Category Archives: History

Maddie Meyer - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

The FIFA men's World Cup will have female referees for the first time in the event's history during the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

On Thursday, FIFAannouncedthe list of matchday officials for the event, which included three female referees and six women in total.

Stephanie Frappart, Salima Mukansanga and Yoshimi Yamashita are among the 36 referees.Neuza Back, Karen Diaz Medina and Kathryn Nesbitt are on the selected assistant referees.

"As always, the criteria we have used is quality first and the selected match officials represent the highest level of refereeing worldwide," Pierluigi Collina, the FIFA Referees Committee chairman, said. "The 2018 World Cup was very successful, partly because of the high standard of refereeing, and we will do our best to be even better in a few months in Qatar."

Collina added he hopes the presence of female match officials "will be perceived as something normal and no longer as sensational" in the future.

Frappart made history in December 2020 when she became the first woman to officiate a men's UEFA Champions League match.In April, she broke new ground again when she was named the referee for the French Cup final.

Mukansanga is likewise a trailblazer in Africa. She was the first woman to work an Africa Cup of Nations fixture in January, having already taken part in the Olympics and Women's World Cup.

Yamashita was part of the first all-female officiating crew in the AFC Cup in 2019 and worked the Women's World Cup as well.

See more here:

Men's World Cup to Have Female Referees for 1st Time in History in Qatar - Bleacher Report

The Baltimore Ravens have been regarded as one of the best drafting teams in the NFL over the course of their franchise history. Theyve been able to find talent at the top of the draft, mid-to-late round gems, as well as undrafted free agents who turn out to be diamonds in the rough.

In a 2017 NFL re-draft, Gary Davenport of Bleacher Report put together the entire first round with his predictions if it was held today. For Baltimore he selected a familiar face in cornerback Marlon Humphrey, talking about how it shouldnt be a shock to see the Ravens end up with the former University of Alabama star once again.

It shouldnt strike one as surprising that the Baltimore Ravens would wind up with the same player in this redraft. Part of the reason the Ravens have remained a perennial contender for as long as they have is the fact that the team consistently drafts well.

Read the original:

Ravens repeat history in 2017 NFL re-draft by Bleacher Report - Ravens Wire

Prisoners in cell blocks at Rikers Island Prison in New York in 1970. (Photo via Getty Images / Bettmann)

Desperation, decay, and violence are far from exceptional for Rikers. The islandwhich hosts eight of New York Citys jails and the nearly 6,000 people caged in themhas become synonymous with ruinously brutal carceral practices and inhumane facilities. But by the summer of last year, the chaos and disorganization of the Covid-19 pandemic had degraded living conditions considerably for the islands prisoners. A delegation of state elected officials, visiting the complex to document the crisis in September 2021, witnessed prisoners in desperate conditions: floors strewn with garbage and human waste, vermin infestations, sick prisoners abandoned without access to medical care, an attempted suicide. A mass sick-out policywherein thousands of guards simultaneously coordinated taking medical leavehad badly intensified the situation: New York Citys phenomenally well-resourced jails, where correction officers significantly outnumber prisoners, appeared to be badly understaffed. By years end, 16 people had died in the custody of the citys Department of Correction (DOC), some from medical neglect, some from suicide, all while the citys jail population crept up to pre-pandemic levels and vaccination rates among prisoners remained alarmingly low.1 BOOKS IN REVIEW

The jail complex represents such an affront that it is currently slated to close by the end of 2027, though this closure is contingent on the citys construction of four new skyscraper jails. So its ironic that, as anti-jail organizers often say and as geographer Jarrod Shanahan firmly establishes, Rikers itself has its origins in a liberal attempt to reform the citys preexisting carceral facilities and practices.2

Shanahans new book, Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage, traces in detail the competing political agendas that produced Rikers, following the history of the citys jails from the 1950s up through the end of Ed Kochs mayoral administration. Shanahan makes it possible to answer the immediate and pressing questionwhy did an agenda of jail reform fail so drastically, producing in the process one of the most notorious penal colonies in the United States?by asking, and answering, several others.3

How and why did New York City begin to confine its captive population to a formation of rock and landfill floating in the East River? Who was this population, and how did it transform from majority white at the opening of the Rikers Penitentiary in 1932 to majority Black and Puerto Rican by the 1970s? How and why did the city turn to arrest and detention as a means of disciplining this population, rocked earlier and harder by the effects of deindustrialization and unemployment than the rest of the city? How did the citys correction officers acquire the massive political power they currently enjoyable to undertake unauthorized work stoppages without the repercussions that successfully keep nearly all other public employees in New York State in check? And what does this history of failure and its human cost tell us about the fate of future efforts, however humanely intended, to reform New York Citys jails?4

Captives in that sense is more than a history of Rikers: It chronicles the transformations of finance, industry, race relations, and political consciousness that made the jail complex possible in the first place. Shanahan documents the tumultuous second half of the 20th century in New York Citythe fading glow of the New Deal; the rise of Black Power and the New Left; the near-total exit of the citys manufacturing capital, and the subsequent capture of the political apparatus by the banking and real estate sector; the imposition of austerity policies following the fiscal crisis of the 1970sfrom the standpoint of the citys jails, as well as the people warehoused within and fighting to get out of them. Rikers absorbs the symptoms of social problems the city is unwilling to address at their root, Shanahan argues. By following the history of the citys jail system, including but not only its most infamous outcropping, Shanahan makes it possible to see in greater clarity the social relations and competing political trajectories that defined the fate of postwar New York City.5

In particular, Shanahan documents two opposed but mutually reinforcing traditions: the liberal reforms that he calls penal welfarism on the one hand, and the more straightforwardly punitive agendas that over the course of the 1960s congealed into the law-and-order coalition on the other. Although these traditions remained two distinct visions of the postwar order, Shanahans project in a sense is to demonstrate the major role of liberal reformism both in creating the Rikers Island complex, with its perpetual state of humanitarian crisis, and in advancing the law-and-order political consensus that ultimately dominated city politics for decades. In a grim, ironic reversal, penal welfarism created much of the physical and political infrastructure of the citys carceral apparatus and also fueled the development of the coalition that would eventually reject jail reform in full.6

Shanahan begins with the unlikely career of Anna M. Kross, whose name now adorns one of the jails on Rikers, and whom Mayor Robert Wagner Jr. appointed as the DOCs commissioner in 1954. Kross envisioned a jail system that would uplift the moral character of those it held: Run by the agendas of social scientists rather than correction officers, the jails would, in Shanahans words, not merely respond to criminal acts, but consider the prisoner as raw material to be reshaped through incarceration. Kross took up the agenda of progressive penologist Austin MacCormick, who oversaw the opening of the Rikers Penitentiary in 1932, but whose project had been stymied by the Depression and World War II. Krosss primary goal was to increase the civilian staff and civilian control over the jail systeman agenda that set off a longstanding conflict with correction officers, who viewed running the jails as the prerogative of what Shanahan calls their arrogant autonomy. Kross intended to use her trained professionals in social science to retrain and reform the proletarian flotsam and jetsamher termswho passed through the citys jails under her watch, by providing her charges with educational programs, prison work programs, recreation, access to mental health professionals, and mandatory STI testing and treatment. She also oversaw the redesign of the jail facilities in bright-toned paint schemes with greater access to natural light.7 Current Issue

Subscribe today and Save up to $129.

Yet Krosss attempt to remake the jail system and provide a measure of social services to New Yorks incarcerated population ran up against her task of running facilities adequate enough to house the tens of thousands of people who cycled yearly through the jails. That is to say, Krosss agenda as a reformer of the citys jails put her at odds with her own responsibilities as their administrator. Years into her tenure as DOC commissioner, Kross confronted the same problems she had found at the start: desperately overcrowded jails and abject conditions, including the violent and neglectful treatment of prisoners by the correction officers. As Shanahan notes, Kross herself advocated for reducing the citys jail population, but she had little control over this figure, which fell squarely into the lap of the New York Police Department and the citys courts. Kross therefore advocated for more funding and resources for those facilitiesbuilding, in her words, bigger and stronger bastilles to hold our prisoners.8

Her attempt to resolve this contradiction between penal welfare programs on the one hand and adequately administered facilities on the other resulted in a significant expansion of the citys carceral capacitiesarguably the lasting effect of her commissionership. She oversaw the construction of the facility then known as C-76, now the Eric M. Taylor Jail on Rikers; she opened the Brooklyn House of Detention, a skyscraper jail now known as the Brooklyn Detention Complex and still in use; and, most critically, she secured funds for the construction of the bridge between Rikers and East Elmhurst, Queens, which replaced the ferry that had previously shepherded prisoners and supplies to and from the island. As readers of Robert Caros The Power Broker might guess, the bridge to Rikers, more than any single jail facility, locked the city into a decades-long pattern of development, pushing successive administrations to detain ever more prisoners on the island.9

The rapid expansion of the citys carceral infrastructure that took place under Kross advanced, however unwittingly, the power of the citys correction officers, whose ranks swelled to staff the new jails, and who received favorable raises and terms of employment to buy their grudging support for Krosss reform programs. Under the leadership of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, they won official bargaining rights as part of Wagners electioneering deal with the citys labor unions, which offered public recognition in exchange for their support of his candidacy in the 1953 election. Together with the Patrolmens Benevolent Association (PBA), the NYPDs largest union, COBA soon began to flex its political muscle, winning pay parity with the citys cops and firefighters and undertaking work slowdowns and stoppages.10

These active and militant unions became integral cogs in the developing law-and-order coalition: Outside the walls of the citys jails, the PBA, in coalition with affiliates of the John Birch Society and the American Nazi Party, stoked racist fears to defeat at the ballot Mayor John Lindsays civilian review board in 1966, which would have placed independent investigation and disciplining power in a body outside the NYPD itself. (The citys current Civilian Complaint Review Board, introduced under Mayor David Dinkins, has virtually no real disciplinary power over the citys cops, a testament to the PBAs enduring power.) Inside the walls, correction officers brutally repressed the prisoner rebellions that shook the citys jails in August and October of 1970.11

Readers like you make our independent journalism possible.

When the city slammed into its fiscal crisis in the mid-70s, the PBA and COBA had positioned themselves as a force within city government sufficient to extract concessions from the mayors office to be considered separate from the citys non-law-enforcement unions. Amid an atmosphere of implicitly or explicitly racist repression of the citys Black and brown working-class population, subject to harsher punishment and longer sentences under the 1973 Rockefeller drug laws, the law enforcement unions pushed a political agenda to brand themselves as a solution to the social ills the fiscal crisis unleashed. COBA therefore played an instrumental role in brokering the citys version of what Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore have called the anti-state state: As the citys debtors forced austerity policies on public spending, gutting social services and forcing layoffs, New York City maintained, and eventually increased, its repressive capacities to arrest and detain. After weathering a peak of cutbacks in the 70s, by the late 1980s and 90s the DOC and COBA had benefited from yet another round of increases to the citys jail facilities: expanded wings for currently existing jails in 1987, a new jail for women in 1988, an 800-bed maximum security jail in 1991, and the Vernon C. Bain jail barge in 1992.12 Related Article

Shanahans history demonstrates that, over the course of the expansion of jail facilities and law enforcement power in city politics, Anna Kross and the progressive penologists sowed, and the law-and-order coalition reaped. Its a sobering lesson for anyone who harbors fantasies of kinder, more humane, state-of-the-art jailsparticularly for those who place their hopes in the new jails under construction now.13

If abolitionists who want to end the mass social practice of caging human beings often face the charge that we operate under utopian fantasies, Shanahans book suggests that the burden of proof actually falls on the would-be reformists who are seeking a supposedly better way to punish. In the history that Captives documents, not only did penal welfarism fail to produce a less violent city; it couldnt even produce a less violent jail.14

So whats the actual way out of the crisis, if not bigger and strongeror sunnier and more pastel-tonedbastilles? To start, Captives tells the story of an alternate political tradition in its careful attention to the waves of prisoner rebellion, organizing, and escape that have defined New Yorks jails from the 1950s to the present. Linking together the accounts of current and former prisoners like Kuwasi Balagoon, Jamal Joseph, Sundiata Accoli, Angela Davis, and Assata Shakur, Shanahan illuminates the struggle of working-class Black and brown organizers to release people from their cages, sometimes by legal means, sometimes not.15

Many of these efforts were successful: Jamal Joseph and his comrades in the Panther 21 walked free after an eight-month trial in which agents provocateurs in the pay of the NYPD admitted under oath to setting up the defendants; the Communist Party USAled organizing around Angela Daviss stint at the House of Detention for Women helped build support for her eventual release; and jail rebellions from the 1950s through the 70s resulted in compromises between prisoners and the DOCs leadership. Many other efforts, however, were not as successful. But in the cases of both success and defeat, the aim, purpose, and direction of this political tradition is freedomnot just for any one person who happens to be held captive at Rikers, but for the classes of people who are continually subject to arrest and detention, whom the city abandoned in its early experiments with neoliberal governance, and who continually fend off poverty, hunger, and debt together with the actual repressive capacities of the state. Any meaningfully anti-racist political project will have to develop both the principle and the power to keep people free from the citys criminal injustice system, as the public defender Janie Williams calls it, and free to move and do with themselves as they want.16

In the end, freedom of this kindto live without the threat of incarceration or dispossessionis a positive project that will require a mass transformation of public resources, social institutions, and state capacities. If Rikers, in Shanahans words, absorbs the symptoms of social problems the city is unwilling to address at their root, then the task of closing Rikers means decisively addressingand building the power to addressthose very social problems whose effects Rikers absorbs: desperate inequality, neighborhoods consigned to the devastating effects of climate chaos, untenable levels of debt, mass divestment from both K-12 and postsecondary education, an utterly inadequate health infrastructure, widespread unemployment, and patterns of development and tenancy that force people from their homes, all sustained while the very few enrich themselves in what Jane McAlevey and others have called the new Gilded Age.17

At the same time, even widely redistributive social programs will not be enough on their own to banish the possibility of another round of punitive crackdowns. As Mayor Eric Adamss scant months in office have revealed, the fervent social base for the law-and-order agenda persists, and under the right circumstances can be goaded into a panic that lawmakers of all stripes can use to justify carceral expansion. To shutter the citys jails, the left will have to outmaneuver some parts of this bloc and disarticulate others. Specifically, we will have to isolate its explicitly racist formations, like the PBA, which endorsed Donald Trumps reelection in the summer of 2020 following the George Floyd rebellion; we will also have to persuade other segments of this blocsuch as the Black and Latino homeowners in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx who voted for Adams in overwhelming numbersthat their real needs for stable communities are better served by means other than criminalizing their neighbors. That means, in turn, articulating a political alternative to the center-left coalitions that have consistently increased the NYPDs size for decades, allocated massive funds for jail construction, and caved to the political terror tactics of the law enforcement unions. One question, then, for organizers who share the vision of a city without cages: What kind of popular front do we need in order to build the necessary power for this program?18

The poet and prison organizer Tongo Eisen-Martin has observed that if it has a prison, it is a prison. Not a city. Inverting this thesis, we can observe that the project of closing Rikers for good has relatively little to do with some buildings floating in the East River, and everything to do with the mass social capacity that state institutions contain, divert, and channel, and that can therefore assume a totally different shape under other circumstancesone that might actually relegate the citys jails to the dustbin of history. We do not have to live in a city or a world that cages human beings at scale as a false solution to real problems. A series of social, political, and economic forces over time have produced this result; with intention, principle, and strategy, organized people can produce a totally opposite one. And that, in any case, is one of the lessons of Shanahans remarkable book.19

Go here to see the original:

The Disastrous History of Rikers - The Nation

Today in OTM History

2021: Eduardo Rodriguez is giving up too many hits; This ended up being a problem all year. Eddie hasnt pitched to his expectations this year, either.

2020: Underrated players from the 2007 championship team; That whole team in general is underrated.

2018: Who the mock drafts have the Red Sox taking; Nobody had Triston Casas as the pick. Id say its worked out.

2017: Hector Velzquez struggles in his major-league debut; Hed turn things around and be a solid swingman for a few years.

2016: Time to give Rusney Castillo one more chance; It did come a couple weeks later, but that was his last one and it only lasted about a week.

2015: Is it time for Rusney Castillo?; Weird timing!

2014: Third base trade targets for the Red Sox; Number one? Pablo Sandoval...

2008: Jon Lester throws a no-hitter just two years after recovering from lymphoma. Its the fourth no-hitter caught by Jason Varitek.

1976: Carl Yastrzemski, for the first and ultimately only time in his career, hits three home runs in one game.

1941: Lefty Grove breaks a major-league record by winning his 20th consecutive Fenway start.

1933: Red Sox catcher Rick Ferrell homered against his brother Wes, who hit a home run of his own a few innings later. It is the first time in league history two brothers on opposite teams homered in the same game.

Happy 26th birthday to Connor Wong, who is currently the teams third catcher and is likely not far away from getting an extended chance as at least the backup catcher.

Many thanks to Baseball-Reference, NationalPastime.com and Today in Baseball History for assistance here, and thanks to Battery Power for the inspiration for these posts.

Visit link:

Today in Boston Red Sox History: May 19 - Over The Monster

However, McRae came alive on the next batch of rallies, winning New Zealand, Australia and finally his home event the RAC with a fifth on Sanremo too to give L555 BAT its first rally wins.

McRae maintained use of the car for the entire 1995 season but the poor form that plagued 94 returned at the start of the season a crash on the Monte and an engine problem in Sweden.

But third in Portugal put some points on the board and McRae and L555 BATs season once again took off when the WRC traveled to the southern hemisphere as a win, coupled to Carlos Sainzs absence through injury, hauled McRae firmly into title contention.

Second in Australia preceded another, albeit forced and controversial, second place via team orders in Spain before McRae spectacularly overcame a puncture to win the RAC and the world title at the end of the year.

See the article here:

Delving into the history of a WRC icon DirtFish - DirtFish

Country

United States of AmericaUS Virgin IslandsUnited States Minor Outlying IslandsCanadaMexico, United Mexican StatesBahamas, Commonwealth of theCuba, Republic ofDominican RepublicHaiti, Republic ofJamaicaAfghanistanAlbania, People's Socialist Republic ofAlgeria, People's Democratic Republic ofAmerican SamoaAndorra, Principality ofAngola, Republic ofAnguillaAntarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S)Antigua and BarbudaArgentina, Argentine RepublicArmeniaArubaAustralia, Commonwealth ofAustria, Republic ofAzerbaijan, Republic ofBahrain, Kingdom ofBangladesh, People's Republic ofBarbadosBelarusBelgium, Kingdom ofBelizeBenin, People's Republic ofBermudaBhutan, Kingdom ofBolivia, Republic ofBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswana, Republic ofBouvet Island (Bouvetoya)Brazil, Federative Republic ofBritish Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago)British Virgin IslandsBrunei DarussalamBulgaria, People's Republic ofBurkina FasoBurundi, Republic ofCambodia, Kingdom ofCameroon, United Republic ofCape Verde, Republic ofCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChad, Republic ofChile, Republic ofChina, People's Republic ofChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombia, Republic ofComoros, Union of theCongo, Democratic Republic ofCongo, People's Republic ofCook IslandsCosta Rica, Republic ofCote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of theCyprus, Republic ofCzech RepublicDenmark, Kingdom ofDjibouti, Republic ofDominica, Commonwealth ofEcuador, Republic ofEgypt, Arab Republic ofEl Salvador, Republic ofEquatorial Guinea, Republic ofEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFaeroe IslandsFalkland Islands (Malvinas)Fiji, Republic of the Fiji IslandsFinland, Republic ofFrance, French RepublicFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern TerritoriesGabon, Gabonese RepublicGambia, Republic of theGeorgiaGermanyGhana, Republic ofGibraltarGreece, Hellenic RepublicGreenlandGrenadaGuadaloupeGuamGuatemala, Republic ofGuinea, RevolutionaryPeople's Rep'c ofGuinea-Bissau, Republic ofGuyana, Republic ofHeard and McDonald IslandsHoly See (Vatican City State)Honduras, Republic ofHong Kong, Special Administrative Region of ChinaHrvatska (Croatia)Hungary, Hungarian People's RepublicIceland, Republic ofIndia, Republic ofIndonesia, Republic ofIran, Islamic Republic ofIraq, Republic ofIrelandIsrael, State ofItaly, Italian RepublicJapanJordan, Hashemite Kingdom ofKazakhstan, Republic ofKenya, Republic ofKiribati, Republic ofKorea, Democratic People's Republic ofKorea, Republic ofKuwait, State ofKyrgyz RepublicLao People's Democratic RepublicLatviaLebanon, Lebanese RepublicLesotho, Kingdom ofLiberia, Republic ofLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtenstein, Principality ofLithuaniaLuxembourg, Grand Duchy ofMacao, Special Administrative Region of ChinaMacedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascar, Republic ofMalawi, Republic ofMalaysiaMaldives, Republic ofMali, Republic ofMalta, Republic ofMarshall IslandsMartiniqueMauritania, Islamic Republic ofMauritiusMayotteMicronesia, Federated States ofMoldova, Republic ofMonaco, Principality ofMongolia, Mongolian People's RepublicMontserratMorocco, Kingdom ofMozambique, People's Republic ofMyanmarNamibiaNauru, Republic ofNepal, Kingdom ofNetherlands AntillesNetherlands, Kingdom of theNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaragua, Republic ofNiger, Republic of theNigeria, Federal Republic ofNiue, Republic ofNorfolk IslandNorthern Mariana IslandsNorway, Kingdom ofOman, Sultanate ofPakistan, Islamic Republic ofPalauPalestinian Territory, OccupiedPanama, Republic ofPapua New GuineaParaguay, Republic ofPeru, Republic ofPhilippines, Republic of thePitcairn IslandPoland, Polish People's RepublicPortugal, Portuguese RepublicPuerto RicoQatar, State ofReunionRomania, Socialist Republic ofRussian FederationRwanda, Rwandese RepublicSamoa, Independent State ofSan Marino, Republic ofSao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic ofSaudi Arabia, Kingdom ofSenegal, Republic ofSerbia and MontenegroSeychelles, Republic ofSierra Leone, Republic ofSingapore, Republic ofSlovakia (Slovak Republic)SloveniaSolomon IslandsSomalia, Somali RepublicSouth Africa, Republic ofSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSpain, Spanish StateSri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic ofSt. HelenaSt. Kitts and NevisSt. LuciaSt. Pierre and MiquelonSt. Vincent and the GrenadinesSudan, Democratic Republic of theSuriname, Republic ofSvalbard & Jan Mayen IslandsSwaziland, Kingdom ofSweden, Kingdom ofSwitzerland, Swiss ConfederationSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwan, Province of ChinaTajikistanTanzania, United Republic ofThailand, Kingdom ofTimor-Leste, Democratic Republic ofTogo, Togolese RepublicTokelau (Tokelau Islands)Tonga, Kingdom ofTrinidad and Tobago, Republic ofTunisia, Republic ofTurkey, Republic ofTurkmenistanTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUganda, Republic ofUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited Kingdom of Great Britain & N. IrelandUruguay, Eastern Republic ofUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofViet Nam, Socialist Republic ofWallis and Futuna IslandsWestern SaharaYemenZambia, Republic ofZimbabwe

More:

History Within Reach For Pinecrest Baseball | Sports | thepilot.com - The Pilot

An Age-Old Question: what is skateboarding?

From the 1950s to the present day, skateboarding has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry impacting millions of lives across the world as an artform and a sport. In its history, skateboarding has inaugurated its own museums, awarded its own hall of fame and curated a self-documented history, cementing a special place in the heart of freedom culture.

The launch ramp of 1950s California lit the torch of skateboarding to be handed off to each new generation over the coming eras. In these decades, skateboarding transcended through ups and downs of economic prosperity and mainstream popularity, as different faces and figures shined in the spotlight or dominated the back alleys of urban performance.

Between the youth of the world and those ageing skateboarders who've watched it grow and change, the question of 'What is skateboarding?' has undergone a metamorphosis with each passing of the baton. While we do our best to answer this question again, we take our first push into a larger world. A world defined by the ultimate expression of freedom, movement and an intimate look at the history of skateboarding.

Angelo Caro Frontside Hurricane

Gaston Francisco

The origin of the skateboard is as ambiguous as the origin of our universe. There are multiple reports from self-proclaimed skate-historians of who, what and where the first skateboards appeared. It's largely agreed upon that skateboards originated in the United States, first as crates of wood with roller derby skates attached to the underfoot. The earliest models had handlebars attached, like modern scooters, but eventually the boxes were replaced by wooden planks and the handlebars scrapped for an experience more akin to surfing. These scooter-boxes were seen as far back as the late 1800s, but it wasn't until the 1950s when wooden pallets with clay wheels were popularised on the downhill slopes of Southern California.

Skateboarding's first slams

It's difficult to imagine ourselves in the 1950s or 1970s DogTown eras the birthplace of skateboarding. It would be even more difficult to imagine how much skateboarding would change since its conception. In the early 1960s, skateboard companies like Hobie and Makaha began advertising skating as 'sidewalk surfing' or an alternative to surfing when the waves were flat. By 1963, Makaha formed the first professional skateboarding team, competing in the first ever skateboard competition later that year in Hermosa, California. While the remnants of early 1960s downhill skateboarding competitions take the form of death defying modern day San Francisco hill-bombs, the freestyle competition formats and most tricks performed at the Hermosa competition are now but a distant memory to contemporary skateboarding.

Even with its novelty in American sports, skateboarding popularity ultimately crashed by 1965. People were more likely to go to a roller derby competition than a skateboarding competition. Skateboarding in the media began advertising skating as a dangerous activity, while the clay wheels and handstands grew as tiresome as watching a hula-hooper for hours on end. To understand how skateboarding nearly perished is to understand ultimately why its earliest forms are no longer seen. But, more importantly, comparing where skateboarding is today from these times, we see one of the greatest transformations of a sport in the 20th to 21st century.

Reinventing the (skateboard) wheel

Skateboard wheels

OJ Wheels

Not figuratively, but literally. The skateboard wheel was reinvented by Frank Nasworthy, who introduced the urethane wheel to skateboarding in 1973. The new wheel, replacing the clunky clay wheels of the 1950 and 1960s, gripped the asphalt and pool walls like cleats on the grass. With the invention of the kick-tail alongside it, (a raised back end of the skateboard), a new definition of a professional skateboard was born. Skateboarding magazines sold at the local surf shop now had a horse to promote as a new craze of skateboarding began to expand worldwide. Just three years after the new skateboard wheel, the first skatepark sprouted in Florida in 1976.

Before the end of the decade, skateparks began to appear throughout North and South America, and soon after across Europe and Asia. Skateboarding's 1970s rise to mainstream culture was best popularized by the 2005 film Lords of DogTown. In 1975, as seen in the film, the Zephyr skateboarding team spearheaded by Tony Alva showed the world skateboarding's potential at the Ocean Festival in Del Mar, California. This moment in skateboarding history stands as a cornerstone to its history and how skateboarding competitions would change in the coming decades.

However, skateboarding would ultimately suffer another near-fatal crash at the approach of the 1980s. As dubious corporations from outside skateboarding began to infiltrate skateboarding competitions with trojan horse contracts and over-saturation of contests, skateboarding's popularity fizzled out to a hermetic group of freedom seekers who prevailed in the empty backyard pools of America. Skateparks were no longer being constructed, as sky-rocketing insurance costs latched onto the injury prone aspect of skating. And so, no longer accepted by SoCal parents or corporations seeking the next great fad, skating became the calling card of anti-establishment culture and the growing punk scene of the 1980s.

What Zephyr Skateboards did that year in Del Mar for the world of skateboarding wouldn't be seen again until Tony Hawk landed his 900 in the 1999 X-Games. On June 27, 1999, Tony Hawk dropped in at the Summer X-Games vert ramp for the 11th time to land the most recognizable trick in skateboarding history. At the time, no skateboarder could fathom just how much Tony Hawk's two and a-half rotations would catapult skating into a new orbit of popularity. But by the time Hawk had officially brought professional skateboarding to the mainstream spotlight again, skateboarding had already undergone an immense transformation throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Most skateboarders and non-skaters alike will attest to the significance of Tony Hawk's 900. But most non-skaters have no idea how important the 1980s and 1990s really were for skateboarding. In that time, street skateboarding was crafted by society's outcasts. The blueprints for professional street skating were drawn and everything we've come to know about skateboarding media claimed their niches in the skate world.

With the help of a new skateboard designed for aerial manoeuvres, Rodney Mullen had invented several flip tricks by the 1980s, after Curt Lindgren invented the Kickflip in 1978. The first street-only skateboarders Natas Kaupas and Mark 'The Gonz' Gonzales raised the bar once again by Boardsliding the first handrails. Skateboarding evolved from the backyards of ramp builders into the parking lots of grocery stores riddled with red curbs.

With the mainstream media turning a blind eye to skateboarding, skateboarders were given the chance to document their own culture through their own lens. This allowed skateboarders to wield the powers of producing their own media culture, combating the exact reasons why skateboarding had endured two major crashes in popularity in the late 1960s and early 1980s. With skateboarders fully in control of the factors of production of skate culture, the golden-era of street skateboarding blossomed in the years 1993-2006. We saw in these years the rise of Shorty's and Chad Muska, videos like Mouse and Yeah Right! by Girl Skateboards, prominent international skate-teams like FLIP Skateboards, the celebrated LOVE Park era and the THPS video games franchise, as skateparks became synonymous with public park planning.

The trick heard around the world

As skateboarding evolved in a post-Tony Hawk era, skateboarding's interaction with society changed. Skateboarding deepened its roots in street skateboarding, as the definition of being a professional skateboarder shifted from competition skating to video parts, while mainstream skate culture saw itself in novel forms of entertainment. Bam Margera would go on to parody a pro-skateboarder career with a reality television show, Viva-La-Bam. As companies entered the fold, skateboarding gained more recognition and skatings elite began making palpable salaries.

Today, Street League and the X-Games draw the largest crowds in years. With more eyes comes more scrutiny, as today a juvenile distaste and adolescence is still associated with skateboarding in dominant forms of media. That being said, the off-shoots of skateboarding have also grown tremendously to tip the scales back into the hands of skateboarders. In the past five to 10 years, female skateboarders are the sports largest growing demographic. Skateparks are now found on every major continent of the World with countless clips filmed and posted to social media everyday. Skateboarding endures as one of the worlds most inclusive and accessible expressions of freedom.

Read more from the original source:

The history of skateboarding: how the sport has grown - Red Bull

GRAYLING, MI History will come alive in Northern Michigan this summer.

Wellington Farm, a 60-acre living history museum in Grayling, will open for the season on Friday, May 27. The complex typically provides visitors the opportunity to experience farm life during the Great Depression, along with hosting events.

One such event, a Civil War reenactment is scheduled to take place June 3-5. During the weekend, an artillery battery, as well as infantry units, will be encamped throughout the farm.

School and home school groups from the surrounding area will be able to experience firsthand what life was like for a Civil War soldier on June 3.

Other historic sites to be explored include the Stittsville Church built in 1878, a Summer Kitchen, an operating grist mill and a sawmill, which arrived in Grayling about 1870.

Other attractions include the Annis Farmstead, which features a house which was ordered out of the Montgomery Ward Catalogue, a livestock barn, and a kitchen garden. Nearby is the Perry Lamkin Broom Handle Factory.

Finally, Crafters Alley includes an operating loom house, broom shop, blacksmith shop and woodworking shop.

Located at 6944 S. Military Road, Wellington Farm is open Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. until mid-June. Beginning on June 22, the farm will be open Wednesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For more information about activities and events held at the living history complex visit https://www.wellingtonfarmusa.com

Here is the original post:

Civil War reenactment coming to living history museum in Northern Michigan this summer - MLive.com

Why fentanyl is so deadly

Due to its lethal potency, the synthetic opioid named fentanyl has claimed hundreds of Hoosiers' lives in recent years.

Dwight Adams, dwight.adams@indystar.com

Police recovered roughly 11,000 pills of suspected fentanyl and other drugs Tuesday, in what the Eugene Police Department called the largest fentanyl raid in the history of the department.

Two were arrested and arraigned on charges including possession, manufacturing and child neglect, in one of the larger seizures in the history of Lane County, according to department spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin.

Several members of EPD's street crimes unit first heard in March about significant amounts of drugs and guns being held at a residence in the 2700 block of Royal Avenue, McLaughlin said in a news release Thursday.

After identifying the suspected involved residents as Joe Anthony Harker and Shayla Kay Lawray Bennett, police applied for and served a search warrant on the house, along with members of Oregon State Police, along with EPD's drone team, a SWAT team, and others.

Harker, who was not home, was taken into custody without incident after a traffic stop, McLaughlin said.

During the raid, the street crimes unit recovered more than six pounds of methamphetamine, more than a pound of heroin, approximately 11,000 suspected fentanyl pills McLaughlin said would be tested at a lab due to the dangers of fentanyl. They also recovered more than a pound of cocaine. It's estimated the seized drugs are worth $110,000 in street value, she said.

Some suspected stolen items were also seized including a gun and several loaded magazines for handguns, McLaughlin said.

Harker, 38, was arraigned Wednesday on charges for first-degree child neglect, unlawful meth and cocaine possession, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, and the manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance. Bennett, 27, was charged with child neglect and unlawful meth possession.

The child neglect charges were for Harker and Bennett allegedly allowing a child younger than 16 to stay in a home where controlled substances were being criminally delivered or manufactured for profit, according to court documents.

There was a significant uptick in fentanyl-related overdose deaths in May 2021, with many of the deaths linked to fake prescription drugs that were actually fentanyl. McLaughlin did not want to disclose how many deaths there were. There were 33 calls coded as overdoses in Eugene and Springfield through May 1-18 last year, and 15 calls that turned out to be an overdose that month.

More here:

Fentanyl pill seizure is largest ever in Eugene police history - The Register-Guard

Students experiencing housing insecurity are more likely to miss time in school as they face challenges that often make it difficult to keep up with their education. More than Words is a Massachusetts organization aimed at helping those young people gain critical life skills and work experience.Empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of the business, two-year employee Luis Carlos Pacheco said. In a nook tucked into a block off the Expressway in Boston's South End, youll find More than Words, where a new chapter for youth who have been homeless or in the court system begins.My mental health was just deteriorating just because of everything that I was going through -- with just being homeless and not knowing where I was going to sleep next, Pacheco said.More than Words is a nonprofit group run by 16- to 24-year-olds who sell books at their retail store that doubles as an event space.The on-site warehouse collects and tracks and catalogs 4 million donated books annually, plus clothing, and sells most of them online. Pacheco's interest in fashion is growing that part of the operation.I feel very proud because it's become such an essential part of the business now, he said.The youths are working on their lives while working for a living.Advocacy Associate Director John DePina has an invaluable role in helping Pacheco and his other young colleagues with court advocacy and housing, where showing up and taking part is a huge piece of finding success for their future.Being able to see young people move forward in their lives and say I have overcome things, now I have a community, now I have a group. I belong. I matter. I know that I can do better. I will do better. It makes me happy to do my job, DePina said. After they helped me with my housing, and they just kept giving me more support with that, More than Words has become an essential part of my life and an essential part of why I am in this spot that I am today, Pacheco said. In the 18 years since More than Words began in Waltham and opened a second location in Boston, they have helped hundreds of young people find their way.WCVB United Way 50 Years Fund: Click here to donateOur 50 Years Fund, powered by The United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley is designed to ensure that youth have the resources to achieve their educational and career goals. Conceived and supported by WCVB employees, the 50 Years Fund will focus on the cause of our generation social and economic justice touching our entire community.Through the generosity of our viewers and your support, we intend to grant at least 5 capacity building gifts of $100,000 each to organizations doing the work in cities and towns in the WCVB viewing area. The 50 Years Fund is committed to making a substantial service impact for the beneficiaries, continuing WCVB Channel 5s legacy as community resource making a positive change in the lives of the people we serve.

Students experiencing housing insecurity are more likely to miss time in school as they face challenges that often make it difficult to keep up with their education.

More than Words is a Massachusetts organization aimed at helping those young people gain critical life skills and work experience.

Empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of the business, two-year employee Luis Carlos Pacheco said.

In a nook tucked into a block off the Expressway in Boston's South End, youll find More than Words, where a new chapter for youth who have been homeless or in the court system begins.

My mental health was just deteriorating just because of everything that I was going through -- with just being homeless and not knowing where I was going to sleep next, Pacheco said.

More than Words is a nonprofit group run by 16- to 24-year-olds who sell books at their retail store that doubles as an event space.

The on-site warehouse collects and tracks and catalogs 4 million donated books annually, plus clothing, and sells most of them online. Pacheco's interest in fashion is growing that part of the operation.

I feel very proud because it's become such an essential part of the business now, he said.

The youths are working on their lives while working for a living.

Advocacy Associate Director John DePina has an invaluable role in helping Pacheco and his other young colleagues with court advocacy and housing, where showing up and taking part is a huge piece of finding success for their future.

Being able to see young people move forward in their lives and say I have overcome things, now I have a community, now I have a group. I belong. I matter. I know that I can do better. I will do better. It makes me happy to do my job, DePina said.

After they helped me with my housing, and they just kept giving me more support with that, More than Words has become an essential part of my life and an essential part of why I am in this spot that I am today, Pacheco said.

In the 18 years since More than Words began in Waltham and opened a second location in Boston, they have helped hundreds of young people find their way.

WCVB United Way 50 Years Fund: Click here to donate

Our 50 Years Fund, powered by The United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley is designed to ensure that youth have the resources to achieve their educational and career goals. Conceived and supported by WCVB employees, the 50 Years Fund will focus on the cause of our generation social and economic justice touching our entire community.

Through the generosity of our viewers and your support, we intend to grant at least 5 capacity building gifts of $100,000 each to organizations doing the work in cities and towns in the WCVB viewing area. The 50 Years Fund is committed to making a substantial service impact for the beneficiaries, continuing WCVB Channel 5s legacy as community resource making a positive change in the lives of the people we serve.

Read this article:

Boston and Waltham's More than Words helping kids with history of homelessness, court issues succeed - WCVB Boston