Daily Archives: November 19, 2021

COEUR d'ALENE Elementary students took a step back in time for live history day.

Fernan STEM Academy fourth- and fifth-graders spent Wednesday learning about Idaho history and science, including a special visit from Coeur dAlene High School student volunteers.

I haven't worked with kids since I was a kid so it's fun that we started doing this, junior Ryan Robinson said. I think we should actually be able to do this every year because it's a great experience.

About 34 high schoolers from Birgid Niedenzus environment science classes volunteered to bring Idaho history and science themed activities to the elementary school.

The kids came up with the activities and we brought everything, Niedenzu said. It's also sort of a service project, and we're all about doing that anyway, to make our community, our environment better.

Niedenzu said that aside from learning about Idaho history and nature, she thought the activities would teach kids to take care of their environment.

Robinson taught the elementary kids about the pH levels of water, as well as oxygen and bugs, as they looked through buckets of lake water from Fernan Lake and capsules with different water bugs.

Sometimes theyre a little hyper, Robinson said. But other than that they just want to look at the bugs.

Fifth-grader Cooper Fordham said he enjoyed making Native American crafts and thought working with the high school students was exciting.

I think they did a good job, Cooper said. They knew exactly what to do.

To prepare for history day, the high schoolers spent the last week in class practicing the activities and getting everything together to prepare for teaching.

Theyre actually broadening their knowledge base, Niedenzu said. Every time they teach it they get better at it.

Rebecca Webb, a fourth grade teacher at Fernan STEM Academy, said the coolest part of the day was the collaboration with the high school students.

It's really good for some of our kids to see students who are at those higher levels who take their learning seriously and have their own areas of inquiry," Webb said. I think they look at them as role models."

With the mix of high school volunteers, Webb said it was especially inspirational for the students to see male role models. The majority of teachers in elementary school are women.

Students learned how to make soap, identify Idaho wildlife and water quality, painted walking sticks and more with the high school students. That followed a morning full of Idaho live history with their teachers.

Our kiddos got to just kind of experience things that people in the early days of our state settlement might have experienced, Webb said. I think we'd like it to become a tradition so that kids can experience things through their learning instead of just learning about things."

Webb said they have a philosophy that hands-on learning is the best way to learn.

If the kids are talking, collaborating, and hands on, they're absorbing a lot more and kind of internalizing a lot more of the studies, Webb said. Really visualizing all that is going to stick with them a lot more than if they just looked all of that up in a textbook.

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Helping hands and hands-on history - Coeur d'Alene Press

MIAMI When the Cuban socialite Elena Ruz Valds-Fauli was in her early 20s, she would often go to a show or a movie and have a late-night bite with friends at the restaurant El Carmelo in Havana. Her usual meal was an off-menu request: a turkey sandwich on medianoche bread, with cream cheese and strawberry preserves.

She had to explain the sandwich so many times that she asked the restaurants manager to put it on the menu to make it easier to order. At some point in the late 1920s or the early 30s (nobody remembers when), she returned to find her name in neon lights, with the sandwich on the menu for 25 cents.

It was quite a surprise for her, Margarita Ulacia, 82, of San Jos, Costa Rica, said about her mothers reaction to the sign. But she was delighted, and my grandmother was horrified.

A friend of Ms. Valds-Faulis even had a dream that the sandwich would become famous. And it did. When Cubans left the island after the Cuban revolution, the sandwich followed.

Nearly a century after the sandwich was invented, classic Cuban establishments like Versailles, La Carreta or Pinecrest Bakery still have a place for the Elena Ruz on their menus.

It became an icon of Cuba, said Antonio Bobo Llizo, the second-generation owner of Los Bobos Cafeteria in Doral, Fla. Its one of the sandwiches that my dad had to recreate and place on the menu.

At Mr. Llizos restaurant, chefs butter the medianoche bread a sweeter, softer sibling of Cuban bread, similar to brioche stuff the sandwich with thinly sliced turkey breast, Philadelphia cream cheese and Smuckers strawberry preserves, and then heat it.

Ms. Ulacia said that her mother, who died in 2011, probably didnt request butter on her sandwich. But chefs have found it helps brown the toasted Elena Ruz.

Despite its long-held fame, the sandwich is barely ordered anymore, Mr. Llizo said. Young Cubans are forgetting about the sandwich and its history. When his daughter brought little Elena Ruz sandwiches to her elementary school for a presentation on Ms. Valds-Fauli, most of the Cuban parents had never heard of it.

But Mr. Llizo and other restaurateurs wouldnt dare take it off the menu.

Not having it would kind of remove your Cuban card, said Daniel Figueredo, who serves a version of the sandwich at his restaurant Sanguich de Miami on Calle Ocho.

His Elena Ruthless is an adaptation of the original Elena Ruz, substituting homemade guava marmalade for the strawberry preserves and adding bacon to mix. Its on his secret menu because its a sloppy sandwich to prepare.

I believe traditions should be protected, Mr. Figueredo said. But I do believe that you have some parameters you can develop and have fun.

Michael Beltran, who was raised in a Cuban household and runs Ariete, Nav and Chugs Diner, agrees.

People need to stop getting into, Well thats how its supposed to be, he said. Cuban food is up in the air for interpretation. Interpret it all the ways.

In fact, there have been many interpretations of the Elena Ruz, something that her daughter takes issue with, at least when it comes to the origin of the dish.

Respect the form in which the sandwich was created, and if you do a variation, Ms. Ulacia said in Spanish, dont play with the name.

Recipe: Elena Ruz Sandwich

Susan Campbell Beachy contributed research.

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The History Behind the Elena Ruz, the Quintessential Cuban Sandwich - The New York Times

: a crude, rude cheapskate

This week I stumbled upon one of those language questions that send me down the rabbit hole for days: How do you translate the word into English?

Now, is a mighty fine word. It has more or less two definitions: , , , (a big, strong, fat, dim-witted person) and , (a greedy person, a cheapskate). More or less because the more people I asked, the more variations I got, although they all involved unpleasant, coarse and usually cheap people. Basically, you dont want to be called a .

To come up with the best translation, I thought I ought to find out where the word came from. Ha! Like this was going to be easy. I first discovered that it was claimed by Odessans as derived from the English word job. In this version, it appeared when the Odessa port was being built and managed by English speakers, and somehow job meaning work morphed into meaning a worker, which then morphed into a worker from the village, a boor, a rube.

This seemed like a big stretch to me, especially because I cant think why the hard j sound turned into zh and where that l came from.

Commentators on a language forum agreed. One person indignantly claimed it was a Ukrainian word that had appeared from Polish in the 15th century. Others supported this version. The problem is that none of these commentators apparently spoke Ukrainian or Polish. I have a bit of Ukrainian and about 15 words of Polish, most of them names of food. Not useful. But I did find the Polish word b, which means a crib, a manger, a trough for horses and cattle. The Russian cognate is a gutter, channel or furrow. Not feeling the cretin vibe here.

Another source gives the slang meaning of b as a blockhead, clod, or dimwit. I suppose a wooden trough could be a metaphor for a thick dimwit. But I cant find confirmation.

But any word of undetermined origin in Polish, Ukrainian, Odessan and Russian always makes me think of Yiddish. So, I checked in my Yiddish-English dictionary and found it: Zhlob or zhlub: an oaf, yokel, bumpkin; an ill-mannered person; a clumsy, graceless person. Great, right? Wrong. It came to Yiddish from the Slavic languages, not the other way around.

Yet another armchair etymologist maintained that , like the word (greedy person) and another handful of words such as (a cheapskate), all come from the verb , a dialectical form of (to squeeze, hold tightly, wring, reap) and (to be stingy). Now this sounds possible, if only because English words for being cheap are also connected to this image: penny-pincher, tight, tight-fisted.

But I still could not find anything more than speculation. So, I did what I always do when all else fails: Get out the Gorodin Dictionary of prison and camp language and slang.

And there it was.

In prison, Gorodin writes, was a prisoner who was not a member of a band and did not understand camp life. In other prisons and other times, it meant a villager, peasant worker; a cheap person; and a tall and strong man. It turns out that is also camp slang.

So, all these various definitions of in various camps left the camps when the men were released. These former prisoners brought their various understandings of with them and they now make up the modern definition of : a big, strong, cheap man who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Next question: whats the best translation? In my idiolect, Id call this kind of person a cretin, especially because being cheap or shortchanging someone is definitely cretinous behavior. But thats just me, and it's not always the best translation.

When the emphasis is on being cheap and greedy, there are lots of possibilities: - (Dont be a cheapskate buy your wife a fur coat). , (I might be a tightwad, but I dont owe anyone money). (He doesnt pay alimony she shouldnt have married that skinflint).

When the emphasis is more on coarseness, you can use lout, boor, pushy son-of-a-bitch, a rude jerk, etc.: - , (This kind of low-life thinks that he alone is the center of the universe, and hes not just open about it, hes in-your-face open about it). - , (Some a-hole parked his car on the tram tracks, which turned the end stop circle into a dead end).

And when the emphasis is more on stupidity, there is a long list of options to choose from: dimwit, numbskull, chowderhead, blockhead, etc.: (Any bonehead can get a higher education).

With ,the possibilities are endless.

Originally posted here:

The Short History of a Nasty Word - The Moscow Times

Maybemaybethe Falcons will achieve unprecedented success in the Arthur Smith era. Nobody will be happier than me if the lowest lows of the past few years and this 2021 season prove to be a precursor to something beautiful and successful, and obviously getting out of bed in the morning as a Falcons fan is a lot easier if you have at least a glimmer of hope thatll happen.

I say that because starting off with the Falcons did incredibly bad things that havent happened for 20-30 years is not the best way to start an article after you just watched what I watched. Unfortunately for all of us, the Falcons did do that in a couple of ways.

Thats the first team in well over a decade to have three different players throw interceptions in a single game. Thats the first team to have three quarterbacks do so since 2000, when Jim Harbaugh was a quarterback and not a coach. By the time Feleipe Franks threw his interception you just sort of had to laugh at how inept the offense was, but its sort of crushing that even in garbage time this team could not avoid turning the ball over. Atlanta has now thrown seven interceptions in their past two games.

Thats not all, though.

We were justifiably down on Dirk Koetters Falcons offense a year ago, which seemed unable to maximize the strengths of its players more or less throughout the year and especially after the Falcons fired Dan Quinn. I recognize the limitations the Falcons are working with minus Calvin Ridley and especially Cordarrelle Patterson against the Patriots, but new coaching staff and limited roster or no, its astonishing that the Falcons have only put up three points the past two weeks and have gotten shut out for the first time at home since 1988. Think about how many bad Falcons teams have played since then without equaling that, and youll either have to laugh or have to pop a blood vessel in your forehead.

Im tired of the Falcons making the wrong kind of history. Im tired of the Falcons losing. Whether the winning starts next week against the Jaguars or it starts in 2022, it had better start, because weve been dwelling in the basement and watching bad football for way too long.

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The Falcons make history again in predictably hilarious and sad fashion - The Falcoholic

For nearly a century, Disney (NYSE:DIS) has been known for its focus on family values and being kid-friendly. In fact, founder Walt Disney was a deeply spiritual man, who placed family values above all else. That helped shape the company that bears his name, which has become synonymous with wholesome family entertainment, a legacy that remains long after Disney's passing in 1966.

Now, with a recent changing of the guard, the company is considering a move that might well be the biggest risk Disney has taken in its long history and might alienate some of its most valued customers. Is it worth the risk?

Image source: Photo by author.

Disney is entertaining the notion of expanding the catalog of programs shown on its flagship streaming service -- Disney+ -- to include more adult content. The matter is reportedly causing heated debates among top brass at the House of Mouse, with CEO Bob Chapek reportedly pushing for edgier content on the platform while chairman and former CEO Bob Iger believes the company should stick to its time-honored strategy.

Thus far, there's been a clear delineation between the family-friendly fare on Disney+ and the adult-oriented programming shown on Hulu. Chapek argues that Disney+ needs to expand its library of content to attract a larger, more diverse (read "adult") audience, or risk missing out on future growth and ceding viewers to the likes of Netflix or AmazonPrime Video.

Disney reported its fiscal fourth-quarter results earlier this month, and investors were shocked to find that for the quarter ended Oct. 2, growth at Disney+ had slowed to a crawl. The company's namesake streaming service, which had provided such stellar growth during the pandemic, added just 2.1 million new subscribers during the preceding three months. This revelation sent the stock tumbling, with its price falling nearly 11% since the announcement.

Adding insult to injury, Disney had previously said it would delay three Marvel movies slated for release in 2022 due to pandemic-related production delays. The release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will each be delayed by at least two months.

It's worth noting that because of the interconnected nature of Marvel films, a delay in the release of any single film causes a ripple effect, postponing the films that come afterward in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's unified plot. It also means a delay in releasing the new titles to subscribers on Disney+.

There's little question that investor excitement regarding the ongoing potential for its flagship streaming service has been the principal driver of the company's gains in recent years. Between 2016 and 2018, Disney stock was range-bound and was essentially flat for those three years. However, the initial excitement about the potential for a Disney-branded streaming platform and the early success of the service has combined to drive Disney's stock up more than 200% since early 2019.

Image source: Getty Images.

Under the direction of former-CEO Bob Iger, Disney has never strayed far from the family-friendly vision that made the company a household name. Iger embraced the company's heritage with the acquisition of Pixar Studios in 2006. Even after Disney brought the Marvel and Lucasfilm brands under its umbrella in 2009 and 2012, respectively, their blockbuster movies have never garnered a rating beyond PG-13.

It seemed inevitable that this day might come. When Disney acquired some of the assets of Fox, it appeared the writing was on the wall. The movie and television studios that Fox brought to the table were known for producing edgier, dark, and more adult-oriented content and it was evident across Fox's various media properties.

The FX cable network had a fan-favorite hit with American Horror Story -- now in its 10th season. The 20th Century Fox movie studio had scored big box office hits with Marvel stories Deadpool and Logan. Even the company's broadcast network was known for pushing the envelope with irreverent fare such as The Simpsons and Family Guy.

It remains to be seen whether Disney+ and the company itself will stay true to its family-friendly roots or embrace a darker, edgier future. Chapek may be right. Unless the company adds more adult-oriented content to Disney+, it risks losing adult viewers with no children to other platforms where they can get their grown-up streaming fix.

That said, Chapek could be taking the biggest risk in the company's history and risks potentially alienating the very consumers that are Disney's core customers.

The answer likely lies somewhere between. While it's important for Disney to retain its family-friendly image, it's also critical that the company expand and grow with its audience. Given the company's nearly 100-year history of proven success, there are plenty of reasons to believe Disney will be just fine.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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Disney Is About to Take the Biggest Risk in the Company's 98-Year History - Motley Fool

In the Detroit Pistons 97-89 win over the Indiana Pacers, Saddiq Bey found himself as the topic of discussion on a night where he inserted his name into the record books once again. Early in the second quarter, Saddiq found himself wide open beyond the arc at the top of the key, and didnt hesitate.

Marking his 200th career 3-pointer, Saddiq Bey has now tied Donavan Mitchell and Luka Doncic for reaching this mark faster than all but two players in NBA history, behind former Michigan sharpshooter Duncan Robinson (69 games) and fellow 2020 draft class member Anthony Edwards (82 games). It took the trio of Bey, Mitchell, and Doncic 84 games to hit this mark.

The fated 3-point shot from Saddiq was a direct result of ball movement and unselfishness. Cory Joseph began the possession with the ball in his hands. A ghost screen from Saddiq caused a defensive miscommunication, allowing CoJo an easy drive and kick out to Frank Jackson, who swung the ball over to Saddiq for the open 3-pointer.

Possessions like these are incredibly encouraging, especially on a night where the Detroit Pistons mustered fewer than 20 total assists as a team (16, compared to Indianas 14). The Pistons are 26th in the league in assists per game as a team, dishing out 21.4 of them a contest. Clearly, we would like to see this number rise, but that certainly wont happen if the Pistons continue to have abysmal shooting nights.

Now, thats not to say that there isnt hope. If youve tuned in this season, its clear that these assist numbers should be higher. Time and again, we see Killian Hayes or Cade Cunningham with a slick dishout to a spot-up jump shot, only for it to clang off the rim. As the team builds chemistry and gains more meaningful experience, we will hopefully see more shots find the bottom of the net, thus resulting in more assists.

Saddiq Bey looked like a whole new basketball player to start the season. He spent much more time putting the ball on the floor, and much less time in the catch and shoot opportunities he was so good at taking advantage of last year.

Unfortunately, his offensive production started to fall across the board. His playmaking skills were not quite up to par for someone with the ball that much, and his 3-pointers were uncharacteristically shaky. Many fans were concerned that he may have a more limited ceiling than we initially believed.

Luckily for us, he seems to be finding his rhythm again. His performance against Indiana was an indication, but even before Wednesday night, he has seemed much more comfortable over the last handful of games. If he can find his stride, along with Cade Cunningham becoming more comfortable in the NBA, the Pistons season outlook could be much brighter than it was to start.

Hopefully Saddiq can catch fire, and inspire other shooters to perform up to their billing. Saddiq is the Pistons most lethal 3-point shooter when he is on, and the success of the teams shooting starts with him. With a tough upcoming schedule, the Pistons outside scoring development will be key in determining their success.

Continue reading here:

Detroit Pistons: Saddiq Bey enters the history books at the right time - PistonPowered

Andy Fillmore| For the Star-Banner

The Black History Museum of Marion County at Howard Academy Community Center has reopened after a year-long closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to allow completion of a major renovation of the facility.

The reopening was marked by an event Tuesday evening thatincluded several guest speakers, including the eldest living relative of Emmett Till, whose 1955 racially charged murder at age 14 is said to have helped sparked the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Stacey Reece, director of the museum and director of grants and federal programs with Marion County Public Schools, which oversees the museum, was moderator for the reopening event.

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Marion County Superintendent of SchoolsDiane Gullett said she is "thrilled to see" the museum renewed and reopened. She was among those in attendance Tuesday, lookingover the displays and meeting with guests.

Thelma (Wright) Edwards, 90, an Ocala resident and second cousin to Emmett Till, was the guest of Brenda Vereen, a longtime museum volunteer who explained that the museum began as an "archiving" mission for the local Black community.

Edwards lived in Argo, Illinois, and often babysat for the younger Emmett. She called little Emmett "Bobo" as a child, according to prior Star-Banner reports.

Emmett Till was visiting and staying at Edwards' father's home in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. At that time,Emmett was accused of making a comment or whistling at a white woman when he and other youths went to a local store.

Two white men later brutally murderedhim and were acquitted, according to reports.

Numerous reports have said Rosa Parks, an African American woman who refused to give up her seat to a white man on an Alabama bus, thought of Emmett Till and made a statement for civil rights.

A portrait of Emmett Till is hanging in the local museum.

"I'm so happy you are fighting for equality," Edwards said softly.

Barbara Brooks, museum supporter and author of "One House, Block, Street, Community: Revitalization of West Ocala Historic District," told the attendees the museum's mission is to preserve and present the "history of Black people (in the local community,) which is often omitted (but) should be acknowledged."

"It is important we look back (on people now 70, 80 or 90 years old) and their stories go on," she said.

Brooks attended Howard Academy, where the museum is housed, which once was a segregated Black high school and now serves as community center offering "specialized learning centered activities and community programs," according to the Marion County Public Schools website, marionschools.net.

The renovation and facelift cost $55,068. The museum employs a part-time person for tours and "archival efforts, according to the website.

The museum opened in 2004, according to museum literature. Artifacts on displayrange from a cannonball to ornate chairs from Covenant Missionary Baptist Church, which was established in 1899.

Documents and photos on display detail contributions of local Black leaders and professionals like Dr. N.H. Jones, namesake of N.H. Jones Elementary School.

Several displays and photos cover local Black history from the time of Black Seminole Indians and the Civil War era to the 1950s and 1960s era of segregation and the Black captains of glass bottom boats at the Silver Springs attraction.

Yvette Gibbs Mitchell, organizer of the Front Porch Talks program in west Ocala, said the area has a top-rated elementary and middle school but still, "property values are low."

"(In West Ocala ) we now have 70% renters and it used to be 70% homeownership. We want to restore the legacy....(and) build up youth," she said.

Cynthia Wilson-Graham spoke about the displays, including several about Paradise Park, the once segregated part of theSilver Springs attraction, which is now a Florida State Park.

Wilson-Graham is a local photographer and co-author, with Lu Vickers, of "Remembering Paradise Park: Tourism and Segregation."

Wilson-Graham said the park was first opened as a white beach but later changed to the Black portion of the attraction.

Museum director Reece acknowledged Vereen, Wilson-Graham and Scott Mitchell, director of the Silver River Museum and Environmental Education Center, for their extensive work in organizing and categorizing the displays.

City of Ocala Councilman Ire Bethea;School Board chairman Rev. Eric Cummings;Whitfield Jenkins, past NAACP president; and Dennis McFatten were among the attendees.

Dawana Gary, director of equity and ethics for Marion County Public Schools, said at the event she plans to give her children Eleena, 9, and Homer Jr., 13 a tour of the museum.

Andrew Hinkle of Ocala called the museum "amazing" with "rich history" and Anthony Ward, who moved here a few years ago from Lakeland, said he learned about the museum when his daughter, Alexandria, 15, a student at West Port High School, made a video of the museum.

Brooks said the museum is located in west Ocala but it is for all of Marion County.

"This is the people's museum,'" she said

If you go

Call (352) 671-4175 for more information

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'The people's museum': Black History Museum of Marion County is open again in west Ocala - Ocala

Baseball awards have been handed out for the 2021 season, and the Red Sox came up empty. Robbie Ray won the American League Cy Young Award (CYA), and BostonsNathan Eovaldi finished fourth. Ray missed out on being a unanimous selection when one ballot placed him second.

The CYA does have a history. Originally the award was a singular one, but in 1967 it was split into one for each league. The award also has a degree of cross-pollination as a pitcher can be chosen both Most Valuable Player (MVP) and CYA as Roger Clemens was in 1986.

The Most Valuable Player Award had a significantly different history. Initially, the Chalmers Award (1911-1914) and later the League Award (1922-1929) became the recognized brand for the MVP before the Baseball Writers Association of America formalized the process in 1931, allowing a winner in each league.

Was there any Red Sox pitcher who would have won the CYA if it had been present before 1956? In 1901 the Red Sox and the AL were born, and Boston offered a contract to a portly right-hander who was 34-years-old. Cy Young came to the Red Sox, and when Young finally departed, he took 192 wins with him. The 1901 season was typical Young.

He pitched his way to the pitchers Triple Crown in the inaugural season topping the league in wins (33), strikeouts (158) and earned run average (1.62). Young also walked a meager 0.9 per nine innings, had the best WHIP (0.972), a 219 ERA+, and a 2.64 FIP. No wonder he was honored with the awards name.

In 1902 it would have been back-to-back on my fictional ballot. Young again had the best fWAR at 7.7, won 32 games, had 41 complete games, and slipped to a 2.15 ERA. Would a back-to-back-to-back be possible?

In 1903 the Red Sox won it all, and Young led the AL with 28 wins. Again, he topped in complete games (34), shutouts (70, and saves (2). If you worship WAR and all its inconsistencies, Young was second (5.7 fWAR) to enigmatic lefty Rube Waddell (8.0 fWAR).

Walter Johnson won four in a row, and Young would probably be left off my first-place ballot in 1904. The Red Sox won the AL pennant but were denied a World Series by the obstinant Giants manager John McGraw. Still, Young won 26 games, led in shutouts (10), and somehow walked just 28 in 380 innings.

That was it for Young in Boston as neither the team nor Young could be considered winners until 1912 and another CYA winner in absentia. That would be Smoky Joe Wood.

Is Wood better than Walter Johnson? Johnson missed out on the Triple Crown by one win. Wood won 34 games, bagged a league-best ten shutouts, and notched 35 complete games. Their head-to-head duels were legendary, with Wood prevailing.

The 1949 season would see teammates Mel Parnell and Ellis Kinder via for the title. Lefty Parnell led the AL with 25 wins, a 2.77 ERA, and 27 complete games. Parnell also finished fourth in the MVP vote. Kinder a right-hander finished fifth in the MVP race and led the AL with six shutouts. Parnell had a league-best 6.9 fWAR and probably would have won the award. I would have him securely first on my ballot.

That was it for the Red Sox until the CYA became etched as a regular event. Boston did have outstanding pitching performances such as Babe Ruth in 1916, Tex Hughson and Dave Ferriss in 1946, Parnell close for several seasons, and then Jim Lonborg and the teams first official winner.

Baseball has made efforts to recognize statistics of players denied access to the MLB platform, most notably the Negro Leagues. Fantasy numbers have been created for mythical legends such as Joe Hardy, Roy Hobbs, and Billy Chapel. I have not discovered any attempts at having a faux ballot initiative for CYA and MVP before their implementation. A good Hot Stove League exercise for fantasy baseball.

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Red Sox History: A look at possible Cy Young Award winners - BoSox Injection

Illustration by Kotryna Zukauskaite

Two years ago, Noelle Martin discovered someone had made a deepfake video about her. Martin is a 26-year-old Australian law graduate who has lobbied governments and corporations to take action against the online harassment of women. Now, someone on the internet had decided to attack her via a technique that uses artificial intelligence to swap one persons face onto anothers body.

Experts studying this phenomenon have found that well over 90 percent of deepfake videos involve faces swapped into pornographic scenesthe vast majority being women, most often celebrities but also politicians, activists or non-famous women. Thats what someone had done with Martin. The video, she figured, was an attempt to get her to stop her advocacy work by shaming her. It was absolutely weaponized, she told me recently. When she saw the video circulating online, she felt a stab of fury: The audacity of these people to do that to me, she said. She also couldnt help wondering: Would people who saw it actually believe it was her?

Deepfake videos present an unsettling new phase in the evolution of media. Manipulating video used to be wildly expensive, the province of special-effects masters. But new AI technology has made it much easier. Indeed, one commonly used piece of software for doing itwhich uses a deep learning form of artificial intelligence, hence the deep in deepfakeswas released anonymously online for free in 2018.

In December 2020, Sensity, a fraud-detection firm, found 85,047 deepfake videos circulating online, a number that had been roughly doubling every six months; there are now likely hundreds of thousands in existence. Some are harmlessNicolas Cages face swapped into scenes from movies he wasnt in, say. But the majority of deepfakes created by experts are malicious, says Giorgio Patrini, Sensitys CEO.

Many observers worry that deepfakes could become a major threat in politics, used to humiliate political figures and advocates like Martin or even make them appear to say things they never said. What it could do to diplomacy and democracywere holding our breath, says Danielle Citron, professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Its an unsettling moment, where our ability to discern whats real feels newly imperiled.

In fact, these anxieties echo the earliest days of photography. Then, as now, through cutting-edge fakery, major public figures were counterfeited, and questions emerged about whether a powerful new technology made it impossible to trust what you saw.

In one sense, photo manipulation began as soon as photography did. Early image-capturing technologies were crudeimages had no color, and slow shutter speeds washed out details, such that skies, for example, appeared ghastly, lifeless, one photographer complained.

So photographers from the get-go were working hard to alter images. They would paint on colors, or enhance details by drawing on an image with ink and paint. They quickly hit upon the technique of composites: To make gorgeous seascapes, the French photographer Gustave Le Gray would take photos of wave-swept oceans and splice in separate photos of clouds, even reusing the same clouds in different photos. In 1857, the photographer George Washington Wilson created faux group shots of high society by taking individual photos of subjects, cutting out their images and assembling them into a crowd, then photographing the resulting collage.

Viewers were fooled. I had numerous inquiries as to when and where all these people had been collected and photographed, Wilsons gallerist said.

Photographers found the manipulations exciting, a new artistic technique. I think they were just like anyone experimenting with a new arttheres a certain amount of just, isnt it cool we could do this? says Peter Manseau, curator of American religious history at the National Museum of American History and an expert on early photo manipulation.

Commercial portrait firms employed legions of women as touch-up artists, softening wrinkles and reshaping features in the 19th centurys forerunners to Instagram filters. Anyone who went into a portrait studio would most likely be asked, Would you like us to touch this up for you, and, you know, make your nose smaller? says Mia Fineman, photography curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and author of Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop.

Fakery soon entered politics, as photographers tried to generate patriotic or stirring imagery. To create a photo of Ulysses S. Grant with his troops, photographer Levin Corbin Handy pasted Grants head onto the body of another man, then pasted that composite onto a picture of Confederate prisoners of war. There were even meme-like parodies. When false rumors flew that Confederate President Jefferson Davis had sought to escape capture in 1865 by wearing a womans petticoats, photographers gleefully produced composite photos that plastered his head onto an image of a woman.

Did the public know these images were fake? Historians arent sure. Even if they did know, its not clear they cared. Photography was not yet seen as a true document of reality. There was no understanding that an image should be objective, Manseau says.

But photo manipulation caused particularly hot debate in one field: spirit photography.

Amid the spiritualism movement after the Civil War, many bereaved Americans became convinced they could communicate with departed loved ones. They held sances, urging the dead to rap on tables or to speak to them through mediums. Photographers claimed they could capture images of the dead. In the United States, the most famous spiritualist deepfaker was Bostons William Mumler, who in 1862 began creating pictures that appeared to show live human subjects accompanied by translucent ghosts. Many of Mumlers subjects excitedly proclaimed hed photographed one of their dead relatives. What joy to the troubled heart, as Mumler wrote in a promotional pamphlet, to know that our friends who have passed away can return.

But debate raged. Skeptical photographers suspected Mumlers pictures were mere double exposurestwo negatives exposed onto a single photo sheet, with the ghost exposed only partially, to make it translucent. Yet when a few skeptics accompanied him into the darkroom, they couldnt deduce how he was pulling it off. Even so, in 1869, New Yorks city marshal charged Mumler with fraud after a reporter lodged a complaint at City Hall, and the ensuing trial made explosive headlines: The Science of the World Against Spiritualist Theory, the New York Herald proclaimed. The city even brought in showman P.T. Barnum to testify against Mumler; Barnum showed the court a faked spirit photograph hed staged of himself, to demonstrate how readily such fakery could be done. Still, after more than a month of trial, the judge let Mumler go free, saying the prosecution hadnt proved that trick and deception has been practiced by the prisoner.

Manseauwho wrote The Apparitionists, a 2017 book about Mumlers trialcant be sure how many people believed that spirit photos were real. He thinks many took them seriously, but not literally: The photos gave comfort, and that was enough. Post-trial, Mumler still took the occasional spirit photograph. His most famous was one of Mary Todd Lincoln next to a translucent image of her assassinated husband.

It was a real consolation to her to have this image, Manseau notes, though its unclear whether Mary Todd truly believed it was Lincolns ghost.

Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous creator of Sherlock Holmes, became an adherent of spirit photography, despite having made his fortune writing tales about ruthlessly empirical deductions. In 1920, he was outright duped by a pair of girls in Cottingley, England, who faked a set of five photos that purported to show cavorting fairies. Conan Doyle published the pictures in the Strand magazine, and in a 1921 book, The Coming of the Fairies, he rhapsodized about the images: What joy is in the complete abandon of their little graceful figures.

Still, the public was becoming more familiar with the tricks of composite photography. Poor Sherlock HolmesHopelessly Crazy? ran one 1922 headline about Conan Doyle. He did get pilloried, and it didnt help his career, says Andrew Lycett, author of The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes. But he didnt really care. The author went to his grave believing those photos of fairies and spirits were real.

How many of uswill be gulled in the same way today by deepfake videos?

On the one hand, experts say, we might be less easily duped because were more savvy about image manipulation, regularly using smartphone and computer apps to tweak our own pictures and videos. But video deepfakes are still novel, and we havent yet learned to suss out whether a face has been swapped.

To protect those targeted by hostile deepfakesagain, for now, mostly womenlegal scholars like Mary Anne Franks at the University of Miami are proposing laws to criminalize digital forgeries, or deepfakes that would appear authentic to a reasonable person. Non-malevolent uses, like satire or comedy, would remain legal, Franks says.

Granted, she adds, such laws against forgeries are only a blunt tool. Indeed, the people who make pornographic deepfakes often arent trying to fool anyone. Many openly revel in the fact that theyre using a fake to humiliate a female celebrity.

Deepfakes are not yet common in politics, possibly because they still require more technical skill than merchants of political misinfo typically possess. But in three to five years, says Hany Farid, an expert on digital images at the University of California at Berkeley, youll be able to create realistic deepfakes on your iPhone; rudimentary ones are already possible.

Deepfakes may also become a new canvas for artists. Stephanie Lepp, one video artist, recently created Deep Reckonings: surprisingly realistic videos of public figures regretting their actions, including an uncannily believable Mark Zuckerberg apologizing for Facebooks alleged promotion of hateful propagandists and ethnic violence. When Lepp posted them, she explicitly marked the videos as deepfakes, but viewers said it was still thought-provoking to see these figures wrestle with their public impact, however fictitiously.

For Lepp, deepfakes are a tool to help imagine a different, better world. They can evoke that pathway to the future we aspire to, she tells me. Sometimes only a fake can express our truest desires.

A cropped history of visual hoaxesBy Ted Scheinman

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What the History of 'Spirit Photography' Portends for the Future of Deepfake Videos - Smithsonian