped in to carry on the tradition? For all Bill did, nobody carried it on after Bill was gone.

You have to have something institutionalized. You have to build scaffolding.

Walsh, who brought Edwards in as a consultant to the 49ers in 1983, did leave behind some scaffolding. In 1987, he began a minority internship program, since taken over by the NFL and now called the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship. Of all the men of color who have become head coaches in the modern NFL, more than half came through the internship program or were on Walshs staff. He built a pipeline, one that gave aspiring young coaches the opportunity to work on NFL teams and learn what was required and expected. More than 2,000 men and women have been through it.

But the pipeline is now plugged: When the season started, the league had just three Black head coaches, the same as in 2003, the year the Rooney Rule was adopted. But that has also failed to significantly change the ratio in the league.

Internships and intentional networking remain key ways to identify and prepare candidates for both coaching and front office positions, aspirants who might not otherwise have access or opportunities.

We can continue to keep a mindful eye, said Stanfords Muir, especially being on a college campus. This is where the next group of leaders are coming from.

Muir is a member of the Black AD Alliance that was formed this summer. He said that one of the groups charges, is to really mentor folks. It starts with student athletes, who have played a sport and are in leadership positions.

What is clear is that the lack of progress is not reflective of a large and ambitious pool of candidates. During the pandemic, San Jose State assistant coach Alonzo Carter started a Zoom networking call for Black football coaches that drew hundreds of aspiring coaches every week, to share stories, learn strategies and connect.

All we can control is what we can control, Carter said. Its no secret whats going on. The numbers dont lie. This is a nationwide issue. What were trying to do is have more qualified candidates of color so that when we get the opportunity, were ready to do the job and take on the role.

Browns Zoom calls, which took place every week for almost four months, also tapped into a large, hungry base of potential applicants.

People want to know how to get better, how to learn the job, Brown said.

One question Myers fielded when he joined the call was whether the Warriors will set up an internship something that Myers said is being explored.

Brown sees so much emphasis on diversity in hiring coaches, but notes that they are the most disposable members of the power structure. GMs and presidents have longer tenures.

And if you want sustainable change a lot of it falls on ownership, Brown said. Theyre the ones in it for the long haul.

Thats where Dave Stewart, the former As pitcher and Diamondbacks general manager, is focusing. Hes involved in a Nashville group hoping to land an expansion MLB team, one that is committed to having 51% minority ownership.

It creates a great opportunity for baseball to make a statement that theyre willing to break a ceiling that hasnt happened in this sport, said Stewart, who has called baseballs structure closed. Major League Baseball tells you they have a system in place. But the system doesnt work.

More and more, baseball is emphasizing analytics when filling front office positions: A recent ESPN study found that 43% of baseball operations top decision-making positions were filled by Ivy League graduates; 67% come from the top 25 universities in the country. Which means that already homogeneous front offices are drawing from the least diverse pools of candidates available.

The lack of diversity is an issue, for sports in general, and for baseball, Zaidi said. Its a big concern. A lot of the hiring you see now, is a reflection of the pipeline development from five to ten years ago. So we have a lot of work to do.

All of the Bay Area sports teams have work to do. We like to think our sports legacy is one of inclusion. But thats not the reality right now.

I cant speak for every organization, but we have to improve, we have to get better, said Myers. I dont think weve done a very good job. We all look too much the same.

I think its very fair to ask the question and to look at how were doing. Because we dont have it right.

Ann Killion is a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. email: akillion@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annkillion

Born in San Francisco and raised in Marin County, Ann Killion has covered Bay Area sports for more than a quarter of a century. An award-winning columnist and a veteran of 11 Olympics, several World Cups and the Tour de France, Ann joined The Chronicle in 2012. Ann has worked for the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times and Sports Illustrated. She is a New York Times best-selling author, having co-written "Solo: A Memoir of Hope" with soccer star Hope Solo,"Throw Like A Girl" with softball player Jennie Finch and two middle-grade books on soccer, Champions of Womens Soccer and Champions of Mens Soccer. She was named California Sportswriter of the Year in 2014, 2017 and 2018. She has two children and lives in Mill Valley.

Excerpt from:
We dont have it right: Bay Area sports teams struggle to diversify leadership - San Francisco Chronicle