#but like among team italy he is kind of their older brother because its such an incredibly young team

[muirneach]

grigor and matteo should link up

[phroyd]

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Her hair pokes out of the back of her sky blue helmet and flaps like a cape as she flies around in circles. Poised confidently on her skateboard — knees slightly bent, infectious smile engaged — she gains speed and fearlessly attacks the bowl. Sky Brown is not here to take it easy, and she doesn’t have time to wait behind the older, bigger skateboarders.

She’s 10 years old, about the size of two skateboards stacked end to end and has a big mission on tap.

“I want to go to the Olympics,” she says. “I want to be the youngest one out there and show the girls it doesn’t matter how big you are or how small you are. You can do anything.”

Sky is a member of Great Britain’s national team, hoping to be among the world’s best athletes who gather in Tokyo next summer when skateboarding makes its Olympic debut at the 2020 Games. No one who has seen her on a skateboard would dare rule her out. Her outsize talent and charisma have made her one of the most popular and intriguing skateboarders — even if she’s just now wrapping up fifth grade.

She has several sponsors, a giant social media following and several viral videos to her credit. She’s a prodigy of sorts on a skateboard but also has made waves in surfing. Last year she even won “Dancing with the Stars: Juniors,” and she says there’s a purpose behind everything she does.

“If they watch me skate or do this trick, they’ll think maybe they can do it, too,” she says. “That’s why I want to do the Olympics — to inspire those kids who think they can’t do it."

Sky caused a stir when Great Britain put her on its national skateboarding team this spring, but she has since shown that she’s no novelty act. She took first in the U.K. national skateboarding championships in April. At last week’s Dew Tour stop in Long Beach, the first Olympic qualifier in the United States, Sky was the youngest skater in the field. She posted the highest score in the qualifying round of the park event and was third after the quarterfinals, though she failed to advance to the finals.

Sky commands attention whenever she’s on her board. She doesn’t generate the power of her competitors, who are often more than twice her age, but she can be every bit as aggressive, smiling almost the entire time.

“To be able to create the speed and get the height she’s getting with the weight she’s got — she’s like a feather — you almost think it’s impossible,” says Lucy Adams, the chair of Skateboard England and Skateboard GB.

From the beginning

Sky and her tight knit family — parents Stu and Mieko Brown and brother Ocean — split their time between Southern California and Japan, where Sky was born and first learned to skate.

“I started skateboarding when I was 3 or 4,” she explains, “but I’ve been playing with it since I was zero, kind of.

“It was always my favorite toy,” she continues. “I’d just always want to play with it.”

She would watch her dad and friends skate and then study YouTube videos. She wasn’t content to be simply balancing or slowly rolling. She hit the backyard ramp with her dad and was a natural, performing kick turns on the ramp and kick flips with her board.

Stu Brown uploaded some footage of 5-year-old Sky onto Facebook. The clip bounced around and soon amassed a few million views. Sponsors and event organizers started noticing. Invitations and opportunities started piling up.

She did her first local contest at 7 and the next year became the youngest girl to compete in the Vans U.S. Open Pro Series. The family is selective about what to take on and says it has had to turn down many opportunities.

The Browns spend at least half the year living in Miyazaki, a city in the southern part of Japan known for its surfing conditions but lacking in skate culture.

“I feel like I’m the only girl skating sometimes,” she says.

They often travel around to skateboard, and the family has been spending more and more time in Southern California. Stu says he and his wife are careful about putting too much on their children’s plates — 7-year-old Ocean also skates and surfs — and they want to make sure Sky remains a kid first, a skater second.

“She’s so self-motivated. We would never want to push her, but she’s the one pulling us in all these directions,” he says. “She just loves skating. How do you stop her from doing something she loves?”

A young Olympic dream

Sky met Adams, a British pro, in 2016 at a competition in the United Kingdom. The two struck up a friendship and stayed in touch. A few months later, skateboarding was formally added to the program for the 2020 Tokyo Games, and Adams later would take a position with the Great Britain national skateboarding team.

“I was like, ‘Skateboarding’s in the Olympics?’ ” Sky recalls. “Everyone was like, ‘You don’t know what the Olympics are?’ ”

As Sky learned more, she became increasingly excited. The Olympics offer a big platform, and she thought girls all around the globe might see her and want to pick up a skateboard. But she will be just 12 years old during the Tokyo Games, which her parents felt was too young. Maybe in 2024, they told her, when she will be 16.

“But I was like, ‘Please, please, please!’ ” she recalls.

Adams and Sky swapped social media messages and chatted on WhatsApp. Sky couldn’t shake the Olympic dream, and Adams started entertaining the possibility, too, excited by the impact Sky could have. Because Sky’s father was born in England, the young skater could compete for Japan or Great Britain in international competition.

“I knew that Sky would be inspirational, and she’d help us raise the participation of skateboarding in this country, especially among females,” Adams says.

The governing body for most every other Olympic sport has age restrictions that prevent athletes as young as Sky from taking part in Olympic competition. Skateboarding does not.

"The idea is if a skater can earn enough points and do well enough in competition to qualify to participate in the Olympic Games, you shouldn’t eliminate their chance to participate based on how old they are,” said Josh Friedberg, the chief executive of USA Skateboarding.

Even though Sky was named to Great Britain’s national team, she’s not guaranteed a spot in the Olympics. She has to accumulate points at competitions over the next year and show that she’s among the most competitive park skaters, regardless of age.

Even if she makes it to Tokyo, winning a medal would be a stretch, but the history books would take notice. It’s not often someone as young as Sky reaches the Olympics. Inge Sorensen won a bronze medal in swimming for Denmark as a 12-year-old at the 1936 Olympics. Italy’s gymnastics team in 1928 had competitors who were 11 and 12. The youngest Olympian ever was Greek gymnast Dimitrios Loundras, who was all of 10 years old for the 1896 Games.

Over the years, teens have left their marks on the Games, particularly in sports such as gymnastics and snowboarding. More recently, snowboarder Chloe Kim won two gold medals as a 17-year-old at the PyeongChang Games, and swimmer Katie Ledecky was 15 when she won her first gold medal at 2012 London Games.

‘Like a playground for me’

With the help of her mom, Sky is active on a social media, an important link to skateboarding fans but also a vital vehicle for her sponsors. Sky now has more than 375,000 Instagram followers. Her videos on the platform can top 100,000 likes. She shares her travels, training and exploits. After a skating mishap this month, she captioned one midair photo: “a Broken wing, will NOT stop me Flying!!”

Sky had been skating at a school in Oceanside, Calif., where she was trying a kick flip off some stairs. A bad landing sent her tumbling on her arm.

“It hurt really bad,” she says, “but I kept skating after.”

The pain didn’t subside, and doctors explained that she had fractured a bone, and Sky was outfitted for a pink cast that goes the length of her right arm. The injury has kept her from surfing, which meant more time to spend on her skateboard. Another tumble resulted in her cracking the cast, which is now reinforced with some tape.

Despite the injury, she insisted on competing in this month’s Dew Tour event. “It would’ve hurt her so much more to miss out,” her father says.

Sky skates well beyond her age, but there are competitors who are able to go higher and faster and execute tricks that Sky’s not ready for. It doesn’t stop her from trying, and in the coming years, she will be able to create more speed, more power and more air when she launches skyward.

During last week’s competition, Sky was limited by the broken arm but still skated with a smile.

“Skateboarding is like my happy place,” she says. “It’s like a playground for me.”

She found her parents immediately after popping out of the bowl. During practice sessions, Stu Brown would chat with her between runs, sometimes lovingly poking her nose or wrapping Sky in his arms.

“We always come back to: If this isn’t fun, we shouldn’t be doing it,” her father says. “If she’s not happy, we’ll stop it. But as long as she enjoys the journey, we’re going to support her. We love what we have as a family. Everything works right now. I know the Olympics are huge, but if there’s a time where it’s not working, we can just walk away.”

Phroyd

[dweemeister]

Hell to Eternity (1960)

The march of time changes how history is written, how art is consumed and interpreted. Latino involvement on behalf of the United States in the Second World War has been largely underreported, in part because they were tabulated as white. They served in all branches of the armed forces and wherever the Americans fought – on American soil, Asia and the Pacific, Northern Africa, Italy, Western Europe. Closer to home, the United States carried out a policy that was and always shall be a moral disgrace. In a time of war hysteria and popular racist sentiment, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1942 ordered the relocation and internment of more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans – more than two-thirds of whom were American citizens by birth or naturalization. These two chapters of American history converge with the story of Pfc. Guy Gabaldon. Gabaldon, who was of Mexican descent, was raised by a Japanese-American (unofficial) foster family in Los Angeles.

When the dramatization of Gabaldon’s early life and experiences at the Battle of Saipan (American victory at Saipan – in the Marianas – precipitated into the Invasion of the Philippines and brought the U.S. closer to the Japanese mainland) was made into a movie, Gabaldon’s Mexican heritage was completely whitewashed. And though his Japanese-American family is given some attention in the opening half-hour, the film does not take much of a stand against government actions, content only to call out individual acts of bigotry. Through my young, Asian-American eyes, Phil Karlson’s Hell to Eternity is a frustrating watch – erasing entirely Gabaldon’s Mexican background in favor of describing him as an, “all-American boy”, and a spotty handling of his Japanese-American upbringing (Gabaldon served as a consultant on Hell to Eternity). The film’s intentions are noble, but these frustrations and unfocused filmmaking prevent undermine Hell to Eternity throughout.

It is 1938 in East Los Angeles. Physical education teacher Kaz Une (George Shibata) separates Guy (Richard Eyer at twelve-year-old Guy; Jeffrey Hunter as an adult) from bullies taunting our young protagonist for having, “Jap friends.” Kaz, who is Japanese-American himself and older brother of Guy’s best friend George (George Matsui as a child; George Takei as an adult), soon learns Guy’s mother has been taken to the hospital and that his father has passed on. Kaz takes Guy home to the Une household (in real life, their surname was Nakano); after Guy’s mother dies, the Unes unofficially adopt Guy. Mr. Une (Bob Okazaki) is unfortunately not seen much in the film, but Mrs. Une (Tsuru Aoki) will exemplify unconditional love. The film will fast forward to the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the internment of the Une family. Guy is drafted, but fails due to a perforated eardrum. But after learning George and Kaz are fighting with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (upon its creation, the 442nd was a regiment comprised almost entirely of Japanese-Americans that fought in the European theater), Guy enlists in the Marines. He goes through boot camp at Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego County in the film’s middle third, with the final third depicting his service at the Battle of Saipan.

Silent film leading man Sessue Hayakawa (1915′s The Cheat, 1957′s The Bridge on the River Kwai) also appears as a general of the Imperial Japanese Army. As the general, his last words to his surrendering soldiers (like all the Japanese spoken in the film, there are no subtitles) recount the folk story of Momotarô – which tells of strength through kindness.

Jeffrey Hunter, in his build, is a much different person than Guy Gabaldon. Hunter is 6′2″, with broad shoulders like the rest of the actors playing Marines in this film; Gabaldon was 5′4″. Hell to Eternity, released by Allied Artists (this film’s North American rights are currently under Warner Bros. via the Turner Entertainment library), was made at a time when top billing to a non-white actor was almost unheard of. There was no major Latino actor during the height of the Hollywood Studio System, and the last Latino superstar in Hollywood was silent film actor Ramón Navarro (still alive in 1960, was largely inactive in cinema, and made his final film earlier that year). Allied Artists had a lengthy history of financial troubles, so their films usually had more modest budgets than something from Paramount or 20th Century Fox. Jeffrey Hunter, with his matinee idol looks but inconsistent filmography (no disrespect intended), is not as compelling a box-office draw as some of his fellow youthful contemporaries. Why not cast a Latino actor? Even if the film’s screenplay – penned by Walter Roeber Schmidt (his only other credit is 1980′s Monstroid) – glosses over Gabaldon’s conflicts of self-identity, a hypothetical Latino actor would be more able to invoke such an identity conflict in his performance.

Compounding this whitewashing is the screenplay’s uninspired commentary about how the United States treated Japanese-Americans on the day of the Pearl Harbor attacks and afterwards. Playground epithets in the introductory minutes transform into suspicious stares and racialized intimidation in a scene where Guy is taking Ester (Miiko Taka) to a drive-in diner. This confrontation is depicted in a way that makes it too much like ‘60s episodic television – there is no connection between the racial hatred directed at Ester in this scene with the internment orders that all too abruptly follow this scene. Guy is given a few moments to exclaim how horrible FDR’s executive action is, but the filmmakers are too uncomfortable in opening uncomfortable, but necessary, political dialogue. Instead, Hell to Eternity makes the Une family’s internment look like an inconvenient, but government-funded relocation rather than a heinous abuse of executive power, a denial of American constitutional rights. Guy’s brief visit to Manzanar in Eastern California is sanitized – emotionally, factually, and physically. The Schmidt screenplay and Karlson’s direction appear willing to make dissenting statements, but only within certain bounds so as not to lose the cooperation of American military in their assistance in the film’s second half. Hell to Eternity should be credited, however, for positively portraying – if somewhat stereotypical with broken English - a loving Japanese-American family.

This lack of care about Guy’s identity and, most prominently, his Japanese-American upbringing, in these American-set scenes negatively affects all the scenes set on Saipan. The Issei (first-generation Japanese-Americans) and Nisei (second-generation Japanese-Americans) disappear by the film’s halfway point, making enemy soldiers the only Japanese characters seen in the closing half. Guy – who proceeds to use his skills in Japanese to convince civilians and soldiers to surrender (the filmmakers are taking historical liberties here, as Gabaldon was not fluent in Japanese) – captures hundreds. On Saipan, little separates Guy’s bloodlust for those who have killed his fellow friends and Marines and quarter for those who look like his family. For the former, Hell to Eternity has a scene where Guy mutilates a Japanese soldier who has, likewise, hacked a Marine into (presumably) pieces. Mutilation is a war crime. but Hell to Eternity suggests – through the editing – that Guy’s actions are justified. Mutilation is a healthy, legal expression of rage, the film says through these images, as long as the all-American boy does it. Only when he remembers the Une family does Guy snap out of this mutilating mindset – his subsequent acts of mercy seemingly absolving him of his ruthless destruction of Japanese corpses and an excessive number of bullets fired at enemy soldiers.

With assistance from the American military to provide the right equipment and to choreograph troop movements as well as the involvement of several hundred veterans of the Imperial Japanese Army serving as extras, Hell to Eternity’s battle sequences are impressive to watch. Shot on Okinawa, the film alternates from beachheads, dense tropical rainforests, the occasional clearing, and charred and cratered hellscapes. But all this technical mastery is undermined by how Karlson portrays the film version of Guy Gabaldon during the Battle of Saipan. Though the film ends decrying the horrible waste of life and his conduct to the Japanese soldiers he has killed, Hell to Eternity seems too celebratory (or, in the best-case scenario, apathetic) and too forgiving of what horrible things this version of Guy has inflicted. But thankfully, the final resolutions in Hell to Eternity are nonviolent.

Despite the erasure of Gabaldon’s Mexican background, Gabaldon enjoyed Jeffrey Hunter’s performance in Hell to Eternity – indeed, Hunter, along with Aoki, gives one of the better performances in this film. The Pied Piper of Saipan captured ten times more enemy prisoners than Sgt. Alvin C. York in World War I but, unlike York, Gabaldon was never awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. After Gabaldon’s death in August 2006, Latino activists mounted a campaign to have the United States upgrade Gabaldon’s Navy Congress to the Medal of Honor – to little avail as of the publication of this write-up.

At the time of Hell to Eternity’s release, this was one of the most nuanced treatments of Imperial Japanese soldiers and of Japanese-Americans. Its takes on ethnic and racial identity were almost nonexistent in early 1960s Hollywood. Today, the execution of this message leaves much to be desired. It is no war film classic. Yet Hell to Eternity’s attempts to have Gabaldon’s struggles with his identity as the avenue in which to resolve situations peacefully make it unique among other war films released during that time.

My rating: 6/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[newstfionline]

Headlines

In virus chaos, some find solace, purpose in helping others (AP) In April, as the coronavirus was ravaging New York, Susan Jones learned her older brother had been diagnosed with a blood cancer. His supervisor at work launched a GoFundMe page to help with costs, and Jones shared it on Facebook. What happened next stunned her. While Jones, who works as principal ballet mistress at American Ballet Theatre, was confident her closest friends would help, she was stunned to see scores of colleagues—some she didn’t even know that well, and didn’t even know she had a brother—donating, despite their own economic challenges in a struggling dance community. Jones found herself asking: Would the response have been the same just two months earlier, before the pandemic? She’s fairly certain it wouldn’t. Instead, she thinks the instinct to help shows, along with simple kindness, how people are striving to make a difference. At a time of helplessness, she says, helping others makes a mark on a world that seems to be overwhelming all of us. That helping others can feel good is not just an anecdotal truth but an idea backed by research, says Laurie Santos, psychology professor at Yale University and teacher of the school’s most popular course to date: “Psychology and the Good Life.” There’s lots of research showing that spending our time and money on other people can often make us happier than spending that same time or money on ourselves.” “Taking time to do something nice for someone else,” she says, “is a powerful strategy for improving our well-being.”

Many Jobs May Vanish Forever as Layoffs Mount (NYT) Even as states begin to reopen for business, a further 2.4 million workers joined the nation’s unemployment rolls last week, and there is growing concern among economists that many of the lost jobs are gone for good. If social distancing rules become the new normal, causing thinner crowds in restaurants, theaters and stores, at sports arenas, and on airplanes, then fewer workers will be required. Large companies already expect more of their workers to continue to work remotely and say they plan to reduce their real estate footprint, which will reduce the foot traffic that feeds nearby restaurants, shops, nail salons and other businesses. Concerns about working in close quarters and too much social interaction could also accelerate the trend toward automation, some economists say.

Bike sales surge as Americans seek to avoid mass transit and get exercise (Philadelphia Inquirer) Bike shops across the nation are seeing a spike in demand. With gyms closed, some consumers switched to bikes for exercise and stress relief. As America slowly reopens, commuters are turning to bicycles to stay away from crowds in subways and buses. More than 80% of Americans see cycling as safer than taking public transportation.

U.S. to leave Open Skies Treaty (Foreign Policy) President Trump will withdraw the United States from the Open Skies Treaty, an agreement that allows countries to fly surveillance aircraft over each other’s territory as a confidence-building measure. U.S. officials cited Russia’s apparent noncompliance with the treaty as a reason to pull out. Russia has blocked surveillance flights over some of its territory, including during military exercises. Trump’s announcement sets a six-month clock until the U.S. formally leaves the treaty, and a reversal is still possible. Even if the United States leaves Open Skies, other countries won’t be completely blocked from viewing U.S. territory from above if they have the requisite technology: Satellites are not included in the treaty.

With more infected migrants sent back from U.S., Guatemalan president pushes back on deportation flights (AP) As the United States deported hundreds of migrants to Guatemala earlier this year, it said some of the deportees were healthy—even though they tested positive after landing, authorities in the Central American nation said. “We understand the United States wants to deport people, but what we don’t understand is that they send the flights all contaminated,” Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said during an online event Thursday, according to the Associated Press. In mid-April, Guatemala temporarily stopped accepting deportation flights. Flights with virus-stricken deportees, officials said, were increasing the country’s coronavirus caseload and threatening to topple its fragile health system. In total, 119 deportees from the United States had arrived in Guatemala with covid-19 during the pandemic. Guatemala changed course earlier this month, as U.S. officials vowed to test the deportees. But of the 65 Guatemalans who were flown from Alexandria, La., on May 13, 16 deportees later tested positive. Giammattei’s comments Thursday underscored his growing frustration. “Guatemala is an ally of the United States, but the United States is not Guatemala’s ally,” he said. “They don’t treat us like an ally.”

‘Pick for Britain’ (NYT) Like much of the agriculture in the developed world, British fruit and vegetable growers are dependent on migrant workers. But with the coronavirus disrupting movements across Europe, British growers say that even with special charter flights to bring workers in from Eastern Europe, the pool has dwindled because of travel restrictions, and because workers are afraid to come to the United Kingdom, which has the highest death toll in Europe. Prince Charles this week urged British workers furloughed by the pandemic to get out into the fields and “pick for Britain.” Critics ask if this will last once Brits find out how tough farm work is.

Pandemic hardship in Italy (WSJ) The coronavirus pandemic has precipitated one of the worst economic downturns in generations across the world. But few major economies are likely to fall as far as Italy’s, or take longer to recover. Although Italy’s lockdown officially ended on May 18, many restrictions remain, and the economic impact will be long lasting. The new poor include small-business owners such as shopkeepers, restaurateurs and market vendors, as well a vast number of workers employed in sectors such as tourism and entertainment, which have little prospect of reviving any time soon. The health emergency has left hundreds of thousands of Italians unable to pay for their own food for the first time, the biggest jump in poverty since the aftermath of World War II.​ ​

Pakistani passenger plane crashes near Karachi, 107 on board (AP) A passenger plane belonging to state-run airline Pakistani International Airlines has crashed near the southern port city of Karachi, according to Abdul Sattar Kokhar, spokesman for the country’s civil aviation authority. There were no immediate reports on the number of casualties. The aircraft arriving from the eastern city of Lahore was carrying 99 passengers and eight crew members, he said. Witnesses said the Airbus A320 appeared to attempt to land two or three times before crashing in a residential area near Jinnah International Airport.

After New Coronavirus Outbreaks, China Imposes Wuhan-Style Lockdown (NYT) In Shulan, a city in China’s northeast, the streets are eerily quiet, devoid of taxis and buses. Apartment complexes have been sealed off, confining residents inside. Teams of government workers go door to door rounding up sick people as part of what they call a “wartime” campaign. As the Chinese authorities confront scattered outbreaks of the coronavirus in the country’s northeast, they are turning to many of the same strict lockdown measures that were a hallmark of the effort four months ago to stamp out the epidemic in the central city of Wuhan. Residents described the atmosphere as tense. The forceful response reflects fears among China’s leaders about the potential for a fresh wave of infections as factories, schools and restaurants reopen across much of the country and the government touts its success in fighting the virus on the global stage. It also offers a preview of what governments around the world will likely face in the coming months as they work to restart their economies.

China Moves to Enact Sweeping National Security Law For Hong Kong (Foreign Policy) China is set to bypass Hong Kong’s legislature to enact new national security laws in the latest blow to the city’s autonomous status and a signal that 23 years of Beijing’s “one country, two systems” approach to the financial hub may be coming to an end. Speaking to the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said China would establish a “sound” legal system to safeguard national security for both Hong Kong and Macau. The new law would ban “secessionist and subversive activity as well as foreign interference and terrorism” in Hong Kong, according to the South China Morning Post. “This move affirms that Hong Kong as we knew it is gone and rule of law is now rule by law,” China expert Bill Bishop wrote in his Sinocism newsletter. The move is likely to spur fresh protests in Hong Kong as well as possible U.S. sanctions.