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gadgetsrevv · 5 years

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Abdelhak Nouri: The Ajax prodigy who suffered permanent brain damage

Abdelhak Nouri of Ajax (left) suffered permanent brain damage after collapsing during a 2017 pre-season friendly

It is a Saturday afternoon in Geuzenveld, a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Three hundred metres away from the main station, children are playing football. On the fence behind one of the goals, a large banner dominates the scene.

‘Appie 4 Ever.’

Geuzenveld is not a touristic part of the Dutch capital. But this playground has sadly become a pilgrimage spot for Ajax fans and football lovers alike.

This is where Abdelhak Nouri, known as Appie, learned his first tricks and flicks in football. It was where he emulated Andres Iniesta, Kaka and Ronaldinho. It was where he honed his fine technique and ball control before making it as a professional.

“Appie still came back here even after being promoted to Ajax’s first team,” one of the kids says. He points with pride at a large flag depicting one of Nouri’s iconic moments – his first senior goal, on 21 September 2016.

Nouri, 22, was one of the most promising footballers of Ajax’s academy. He belonged to the same generation of talent that helped the club reach last season’s Champions League semi-finals. But his career came to a tragic end.

He collapsed in a friendly game against Werder Bremen during a pre-season tour in the Austrian Alps on 8 July 2017. He is now in a hospital bed with permanent brain damage.

Ajax later admitted their medical team’s treatment of Nouri was ‘inadequate’

Before that fateful match at the tiny Lindenstadion Hippach, about 65km from Innsbruck, Nouri had suffered stomach pains and had not slept well. Conditions in the Alps that day were very hot. Still, he played, replacing Hakim Ziyech after half-time.

In the 72nd minute, Nouri slowed and moved gently to the ground, turning back to look up at the sky.

It took 10 seconds for the referee to realise that he was down and summon for medical attention. Another 10 seconds passed before the Ajax physio arrived. Fifteen seconds later, the club doctor was at Nouri’s side too.

When Ajax striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar panicked, the Werder Bremen players reacted too and the German team’s doctor also rushed on to the pitch. They formed a circle around Nouri. Some players started crying. Others were praying.

After three minutes of treatment, the players around began to realise this was not a normal injury. Nouri was suffering cardiac arrest. It had taken longer than expected to understand that.

Two local medics arrived and connected a defibrillator around seven minutes after Nouri had collapsed. In the meantime, local doctor Daniel Rainer received a call and rushed to the stadium.

“The message I received was: person unconscious on the football pitch. When I arrived, resuscitation was in process and the patient was already defibrillated,” he told Dutch paper De Volkskrant.

“The patient had received medication to stimulate circulation. I continued resuscitation and after 13 minutes of treatment, we reached the recovery of spontaneous heartbeat and breathing.”

A helicopter arrived to take Nouri to hospital in Innsbruck. His family members would join him soon. It took longer for his dad to come, since he was in Morocco.

In hospital, while Nouri was in an induced coma, the first signs were positive – heart and brain tests were OK. But after a few days, when his family had arrived, further tests showed he had suffered serious brain damage.

Almost a year later, in June 2018, Ajax admitted that their medical treatment of Nouri was “inadequate”.

In a statement, Ajax chief executive Edwin van der Sar, the former Fulham and Manchester United goalkeeper, said cardiologists studying new evidence put forward by the family found too much time was spent clearing Nouri’s airways.

Van der Sar said the club medics had been “insufficiently focused on measuring the heartbeat, circulation, and resuscitation”.

A defibrillator should also “have been used sooner”, he said, adding: “Had this happened, it’s possible that Abdelhak would have come out in a better condition. This isn’t certain, but it’s a possibility.

“We recognise our responsibility and liability for the consequences of this.”

In the playground that now bears Nouri’s name, a young man playing basketball greets the visitor in Arabic. “As-salamu alaykum,” he says. He is used to seeing strangers, the many people who bring flowers.

The Nouri family live just around the corner. His younger sisters are outside, chatting with friends. Nouri is one of seven children.

Geuzenveld has plenty of migrant communities. Mohammed Nouri, his father, came from Morocco and for many years worked in a butcher’s not far from Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam’s trendy Jordaan neighbourhood.

“I can still see him playing with a small ball, all around where you are sitting,” Mohammed says, as Rabia, the player’s mother, offers mint tea and Moroccan delicacies. This has always been their home.

Frenkie de Jong (L) and Nouri (r) arrive with their Ajax team mates before the 2017 Europa League final against Manchester United in Sweden. Nouri was not named in the matchday squad

In Mohammed’s phone, with his son’s portrait as its background, there are plenty of pictures of football characters that have paid homage to Nouri. “So much love for him from all over the world, so many people asking for him, so many nice gestures,” he says in grief.

Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo sent him a ‘Happy Birthday’ video message. Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele played with Nouri’s name and number stitched into his boots. In his first season at Roma, Justin Kluivert chose to wear the number 34 – Nouri’s squad number – as did Manchester City’s Philippe Sandler, Napoli’s Amin Younes and Fiorentina’s Kevin Diks. They were all team-mates of Nouri at De Toekomst, the Ajax academy.

The Eredivisie title Ajax won last season – their 34th league success – was dedicated to him. With his dad and his brothers on stage at the victory ceremony, alongside the Ajax squad, the Nouri family was at the heart of celebrations.

Nouri had played with the number 34 since his senior debut. Growing up, he shone in many youth international tournaments, always accompanied by his dad. His name had already been shortlisted by several of Europe’s top clubs even at a young age. His vision earned him quick comparisons to Iniesta, one of the players he looked up to. He was always obsessed with attacking football.

But for Nouri, being at Ajax – the club he supports – was a dream. He started at seven years old and never left.

He was 19 when he first played for the first team, in September 2016. By the summer of 2017, he had been permanently promoted from the youth ranks to Ajax’s first-team squad, having been named player of the season.

“I still remember when he was a ball boy and he’d come to see the games with me, always asking first, in a very respectful way, if I wouldn’t mind,” recalls David Endt, who was Ajax’s general manager between 1997 and 2013.

“We didn’t need many words. After each good pass, each nutmeg, every special little thing, we’d just stare at each other. ‘Wow! Have you seen that?’ It was a conversation with our eyes.”

Nouri was considered among the best talents of his generation – not just in Ajax but across Europe. He was named in the team of the tournament at the Under-19 European Championship of 2016.

He always played as a number 10, the one who connected midfield and attack. A hook, as they say in Spanish.

In a very special way, he still brings people together.

He is Dutch, a proud Amsterdamer. And he is also a Muslim of Moroccan ancestry. Even if his name is Abdelhak, he carries a nickname that is short for Albert. He is an ambassador for a community that is often overlooked or misunderstood.

“When he was taken back to Amsterdam, something unique happened,” Endt says.

“The neighbourhood became an epicentre of grief, but also a place of communion beyond football colours or religion. You’d see just a grieving community, united, and in a way, it is what he does, he still unites.”

‘Stay Strong Appie’, the slogan that became a symbol of hope on social media, is also reflected in the entrance of Ajax’s club museum, next to the Johan Cruyff Arena. Three jerseys bearing number 34 compose the message. A shrine dedicated to him was inaugurated days before Ajax played their first game after Nouri collapsed, a Champions League fixture against Nice.

The game was interrupted in the 34th minute, as players and fans clapped in tears.

It was Davinson Sanchez’s last game for Ajax in Amsterdam before moving to Tottenham. After the game, he said: “Appie is such a funny guy, always bringing positive energy to the dressing room. That smile that he had… that he has…”

And then he paused.

“This is something very difficult to understand, such a young professional. It is a blow that life cannot explain.”

All of Nouri’s team-mates, along with former players and Dutch officials, visited the house in Geuzenveld when Nouri was brought back to Amsterdam. It was a heartbreaking moment.

Two of the best players from his generation, Frenkie de Jong and Donny van de Beek, are among Nouri’s best friends.

Van de Beek would spend some nights at Nouri’s house after the accident, next to his friend’s bed, just like when they were kids. When he scored the equaliser against Juventus, in the game that Ajax ended up winning 2-1 in Turin in April, Van de Beek pointed to the back of his jersey in tribute.

“I looked at the screen and I saw my goal was in the 34th minute. It had to be him, you have to think,” he said.

Mohammed Nouri no longer works as a butcher. He was suffering too much from a shoulder injury after years of chopping meat, and he has to take care of his son. He now spends 24 hours in the hospital, then comes back home and switches with Nouri’s brothers, Mohammed and Abderrahim, and his mother Rabia. The routine is performed every day of the week. There is always someone next to Nouri, talking to him, trying to communicate.

Since Nouri left his coma and gained a low level of consciousness, there have been some indications of improvement in his condition, including very limited communication – eyebrow signs used for answering questions with yes or no. The Nouri family are deeply religious and have faith that he will recover, despite what the science says: that recovery is extremely unlikely but not impossible.

Before signing for Barcelona this summer, De Jong visited him in the hospital, to break the news. Every stimulus is positive.

The Nouris are also renovating a house to accommodate their son so he can leave the hospital, and are developing the Nouri Foundation to promote sports and integration for people with disabilities.

“Here beats an Ajax heart” reads one of the flags placed close to Nouri’s house by one of the club’s fans.

In his home city and beyond, Appie will always be revered, and never forgotten.

Nouri’s brother acknowledges and thanks fans who gathered outside his family home in July 2017

Fans gather outside the Nouri family home on 14 July 2017 in Amsterdam

Nouri made 15 senior appearances for Ajax, scoring once and providing three assists

Ajax fans display a giant banner depicting Nouri before a Champions League qualifying third round match against Nice in August 2017

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#Gossip Abdelhak Nouri: The Ajax prodigy who suffered permanent brain damage

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downthetubes · 7 years

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Kendal Calling: An interview with cartoonist Lynn Johnston

With the Lakes International Comic Art Festival just over a week away, we continue our Kendal Calling interviews with a chat with Lynn Johnston, a Canadian cartoonist known for her newspaper comic strip For Better or For Worse. She was the first woman and first Canadian to win the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Award. David, We’re Pregnant! which sold over 300,000 copies. Shortly after, she was divorced and worked as a commercial artist, freelancing from home.

Lynn was born in Ontario and grew up in British Columbia. She attended the Vancouver School of Art then took a job in an animation studio in Vancouver, where she began to apprentice as an animator. After getting married, Johnston moved to Ontario in 1969, and in 1972 the discovery that she was expecting her first child led to the publication of In 1975, Hi Mom! Hi Dad! was published as a sequel to David, We’re Pregnant!. By this time she was remarried and continued to freelance until her daughter Kate was born. Do They Ever Grow Up? was the third publication in her first sequence of books about parenting.

In 1978, Universal Press Syndicate asked if Johnston was interested in doing a daily comic strip. She signed a 20-year contract and the work on For Better or For Worse began. This comic strip has been syndicated since 1979 and, at its peak, appeared in more than 2,000 newspapers in 23 countries. Lynn was the first woman to receive a Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year in 1985, she has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, has received the Order of Canada and claims a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. downthetubes: Which comic project you’ve worked on are you most proud of and where can people see it or buy it? Lynn Johnston: I ended the story of For Better or for Worse in 2007. It was a syndicated comic strip, running in over 2000 papers at the time. Right now, I’m painting and working on a series of comic art fabric patterns. I hope to have a few clients interested in bedding, draperies and children’s apparel. I’m also updating my original comic strip art for the web. downthetubes: Which comic project you’ve worked on are you most proud of and where can people see it or buy it? Lynn: I’m proud of everything I do! I’d like folks to see my comic strip – all 29 years worth on our website. There are many collection books available through Amazon and it will soon be available again in a series of hard cover books. The first of these should be on sale soon.

downthetubes: How do you plan your day as a cartoonist? Do you plan your day? Lynn: I have just turned 70, but I’m still working. I put in three days a week on the fabric patterns and paint when I feel the muse. I also produce new art for the website and occasionally write an article for same. I am also working with another artist on a graphic novel about his life. We have set a year from now as our goal for publication. downthetubes: What’s the best thing about being a comics creator? Lynn: The best thing…for me, was doing what I loved to do and be gainfully employed doing it. I think that all of us who were/ are syndicated or in some way, doing comic art for a living, feel the same. Another tremendous plus was meeting all my heroes. I came into the business when Charles Schulz was there – and Will Eisner, Bil Keane, Dik Browne, Johnny Hart... I knew many of these wonderful, talented and generous people. What a privilege to have called them my friends. downthetubes: And the worst? Lynn: The worst part of doing a syndicated comic strip was also the best: I hated the pressure. No matter what else was happening in my life, I had the relentless pressure of deadlines. I worked harder than I ever worked before. This made me more productive and focused than I had ever been, so I did a huge amount of work; something I’d never have done on my own! Aside from the comic strip, I worked on a series of animated specials. It was a pleasure to work with talented artists and writers; the bad side was dealing with horrible budgets, which resulted in a poor quality product. “We don’t want it good, we want it now!” was the mantra, and the lack of care showed. I had to quit the shows and refuse to let them be released as a series. I have never been as angry at anything as I was when we did these animated shows!

downthetubes: What most distracts you from getting your work done? Lynn: Everything distracts me now. Now that I am my own supervisor and have flexible, self imposed deadlines, I tend to slack off, dawdle about and generally waste time. I’m “retired” but for me, that’s a lame excuse for not doing more! The deadlines for syndication were wicked, but I sure got things done! downthetubes: Do you think it’s easier or harder for young comic creators to get published today? Lynn: I don’t know what’s happening in the comic art world right now! With newspapers not too sure what to do with themselves, the internet still coming into focus, graphic novels becoming the new go-to for reading and new technology turning animation into the most incredible resource imaginable, we are seeing new areas for cartoonists to explore every day. I think if you are really good at what you do, can deliver on time and work well with a team, you’re going to find employment as a cartoonist. downthetubes: Have you ever been to the Lake District before? Lynn: No. My mom’s family was from Lincolnshire and my dad’s was from the Stonehenge area. The last name was “Ridgway” from the area of the Ridgeway. My partner was born in South Shields and moved to Canada at the age of nine, so we both have strong ties to “the old country”. What do I expect? To really enjoy myself in Kendal and to feel quite at home! downthetubes: Which one comic creator would you most like to meet, and why? Lynn: I think I’ve met all the people I dearly wanted to meet. How fortunate I’ve been. downthetubes: How do Festivals and other comics events help creators most, do you think? Lynn: What festivals do for me is to allow me to see what’s new; what’s happening and to meet young cartoonists (and old friends) who are experimenting with and sharing their talent. I’ve met a number of people here in Vancouver who are doing wonderful stuff - with graphic novels and animation. I’m excited to see that comic art still has the power to inspire artists who then pull us into their world. What a gift. downthetubes: What one piece of advice do you offer people looking to work in the comics industry? Lynn: Advice? Learn how to draw backgrounds. Everyone likes to focus on characters, but characters have to live somewhere! Young artists especially, spend hour after hour perfecting a superhero costume and forget that this character has to eat and sleep and get to work somehow. So, draw stuff! Houses and trees and vehicles and chairs...stuff!! I find that realistic toys are extremely helpful. Those good quality die-cast cars, trucks and buses will give you a vehicle you can hold up and see from all angles. I have a box full of toys. In the box are animals, toy bicycles, hats, shoes, roller blades, skis - all kinds of realistic “models” for my drawings. Another piece of advice is; learn how to write. If you can’t write well, you can’t create a good story or time a good punch line. Reading poetry is helpful because there is a cadence to good writing, which draws the reader along; as if he was driving on a good highway. Any junk on the road, any unnecessary detour, anything that detracts from the easy drive will pull your audience out of your world and what happens to them? They become critics. Learn how to write. downthetubes: What’s your favourite comic right now and where can people get it? Lynn: Right now, I’m enjoying Sean Karemaker’s work. He is a graphic novelist who works on long scrolls. It’s a unique way to work and it allows him to use stereographic imaging to create a movable, interactive environment. He writes about his childhood in Denmark, with charm and insight. downthetubes: Lynn, thank you very much for your time and we look forward to seeing you at the Festival!

Book Your Festival Tickets Now!

• Book your tickets for this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival here. This year’s events programme includes live draws, masterclasses, interactive talks and a chance to get up close to the best comic creators in the world! Web: www.comicartfestival.com | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Podcast | View the Festival Programme on Issuu | Download the Programme (PDF) LYNN JOHNSTON ONLINE

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oldguardaudio · 7 years

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PowerLine -> Is It “Deeply Offensive” to Enforce the Law? – Why Is Saturday Night Live News?

powerline @ Hoax And Change

Illegals – I love the USA! NOT @ Hoax and Change

Daily Digest

Is It “Deeply Offensive” to Enforce the Law?

Why Is Saturday Night Live News?

Al Jarreau, RIP

The M-E-C Freakout Continues

Thinkin’ about “Lincoln” again

Is It “Deeply Offensive” to Enforce the Law?

Posted: 12 Feb 2017 04:41 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

It is, apparently, if the law relates to immigration. At Penn State, someone put up posters urging students and others to report violations of the immigration laws. This is the poster:

Is it a civic duty to report illegal aliens? That is certainly a defensible position. In general, citizens should cooperate with law enforcement. But Penn State’s administration didn’t see it that way:

“The posters are unsigned and appear to be designed to provoke anger, fear and hate. The university finds them deeply offensive,” Penn State said in a statement.

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Is enforcing the law really a sign of “anger, fear, and hate”? And why, exactly, is it offensive to suggest that citizens should cooperate in enforcing federal law? How did it happen that the American establishment became overwhelmingly, and enthusiastically, in favor of illegal immigration?

The university said in its statement about the posters that officials wanted to emphasize “that every student on this campus has earned the right to be here based on their academic qualifications and hard work.”

Hmm. Is there anything in the poster about academic qualifications and hard work? Not that I noticed. Whether a student has a right to be at Penn State (or anywhere else in the U.S.) depends in part, of course, on our immigration laws.

“Penn State is enriched by students and scholars from around the world and we will continue our work on providing a climate of inclusion for all, regardless of country of origin,” the university said.

But the poster says nothing about country of origin. It is fine to have a “climate of inclusion for all,” but if “all” includes people who are present in the United States illegally, it shouldn’t come as a shock if they are caught and deported. Does Penn State’s administration mean to suggest that it deliberately harbors illegal aliens, thereby aiding and abetting violations of federal law? I think that is the clear implication.

We are living in a very bizarre era, where large numbers of otherwise-respectable people consider it a point of moral superiority to commit, or aid in the commission of, federal crimes. This largely explains why Donald Trump is now our president.

Why Is Saturday Night Live News?

Posted: 12 Feb 2017 02:57 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

Every Sunday morning, the Associated Press has a news story about the prior evening’s SaturdayNight Live show. Today’s story is headlined Host Alec Baldwin, ‘SNL’ cast skewer Trump White House. Well, yes, they do that every week. Last Sunday’s AP headline told us that someone I had never heard of–Melissa McCarthy–was mocking White House press secretary Sean Spicer. And it isn’t just the Associated Press. Many news outlets breathlessly recount the latest anti-Trump skits on SNL.

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So, why is this news? I don’t recall that SNL’s weekly dose of liberal spin was news during the Obama administration. Saturday Night Live is a comedy show. Comedy isn’t generally considered newsworthy. Is it because so many people are watching? Because SNL’s ratings are so stratospherically high? Evidently not: Saturday Night Live has a below average audience, ranking 139th out of 196 television programs during the 2015-2016 season.

The only explanation is that Democratic Party news outlets report on Saturday Night Live skits because they want to amplify SNL’s anti-Trump message. “Respectable” news outlets like the AP can’t publish absurd comedy skits ripping President Trump, much as they might like to. But by covering Saturday Night Live, they turn such meaningless attacks into fake “news.”

Here is some real news: Sean Spicer’s daily press briefings, broadcast live, are being watched by around 4.3 million people. That is several times the audience for Saturday Night Live. I assume viewership will die down once we get past the opening weeks of the Trump administration, but still, it’s remarkable. Once again, the Democratic Party press, in its desperate yearning to bring down the Trump administration, is missing the real story.

Al Jarreau, RIP

Posted: 12 Feb 2017 12:54 PM PST

(Scott Johnson)

I am so sad to observe the passing of the singer Al Jarreau today in Los Angeles at the age of 76. Matt Schudel does a good job of paying tribute to Al in the Washington Post obituary. Margalit Fox provides a more ambivalent take in the New York Times obituary. I want to add a local note on Al’s death.

Al was a native of Milwaukee. Once he was able to make his voice heard on record in the mid-1970’s, he developed fans all over the world, but he had a special following long before then in Minneapolis. Al came to town for a gig with his then guitarist Julio Martinez in 1970 and stuck around to date a local woman.

Everyone who heard Al perform back then knew he was an awesomely talented musician. My first and best friend through high school was Scott Sansby. When I got back from college in the summer of 1970, Scottie told me I had to see Al. He raved about Al’s talent. He was certain that Al was going to be a star.

Scottie anchored the rhythm section on drums in Zarathustra, the house band at Minneapolis’s old Depot club (the predecessor to First Avenue), and Al would occasionally sit in with the band. He approached Scottie about playing with him. Scottie talked him into using Bobby Schnitzer (guitar) and Rich Dworsky (keyboards) and Dik Hedlund (bass). Bobby and Rich subsequently moved out to Los Angeles with Al as he sought to make it big. Texting this afternoon, Scotty reminds me: “We knew how good he was the first time we heard him sing.”

We were thrilled when Al returned to perform at Minneapolis’s Pantages Theater in 2011. I think all his old fans came out to see the show. Al caught up with the musical contingent at a party after the show. From left to right in the photo below are Dik Hedlund, Rich Dworsky, Scott Sansby, Al and Bobby Schnitzer.

While we saw early on what Al had to offer, it took the music industry another five years to seize on Al’s talent. Scottie was recording for Shelter Records in the early 1970s and took Al’s demo tapes to Shelter president Denny Cordell. Scottie tells me that Cordell thought the tapes were “great but that he didn’t know what to do with Al as far as genre and marketing, so he passed.” Scottie adds that the Twin Cities’ own Pat Rains — former owner of The Prison teen club in Burnsville — became Al’s manager and finally got him signed to Warner Brothers, where he released his first album in 1975.

The rest is music history. Al won seven Grammys in three musical categories (jazz, pop, and R&B, respectively). According to the AllMusic Guide biography, Al is the only artist to win Grammys in three different musical categories.

Al’s music expressed infectious joy and endearing romanticism. You can hear the threads of his talent in his approach to Chick Corea’s “Spain.” It was an instrumental until Al put words to it (video below). As you listen to this I defy you to be unhappy. Can’t be done.

Al also put words to Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” (video below).

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In his lyrics to “Take Five,” Al wrote: “Stop your busy day and take the time out to see that I’m alive, I’m alive.” Indeed he was. RIP.

NOTE: My thanks to Scott Sansby for helping me bring back the memories today. The Star Tribune elaborates on the local angle here.

The M-E-C Freakout Continues

Posted: 12 Feb 2017 10:04 AM PST

(Steven Hayward)

The Media Entertainment Complex (MEC) is going all in to destroy Trump on behalf of the Democratic Party. I wonder how liberals would react if Saturday Night Live did a sexist sketch like the one last night about Elizabeth Warren (preferably in full native American regalia) instead of Kelly Anne Conway:

Paul has already noted the ruckus over the supposed ethics violation of Kelly Anne suggesting on air that people buy Ivanka Trump’s products, but I doubt this is a formal violation of ethics rules which are intended to prevent presidents or their staffs from appearing in product advertisements, etc. And what are Trump’s people supposed to do in the face of ostentatiously reported and organized boycott campaigns? I hope Ivanka’s sales soar.

But there are other ways of going about this. I recall a story Martin Anderson once told me about Reagan. Anderson, who had been a senior domestic policy aide to Reagan, had one of the first pro-Reagan books coming out in early 1988, while Reagan was still in office, called Revolution, in bright red letters on the cover. Marty had called Reagan and asked if the president would be willing to offer a dust jacket blurb. Reagan declined, citing the ethics guidelines against doing product endorsements while in office.

But then, when a book came out a few months later, Reagan did some thing better. Stepping off Marine One on the south lawn one afternoon, he was carrying Revolution under his arm, with the title prominently displayed to the cameras. And Reagan stopped to take a couple of questions from the press corps (which he usually did not do), and sure enough, the book title was plainly visible on the evening news broadcasts, and a picture of Reagan with Revolution under his arm appeared in the next issue of Time or Newsweek. Hard to get a much better product endorsement than that.

But remember, Reagan was a dunce. The media told us so. The Trump people might want to study Reagan’s subtleties, though. All the better to keep the liberal crazy at full boil.

Now, if only I can get Trump to do this:

Thinkin’ about “Lincoln” again

Posted: 12 Feb 2017 04:40 AM PST

(Scott Johnson)

Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln seems to have dropped from our cultural consciousness. Perhaps the cognitive dissonance it induces on the left suppresses the memory of it. As we celebrate the anniversary of Lincoln’s birthday today, I want to take a look back at the film with the notes I offered at the time. I put just about everything important that I know about Lincoln into them.

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Until reading David Brooks’s obtuse column about the film, I was unsure that I knew enough to comment intelligently about it. Brooks persuaded me that I know at least as much as he does, however, and accordingly prompted me to offer the following comments for interested readers.

The film makes an important contribution to understanding Lincoln. Directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Tony Kushner, the film focuses on the brief period in January 1865 after Lincoln’s reelection during a lame duck session of Congress when Lincoln moved heaven and earth to secure the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in the House of Representatives (where it had failed once previously). The film purports to be based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, but it expands greatly on a tiny sliver of that doorstop of a book.

A.O. Scott’s New York Times review describes the film with scrupulous accuracy, and I entirely agree with Scott’s witty conclusion:

Go see this movie. Take your children, even though they may occasionally be confused or fidgety. Boredom and confusion are also part of democracy, after all. “Lincoln” is a rough and noble democratic masterpiece — an omen, perhaps, that movies for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Kushner’s responsibility for the screenplay raised concerns on my part about the film. He does not portray Lincoln as a gay caballero, although he well might have. Kushner is rightly impressed by Lincoln’s greatness, but holds that “it’s a film where the political parties occupy the opposite sides of the spectrum that they currently occupy.” Republicans are the heroes of the story. Democrats are an obstacle to be overcome. How can this be? This is terribly confusing for an avant-garde liberal. Suffice it to say that a lot could have gone wrong here that didn’t. Despite Kushner’s confusion, the screenplay gets this gloriously right.

The movie powerfully rebuts the portrait of Lincoln that bright high school and college students absorb directly or indirectly from Richard Hofstadter’s incredibly influential essay “Abraham Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth,” collected in The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It. Hofstadter depicted Lincoln as essentially indifferent to the wrongs of slavery and disparaged the Emancipation Proclamation as a glorified nullity.

Among other things, Hofstadter famously observed that the Proclamation “had all the moral grandeur of a bill of lading” and “did not, in fact, free any slaves.” Eric Foner is Hofstadter’s successor at Columbia. Foner accurately noted that Hofstadter pointedly juxtaposed Lincoln’s 1858 speech in Chicago affirming the equality of man with his address the same year in pro-slavery Southern Illinois in which he insisted that he opposed “bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races.”

Hofstadter’s portrait of Lincoln cannot survive this film. It is a great vehicle for learning and teaching something true and important about Lincoln. To paraphrase Lincoln himself, all honor to Kushner for getting Lincoln’s hatred of slavery right and making it the centerpiece of this film.

The film accurately presents the Thirteenth Amendment — the amendment that abolished slavery — as the fulfillment and guarantor of the Emancipation Proclamation. Amazingly, at least to me, the film accurately represented Lincoln’s thinking on precisely this point. It provides a lesson in the acuity of Lincoln’s thought on things that mattered.

Following the promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation, prominent Democrats whose cooperation Lincoln coveted in the war effort repeatedly urged Lincoln to rescind it. Lincoln simply responded: “The promise, being made, must be kept.” The Thirteenth Amendment assured that the promise would, in fact, be kept. Allen Guelzo presents Lincoln’s thought on these points in great depth in Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America.

Harold Holzer may be the only prominent Lincoln scholar to have commented publicly on the film, as he did in a New York Post column. Holzer testified to the perfection of Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as Lincoln. It is a performance of surpassing beauty. At the end of the film, one feels gratified to have had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours in Lincoln’s company. One is struck by the sheer largeness of spirit on display. Here there is no pettiness. Here there is no triviality. Here one is elevated.

The film sets Lincoln’s political struggle off against brief depictions of the death and destruction of Civil War battles. Lincoln was the president who chose to fight the war rather than accept disunion. He was the president who turned the war into “a new birth of freedom.” He was the president who declined to accept anything less than the unconditional surrender of the forces of the Confederacy. This is all on display in one way or another in the film.

Two more notes. David Brooks touted the film as promoting a view of politics as “noble because it involves personal compromise for the public good. This is a self-restrained movie that celebrates people who are prudent, self-disciplined, ambitious and tough enough to do that work.” Yet there is no compromise to be seen in the film on any important point.

Tony Kushner to the contrary notwithstanding, the film allows one to reflect on the continuity of the film’s Democratic and Republican parties with their modern counterparts. The Republican Party was founded in the belief that it was “the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism — Polygamy, and Slavery,” as the party platform of 1856 put it. The party’s contemporary concerns about traditional marriage and the promotion of freedom have deep roots in the origin of the Republican Party.

Lincoln criticized slavery as embodying the tyrannical principle he called “the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it.” Don’t tell Tony Kushner, but the contemporary Democratic Party is preeminently the party of “the same old serpent that says you work and I eat.”

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