Month: August 2021

Ed Asner, the burly and prolific character actor who became a star in middle age as the gruff but lovable newsman Lou Grant, first in the hit comedy “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and later in the drama “Lou Grant,” died Sunday. He was 91.  Asner’s representative confirmed the actor’s death in an email to The Associated Press. Asner’s official Twitter account included a note from his children: “We are sorry to say that our beloved patriarch passed away this morning peacefully. Words cannot express the sadness we feel. With a kiss on your head- Goodnight dad. We love you.”Built like the football lineman he once was, the balding Asner was a journeyman actor in films and TV when he was hired in 1970 to play Lou Grant on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” For seven seasons he was the rumpled boss to Moore’s ebullient Mary Richards (He called her “Mary,” she called him “Mr. Grant”) at the fictional Minneapolis TV newsroom where both worked. Later, he would play the role for five years on “Lou Grant.”The part brought Asner three best supporting actor Emmys on “Mary Tyler Moore” and two best actor awards on “Lou Grant.” He also won Emmys for his roles in the miniseries “Rich Man, Poor Man” (1975-1976) and “Roots” (1976-1977).He had more than 300 acting credits and remained active throughout his 70s and 80s in a variety of film and TV roles. In 2003, he played Santa Claus in Will Ferrell’s hit film “Elf.” He was John Goodman’s father in the short-lived 2004 CBS comedy “Center of the Universe” and the voice of the elderly hero in the hit 2009 Pixar release, “Up.” More recently, he was in such TV series as “Forgive Me” and “Dead to Me.”Nonetheless, Asner told The Associated Press in 2009 that interesting roles were hard to come by.”I never get enough work,” he said. “It’s the history of my career. There just isn’t anything to turn down, let me put it that way.””I’d say most people are probably in that same boat, old people, and it’s a shame,” he said.As Screen Actors Guild president, the liberal Asner was caught up in a political controversy in 1982 when he spoke out against U.S. involvement with repressive governments in Latin America. “Lou Grant” was canceled during the furor that followed and he did not run for a third SAG term in 1985.Asner discussed his politicization in a 2002 interview, noting he had begun his career during the McCarthy era and for years had been afraid to speak out for fear of being blacklisted.Then he saw a nun’s film depicting the cruelties inflicted by El Salvador’s government on that country’s citizens.”I stepped out to complain about our country’s constant arming and fortifying of the military in El Salvador, who were oppressing their people,” he said.Former SAG President Charlton Heston and others accused him of making un-American statements and of misusing his position as head of their actors union.”We even had bomb threats at the time. I had armed guards,” Asner recalled.The actor blamed the controversy for ending the five-year run of “Lou Grant,” although CBS insisted declining ratings were the reason the show was canceled.Asner’s character had caught on from the first episode of “Mary Tyler Moore,” when he told Mary in their initial meeting, “You’ve got spunk. … I hate spunk!” The inspired cast included Ted Knight as Ted Baxter, the dimwitted news anchor, Gavin MacLeod as Murray Slaughter, the sarcastic news writer, and Betty White as the manipulative, sex-obsessed home show hostess Sue Ann Nivens. Valerie Harper and Cloris Leachman, playing Mary’s neighbors, both saw their characters spun off into their own shows.”Mary Tyler Moore” was still a hit when the star decided to pursue other interests, and so it was brought to an end in the seventh season with a hilarious finale in which all of the principals were fired except for the bumbling Baxter.Asner went immediately into “Lou Grant,” his character moving from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to become city editor of the Tribune, a crusading newspaper under the firm hand of Publisher Margaret Pynchon, memorably played by Nancy Marchand.Although the show had its light moments, its scripts touched on a variety of darker social issues that most series wouldn’t touch at the time, including alcoholism and homelessness. Asner remained politically active for the rest of his life and in 2017 published the book “The Grouchy Historian: An Old-Time Lefty Defends Our Constitution Against Right-Wing Hypocrites and Nutjobs.”Asner, born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1929, almost became a newsman in real life. He studied journalism at the University of Chicago until a professor told him there was little money to be made in the profession.He quickly switched to drama, debuting as the martyred Thomas Becket in a campus production of T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral.”He eventually dropped out of school, going to work as a taxi driver and other jobs before being drafted in 1951. He served with the Army Signal Corps in France.Returning to Chicago after military service, he appeared at the Playwrights Theatre Club and Second City, the famed satire troupe that launched the careers of dozens of top comedians.Later, in New York, he joined the long-running “The Threepenny Opera” and appeared opposite Jack Lemmon in “Face of a Hero.”Arriving in Hollywood in 1961 for an episode of television’s “Naked City,” Asner decided to stay and appeared in numerous movies and TV shows, including the film “El Dorado,” opposite John Wayne, and the Elvis Presley vehicles “Kid Galahad” and “Change of Habit.” He was a regular in the 1960s political drama series “Slattery’s People.”He was married twice, to Nancy Lou Sykes and Cindy Gilmore, and had four children, Matthew, Liza, Kate and Charles.
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The Arc de Triomphe has seen parades, protests and tourists galore, but never before has the war monument in Paris been wrapped in silver and blue recyclable polypropylene fabric. That’s about to happen next month in a posthumous art installation designed by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.”Christo has wrapped museums, parliaments as in Germany, but a monument like this? Not really. This is the first time. This is the first monument of this importance and scale that he has done,” Vladimir Yavachev, the late collaborating couple’s nephew, told The Associated Press.Preparations have already started on the Napoleon-era arch, where workers are covering statues to protect them from the wrapping.The idea for L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped was formed in 1961, when Christo and Jeanne-Claude lived in Paris. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, and in spite of Christo’s death in May 2020, the project carried on.”He wanted to complete this project. He made us promise him that we will do it,” Yavachev told The Associated Press.It was to be realized last fall, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the installation.The $16.4 million project is being self-financed through the sale of Christo’s preparatory studies, drawings, scale models and other pieces of work, Yavachev said.Visitors to the foot of the Arc de Triomphe during the installation, scheduled for Sept. 18-Oct. 3, will be able to touch the fabric, and those climbing to the top will step on it when they reach the roof terrace, as intended by the artists.Born in Bulgaria in 1935, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, born in Morocco on the exact same day as him, in Paris in 1958.The artists were known for elaborate, temporary creations that involved blanketing familiar public places with fabric, such as Berlin’s Reichstag and Paris’ Pont Neuf bridge, and creating giant site-specific installations, such as a series of 7,503 gates in New York City’s Central Park and the 39-kilometer Running Fence in California.Yavachev plans on completing another one of his uncle and aunt’s unfinished projects: a 150-meter-tall pyramid-like mastaba in Abu Dhabi.”We have the blueprints, we just have to do it,” he said. 
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The late Cambodian American writer Anthony Veasna So once reportedly described his work as “post-khmer genocide queer stoner fiction,” a narrowly defined niche blown wide open by widespread critical acclaim for his collection of short stories, Afterparties.So’s book is hailed as an exciting and highly original work that captures what it is like to grow up in contemporary American society as a child of Cambodian refugees. Enthusiasm for So’s work bridges seemingly dissimilar universes – literary critics who see its universal appeal and the Cambodian American community that sees family.Uniting the two are So’s vivid descriptions – full of humor and compassion – of families grappling with the traumas of surviving the murderous Khmer Rouge while navigating the cultural dislocation and socio-economic challenges of refugee resettlement.Until now, most depictions of Cambodians in English-language writing and film have been memoirs, nonfiction books and a few well-known movies that focus on an older generation’s stories of surviving the Khmer Rouge killing fields — the “purification” of Cambodia that resulted in the deaths of at least 1.7 million people in a quest by Pol Pot to create an agrarian Marxist utopia in the 1970s.As The New Yorker magazine observed, “Classics of immigrant storytelling can feel sparse and solemn. The stories in So’s Afterparties fill the silence, spilling over with transgressive humor and exuberant language.”The Man Behind Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge ‘Died Easier Than the People He Killed’Cambodians found little comfort in the death of Nuon Chea, believed to be the mastermind behind the Khmer Rouge regime that killed 1.7 million of its countrymen between 1975-1979 “He writes the voices of our Cambodian elders in a way that just feels so accurate,” Monica Sok, a poet who was a friend of So’s, told a recent panel discussion at Book Passage, a Bay Area bookstore. Sok said that as she read So’s work, “I was always thinking like: ‘Yeah, I do know an auntie like that, I know an auntie who thinks she knows how I should live my life.”‘Immense promise’The well-known American literary house Ecco launched Afterparties in early August, printing 100,000 copies after it reportedly signed a $300,000 deal for two books with So, who died in December 2020 of an accidental drug overdose at his home in San Francisco. Another book based on segments from an unfinished novel is expected in 2023.The New Yorker, which first published some of his early stories, described So’s death at 28 as “cutting short a literary career of extraordinary achievement and immense promise.”The headline of a glowing Washington Post review called Afterparties “a bittersweet testament to the late author’s talents.”Alexander Torres, the writer who was So’s partner for seven years, told VOA Khmer “the humor, the lightheartedness, the jokes, but also the really beautiful descriptions” are what made So’s writing unique with a style that “combines humor with high art and with low art.”Younger perspectiveSo’s writing captures the second generation’s perspective on the effects of lingering trauma and other issues at the heart of the Cambodian American community, while touching on more universal contemporary themes such as the complexities of race, youth and sexuality.As any Cambodian born to Khmer Rouge survivors can attest, the horror stories and traumas inflicted by the murderous 1970s regime are part of growing up.So’s sharp observations about his parents’ coping mechanisms and the effects of their traumas on their children offer an unflinching look at the multigenerational impact of war and violence. Yet, he never overlooks the humor and absurdity this can create for an Americanized second generation. In one incident he describes a father shouting at a teen drinking iced water: “There were no ice cubes in the genocide!”Afterparties contains nine short stories, including Somaly Serey, Serey Somaly, about the Buddhist belief in reincarnation set in an Alzheimer’s and dementia unit. Generational Differences is about a 1989 shooting at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, a small California city that is home to one of the largest Cambodian communities in the U.S. Most of the victims were children of Southeast Asian descent. Five died. So’s mother, who worked at the school, witnessed the violence.Cambodian Refugees ‘Accomplished So Much’New photography book bears witness to resilience of Cambodians who created a close-knit community in a poor Chicago neighborhood after fleeing war, genocide So’s book built on a reputation from work published in various outlets, including a 2018 story in n+1 magazine called Superking Son Scores Again, about a legendary badminton player turned grocery store owner who tries to relive his glory days.Mark Krotov, the magazine’s co-editor and publisher, told VOA Khmer that So’s work would likely affect many young writers. “There is so much wisdom in it, there is so much adventure … so much risk-taking, so much beauty, so much intelligence, so much provocation. And all those things in combination suggest to me that this is the book that’s going to be remembered,” Krotov said in a recent phone interview.N+1 magazine recently established an award called “Anthony Veasna So’s Fiction Prize” in his honor. The first recipient is Trevor Shikaze, a writer for n+1 from Canada.‘Centering’ Cambodian AmericansSo’s parents fled northwestern Cambodia’s Battambang province and settled as refugees in Stockton, a river city in California’s Central Valley. His father ran an auto repair shop and his mother worked as a civil servant. So was born in Stockton in 1992.Cambodian American intellectuals said So’s fiction masterfully conveyed their experiences, family life and sense of community.“Reading through Afterparties, it was so resonant, it was so refreshing, to see the Cambodian diaspora, which is not represented in literature – apart from the survival literature,” said So’s friend Sok.“Anthony is really centering Cambodian people in America and the second generation as well, those who are born in this country and inheriting their parents’ traumas, but also trying to find their own way in life,” she added.Sokunthary Svay, a Cambodian American writer and librettist from New York City, told VOA Khmer, “I think what makes his writing particularly important for our diaspora is that he would speak about experiences that a lot of us knew growing up here in the States.”So was from a large family, and all the children were high-achieving students. He graduated from Stanford University, where he enrolled for computer science and graduated with a degree in English, a switch that initially dismayed his family. He earned his MFA in fiction at Syracuse University.’Cambodian Space Project’ Brings Psychedelic Rock Back to US

        The Cambodian Space Project, long on the forefront of a local rock'n'roll revival, is a band making good with their pre-Khmer Rouge Cambodia sound.The Cambodian-Australian group, kicked off a mini-U.S. tour on Tuesday with a performance at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage. Channthy Kak, 38, also known as Srey Thy, said she was honored to have been invited to perform at the Washington venue, where the band played their original brand of psychedelic rock, before heading to New York City and…

According to his sister, Samantha Lamb, So loved television shows and movies and he discovered his talent while trying to write a script for a television show about a Cambodian American family based on his own life.Lamb reacted to So’s stories with recognition. “OK yes, yes, that is the story about my grandma’s sister, that’s the story about my aunt,” Lamb told VOA Khmer. “This person represents this person in my family.”Processing genocideLamb said Khmer Rouge-era experiences are a recurrent theme in So’s work, as “it is a big part of who we are and growing up my parents talked about it all the time.”In Duplex, a story published in The New Yorker, So wrote, “I had grown up hearing the stories of the genocide, worked to help build our new American identities, and mourned, alongside everyone else in my family, the gaps in our history that could never be recovered.”Lamb said her brother found a way to process this family history and turn it into a new, contemporary experience.His work “tells the stories of the Cambodian genocide, but from a young person’s perspective,” Lamb said. “There hasn’t really been any book or movie or TV show about Cambodians in the Western eyes, you know in the American eyes, that has been about just like who we are as Cambodian Americans now. So, I think that’s what makes it more relatable to people.”According to Lamb, the family continues to struggle with So’s death, although they are immensely proud to see his writing being so well received. His father sleeps in So’s bed to console himself, while his mother is going to a therapist and their grandmother is claiming So may soon be reincarnated.“I am pregnant right now,’’ Lamb said, ‘’and it is a boy. … And especially my grandma has been like ‘Oh! Anthony is coming back. He is being reincarnated.’”  
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Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is heading back to England to play for the team where he became a legend.Manchester United said Friday that it had reached an agreement to bring the 36-year-old Portuguese forward back to Old Trafford, where the storied club plays.”Manchester United is delighted to confirm that the club has reached agreement with Juventus for the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo, subject to agreement of personal terms, visa and medical,” a statement from the team read.”Cristiano, a five-time Ballon d’Or winner, has so far won over 30 major trophies during his career, including five Champions League titles, four FIFA Club World Cups, seven league titles in England, Spain and Italy, and the European Championship for his native Portugal.”In his first spell for Manchester United, he scored 118 goals in 292 games. Everyone at the club looks forward to welcoming Cristiano back to Manchester,” the statement concluded.Ronaldo said on Thursday that he no longer wanted to play for Juventus of the Italian league.While details of the move were not officially made public, The Associated Press said the transfer fee would be $29.5 million. Ronaldo had a year left on his contract with Juventus. His contract with United is for two years.Ronaldo played previously for Manchester United from 2003 to 2009 when he left to play for Spanish team Real Madrid before moving on to Juventus.Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who played alongside Ronaldo at the club, said, “He is the greatest player of all time, if you ask me.”“Such a tremendous human being as well. … Everyone who’s played with him, I think, has a soft spot for him,” Solskjaer said.United no doubt hopes Ronaldo can help the team win the Premier League championship, something it hasn’t done since 2013.Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Charlie Watts, the self-effacing and unshakeable Rolling Stones drummer who helped anchor one of rock’s greatest rhythm sections and used his “day job” to support his enduring love of jazz, has died, according to his publicist. He was 80.Bernard Doherty said Tuesday that Watts “passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family.”“Charlie was a cherished husband, father and grandfather and also as a member of The Rolling Stones one of the greatest drummers of his generation,” Doherty said.Watts had announced he would not tour with the Stones in 2021 because of an undefined health issue.The quiet, elegantly dressed Watts was often ranked with Keith Moon, Ginger Baker and a handful of others as a premier rock drummer, respected worldwide for his muscular, swinging style as the Stones rose from their scruffy beginnings to international superstardom. He joined the band early in 1963 and remained over the next 60 years, ranked just behind Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as the group’s longest-lasting and most essential member.Watts stayed on, and largely held himself apart, through the drug abuse, creative clashes and ego wars that helped kill founding member Brian Jones, drove bassist Bill Wyman and Jones’ replacement Mick Taylor to quit and otherwise made being in the Stones the most exhausting of jobs.A classic Stones song like “Brown Sugar” and “Start Me Up” often began with a hard guitar riff from Richards, with Watts following closely behind, and Wyman, as the bassist liked to say, “fattening the sound.” Watts’ speed, power and time keeping were never better showcased than during the concert documentary, “Shine a Light,” when director Martin Scorsese filmed “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” from where he drummed toward the back of the stage.The Stones began, Watts said, “as white blokes from England playing Black American music” but quickly evolved their own distinctive sound. Watts was a jazz drummer in his early years and never lost his affinity for the music he first loved, heading his own jazz band and taking on numerous other side projects.He had his eccentricities — Watts liked to collect cars even though he didn’t drive and would simply sit in them in his garage. But he was a steadying influence on stage and off as the Stones defied all expectations by rocking well into their 70s, decades longer than their old rivals the Beatles.Watts didn’t care for flashy solos or attention of any kind, but with Wyman and Richards forged some of rock’s deepest grooves on “Honky Tonk Women,” “Brown Sugar” and other songs. The drummer adapted well to everything from the disco of “Miss You” to the jazzy “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and the dreamy ballad “Moonlight Mile.”Jagger and Richards at times seemed to agree on little else besides their admiration of Watts, both as a man and a musician. Richards called Watts “the key” and often joked that their affinity was so strong that on stage he’d sometimes try to rattle Watts by suddenly changing the beat — only to have Watts change it right back.Jagger and Richards could only envy his indifference to stardom and relative contentment in his private life, when he was as happy tending to the horses on his estate in rural Devon, England, as he ever was on stage at a sold-out stadium.Watts did on occasion have an impact beyond drumming. He worked with Jagger on the ever more spectacular stage designs for the group’s tours. He also provided illustrations for the back cover of the acclaimed 1967 album “Between the Buttons” and inadvertently gave the record its title. When he asked Stones manager Andrew Oldham what the album would be called, Oldham responded “Between the buttons,” meaning undecided. Watts thought that “Between the Buttons” was the actual name and included it in his artwork.To the world, he was a rock star. But Watts often said that the actual experience was draining and unpleasant, and even frightening. “Girls chasing you down the street, screaming…horrible!… I hated it,” he told The Guardian newspaper in an interview. In another interview, he described the drumming life as a “cross between being an athlete and a total nervous wreck.”Author Philip Norman, who has written extensively about the Rolling Stones, said Watts lived “in constant hope of being allowed to catch the next plane home.” On tour, he made a point of drawing each hotel room he stayed in, a way of marking time until he could return to his family. He said little about playing the same songs for more than 40 years as the Stones recycled their classics. But he did branch out far beyond “Satisfaction” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by assembling and performing with jazz bands in the second half of his career.Charles Robert Watts, son of a lorry driver and a housewife, was born in Neasden, London, on June 2, 1941. From childhood, he was passionate about music — jazz in particular. He fell in love with the drums after hearing Chico Hamilton and taught himself to play by listening to records by Johnny Dodds, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and other jazz giants.He worked for a London advertising firm after he attended Harrow Art College and played drums in his spare time. London was home to a blues and jazz revival in the early 1960s, with Jagger, Richards and Eric Clapton among the future superstars getting their start. Watts’ career took off after he played with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, for whom Jagger also performed, and was encouraged by Korner to join the Stones.Watts wasn’t a rock music fan at first and remembered being guided by Richards and Brian Jones as he absorbed blues and rock records, notably the music of bluesman Jimmy Reed. He said the band could trace its roots to a brief period when he had lost his job and shared an apartment with Jagger and Richards because he could live there rent-free.“Keith Richards taught me rock and roll,” Watts said. “We’d have nothing to do all day and we’d play these records over and over again. I learned to love Muddy Waters. Keith turned me on to how good Elvis Presley was, and I’d always hated Elvis up ’til then.”Watts was the final man to join the Stones; the band had searched for months to find a permanent drummer and feared Watts was too accomplished for them. Richards would recall the band wanting him so badly to join that members cut down on expenses so they could afford to pay Watts a proper salary. Watts said he believed at first the band would be lucky to last a year.“Every band I’d ever been in had lasted a week,” he said. “I always thought the Stones would last a week, then a fortnight, and then suddenly, it’s 30 years.”
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The Paralympics began Tuesday in the same empty National Stadium — during the same pandemic — as the opening and closing ceremonies of the recently completed Tokyo Olympics.
Japanese Emperor Naruhito got it all started again, this time under the theme “We Have Wings.”Among the few on hand were Douglas Emhoff, husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons and International Olympic President Thomas Bach.It was a circus-like opening with acrobats, clowns, vibrant music and fireworks atop the stadium to mark the the start of the long parade of athletes.Entertainers perform during the opening ceremony for the 2020 Paralympics at the National Stadium in Tokyo, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021.”I cannot believe we are finally here,” Parsons said in his opening remarks. “Many doubted this day would happen. Many thought it impossible. But thanks to the efforts many, the most transformative sport event on earth is about to begin.”The opening ceremony featured the national flags of the 162 delegations represented, which included the refugee team. In addition, the flag of Afghanistan was carried by a volunteer despite the delegation not being on hand in Tokyo.Comparisons to the Olympics stop with the colorful jamboree, save for the logistical and medical barriers during the pandemic, and the hollowing out of almost everything else.Tokyo and Paralympic organizers are under pressure from soaring new infections in the capital. About 40% of the Japanese population is fully vaccinated. But daily new cases in Tokyo have increased four to five times since the Olympics opened on July 23. Tokyo is under a state of emergency until Sept. 12, with the Paralympics ending Sept. 5.Organizers on Tuesday also announced the first positive test for an athlete living in the Paralympic Village. They gave no name or details and said the athlete had been isolated.The Paralympics are being held without fans, although organizers are planning to let some school children attend, going against the advice of much of the medical community.Parsons and Seiko Hashimoto, the president of the Tokyo organizing committee, say the Paralympics can be held safely. Both have tried to distance the Paralympics and Olympics from Tokyo’s rising infection rate.”For the moment we don’t see the correlation between having the Paralympics in Tokyo with the rising number of cases in Tokyo and Japan,” Parsons told The Associated Press.Some medical experts say even if there is no direct link, the presence of the Olympics and Paralympics promoted a false sense of security and prompted people to let down their guard, which may have helped spread the virus.Athletes from the United States wave as they enter the stadium during the opening ceremony for the 2020 Paralympics at the National Stadium in Tokyo, Aug. 24, 2021.The Paralympics are about athletic prowess. The origin of the word is from “parallel” — an event running alongside the Olympics.Markus Rehm — known as the “Blade Jumper” — lost his right leg below the knee when he was 14 in a wakeboarding accident, but earlier this year he jumped 8.62 meters, a distance that would have won the last seven Olympics, including the Tokyo Games. Tokyo’s winning long jump was 8.41 meters.”The stigma attached to disability changes when you watch the sport,” said Craig Spence, a spokesman for the International Paralympic Committee. “These games will change your attitude toward disability.”If you look around Japan, it’s very rare you see persons with disabilities on the street,” Spence added. “We’ve got to go from protecting people to empowering people and creating opportunities for people to flourish in society.”Archer Matt Stutzman was born with no arms, just stumps at the shoulders. He holds a world record — for any archer, disabled or otherwise — for the longest, most accurate shot, hitting a target at 310 yards, or about 283 meters.Wheelchair fencer Bebe Vivo contracted meningitis as a child and to save her life, doctors amputated both her forearms and both her legs at the knees.”So many people told me that it was impossible to do fencing without any hands,” Vivo said in a recent interview. “So it was so important to me to demonstrate and show people that it doesn’t matter if you don’t have hands, or you don’t have legs or whatever. If you have a dream and you really want to achieve it, just go and take it.”Stutzman and Vivo are both set to compete in Tokyo and have already won medals in previous games, superstars who told their stories last year in the Netflix documentary about the Paralympics called “Rising Phoenix.”The rest of the 4,403 Paralympic athletes in Tokyo — a record number for any Paralympics — will be telling their stories until the closing ceremony.”I feel like I’m meeting movie stars,” said 14-year-old Ugandan swimmer Husnah Kukundakwe, who is competing for the first time.She acknowledged being a self-conscious adolescent, even more so because of a congenital impairment that left her with no lower right arm, an her left hand slightly misshapen.”Since it’s the Paralympics and everybody else is disabled, I feel really comfortable with myself,” she said. “In Uganda, there are very few people who have disabilities who want to come out and be themselves.”Paralympic organizers played a part last week in launching “WeThe15,” a human-rights campaign aimed at 1.2 billion people — 15% of the global population — with disabilities. They’ve also produced a 90-second video to promote the cause of social inclusion.”Difference is a strength, it is not a weakness,” Parsons said, speaking in the largely empty stadium. “And as we build back better in the post-pandemic world, it must feature societies where opportunities exist for all.”Shingo Katori, a member of boy band SMAP that had its roots in the 1980s, now works with Paralympic organizers. He acknowledged his early fears of working with people with disabilities.”Frankly speaking, people in wheelchairs or people with artificial legs — I hadn’t had an opportunity to meet these people and I didn’t know how to communicate with them,” he said. “But through Paralympic sports, such hesitation faded away.”Stutzman, known as the “Armless Archer,” has a disarming sense of humor — pardon the pun. He jokes about growing up wanting the be like former NBA star Michael Jordan.”I gave it up,” he deadpans. “I wasn’t tall enough.”
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Beeple, NFT, Ethereum – words familiar mostly in the worlds of cryptocurrency and digital art.  but they have revolutionized the art world and are now worth millions of dollars. Maxim Avloshenko looked into what exactly they are and why they are worth so much in this story, narrated by Anna Rice. 
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The Afghanistan flag will be displayed in Tuesday’s opening ceremony of the Paralympics even though the country’s athletes were not able to get to Tokyo to compete.
Andrew Parsons, the president of the International Paralympic Committee, said Monday it will be done as a “sign of solidarity.”
Parsons said a representative of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees would carry the flag in the National Stadium during the opening ceremony. It’s the same stadium where the opening ceremony of the Olympics took place on July 23.
The two Paralympic athletes from Afghanistan were unable to reach Tokyo after the Taliban took control of the country more than a week ago. They are para-taekwondo athlete Zakia Khudadadi and discus thrower Hossain Rasouli.
Parsons said 162 delegations will be represented in Tokyo, which includes refugee athletes. The IPC has said about 4,400 athletes will compete in the Paralympics. The exact number is to be released on Tuesday.
The Paralympics will close on Sept. 5 and are facing a surge around Tokyo in COVID-19 cases. Cases in the capital have increased from four or five times since the Olympics opened a month ago.
Organizers and the IPC say there is no connection between the Olympics or Paralympics taking place in Tokyo, and the rising cases among the general Tokyo population.
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Don Everly, one-half of the pioneering Everly Brothers whose harmonizing country rock hits impacted a generation of rock ‘n’ roll music, has died. He was 84.Everly died at his home in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday, according to his attorney and family spokesperson Linda Edell Howard. His brother, Phil Everly, died in January 2014 at age 74.”Don lived by what he felt in his heart,” a statement from the family said. “Don expressed his appreciation for the ability to live his dreams … living in love with his soul mate and wife, Adela, and sharing the music that made him an Everly Brother. Don always expressed how grateful he was for his fans.”In the late 1950s and 1960s, the duo of Don and Phil drew upon their rural roots with their strummed guitars and high, yearning harmonies, while their poignant songs — many written by the team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant — embodied teenage restlessness and energy. Their 19 top 40 hits included “Bye Bye Love,” “Let It Be Me,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream” and “Wake Up Little Susie.” Performers from the Beatles to Simon & Garfunkel cited them as key influences.”The Everly Brothers are integral to the fabric of American music,” said Jerry Lee Lewis in a statement. “With my friend Don’s passing, I am reflective … reflective on a life full of wonderful friends, spectacular music and fond memories. There’s a lot I can say about Don, what he and Phil meant to me both as people and as musicians, but I am going to reflect today.”Songs like “Bye Bye Love” and “Wake Up Little Susie” appealed to the postwar generation of baby boomers, and their deceptively simple harmonies hid greater meaning among the lighter pop fare of the era.  The two broke up amid quarreling in 1973 after 16 years of hits, then reunited in 1983, “sealing it with a hug,” Phil Everly said.Although their number of hit records declined in the late 1980s, they had successful concert tours in the U.S. and Europe.They were inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, the same year they had a hit pop-country record, “Born Yesterday.” Two years earlier, they had success with the up-tempo ballad “On the Wings of a Nightingale,” written by Paul McCartney.”As a singer, a songwriter and a guitar innovator, Don Everly was one of the most talented and impactful artists in popular music history,” said Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, in a statement. The brothers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.  Don Everly was born in Brownie, Kentucky, to Ike and Margaret Everly, who were folk and country music singers. Phil Everly was born to the couple in Chicago, where the Everlys moved from Brownie when Ike grew tired of working in the coal mines.The brothers began singing country music in 1945 on their family’s radio show in Shenandoah, Iowa.Their career breakthrough came when they moved to Nashville in the mid-1950s and signed a recording contract with New York-based Cadence Records.Their breakup came dramatically during a concert at Knott’s Berry Farm in California. Phil Everly threw his guitar down and walked off, prompting Don Everly to tell the crowd, “The Everly Brothers died 10 years ago.”The disputes between the brothers even went to court, when Don Everly sued the heirs of Phil Everly in 2017 over the copyright to three of their songs, including “Cathy’s Clown.” The case went all the way to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.But after Phil’s death in 2014, Don said that he felt a spiritual message from his brother before he died.  “Our love was and will always be deeper than any earthly differences we might have had,” Don Everly said in a statement in 2014.  While apart, they pursued solo singing careers with little success. Phil also appeared in the 1978 Clint Eastwood movie “Every Which Way but Loose.” Don made a couple of records with friends in Nashville, performed in local nightclubs and played guitar and sang background vocals on recording sessions.Don Everly said in a 1986 Associated Press interview that he and his brother were successful because “we never followed trends. We did what we liked and followed our instincts. Rock ‘n’ roll did survive, and we were right about that. Country did survive, and we were right about that. You can mix the two, but people said we couldn’t.”Decades later, their impact on popular music is still evident. In 2013, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones released a loving tribute to the Everlys on their collaborative album “Foreverly.”
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The Tokyo Paralympics open Tuesday after a year-long pandemic delay and with the virus continuing to cast a long shadow as Japan battles a record surge in cases. As at the Olympics, the event will be marked by strict virus rules, with almost all spectators banned and tough restrictions on athletes and other participants.   While a swell of domestic support emerged during the Olympics after months of negative polls, there is deep concern in Japan as the Paralympics approach with the country going through a fifth virus wave. More than 25,000 new cases were recorded on Thursday, and medics across the country have warned hospitals are at breaking point with serious cases also at record highs.   It’s a challenging environment for the most important sports event for disabled athletes, and International Paralympic Committee chief Andrew Parsons has warned participants against complacency.   Despite the backdrop, IPC officials insist the reach of the event will be “incredible.”A woman walks near a sing of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Aug. 20, 2021, in Tokyo. The Tokyo Paralympics open on Aug. 24 in a ceremony at Tokyo’s National Stadium.”Of course, the fact that we will not have spectators at the venues is a challenge,” Parsons told AFP in an interview. “But we believe we will reach more than 4 billion people through broadcasting.” Local officials say the Games can be held safely, with athletes and other participants subject to the same anti-infection rules that applied to the Olympics. Competitors can only enter the Paralympic Village shortly before their event and must leave within 48 hours of the end of their competition.   They will be tested daily and limited to moving between training venues, competition sites and the Village.   The measures are intended to prevent the Games from becoming a superspreader event — and officials say the Olympics proved the restrictions work. There were 552 positive cases linked to the Olympics reported from July 1 until Sunday, the majority among Japan residents employed by the Games or working as contractors. So far, 138 cases related to the Paralympics have been confirmed, also mostly among Japan-based Olympic officials, though at least four athletes have also tested positive. But Olympic officials say there is no evidence of infection spreading from the Games to the rest of Japan, where case numbers were already on the rise.   Still organizers acknowledge the worsening environment. “The infection situation today is different to how it was before the Olympics. It has deteriorated,” said Tokyo 2020 official Hidemasa Nakamura on Friday. “And the local medical system is also in a very tight situation.” The virus surge has caused tensions, with some local regions and schools cancelling planned trips to Games events despite support for the programme from Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. The mood among Paralympians remains buoyant though, after the uncertainties of the year-long delay.   “It’s our time to take aim at gold!” tweeted U.S. archer Matt Stutzman, a Paralympic silver medalist who uses the handle “Armless Archer.” Stutzman is among those likely to be making an appearance on the medal podium during the Games, which will see 4,400 athletes from around 160 national teams competing.   There are 22 sports, with athletes competing in different categories and classes depending on the nature of their disability. Badminton and taekwondo are appearing for the first time. Top names include Germany’s Markus Rehm, dubbed the “Blade Jumper” for his gravity-defying feats in long jump, which have earned him three gold medals and a bronze. He has pushed to be included in the Olympics, but so far without success over concerns that his prosthetic blade gives him an advantage. Other household names include Tatyana McFadden, the American wheelchair racer who will be competing in her fifth summer Paralympics.   She also appeared at the Sochi Winter Games, where she won a silver medal in the country where she was born, as her adoptive U.S. mother and Russian birth mother cheered her on.   Japan will be hoping it can repeat the gold rush that saw it bring home a record 58 gold Olympic medals.   Among its top medal hopes is Shingo Kuneida, the reigning world No. 1 wheelchair men’s single champion and considered one of the greatest figures in the sport. 
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Cuban Yordenis Ugas pulled off a stunning victory over 42-year-old former champion Manny Pacquiao with a unanimous decision to retain his WBA welterweight world title after an intense fight in Las Vegas on Saturday.   The judges scored the fight 115-113, 116-112, 116-112 in favor of Ugas, who controlled the second half of the contest with his jab as the more aggressive Pacquiao struggled to land his punches on his return to the ring after a two-year absence.  “Now the plan is to unify the title,” Ugas, 35, said in the ring through a translator. “Everyone said he was the champion, now they know who the real champion is.” Pacquiao was initially preparing to fight WBC and IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. but a retinal tear in the American’s left eye forced him to withdraw, with Ugas agreeing to step in at less than two weeks’ notice.   Ugas had been elevated to WBA super champion after Pacquiao was stripped of the belt because of inactivity as he had not fought since July 2019 and the Filipino looked desperate to get it back.   The clear favorite of the 17,438 fans at the T-Mobile Arena, southpaw Pacquiao came out aggressively in the early rounds with his trademark speed and combinations. Ugas’s long reach enabled him to keep the former eight-division world champion at arm’s length, however, and his jab was proving an effective, if not fight-winning, weapon. Pacquiao continued to throw almost twice as many punches as his opponent, but the Cuban was more accurate with his, and there was plenty of sting in the big rights he was starting to land over the top. The crowd was reduced to a nervous silence as the fight headed into the final rounds with no sign of the knockout that Pacquiao needed to win, although spectators were roused into voice when the fighters went toe-to-toe in the 10th.   Ultimately, though, Pacquiao’s aging legs had nothing more to give and Ugas, a bronze medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, earned the decision to improve his record to 27-4.   Pacquiao, the only man in boxing history to hold world titles in eight different divisions and one of the greatest boxers of all time, will announce next month if he will run for the presidency of the Philippines in the 2022 elections. 
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Famed Iraqi musician Ilham al-Madfai hosted a private concert in the Atlanta, Georgia, suburb of Duluth recently to mark 55 years of performing. Al-Madfai is a guitarist, singer and composer who combines Western guitar styling with traditional Iraqi music. His Western-inspired songwriting prompted his nickname, “The Baghdad Beatle.”His music is popular across the Arab world, as was reflected in the crowd of Algerians, Syrians, Egyptians and Iraqis at his Duluth show.”I fought so hard to be here,” said Nura Khuffash, a Georgia resident at the invitation-only concert.Amid the coronavirus pandemic and upheaval in the Middle East, the small concert provided an eagerly sought respite for many of the guests commemorating the 79-year-old al-Madfai’s long-running career.The author of this story is a friend of the family of the performer.”I was listening to Ilham’s music since I was a little girl,” Khuffash, a native of Nablus, West Bank, told VOA.”I really fought to be here because I had to find someone to watch my kids so I could come with my friends. I really went above and beyond, and I’m excited to be here,” Kuffash said. The songs of al-Madfai originate from compositions written at the beginning of the last century. They are often played as Maqam, a melodic style of music popular in the Middle East that incorporates stringed instruments, such as the qanun, and drums, such as the tabla. Al-Madfai, who was born in Baghdad, has popularized these traditional Arabic classics through an energetic vocal performance. Throughout his recent celebratory performance, concertgoers sprang out of their chairs in the small but packed indoor venue and burst into dancing, a testament to al-Madfai’s appeal. Attendees of the private concert are seen dancing to the music of Al-Madfai.Although al-Madfai’s music often sparks a contagious, joyful energy at his shows, his lyrics are poignant, injected with deep political connotations. Al-Madfai drew a major following in Iraq in the 1970s, but Saddam Hussein’s rise to power in 1979 prompted him to leave the country. He returned to Iraq shortly before the Gulf War. In 1994, he emigrated to Jordan, where he currently resides. “The songs are very special,” said Ara Artanik, a drummer who performs with al-Madfai in the United States. “They have political meanings, and the songs are written as an artistic expression and reflect the political situation in Iraq as well as the rest of the region, which many Arabs can relate to, not just Iraqis,” Artanik said. Another guest, Rania Layous, described al-Madfai’s music as a connecting force that binds members of the Arab diaspora living in the U.S. “Every song has a story, and it’s very much related to not just the Iraqi culture but all of the Middle East,” Layous said. “It’s really nice, you know, because we all have immigrated and we all have a story, so his music ties us together to the experience we share from the same region.”Layous, who is of Palestinian origin, emphasized how notable al-Madfai’s voice is for an Arabic singer. But because of his strong Iraqi accent, not everything he sings is intelligible. “Some of the words when he’s singing I don’t understand, but because his voice is so unique, the songs become very melodic, which you just want to shake and dance to,” Layous said. Al-Madfai’s son, Mohamad, who is also his manager, spoke with VOA about the shared partnership and sentimentality father and son feel. “It’s very emotional,” Mohamad said. “We started 25 years ago together, just the two of us, developed the basics of production, music production and putting on concerts and touring. And since then, we’ve performed in about 60-70 countries.”Al-Madfai often performs during short stays in the U.S. He is scheduled to perform a couple of shows in the U.S. before returning to the Middle East later this year.
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Japanese actor Sonny Chiba, who wowed the world with his martial arts skills in more than 100 films, including “Kill Bill,” has died. He was 82.Chiba, known in Japan as Shinichi Chiba, died late Thursday in a hospital near Tokyo where he had been treated for COVID-19 since Aug. 8, Tokyo-based Astraia, his management office, said in a statement Friday. It said he had not been vaccinated. Chiba rose to stardom in Japan in the 1960s, portraying samurai, fighters and police detectives, the anguished so-called “anti-heroes” trying to survive in a violent world. He did many of the stunt scenes himself. His overseas career took off after his 1970s Japanese film “The Street Fighter” proved popular in the U.S. American director Quentin Tarantino listed the work as among his “grindhouse,” or low-budget kitsch cinema, favorites. Tarantino cast Chiba in the role of Hattori Hanzo, a master swordsmith in “Kill Bill.”Chiba appeared in the 1991 Hollywood film “Aces,” directed by John Glen, as well as in Hong Kong movies. Chiba’s career also got a boost from the global boom in kung fu films, set off by Chinese legend Bruce Lee, although critics say Chiba tended to exhibit a dirtier, thug-like fighting style than Lee.“A true action legend. Your films are eternal and your energy an inspiration. #SonnyChiba #RIP,” American actor Lewis Tan said on Twitter. New York-based writer and director Ted Geoghegan called him “the great Sonny Chiba.” “Watch one of his films today,” Geoghegan tweeted, followed by images of a fist and a broken heart. Other fans mournfully filled Twitter threads with clips of his movies and photos.  Born in Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, Chiba studied at Nippon Sport Science University trained in various martials arts, earning a fourth-degree black belt in karate. Chiba set up Japan Action Club in 1980, to develop a younger generation of actors, including protege Hiroyuki Sanada, who is among Hollywood’s most coveted Japanese actors, landing roles in “The Last Samurai” and “Rush Hour 3.”Chiba is survived by his three children, Juri Manase, Mackenyu Arata and Gordon Maeda, all actors. A wake was canceled as a pandemic measure, and funeral arrangements were still undecided, his office said.
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