A follow-up to some previous Top Comments stories, after the jump ….
But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send your nominations to TopComments at gmail dot com by 9:30 PM Eastern Time nightly, or by our KosMail message board. Please indicate (a) why you liked the comment, and (b) your Dkos user name (to properly credit you) as well as a link to the comment itself.
Five months ago, I noted a planned biopic of the French mime, Marcel Marceau — who many people are not aware was a French Resistance member, first helping children to escape (with humor) then as a fighter in young adulthood and acted as a translator for the US Army after the liberation of France. That diary is at this link.
Now …... an update.
This coming weekend, a filmed version of a 1964 performance entitled The Mime Marcel Marceau will premiere at the Dance on Camera Festival in New York’s Lincoln Center — finally released after a long-running rights battle.
And the filming of the Marceau biopic Resistance— with Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) cast in the lead role — will begin production this autumn, with Haley Bennett (Girl on the Train, The Red Sea Diving Resort) as a fellow French Resistance fighter and German actor Matthias Schweighofer to portray the notorious SS commander Klaus Barbie: who was extradited from South America in the 1980’s to stand trial in France, and died in 1991 after receiving a life sentence.
Mr. Marceau (1923-2007)Just over four years ago, I profiled the noted photographer O. Winston Link, who truly made his name a legend by his night-time photography of steam trains in the 1950’s … before they disappeared from scheduled service. And of the museum dedicated to his life’s work — housed in an old Norfolk & Western rail station — that opened in 2001 (three years after his death) in Roanoke, Virginia … where his rail photography is on display. That is at this link.
Now …... an update.
Amtrak recently restored regular passenger service to Roanoke (from Boston to Washington and south) for the first time in nearly 40 years … and the new station is less than ½ mile away from the museum, something the Museum has long been advocating for.
In addition: two years ago, the Link collection became part of the History Museum of Western Virginia, and so there are historical sights beyond the rails available to visitors. Just last week, a student group filmed a short feature film about the struggle of child labor in Roanoke in 1912 — and when complete, will be shown at the Link Museum. So, with new rail transit available and ever increasing historical exhibits ….. the work of O. Winston Link has a new lease-on-life.
Student film “Cotton Clouds”Over the years, I have recounted the story of the Hillsborough Disaster — the death of 96 fans of the noted Liverpool soccer team, crushed to death at a match held at the neutral site of Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England in 1989. My last update of this was a year ago — when the British government truly threw-out the original, flawed inquiry (that was spurred on by Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper) and announced it would criminally prosecute six men in the deaths of 95 of the 96 people killed (Tony Bland, the 96th person, died four years after the incident and thus past the then-existing statute of limitations).
If you are unfamiliar with the story (or need a refresher) you can read about it at this link.
Now, a further update.
Three weeks ago, a judge lifted a stay of prosecution against five of the six men (that had been placed in the year 2000) with three of the defendants set to go on trial this coming January (involving obstruction-of-justice charges in the cover-up).
The prime suspect is David Duckenfield, the police superintendent in charge of security at the ill-fated match …. and his trial (along with the stadium security director) is scheduled to begin in September, charged with manslaughter by gross negligence in his decisions (with a possible life sentence).
S. Yorkshire superintendentFinally, nearly five years ago I wrote about the legendary amateur wrestler (losing only one match in his combined high school & college career), Olympic champion and later highly successful University of Iowa coach Dan Gable — who turned down a chance to enter GOP politics in the Hawkeye State because none-other than Karl Rove told him, 'Coach, you can never be yourself again.' And Dan Gable was … not amused.
If you are unfamiliar with his fascinating life story, you can read it at this link.
Now …... an update.
Over the years, Dan Gable — even though he is convinced it made him a better wrestler, and helped him to win the Olympic gold medal in 1972 — was haunted by his one loss, to University of Washington wrestler Larry Owings (in his final match for the NCAA title in March, 1970) which I detailed in my previous diary on the subject. Then, four years ago in Sports Illustrated:
“I know that the match affected my entire life. Just sitting here, talking about it … it hurts. I’m emotional about it. I’m emotional about it because there’s still a lot of meaning …” His voice trails off, and he lifts a hand to dry his eyes; something that’s been buried deep is suddenly resurfacing.
Later, over beers at a local bar, when he’s asked how often he thinks about his loss in the 1970 NCAA wrestling national championships, he will say, without a beat, “Everyday.”
His wife, Kathy, will turn to him and look as if she suddenly doesn’t know this man she’s been married to for 40 years. “No,” she says, disbelieving. “Really? Really?”
Larry Owings settled into retirement from his school administrator job in his native Oregon ... yet he had anguish for many years afterwards, himself.
“All people still wanted to talk about was that match. Where do you go from there? Who wants to be known for just one thing?”
He thinks about what would have happened if he would have lost his match: maybe he wouldn’t have entered a failed marriage in 1970 just months after the match (“Maybe she wouldn’t have married me if I wouldn’t have been a winner,” he says), maybe he would have pushed himself harder to become an Olympian.
The match changed my life,” he says, but then he suddenly adds, “but there was a time, a long time, when I wished it never happened.”
Then, time began to heal Larry Owings, several years later.
“There was a time I wished it never happened,” he says. “It was around the time I turned 50, and maybe that has something to do with it: I realized that I had a talent, and what’s the point of denying that I had that talent? When I started to embrace that, I started to become happier, I think.”
Yet back in 2014, for all of his Olympic gold medal, and years of success as a head coach at the University of Iowa, plainly Dan Gable had not made that transition:
“Owings and I, we have an interesting relationship, that I just have never … let’s just say we’ve never become close,” he says. From inside his cabin Gable looks out onto the night fast approaching. Finally, he says, “There’s a barrier between us that I’m not sure needs to ever go away.”
Finally, this past St. Patrick’s Day — during the 2018 NCAA wrestling finals held in Cleveland — the two men met for the first time since the 1972 Olympic Trials and appeared in a joint Fan Fest session — (along with a Q&A on this video).
In 1976, there was one of the greatest basketball matches of all time: Game 5 of the 1976 NBA Finals, where the Boston Celtics outlasted the Phoenix Suns 128-126 in triple overtime. And for a few years, members of the Phoenix team (which went on to lose the series in Game 6) were asked by fans what it felt losing Game 5. But as the contest settled into folklore: those same players say they are now hailed by fans ... as having played in that game …. part of history.
And I hope that this meet-up helped Dan Gable finally emotionally transition that match — the amateur wrestling Match of the 20th Century, in the eyes of many — which he admits helped him win Olympic gold two years later. He deserves that.
Larry Owings and Dan GableLet’s close with a short instrumental — from a tribute album to the music of Curtis Mayfield, with the nonpareil drummer Terri Lynne Carrington driving this song.
x xYouTube VideoNow, on to Top Comments:
(Nothing from the field this evening).
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the diary by Einhenetu about the dalliance of Russian spy Mariia Butina— with her consort “U.S. Person 1, age 56” (allegedly Paul Erickson) — warprof notes that he was not an adulterer (having never been married) but is thought to be part of a fundamentalist Christian group … which gardnerhill suspects is part of a pattern.
In the front-page story on the withdrawal of the judicial nomination of Ryan Bounds (for his sexist/racist writings) … hannah felt he had yet other deficiencies as well.
In the front-page story about the California amateur wrestler who just lost his scholarship based upon his provocative behavior at a counter-protest against family separation, Dunvegan suggests he skip college and go to work elsewhere.
And in the front-page story about new images of the very special moon of Saturn, Titan— both pixxer as well as JohnB47 invoke literary figures in their appreciation of this special satellite.
And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
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