#consumption culture rears its head once more
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i find it so interesting how people act like "critically examining a piece of media" is the opposite of "enjoying that piece of media." rip to you but i actually find it really enjoyable and compelling to dissect and think through the art i engage with
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SUN IN SAGITTARIUS.
Sagittarius: Mutable Fire
Ruler: Jupiter
Keywords: Inspiration, Truth, Expansion, Meaning
Functional Expression: Inspired, seeking knowledge, visionary, fortunate, joyful, purposeful, philosophical, adventurous.
Dysfunctional Expression: Unprincipled, narrow, fanatic, reckless, gluttonous, coarse, rude, amoral.
Expansion and Growth.
When the Sun makes its’ journey through the sign of Sagittarius, the emphasis is on expansion, positivity and growth. Life is best seen as a journey, rather than a destination.
Along the way, Sagittarius brings the need to experience life as an adventure – to discover what is over the next horizon or how far one might go. To this end, those born under Sagittarius tend to love a challenge – finding ways to push past the “envelope” and so broaden perspectives somehow.
As a Fiery and Mutable sign – implying a constant need for change – Sagittarius brings an emphasis to physical and/or mental expression. The quest for freedom and adventure, as well as the search for meaning, tends to feature strongly for those born under this sign
Sagittarians are often characterized by an optimistic, outgoing and “can-do” attitude. Unless other, more introspective influences are present the birth chart, you will usually find Sagittarius where the action is.
This is a sign that loves nothing more than to live life large. When things are going well, those with Sun in Sagittarius are typically convivial, outgoing and good-humoured. Freedom is important and they will be willing to take a risk. This sign requires the space to roam unimpeded, and will usually give others the same in return.
It is important to feel that they have options, and nothing to tell them “no”.Whether they seek this freedom in the world of ideas, or find this freedom on a race-track, Sagittarians push limits and test boundaries to discover how far they can go.
Broadening Horizons.
With the Sun in Sagittarius there can be a tendency to get ‘itchy feet’ if things get too similar or mundane. For this reason, Sagittarius is associated with the experience of travel, and contact with foreign people or places.
In the quest to encounter new experiences, going where they have not been before, Sagittarius can find freedom. Again, life can easily get far too routine for those born under this sign. When this happens, they might find themselves feeling frustrated and so start dreaming up a way out.
When Sagittarius gets restless, it is important they broaden horizons somehow. Going somewhere new is an excellent way to keep life experiences fresh. Sometimes a jaunt to an exotic location is just the thing they need.
At other times, this can be accomplished by visiting a new neighbourhood or restaurant. An important strategy involves making time to travel and discover the unknown.With the Sun in Sagittarius they may invest more time and money in travel than in paying down the mortgage. When Sagittarians feel free they can share their positive energy easily.
Under a Lucky Star.
Sagittarius has a reputation for luck and achievement. Many excellent sportspersons, promoters and gamblers are born to this sign. Yet what might appear as luck is often the unbeatable combination of positive expectation coupled with an eye kept firmly on the prize.
One symbol for this sign is The Archer, and Sagittarians have a way of aiming true – firing themselves directly toward an intended target. Fortune favours the brave, and so, luck follows them around whenever they believe in themselves and the winning roll.
Because their approach to life is basically positive, Sagittarians expect things to go your way. And because they have this expectation, things usually do.
The Sun in Sagittarius prefers making broad strokes with a flamboyant brush, living by the philosophy that more is more, and good things are bound to happen. This positive mindset is another way to challenge limits and boundaries. Through taking risks and coming out on top they discover how far they can go. Every cloud has a silver lining – which sometimes turn to platinum – whenever Sagittarius is around.
Accepting Limits.
Yet all this positive expectation also has its’ drawbacks. Sagittarians can be known for brash, self-centred or excessive behaviour. Because they do not not believe in limits for themselves, they do not apply them when dealing with others.
With the Sun in Sagittarius, they can take things to extremes, or expect liberties from others because they refuse to bow to convention. Hence, they are often accused of being blunt to the point of rudeness or frank beyond socially accepted norms. Sagittarians can ride roughshod over the feelings of others, simply because they know they can.
They can be fickle, opportunistic and inclined to run at the first mention of committment. Some Sagittarians will push a situation to breaking point, just to see if they can. This can lead to broken relationships and instability. A Sagittarius who wont acknowledge limitations often creates excess that in the end proves detrimental.
This can be more of an issue for males than it is females, but the Zodiac is never gender specific. The excessive, fiery and expressive qualities of this sign mean that Sagittarians can love nothing more than testing the limits of physical endurance.
Excessive consumption of food, alcohol or other recreational activities can be detrimental. Pushing their luck until they are ruined may be the only way they know when to stop. As this sign is ruled by Jupiter, they can be prone to diseases of the liver or pancreas, as well as other degenerative diseases that are brought on by excess. Learning to live within the limits is an important part of the Sagittarius journey.
The Nature of Belief.
At a deeper level, the sign of Sagittarius is connected with belief. The journey toward greater levels of experience also involves broadening the mind. By comparing and contrasting different ideas, philosophies, belief systems or cultures, Sagittarians gain new perspectives.
They can enjoy expanding mental horizons through various forms of study, or the contemplation of comparative cultural, spiritual and philosophical values. Even if not studying formally, they are often found watching documentaries or reading non-fiction to learn more about the world.
At a conceptual level, this sign is associated with philosophy, religion and the broad mental frameworks which generate culture. At a personal level, through comparing philosophies Sagittarius can explore the nature of belief.
With the Sun in Sagittarius, there is often a need to explore many different belief systems along the way finding their own truth. By gathering a variety of perspectives, Sagittarians learn principles which they can then share with others.
As this sign is connected with the teacher and the student, Sagittarius broaden horizons through learning about various beliefs. These beliefs need to be experienced, rather than just talked about.
Sun in Sagittarius will not believe something because they are told to. They need to explore and experience it for themselves. At their finest, Sagittarians can inspire others through the broadness of their perspective. By taking the journey to teach and learn, they discover the inspiration to help others be the best that they can.
Yet the road to exploring the nature of belief can be fraught with danger. Once again, the threat of excess can rear its head. Typically, when Sagittarians encounter something they believe in, they become enthusiastic and want to share it with others. In the rush to spread ‘the good news’ they may ignore others right to discover things for themselves.
They can shift from “teacher” to “preacher”, getting up on their “soap-box”. Sagittarians can fall prey to zealotry under the belief that they have the truth and others do not. They then easily succumb to self-importance and inflation, believing themselves to be visionary advocates for a noble cause.
They might push their version of the truth down others throats because they believe in it so strongly. At a symbolic level, religious conflict is ruled by this sign. With the Sun in Sagittarius it is important to remember that they need to allow others the same level of intellectual freedom that they expect for themselves.
When Sagittarians share what they have learned from an open perspective, others willingly listen. But when they try to force a point of view, people will instinctively switch off. To share their experience they need to take the urgency out of it, and channel their passion into education rather than “reform”.
Alternately, some Sagittarians can become so disparaging in their search for truth that they become cynical or dismissive. Because their journey is to find out what is true for them, they may reject the beliefs of others, and see these as feeble-minded or simplistic. Then they may lose faith in life through the underlying (and unexplored) belief that they already know all there is to know.
It is easy for them to think there is nothing left to learn. Yet beneath their cynicism is a deep need to find an underlying belief system that can make life meaningful. A Sagittarian with nothing more to explore is a troubled soul.
Their journey involves exploring the nature of hope and faith. They need to maintain faith in order to have the courage to go beyond. Rather than limiting their philosophical options, cynicism can be just another stop along the road toward understanding.
Life should be experienced as a journey toward greater levels of illumination. For many Sagittarians a clear sense of belief may not be reached until even the age of 80. Yet along the way, they most not lose hope. Faith and optimism are essential to find deeper meaning.
Sun in Sagittarius: Your Solar Journey.
Born with the Sun in Sagittarius, you are gifted with an abundance of warmth, energy and positivity. Your sign is noted for a willingness to transcend the everyday by pushing boundaries, demanding freedom and seeking to explore unchartered horizons whenever possible. Your journey involves discovering all that is possible. Your ruler Jupiter brings luck, expansion and opportunity to your door, if only you will take it.
At a deeper level, your sign is concerned with the cultural, philosophical and metaphysical frameworks which make life meaningful. Your journey involves searching for truth and then sharing its manifestation. The path you take should be loud, large and colourful. Through collecting experiences and working out what is true for you, you inspire others to have the courage and faith to do the same.
#astroworld#astrology#astrotips#aries sign#taurus#gemini#cancer sign#leo#virgo zodiac#libra#scorpio#sagittarius#capricorn#aquarius#pisces
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SunGazing
Published July 12, 2019 | By shirleytwofeathers
SunGazing was a popular practice in ancient times. Mayans, ancient Egyptians, Indians and many other ancient cultures strongly believed in the power of Sun. They believed that it could heal diseases, put an end the need of food, and even make telepathy a real possibility.
The practice of SunGazing closely resembles its name. At sunrise and/or sunset, when the sun is closest to the earth, SunGazers stand barefoot on the earth and look directly at the sun for 10 seconds. Every day, 10 seconds are added and some SunGazers eventually reach a duration of 44 minutes.
The theory is that the sun is the force of all life, and staring at it can infuse the body with large amounts of energy. So much so that, Hira Ratan Manek, one of the SunGazers featured in the documentary, Eat the Sun, claims to have gone eight years without eating. He has been “eating” a steady diet of solar rays, and claims that this is all he needs for nourishment.
It may sound like a myth, but some scientists, have acknowledged the power of SunGazing. Nikola Tesla once talked about these super human abilities. He said,
‘My idea is that the development of life must lead to forms of existence that will be possible without nourishment and which will not be shackled by consequent limitations. Why should a living being not be able to obtain all the energy it needs for the performance of its life functions from the environment, instead of through consumption of food, and transforming, by a complicated process, the energy of chemical combinations into life-sustaining energy?’
Our ancestors understood the relation between the sun and health. From the Aztecs to the ancient Egyptians, many past societies revered SunGazing as an esoteric practice for high-ranking priests and shamans. Today, it is experiencing a resurgence in popularity and SunGazers claim it has its benefits.
The benefits of the practice are said to be as follows:
It activates our pineal gland and boosts production of melatonin and serotonin which are also called feel-good hormones. The hormones are also supposed to be the reason behind the increased energy level.
It is known to stimulate the growth of pineal gland. Generally pineal glands shrink with age, but with SunGazing, the result is otherwise.
SunGazing provides nutrition to both mind and body which provides for our energy requirement. Hence, human can get rid of the need to eat food which promotes weight loss in a healthy way.
Sungazing is an interesting practice that touches the spiritual and psychological realms, which are very personal things. Everyone is wired a little differently and this practice isn’t for everyone, nor is it something I recommend. If you choose to partake, do your own research, be careful, be cautious, and document your experience.
Important Disclaimer:
The human eye is very sensitive, and prolonged exposure to direct sunlight can lead to solar retinopathy, pterygium,cataracts,and often blindness. Studies have shown that even when viewing a solar eclipse the eye can still be exposed to harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation.
SunGazing With Your Eyes Closed
The practice of SunGazing with your eyes closed is actually more powerful than SunGazing with your eyes open and can be done safely all day long. With them closed, the visible light spectrum is blocked but the other than visible light spectrum penetrates the cranium – x-rays, gamma rays, microwaves etc.
The after image which is present when you SunGaze or stare at a candle or light source, is actually the biophotons in your head illuminating. Biophotons are very healing – that is why they discredit that after image and refer to it like it is a mirage, and just to be ignored.
The biophotons react to other than visible light – the light that penetrates the cranium when your eyes are closed and you look at the sun. Biophotons will expand and fill the entire cranium and then the whole body, as you focus on the inner Light, that Light becomes more coherent.
The coherent light is a more potent healer than anything else we have on earth. Illness and disease cannot exist inside a coherent energy field. There are 13 different LIGHTS inside the head – corresponding to Jesus and the 12 disciples – these are the Light frequencies required to cleanse and purify the Pranic body – the 2nd body up – not to be confused with the aura – to accomplish ascension – the Jesus thing.
But Wait, There’s More!
I found another article about SunGazing that I thought was interesting and worth a look if this interests you. The article was written by Stasia Bliss for The Guardian Express (guardianlv.com):
NASA Confirms -Super Human Abilities Gained Through Sungazing
Ever wanted to be in more than one place at a time? That’s right, I’m talking about the super-human abilities that can be gained by those who follow the protocol for what’s known as sun-gazing, a valid practice recently confirmed by NASA.
Many proponents of this ancient technique, used by many cultures such as Mayan, Egyptian, Aztec, Tibetan and Indian yoga, report not only healing benefits to common illnesses, but obtaining super-human abilities such as advanced telepathy and going completely without the need for food.
Another Disclaimer: Do not engage in sungazing practices without proper training and medical supervision. Permanent eye injury and blindness may occur. Do not attempt to change your diet and live on sunlight or water alone. Before attempting any radical spiritual or dietary practice, seek qualified medical advice and spiritual supervision.
What is Sun Gazing?
Sun gazing (also known as sun-eating) is a strict practice of gradually introducing sunlight into your eyes at the lowest ultraviolet-index times of day – sunrise and sunset. Those who teach the practice say there are several rules to the practice. First, it must be done within the hour after sunrise or before sunset to avoid damaging the eyes. It is important to only look at the sun when it is orange or red according to the ancients. Looking at the sun when it is yellow or white, or uncomfortable in any way is not recommended.
Second, you must be barefoot, in contact with the actual earth – sand, dirt or mud; and finally, you must begin with only 10 seconds the first day, increasing by 10 second intervals each day you practice. Following these rules make the practice safe, says sources.
Nikolai Dolgoruky of the Ukraine calls himself a ‘sun-eater’. He has been practising sun gazing for the past 12 years and has largely subsisted off solar energy since he began. Others have reported losing the need for food after only 9 months of sun gazing (by which time the practitioner has worked up to a maximum of 44 minutes).
After 9 months of practice, you need only walk barefoot on the earth for 45 minutes per day, 6 days in a row to further the process of what has been initiated by sun gazing.
Sun-gazing is a practice also called the HRM phenomenom, coined as such after Hira Ratan Manek, the man who submitted himself to NASA for scientific testing to confirm that he does indeed possess the almost ‘super-human’ ability of not eating, gained through his dedication to this interesting marvel.
Funded by NASA, a team of medical doctors at the University of Pennsylvania observed Hira 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 100 days. NASA confirmed that he was indeed able to survive largely on light with occasionally a small amount of buttermilk or water during this time.
What happens to the body during Sun Gazing?
During your first 3 months of practice, the suns energy is moving through the eyes and charging the hypothalamus tract, says those who have studied this technique and used it. This Science/Medical Team wanted to observe and examine his retina, pineal gland and brain, therefore this observation team was led by Dr. Andrew B. Newberg, a leading authority on the brain and also featured in the recent movie “What the Bleep Do We Know”, and by Dr. George C. Brenard, the leading authority on the pineal gland.
Initial results found that the grey cells in HRM’s brain are regenerating. 700 photographs have been taken where the neurons were reported to be active and not dying. Furthermore, the pineal gland was expanding and not shrinking which is typically what happens after mid fifties and its maximum average size is about 6 x 6 mm, however for HRM, it has been measured to be at 8 x 11 mm. The hypothalamus tract is the pathway to the rear of the retina which leads to the brain.
The brain then, over time, becomes activated by the energy supply being received by the sun. You will first experience a relief of mental tension and worry, since most worry is fuelled by the energy received by the foods we eat. Since food gets it’s energy from the sun, it is said to be readily available to sun-eaters without the trouble of digestion. Though hunger is said to eventually cease, it is fine to continue eating regularly during initial stages, until appetite disappears naturally.
Another benefit early on is said to be an increase in confidence and an ability to easily solve your problems, as you are without tension. Everyone has at least a bit of psychosis, but during the first few months of sun gazing practice, it is reported that these attitudes go away and a positive nature gracefully replaces the old persona full of fears.
By the end of 3 months, the gazing time will have increased to 15 minutes per day.
Reports on sun gazing say that the bad qualities normally associated with any person will gradually disappear and good qualities will remain, explaining that ‘bad qualities’ only develop in the absence of sunlight. Bad qualities like anger, fear, jealousy, lust – are said to disappear – and be replaced by a certain confidence and ‘spiritual knowing’ that senses more purely the heart of an issue.
At 3-6 months of gazing, the studies show that physical diseases start to disappear.
They say that by the time one is gazing 30 minutes per day (building up 10 seconds per day) all the colours of the sun will have reached the brain. Color therapists attribute their healing of certain diseases to flooding the body and brain with the particular colour that is lacking – depending on the ailment.
For example, in liver disease, the colour green is deficient. The kidneys need red, and the heart, yellow. All of the organs and all of the systems are said to respond to different colours of the rainbow, which is why it is also recommended to eat a diet rich in a variety of colours. It is recommended during the 3-4 month period that you use autosuggestion to see your body already healed of any perceived weakness or disease.
This action will facilitate the process of returning to wholeness.
As you continue the process, it is reported that after 6 months, the energy stored from the technique is no longer being used for repairing the body or the mind and can move now into supporting you in gaining more super-human abilities.
How can we take in sunlight?
How can the body take in sunlight in such a manner as to sustain life? Is it possible that some of our dormant “junk” DNA may become active and allow us to utilise Solar Energetic Factors in the same way that plants do? Let us examine a possible method.
There is a pathway from the retina, to the hypothalamus, called the retino-hypothalamic tract. This brings information about the dark &light cycles to supra-chiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus. From the SCN, impulses along the nerve travel via the pineal nerve (Sympathetic nervous system) to the pineal gland. These impulses inhibit the production of melatonin. When these impulses stop (at night or in dark, when the light no longer stimulates the hypothalamus) pineal inhibition ceases, and melatonin is released. The pineal gland is therefore a photosensitive organ and an important timekeeper for the human body.
The unexplored process of energy absorption, transformation, and processing from the Sun may occur here. The activation of pineal gland is a key step in psychic, spiritual and energy transformation processes. Suffice it to say that in this gland, energy processing and distribution can take place. The pineal gland is the subtle controller of all endocrine glands, therefore controlling the endocrine system. Through secretion of melatonin, it also regulates the circadian rhythm, sleep wake cycle and it also slows down ageing process. It has psychic properties and it is said to be the seat of soul or mind.
Sunlight may enter the eyes and be directly stored in the pineal gland. Pineal activation and charging through solar energy could be a vital step in higher evolution. Once activated and charged by the Pineal gland, Solar Energetic factors may be transformed into electrical, magnetic or chemical energies in body. Once processed, this energy must be transported & must be stored somewhere. If the initial processing of this energy starts in the pineal gland, how does it get to the rest of the body?
What’s Beyond Healing?
By seven and a half months of gazing, now at 35 minutes, need and desire for food is dwindling. According to sun gazing experts, food is not actually needed to maintain the body, only energy – and ‘sun-eating’ provides that energy. By 9 months, all taste for food, including aroma, all hunger pains and cravings disappear. Those who make it this far say that they report a noticeable ’change’ in the way their brain feels – like it’s “charged up.” After 9 months of sun-gazing – reaching a maximum of 44 minutes – it is advised that you give up sun-gazing and redirect your attention now to the Earth.
For 6 days straight, one is to walk barefoot on the earth, 45 minutes per day.
During this barefoot walking, the pineal gland is said to become activated. Professional sun gazers and those researching the science say that each toe is connected to a specific gland, and by walking barefoot on the Earth, you activate these glands. The big toe is thought to be aligned with the pineal gland, the second toe with the pituitary, then the hypothalamus, thalamus and finally the pinky toe correlates to the amygdala. Walking barefoot, with the sun now falling on the top of your head, practitioners claim to create a sort of magnetic field in and around your body that recharges you and your brain.
Apparently this walking barefoot part is the most important aspect of the practice. As you continue walking on the Earth, this is when the magic really begins. The pineal gland is activated more and more by this walking procedure. Intellect is said to increase, along with memory. The pineal gland has navigational and psychic capabilities, meaning telepathy, the possibility of flight… now we are getting somewhere! Have you ever thought you would like to have your body in more than one place at a time? Well, sun-gazing is said to be the magical key to such abilities.
If you can barefoot walk 45 minutes every day for a year – you are golden. At that point, only a maintenance of 3-4 days a week is necessary to maintain the capabilities you have acquired.
Are there any dangers?
Doctors and eye care professionals caution against looking directly at the sun, saying that it will damage the retina. However, if done correctly, sun-gazing at the correct times of day, sunrise and sunset, studies show there is no risk of damaging the eyes.
Those who have been sun gazing for many years have had their eyes checked to show no damage, though it is advised that you have your eyes checked in the first few weeks of your practice, so you can know for yourself.
To sum it all up…
Remember, it’s 10 seconds the first day, at sunrise or sunset, adding 10 seconds per day each day there after. After 90 days of accumulative gazing equaling 44 minutes, you cease the gazing and start the barefoot walking 45 minutes per day for 6 days. At this point, I could imagine, hey – if you made it this far, what’s a year of barefoot walking an hour per day to keep it all? You will have to try it out and see for yourself.
Sources:
Soul Travel Rules
Linked In
Wikipedia
An Enlightened Perspective
shirleytwofeathers.com/The_Blog/alternativetherapies/sungazing/
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This Artist's Hanging Gardens Find Beauty In Decay
By Isabel Lloyd On 8/15/16
Hanging flowers: “The Beauty of Decay” at Chandran Gallery, San Franciso, earlier this summer.
One summer, when the British installation artist Rebecca Louise Law was not quite a teenager, her father—then an assistant head gardener at a stately home in Cambridgeshire, England, and a man who understood the business of growing flowers en masse—insisted that his whole family bus out to one of the flat, Fenland fields near the village where they lived. It must have been late June, early July at most, because the field was brimful with the bright, airy faces of ox-eye daisies.
“I didn’t care,” says Law, a serene, fair-complexioned 35-year-old with artfully slipshod hair, as she sits in the back room of her tiny gallery in east London. “I was at the age where you’re seeing boys, and I didn’t care at all about gardening, or flowers.” While her father and younger sister were taking photos of the long-legged daisies, and her mother was drawing the daisies (it was an artistic family), Law thunked down in the middle of the field in a full-on adolescent sulk.
And then something happened. “I was just sitting there, with all these flowers at head height around me, and I couldn’t see my family. And I thought, Oh my goodness, this is amazing. I knew from my father that the field would only be like this for one or two days; it was only now that it was that strong, and I thought, How can I re-create this? How do I share it?”
Law has been sharing some of the long-brewed results of that moment at her most recent exhibit, “The Beauty of Decay” at the Chandran Gallery in San Francisco, where visitors weaved between a rain of gleaming copper wires that ran from floor to ceiling, the wires strung with the heads of 8,000 fresh gerberas, roses and statice. She has been making three-dimensional works from flowers since 2003, buying them fresh in bulk and then paying assistants to thread the individual flower heads onto wire. Often, as at the San Francisco show, she suspends the flower-filled wires from the ceiling, creating an effect that can be either tender and ethereal or, if the wires are packed closer together, disconcertingly dense, as if the world has flipped and you’re walking beneath an inverted meadow. The flowers then slowly dry and die, fading from what she calls their “poppy” reds, oranges and yellows into shades of cream, tan and pale rose, the emphasis of the piece moving gently from color to form, from vivid, superficial life to the more solid structure below: the skull beneath the skin.
Once the installation is over, the flowers are taken off their wires and stored in acid-free tissue, ready to be used again. “Absolutely nothing is wasted,” Law says. “It all goes into my archive.”
Works from this archive will make up her next show, a comprehensive, six-week presentation of existing pieces—along with a new installation made of ”all the flowers I’ve ever collected”—starting August 25 at the Broadway gallery in Letchworth Garden City in southeast England. In December, an installation she made for Art Basel will move to Art Basel Miami, and early in 2017 she will be one of seven international artists exhibiting across Denmark as part of the city of Aarhus’s program as the EU’s European Capital of Culture for 2017. Law’s flowers have bloomed in shows at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Times Square in New York, and—her biggest venture yet—in a semipermanent installation of 100,000 flowers in the roof of a shopping mall in Melbourne, Australia. “It’s intended to last for 10 years,” she says. ”Though if some massive spider takes up residence in it—well, we’ll have to see.”
Law’s studio is also her home: two floors above a storefront in a row of early-Victorian conversions made up equally of galleries, tony vintage-clothing stores and 24-hour mini-marts. (And guess what? It’s on the same road as London’s most famous weekly flower market; her husband buys her a bunch every Sunday—“But the deal is, he has to arrange them.”) The façade is brick, painted black to better show off the colors in the window, which in early August was filled with the fat cerulean heads of inverted hydrangeas.
Inside, the gallery walls display editions from a series Law worked on with the photographer Tom Hartford, re-creations of Dutch Golden Age still lifes by Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Ambrosius Bosschaert and Balthasar van der Ast, but with subtle subversions, such as a modern-dressed figurine peering up into the flowers. At the rear of the studio, a 3-foot plaster statuette of Christ suffering the little children is draped with garlands of minute, pinkish-white gypsophila interspersed with the iridescent green bodies of beetles. The dead insects are a typical Law move, a dainty, sly reminder that when it comes to the works of man, mortality always gets the upper hand. Still, the works of man—or rather, women—are much in evidence: At the table that almost fills the center of the room, four women, one wearing a floor-length caftan with a brightly embroidered hem, are stringing frilly orange helichrysum and laying each wire into long cardboard boxes marked “Nike”—part of a commission for the sportswear brand.
Nike is a little late to the party. The earliest adopters of Law’s work were high-end fashion houses—fashion loves flowers, nature’s own luxury brand—and a breakthrough moment came in 2011 when Hermès commissioned Law to fill the glass roof of the Floral Hall at London’s Royal Opera House. (If you have any illusions about how big brands sniff out new talent, abandon them now: They searched for “art with flowers” online.) This was eight years after Law had used flowers for the first time, in a “hideous” piece she made at the end of her third year studying fine art at Newcastle University. “I was trying to paint in 3-D. I had used food, sweets, wool, and some flowers in amongst it all,” she says. “And I actually didn’t even think of them as flowers. I was just trying to find any kind of materials I could use as my palette.”
Frustrated, she went home for the summer, where her dad’s nursery beds were full of “huge, stunning, colorful dahlias. I asked, ‘What do you think about these drying? Do you think they’ll dry well?’ And he said, ‘Yes! Of course they will, and they’ll be brilliant!’ So I took a whole carload back to university that September.”
Once there, she spent a week hanging the dahlia heads on fishing line, in “an exact square, very precise,” from the ceiling of the university’s installation space. “It felt like I was creating [a] painting in the air. Then when I saw the interaction between the viewer and the work, I realized this was beyond color. My obsession with color suddenly became not the most important thing. Instead, it was about the interaction between human beings and nature, and, too, the transformation of the flowers, which dried into a whole other material.” It might have taken a while, but that field in the Fens had worked its way out.
Law’s father was not just responsible for giving her early inspiration and materials; he also introduced her to an art collection that continues to inspire her: the Golden Age still lifes at Cambridge’s Anglesey Abbey, the former priory where he worked. From the beginning, Law was fascinated by how these paintings “capture time”—by which she seems to mean arrest it as well as portray it. They are highly artificial constructs, almost the diametric opposite of the Van Gogh way of stuffing flowers in a vase and then painting them, fast and bright, there and then. The combination of flowers and fruit they show was aseasonal, outside time, and Law knows from trying to reconstruct it that “the balance is impossible—the flowers defy gravity.”
Those 17th-century paintings also had a job to do: advertising new varieties of flowers from Dutch growers. Today, Law buys much of her raw materials from the Dutch, often homing in on whichever variety might have been over-grown that year in order to reduce her environmental footprint: The Dutch glasshouses grow at such scale that, even when she was installing in Melbourne, there was a moment when she thought it might be greener to get her materials from Amsterdam. In the end, though, local growers won the day, and all 150,000 flower heads were antipodean.
About 90 percent of Law’s work is large-scale work for public consumption, but her gallery sells limited, color-photograph editions at about £1,500 ($1,950) for a print. She also accepts private commissions, installing pieces in people’s homes for between £3,000 ($3,900) and £8,000 ($10,400). No one has yet complained when the flower sculpture that cost thousands begins to die, seeming to accept Law’s contention that the fading is a way of showing flowers not as “purely ephemeral objects but as a beautiful sculptural material for you to enjoy for a lifetime.” According to Law, visitors to the Chandran have certainly enjoyed it: “People were walking through and getting tangled up in the flowers, and going, ‘Aaahh!’”
She dreams of spreading the joy even further, filling the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern with an upside-down meadow made of flowers donated by the public from people’s gardens. You imagine that vast space filled with people, sighing with pleasure, modern Marvells ensnared by flowers. Wouldn’t that teenager, sitting awestruck in a field, be delighted?
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/08/26/rebecca-louise-law-flower-installations-490502.html
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You Need To Know About The Life of Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney
WASHINGTON – Daniel Rooney died at 84 last Thursday during Holy Week in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He will be buried there on Tuesday after what will surely be one of the most crowded, loving and civic funeral masses ever held in St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of the city.
The day before the mass there will be a public viewing in the Champions Club at Heinz Field, where the Steelers play. Thousands are expected. It’s the Steel City equivalent of lying in state.
If Pittsburgh, founded as a military outpost by the French in 1754, had had a king, it would have been this wiry little man who turned the Pittsburgh Steelers football team from a hapless local laughing stock into one of the most inspiring and unifying sports franchises in the world. In the process, he helped turn the NFL into a centerpiece of American culture.
Rooney and his family are the kind of public leaders that Donald Trump – who once owned a small-time football team – could not in his most egotistical dreams match.
Except for Pittsburgh and its suburbs, Trump last year won most of “Steeler Country:” Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Maryland. How can Democrats get those voters back? They could start by finding candidates who embody and express Rooney values.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Dan Rooney was instrumental in saving the spirit of a failing city, easing racial tensions nationally, giving crucial aid to his family’s ancestral home of Ireland, offering a timely boost to a politician named Barack Obama, and demonstrating that American Catholicism could – and does – encompass both ritual and the social gospel. And he was, for most of his life, a Republican.
He did all of this without ever unnecessarily seeking the limelight, rarely giving speeches. Even when he was U.S. ambassador to Ireland, listening to others at town halls was his preferred form of politics. He didn’t tweet. He didn’t really want his name in the paper. The Steelers PR department rarely had much to say about him, which is how he wanted it.
Of course he was not a choir boy. Between the chalk lines, the Steelers were as rough, if not more so, than the other teams. He could and did play tough in business. His manner could be tart to people that he did not know or did not care to know.
But, all in all, his public life was superb, and worth contemplating as Christians and Jews, on Easter and Passover, give thanks for the blessing of freedom and of spiritual rebirth in a time of doubt about the future of our America.
The political lesson of Dan Rooney’s life shows that it is within all of us to do good, and it is logical to start within our own lives and world – and not the more distant one that we complain about. Start with your family, your town, your work, and build out from there. It’s “resistance” one step at a time.
Reared in a racially mixed neighborhood on the city’s north side, where his father was a saloon keeper turned new team owner, Dan attended the local Holy Ghost Fathers’ Duquesne University – just at the time when the school was featuring one of the first superstar black college basketball players, Sihugo Green. Catholic colleges overall were early in breaking the color line, but Duquesne became one of most famous and successful.
He wasn’t so much colorblind as eager to break through annoyingly outdated racial lines that stood in the way of the team’s success.
When he took over operation of the Steelers, Rooney had the novel idea of hiring the top sportswriter from the local black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, to scout historically Black colleges and other universities that were willing to play African-Americans. A parade of those draft picks became NFL all-stars.
Rooney led the way for the NFL to change its hiring rules to ensure that African-Americans were considered for opening in any team’s leadership. “The Rooney Rule” worked – and has been emulated by corporate America.
He put his own money where his heart apparently was, hiring Mike Tomlin as the Steeler’s first African-American head coach.
The NFL is rife with problems, to be sure, but its share-and-share-alike business structure is in good measure due to Rooney’s influence. He led the way to guarantee revenue sharing and salary caps. There was financial self-interest, of course: he owned a small market team. But it was also consistent with his ethos, which began with family, analogizing this to the rest of his life.
During the 2008 presidential elections, the Clintons were hoping that Rooney, who generally stayed out of politics would endorse former Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Instead, he chose Obama – at a key moment in which Pennsylvania, always pivotal, made the difference in the election.
Newly elected President Obama later chose Rooney to be ambassador to Ireland. Twenty years earlier, Rooney and Ireland-born Anthony O’Reilly, former CEO of Heinz at the time, launched the Irish-American Fund. It has since poured millions into helping the poor and other social projects in Ireland. Rooney and his wife bankrolled a prestigious literary prize for young Irish writers.
At the core of all of these endeavors was family and faith. If there is a royal family in Pittsburgh today, it is not named Heinz or Mellon or Carnegie – it is Rooney.
While they surely did not intend to serve as civic cheerleaders, he in effect led Pittsburgh through tough times after he took over in 1969. The steel industry was dying; only sports – in the form of the Steelers, as well as the Pirates baseball and Pitt football teams – was thriving. The town became the self-styled “City of Champions,” encouraging the locals to think like winners.
“When you play the Steelers,” the grandiloquent ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell later said, “you were playing the whole city.”
The functional leader of that city was the slight but incredibly willful, shrewd man who lived all his life within walking distance of the stadium.
In all of this, the church was at the center. He attended mass daily, gave liberally, and was friends with bishops and cardinals, one of whom, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, had special vestments made of the Steelers black and gold colors.
But faith mixed alchemically with football. Rooney had started with the team as a water boy when he was five, taking every job that had anything to do with supporting the team on the field and its reputation off of it.
In their 1970s heyday, and sporadically since, the Steelers play like the terrifying Hounds of the Lord. You dare not get in their way. The Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969 – Chuck Noll (nicknamed “The Pope” for his belief in his own infallibility); Bill Cowher (nicknamed “The Face” for his jut-jawed visage) and Tomlin, who is too fierce and tightly wrapped to have a nickname, but who, in press conferences, barks out answers in the manner of a drill sergeant.
But while the late Dan Rooney wanted to win as much – if not more –than anyone else in the NFL – his real idea of victory was spiritual, social, civic, racially just, and familial. It is the way to lead, and a lesson for every prominent public figure.
A month ago I attended the annual dinner of the Irish-American Fund in Pittsburgh, held at the stadium club at Heinz Field. A gentle snow had covered the turf with a dusting of white.
Inside the club, the hundreds in attendance were talking about Rooney, who was absent for the first time since he’d started the organization. He was in the hospital, suffering from an accumulation of ailments that would soon claim his life.
I sat at the Rooneys table with Arthur Rooney II, Dan’s eldest son, and the current president of team, and his wife, Greta.
Also at the table was a young man with a player’s frame and a quiet demeanor. We talked. He’d played high school ball in Pittsburgh, then was the starting quarterback at Dartmouth. He was thinking of heading to business school after a few years of working low-level jobs with the Steelers, starting as a young novitiate water boy.
Of course, he was Dan Rooney III. His grandfather and namesake was dying, but the young man seemed quite confident that he knew just how he should live his own life, carrying that name.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oAfKMf
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Text
You Need To Know About The Life of Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney
WASHINGTON – Daniel Rooney died at 84 last Thursday during Holy Week in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He will be buried there on Tuesday after what will surely be one of the most crowded, loving and civic funeral masses ever held in St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of the city.
The day before the mass there will be a public viewing in the Champions Club at Heinz Field, where the Steelers play. Thousands are expected. It’s the Steel City equivalent of lying in state.
If Pittsburgh, founded as a military outpost by the French in 1754, had had a king, it would have been this wiry little man who turned the Pittsburgh Steelers football team from a hapless local laughing stock into one of the most inspiring and unifying sports franchises in the world. In the process, he helped turn the NFL into a centerpiece of American culture.
Rooney and his family are the kind of public leaders that Donald Trump – who once owned a small-time football team – could not in his most egotistical dreams match.
Except for Pittsburgh and its suburbs, Trump last year won most of “Steeler Country:” Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Maryland. How can Democrats get those voters back? They could start by finding candidates who embody and express Rooney values.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Dan Rooney was instrumental in saving the spirit of a failing city, easing racial tensions nationally, giving crucial aid to his family’s ancestral home of Ireland, offering a timely boost to a politician named Barack Obama, and demonstrating that American Catholicism could – and does – encompass both ritual and the social gospel. And he was, for most of his life, a Republican.
He did all of this without ever unnecessarily seeking the limelight, rarely giving speeches. Even when he was U.S. ambassador to Ireland, listening to others at town halls was his preferred form of politics. He didn’t tweet. He didn’t really want his name in the paper. The Steelers PR department rarely had much to say about him, which is how he wanted it.
Of course he was not a choir boy. Between the chalk lines, the Steelers were as rough, if not more so, than the other teams. He could and did play tough in business. His manner could be tart to people that he did not know or did not care to know.
But, all in all, his public life was superb, and worth contemplating as Christians and Jews, on Easter and Passover, give thanks for the blessing of freedom and of spiritual rebirth in a time of doubt about the future of our America.
The political lesson of Dan Rooney’s life shows that it is within all of us to do good, and it is logical to start within our own lives and world – and not the more distant one that we complain about. Start with your family, your town, your work, and build out from there. It’s “resistance” one step at a time.
Reared in a racially mixed neighborhood on the city’s north side, where his father was a saloon keeper turned new team owner, Dan attended the local Holy Ghost Fathers’ Duquesne University – just at the time when the school was featuring one of the first superstar black college basketball players, Sihugo Green. Catholic colleges overall were early in breaking the color line, but Duquesne became one of most famous and successful.
He wasn’t so much colorblind as eager to break through annoyingly outdated racial lines that stood in the way of the team’s success.
When he took over operation of the Steelers, Rooney had the novel idea of hiring the top sportswriter from the local black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, to scout historically Black colleges and other universities that were willing to play African-Americans. A parade of those draft picks became NFL all-stars.
Rooney led the way for the NFL to change its hiring rules to ensure that African-Americans were considered for opening in any team’s leadership. “The Rooney Rule” worked – and has been emulated by corporate America.
He put his own money where his heart apparently was, hiring Mike Tomlin as the Steeler’s first African-American head coach.
The NFL is rife with problems, to be sure, but its share-and-share-alike business structure is in good measure due to Rooney’s influence. He led the way to guarantee revenue sharing and salary caps. There was financial self-interest, of course: he owned a small market team. But it was also consistent with his ethos, which began with family, analogizing this to the rest of his life.
During the 2008 presidential elections, the Clintons were hoping that Rooney, who generally stayed out of politics would endorse former Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Instead, he chose Obama – at a key moment in which Pennsylvania, always pivotal, made the difference in the election.
Newly elected President Obama later chose Rooney to be ambassador to Ireland. Twenty years earlier, Rooney and Ireland-born Anthony O’Reilly, former CEO of Heinz at the time, launched the Irish-American Fund. It has since poured millions into helping the poor and other social projects in Ireland. Rooney and his wife bankrolled a prestigious literary prize for young Irish writers.
At the core of all of these endeavors was family and faith. If there is a royal family in Pittsburgh today, it is not named Heinz or Mellon or Carnegie – it is Rooney.
While they surely did not intend to serve as civic cheerleaders, he in effect led Pittsburgh through tough times after he took over in 1969. The steel industry was dying; only sports – in the form of the Steelers, as well as the Pirates baseball and Pitt football teams – was thriving. The town became the self-styled “City of Champions,” encouraging the locals to think like winners.
“When you play the Steelers,” the grandiloquent ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell later said, “you were playing the whole city.”
The functional leader of that city was the slight but incredibly willful, shrewd man who lived all his life within walking distance of the stadium.
In all of this, the church was at the center. He attended mass daily, gave liberally, and was friends with bishops and cardinals, one of whom, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, had special vestments made of the Steelers black and gold colors.
But faith mixed alchemically with football. Rooney had started with the team as a water boy when he was five, taking every job that had anything to do with supporting the team on the field and its reputation off of it.
In their 1970s heyday, and sporadically since, the Steelers play like the terrifying Hounds of the Lord. You dare not get in their way. The Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969 – Chuck Noll (nicknamed “The Pope” for his belief in his own infallibility); Bill Cowher (nicknamed “The Face” for his jut-jawed visage) and Tomlin, who is too fierce and tightly wrapped to have a nickname, but who, in press conferences, barks out answers in the manner of a drill sergeant.
But while the late Dan Rooney wanted to win as much – if not more –than anyone else in the NFL – his real idea of victory was spiritual, social, civic, racially just, and familial. It is the way to lead, and a lesson for every prominent public figure.
A month ago I attended the annual dinner of the Irish-American Fund in Pittsburgh, held at the stadium club at Heinz Field. A gentle snow had covered the turf with a dusting of white.
Inside the club, the hundreds in attendance were talking about Rooney, who was absent for the first time since he’d started the organization. He was in the hospital, suffering from an accumulation of ailments that would soon claim his life.
I sat at the Rooneys table with Arthur Rooney II, Dan’s eldest son, and the current president of team, and his wife, Greta.
Also at the table was a young man with a player’s frame and a quiet demeanor. We talked. He’d played high school ball in Pittsburgh, then was the starting quarterback at Dartmouth. He was thinking of heading to business school after a few years of working low-level jobs with the Steelers, starting as a young novitiate water boy.
Of course, he was Dan Rooney III. His grandfather and namesake was dying, but the young man seemed quite confident that he knew just how he should live his own life, carrying that name.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oAfKMf
0 notes
Text
You Need To Know About The Life of Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney
WASHINGTON – Daniel Rooney died at 84 last Thursday during Holy Week in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He will be buried there on Tuesday after what will surely be one of the most crowded, loving and civic funeral masses ever held in St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of the city.
The day before the mass there will be a public viewing in the Champions Club at Heinz Field, where the Steelers play. Thousands are expected. It’s the Steel City equivalent of lying in state.
If Pittsburgh, founded as a military outpost by the French in 1754, had had a king, it would have been this wiry little man who turned the Pittsburgh Steelers football team from a hapless local laughing stock into one of the most inspiring and unifying sports franchises in the world. In the process, he helped turn the NFL into a centerpiece of American culture.
Rooney and his family are the kind of public leaders that Donald Trump – who once owned a small-time football team – could not in his most egotistical dreams match.
Except for Pittsburgh and its suburbs, Trump last year won most of “Steeler Country:” Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Maryland. How can Democrats get those voters back? They could start by finding candidates who embody and express Rooney values.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Dan Rooney was instrumental in saving the spirit of a failing city, easing racial tensions nationally, giving crucial aid to his family’s ancestral home of Ireland, offering a timely boost to a politician named Barack Obama, and demonstrating that American Catholicism could – and does – encompass both ritual and the social gospel. And he was, for most of his life, a Republican.
He did all of this without ever unnecessarily seeking the limelight, rarely giving speeches. Even when he was U.S. ambassador to Ireland, listening to others at town halls was his preferred form of politics. He didn’t tweet. He didn’t really want his name in the paper. The Steelers PR department rarely had much to say about him, which is how he wanted it.
Of course he was not a choir boy. Between the chalk lines, the Steelers were as rough, if not more so, than the other teams. He could and did play tough in business. His manner could be tart to people that he did not know or did not care to know.
But, all in all, his public life was superb, and worth contemplating as Christians and Jews, on Easter and Passover, give thanks for the blessing of freedom and of spiritual rebirth in a time of doubt about the future of our America.
The political lesson of Dan Rooney’s life shows that it is within all of us to do good, and it is logical to start within our own lives and world – and not the more distant one that we complain about. Start with your family, your town, your work, and build out from there. It’s “resistance” one step at a time.
Reared in a racially mixed neighborhood on the city’s north side, where his father was a saloon keeper turned new team owner, Dan attended the local Holy Ghost Fathers’ Duquesne University – just at the time when the school was featuring one of the first superstar black college basketball players, Sihugo Green. Catholic colleges overall were early in breaking the color line, but Duquesne became one of most famous and successful.
He wasn’t so much colorblind as eager to break through annoyingly outdated racial lines that stood in the way of the team’s success.
When he took over operation of the Steelers, Rooney had the novel idea of hiring the top sportswriter from the local black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, to scout historically Black colleges and other universities that were willing to play African-Americans. A parade of those draft picks became NFL all-stars.
Rooney led the way for the NFL to change its hiring rules to ensure that African-Americans were considered for opening in any team’s leadership. “The Rooney Rule” worked – and has been emulated by corporate America.
He put his own money where his heart apparently was, hiring Mike Tomlin as the Steeler’s first African-American head coach.
The NFL is rife with problems, to be sure, but its share-and-share-alike business structure is in good measure due to Rooney’s influence. He led the way to guarantee revenue sharing and salary caps. There was financial self-interest, of course: he owned a small market team. But it was also consistent with his ethos, which began with family, analogizing this to the rest of his life.
During the 2008 presidential elections, the Clintons were hoping that Rooney, who generally stayed out of politics would endorse former Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Instead, he chose Obama – at a key moment in which Pennsylvania, always pivotal, made the difference in the election.
Newly elected President Obama later chose Rooney to be ambassador to Ireland. Twenty years earlier, Rooney and Ireland-born Anthony O’Reilly, former CEO of Heinz at the time, launched the Irish-American Fund. It has since poured millions into helping the poor and other social projects in Ireland. Rooney and his wife bankrolled a prestigious literary prize for young Irish writers.
At the core of all of these endeavors was family and faith. If there is a royal family in Pittsburgh today, it is not named Heinz or Mellon or Carnegie – it is Rooney.
While they surely did not intend to serve as civic cheerleaders, he in effect led Pittsburgh through tough times after he took over in 1969. The steel industry was dying; only sports – in the form of the Steelers, as well as the Pirates baseball and Pitt football teams – was thriving. The town became the self-styled “City of Champions,” encouraging the locals to think like winners.
“When you play the Steelers,” the grandiloquent ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell later said, “you were playing the whole city.”
The functional leader of that city was the slight but incredibly willful, shrewd man who lived all his life within walking distance of the stadium.
In all of this, the church was at the center. He attended mass daily, gave liberally, and was friends with bishops and cardinals, one of whom, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, had special vestments made of the Steelers black and gold colors.
But faith mixed alchemically with football. Rooney had started with the team as a water boy when he was five, taking every job that had anything to do with supporting the team on the field and its reputation off of it.
In their 1970s heyday, and sporadically since, the Steelers play like the terrifying Hounds of the Lord. You dare not get in their way. The Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969 – Chuck Noll (nicknamed “The Pope” for his belief in his own infallibility); Bill Cowher (nicknamed “The Face” for his jut-jawed visage) and Tomlin, who is too fierce and tightly wrapped to have a nickname, but who, in press conferences, barks out answers in the manner of a drill sergeant.
But while the late Dan Rooney wanted to win as much – if not more –than anyone else in the NFL – his real idea of victory was spiritual, social, civic, racially just, and familial. It is the way to lead, and a lesson for every prominent public figure.
A month ago I attended the annual dinner of the Irish-American Fund in Pittsburgh, held at the stadium club at Heinz Field. A gentle snow had covered the turf with a dusting of white.
Inside the club, the hundreds in attendance were talking about Rooney, who was absent for the first time since he’d started the organization. He was in the hospital, suffering from an accumulation of ailments that would soon claim his life.
I sat at the Rooneys table with Arthur Rooney II, Dan’s eldest son, and the current president of team, and his wife, Greta.
Also at the table was a young man with a player’s frame and a quiet demeanor. We talked. He’d played high school ball in Pittsburgh, then was the starting quarterback at Dartmouth. He was thinking of heading to business school after a few years of working low-level jobs with the Steelers, starting as a young novitiate water boy.
Of course, he was Dan Rooney III. His grandfather and namesake was dying, but the young man seemed quite confident that he knew just how he should live his own life, carrying that name.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oAfKMf
0 notes
Text
You Need To Know About The Life of Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney
WASHINGTON – Daniel Rooney died at 84 last Thursday during Holy Week in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He will be buried there on Tuesday after what will surely be one of the most crowded, loving and civic funeral masses ever held in St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of the city.
The day before the mass there will be a public viewing in the Champions Club at Heinz Field, where the Steelers play. Thousands are expected. It’s the Steel City equivalent of lying in state.
If Pittsburgh, founded as a military outpost by the French in 1754, had had a king, it would have been this wiry little man who turned the Pittsburgh Steelers football team from a hapless local laughing stock into one of the most inspiring and unifying sports franchises in the world. In the process, he helped turn the NFL into a centerpiece of American culture.
Rooney and his family are the kind of public leaders that Donald Trump – who once owned a small-time football team – could not in his most egotistical dreams match.
Except for Pittsburgh and its suburbs, Trump last year won most of “Steeler Country:” Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Maryland. How can Democrats get those voters back? They could start by finding candidates who embody and express Rooney values.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Dan Rooney was instrumental in saving the spirit of a failing city, easing racial tensions nationally, giving crucial aid to his family’s ancestral home of Ireland, offering a timely boost to a politician named Barack Obama, and demonstrating that American Catholicism could – and does – encompass both ritual and the social gospel. And he was, for most of his life, a Republican.
He did all of this without ever unnecessarily seeking the limelight, rarely giving speeches. Even when he was U.S. ambassador to Ireland, listening to others at town halls was his preferred form of politics. He didn’t tweet. He didn’t really want his name in the paper. The Steelers PR department rarely had much to say about him, which is how he wanted it.
Of course he was not a choir boy. Between the chalk lines, the Steelers were as rough, if not more so, than the other teams. He could and did play tough in business. His manner could be tart to people that he did not know or did not care to know.
But, all in all, his public life was superb, and worth contemplating as Christians and Jews, on Easter and Passover, give thanks for the blessing of freedom and of spiritual rebirth in a time of doubt about the future of our America.
The political lesson of Dan Rooney’s life shows that it is within all of us to do good, and it is logical to start within our own lives and world – and not the more distant one that we complain about. Start with your family, your town, your work, and build out from there. It’s “resistance” one step at a time.
Reared in a racially mixed neighborhood on the city’s north side, where his father was a saloon keeper turned new team owner, Dan attended the local Holy Ghost Fathers’ Duquesne University – just at the time when the school was featuring one of the first superstar black college basketball players, Sihugo Green. Catholic colleges overall were early in breaking the color line, but Duquesne became one of most famous and successful.
He wasn’t so much colorblind as eager to break through annoyingly outdated racial lines that stood in the way of the team’s success.
When he took over operation of the Steelers, Rooney had the novel idea of hiring the top sportswriter from the local black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, to scout historically Black colleges and other universities that were willing to play African-Americans. A parade of those draft picks became NFL all-stars.
Rooney led the way for the NFL to change its hiring rules to ensure that African-Americans were considered for opening in any team’s leadership. “The Rooney Rule” worked – and has been emulated by corporate America.
He put his own money where his heart apparently was, hiring Mike Tomlin as the Steeler’s first African-American head coach.
The NFL is rife with problems, to be sure, but its share-and-share-alike business structure is in good measure due to Rooney’s influence. He led the way to guarantee revenue sharing and salary caps. There was financial self-interest, of course: he owned a small market team. But it was also consistent with his ethos, which began with family, analogizing this to the rest of his life.
During the 2008 presidential elections, the Clintons were hoping that Rooney, who generally stayed out of politics would endorse former Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Instead, he chose Obama – at a key moment in which Pennsylvania, always pivotal, made the difference in the election.
Newly elected President Obama later chose Rooney to be ambassador to Ireland. Twenty years earlier, Rooney and Ireland-born Anthony O’Reilly, former CEO of Heinz at the time, launched the Irish-American Fund. It has since poured millions into helping the poor and other social projects in Ireland. Rooney and his wife bankrolled a prestigious literary prize for young Irish writers.
At the core of all of these endeavors was family and faith. If there is a royal family in Pittsburgh today, it is not named Heinz or Mellon or Carnegie – it is Rooney.
While they surely did not intend to serve as civic cheerleaders, he in effect led Pittsburgh through tough times after he took over in 1969. The steel industry was dying; only sports – in the form of the Steelers, as well as the Pirates baseball and Pitt football teams – was thriving. The town became the self-styled “City of Champions,” encouraging the locals to think like winners.
“When you play the Steelers,” the grandiloquent ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell later said, “you were playing the whole city.”
The functional leader of that city was the slight but incredibly willful, shrewd man who lived all his life within walking distance of the stadium.
In all of this, the church was at the center. He attended mass daily, gave liberally, and was friends with bishops and cardinals, one of whom, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, had special vestments made of the Steelers black and gold colors.
But faith mixed alchemically with football. Rooney had started with the team as a water boy when he was five, taking every job that had anything to do with supporting the team on the field and its reputation off of it.
In their 1970s heyday, and sporadically since, the Steelers play like the terrifying Hounds of the Lord. You dare not get in their way. The Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969 – Chuck Noll (nicknamed “The Pope” for his belief in his own infallibility); Bill Cowher (nicknamed “The Face” for his jut-jawed visage) and Tomlin, who is too fierce and tightly wrapped to have a nickname, but who, in press conferences, barks out answers in the manner of a drill sergeant.
But while the late Dan Rooney wanted to win as much – if not more –than anyone else in the NFL – his real idea of victory was spiritual, social, civic, racially just, and familial. It is the way to lead, and a lesson for every prominent public figure.
A month ago I attended the annual dinner of the Irish-American Fund in Pittsburgh, held at the stadium club at Heinz Field. A gentle snow had covered the turf with a dusting of white.
Inside the club, the hundreds in attendance were talking about Rooney, who was absent for the first time since he’d started the organization. He was in the hospital, suffering from an accumulation of ailments that would soon claim his life.
I sat at the Rooneys table with Arthur Rooney II, Dan’s eldest son, and the current president of team, and his wife, Greta.
Also at the table was a young man with a player’s frame and a quiet demeanor. We talked. He’d played high school ball in Pittsburgh, then was the starting quarterback at Dartmouth. He was thinking of heading to business school after a few years of working low-level jobs with the Steelers, starting as a young novitiate water boy.
Of course, he was Dan Rooney III. His grandfather and namesake was dying, but the young man seemed quite confident that he knew just how he should live his own life, carrying that name.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oAfKMf
0 notes
Text
You Need To Know About The Life of Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney
WASHINGTON – Daniel Rooney died at 84 last Thursday during Holy Week in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He will be buried there on Tuesday after what will surely be one of the most crowded, loving and civic funeral masses ever held in St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of the city.
The day before the mass there will be a public viewing in the Champions Club at Heinz Field, where the Steelers play. Thousands are expected. It’s the Steel City equivalent of lying in state.
If Pittsburgh, founded as a military outpost by the French in 1754, had had a king, it would have been this wiry little man who turned the Pittsburgh Steelers football team from a hapless local laughing stock into one of the most inspiring and unifying sports franchises in the world. In the process, he helped turn the NFL into a centerpiece of American culture.
Rooney and his family are the kind of public leaders that Donald Trump – who once owned a small-time football team – could not in his most egotistical dreams match.
Except for Pittsburgh and its suburbs, Trump last year won most of “Steeler Country:” Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Maryland. How can Democrats get those voters back? They could start by finding candidates who embody and express Rooney values.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Dan Rooney was instrumental in saving the spirit of a failing city, easing racial tensions nationally, giving crucial aid to his family’s ancestral home of Ireland, offering a timely boost to a politician named Barack Obama, and demonstrating that American Catholicism could – and does – encompass both ritual and the social gospel. And he was, for most of his life, a Republican.
He did all of this without ever unnecessarily seeking the limelight, rarely giving speeches. Even when he was U.S. ambassador to Ireland, listening to others at town halls was his preferred form of politics. He didn’t tweet. He didn’t really want his name in the paper. The Steelers PR department rarely had much to say about him, which is how he wanted it.
Of course he was not a choir boy. Between the chalk lines, the Steelers were as rough, if not more so, than the other teams. He could and did play tough in business. His manner could be tart to people that he did not know or did not care to know.
But, all in all, his public life was superb, and worth contemplating as Christians and Jews, on Easter and Passover, give thanks for the blessing of freedom and of spiritual rebirth in a time of doubt about the future of our America.
The political lesson of Dan Rooney’s life shows that it is within all of us to do good, and it is logical to start within our own lives and world – and not the more distant one that we complain about. Start with your family, your town, your work, and build out from there. It’s “resistance” one step at a time.
Reared in a racially mixed neighborhood on the city’s north side, where his father was a saloon keeper turned new team owner, Dan attended the local Holy Ghost Fathers’ Duquesne University – just at the time when the school was featuring one of the first superstar black college basketball players, Sihugo Green. Catholic colleges overall were early in breaking the color line, but Duquesne became one of most famous and successful.
He wasn’t so much colorblind as eager to break through annoyingly outdated racial lines that stood in the way of the team’s success.
When he took over operation of the Steelers, Rooney had the novel idea of hiring the top sportswriter from the local black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, to scout historically Black colleges and other universities that were willing to play African-Americans. A parade of those draft picks became NFL all-stars.
Rooney led the way for the NFL to change its hiring rules to ensure that African-Americans were considered for opening in any team’s leadership. “The Rooney Rule” worked – and has been emulated by corporate America.
He put his own money where his heart apparently was, hiring Mike Tomlin as the Steeler’s first African-American head coach.
The NFL is rife with problems, to be sure, but its share-and-share-alike business structure is in good measure due to Rooney’s influence. He led the way to guarantee revenue sharing and salary caps. There was financial self-interest, of course: he owned a small market team. But it was also consistent with his ethos, which began with family, analogizing this to the rest of his life.
During the 2008 presidential elections, the Clintons were hoping that Rooney, who generally stayed out of politics would endorse former Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Instead, he chose Obama – at a key moment in which Pennsylvania, always pivotal, made the difference in the election.
Newly elected President Obama later chose Rooney to be ambassador to Ireland. Twenty years earlier, Rooney and Ireland-born Anthony O’Reilly, former CEO of Heinz at the time, launched the Irish-American Fund. It has since poured millions into helping the poor and other social projects in Ireland. Rooney and his wife bankrolled a prestigious literary prize for young Irish writers.
At the core of all of these endeavors was family and faith. If there is a royal family in Pittsburgh today, it is not named Heinz or Mellon or Carnegie – it is Rooney.
While they surely did not intend to serve as civic cheerleaders, he in effect led Pittsburgh through tough times after he took over in 1969. The steel industry was dying; only sports – in the form of the Steelers, as well as the Pirates baseball and Pitt football teams – was thriving. The town became the self-styled “City of Champions,” encouraging the locals to think like winners.
“When you play the Steelers,” the grandiloquent ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell later said, “you were playing the whole city.”
The functional leader of that city was the slight but incredibly willful, shrewd man who lived all his life within walking distance of the stadium.
In all of this, the church was at the center. He attended mass daily, gave liberally, and was friends with bishops and cardinals, one of whom, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, had special vestments made of the Steelers black and gold colors.
But faith mixed alchemically with football. Rooney had started with the team as a water boy when he was five, taking every job that had anything to do with supporting the team on the field and its reputation off of it.
In their 1970s heyday, and sporadically since, the Steelers play like the terrifying Hounds of the Lord. You dare not get in their way. The Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969 – Chuck Noll (nicknamed “The Pope” for his belief in his own infallibility); Bill Cowher (nicknamed “The Face” for his jut-jawed visage) and Tomlin, who is too fierce and tightly wrapped to have a nickname, but who, in press conferences, barks out answers in the manner of a drill sergeant.
But while the late Dan Rooney wanted to win as much – if not more –than anyone else in the NFL – his real idea of victory was spiritual, social, civic, racially just, and familial. It is the way to lead, and a lesson for every prominent public figure.
A month ago I attended the annual dinner of the Irish-American Fund in Pittsburgh, held at the stadium club at Heinz Field. A gentle snow had covered the turf with a dusting of white.
Inside the club, the hundreds in attendance were talking about Rooney, who was absent for the first time since he’d started the organization. He was in the hospital, suffering from an accumulation of ailments that would soon claim his life.
I sat at the Rooneys table with Arthur Rooney II, Dan’s eldest son, and the current president of team, and his wife, Greta.
Also at the table was a young man with a player’s frame and a quiet demeanor. We talked. He’d played high school ball in Pittsburgh, then was the starting quarterback at Dartmouth. He was thinking of heading to business school after a few years of working low-level jobs with the Steelers, starting as a young novitiate water boy.
Of course, he was Dan Rooney III. His grandfather and namesake was dying, but the young man seemed quite confident that he knew just how he should live his own life, carrying that name.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oAfKMf
0 notes
Text
You Need To Know About The Life of Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney
WASHINGTON – Daniel Rooney died at 84 last Thursday during Holy Week in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He will be buried there on Tuesday after what will surely be one of the most crowded, loving and civic funeral masses ever held in St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of the city.
The day before the mass there will be a public viewing in the Champions Club at Heinz Field, where the Steelers play. Thousands are expected. It’s the Steel City equivalent of lying in state.
If Pittsburgh, founded as a military outpost by the French in 1754, had had a king, it would have been this wiry little man who turned the Pittsburgh Steelers football team from a hapless local laughing stock into one of the most inspiring and unifying sports franchises in the world. In the process, he helped turn the NFL into a centerpiece of American culture.
Rooney and his family are the kind of public leaders that Donald Trump – who once owned a small-time football team – could not in his most egotistical dreams match.
Except for Pittsburgh and its suburbs, Trump last year won most of “Steeler Country:” Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Maryland. How can Democrats get those voters back? They could start by finding candidates who embody and express Rooney values.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Dan Rooney was instrumental in saving the spirit of a failing city, easing racial tensions nationally, giving crucial aid to his family’s ancestral home of Ireland, offering a timely boost to a politician named Barack Obama, and demonstrating that American Catholicism could – and does – encompass both ritual and the social gospel. And he was, for most of his life, a Republican.
He did all of this without ever unnecessarily seeking the limelight, rarely giving speeches. Even when he was U.S. ambassador to Ireland, listening to others at town halls was his preferred form of politics. He didn’t tweet. He didn’t really want his name in the paper. The Steelers PR department rarely had much to say about him, which is how he wanted it.
Of course he was not a choir boy. Between the chalk lines, the Steelers were as rough, if not more so, than the other teams. He could and did play tough in business. His manner could be tart to people that he did not know or did not care to know.
But, all in all, his public life was superb, and worth contemplating as Christians and Jews, on Easter and Passover, give thanks for the blessing of freedom and of spiritual rebirth in a time of doubt about the future of our America.
The political lesson of Dan Rooney’s life shows that it is within all of us to do good, and it is logical to start within our own lives and world – and not the more distant one that we complain about. Start with your family, your town, your work, and build out from there. It’s “resistance” one step at a time.
Reared in a racially mixed neighborhood on the city’s north side, where his father was a saloon keeper turned new team owner, Dan attended the local Holy Ghost Fathers’ Duquesne University – just at the time when the school was featuring one of the first superstar black college basketball players, Sihugo Green. Catholic colleges overall were early in breaking the color line, but Duquesne became one of most famous and successful.
He wasn’t so much colorblind as eager to break through annoyingly outdated racial lines that stood in the way of the team’s success.
When he took over operation of the Steelers, Rooney had the novel idea of hiring the top sportswriter from the local black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, to scout historically Black colleges and other universities that were willing to play African-Americans. A parade of those draft picks became NFL all-stars.
Rooney led the way for the NFL to change its hiring rules to ensure that African-Americans were considered for opening in any team’s leadership. “The Rooney Rule” worked – and has been emulated by corporate America.
He put his own money where his heart apparently was, hiring Mike Tomlin as the Steeler’s first African-American head coach.
The NFL is rife with problems, to be sure, but its share-and-share-alike business structure is in good measure due to Rooney’s influence. He led the way to guarantee revenue sharing and salary caps. There was financial self-interest, of course: he owned a small market team. But it was also consistent with his ethos, which began with family, analogizing this to the rest of his life.
During the 2008 presidential elections, the Clintons were hoping that Rooney, who generally stayed out of politics would endorse former Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Instead, he chose Obama – at a key moment in which Pennsylvania, always pivotal, made the difference in the election.
Newly elected President Obama later chose Rooney to be ambassador to Ireland. Twenty years earlier, Rooney and Ireland-born Anthony O’Reilly, former CEO of Heinz at the time, launched the Irish-American Fund. It has since poured millions into helping the poor and other social projects in Ireland. Rooney and his wife bankrolled a prestigious literary prize for young Irish writers.
At the core of all of these endeavors was family and faith. If there is a royal family in Pittsburgh today, it is not named Heinz or Mellon or Carnegie – it is Rooney.
While they surely did not intend to serve as civic cheerleaders, he in effect led Pittsburgh through tough times after he took over in 1969. The steel industry was dying; only sports – in the form of the Steelers, as well as the Pirates baseball and Pitt football teams – was thriving. The town became the self-styled “City of Champions,” encouraging the locals to think like winners.
“When you play the Steelers,” the grandiloquent ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell later said, “you were playing the whole city.”
The functional leader of that city was the slight but incredibly willful, shrewd man who lived all his life within walking distance of the stadium.
In all of this, the church was at the center. He attended mass daily, gave liberally, and was friends with bishops and cardinals, one of whom, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, had special vestments made of the Steelers black and gold colors.
But faith mixed alchemically with football. Rooney had started with the team as a water boy when he was five, taking every job that had anything to do with supporting the team on the field and its reputation off of it.
In their 1970s heyday, and sporadically since, the Steelers play like the terrifying Hounds of the Lord. You dare not get in their way. The Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969 – Chuck Noll (nicknamed “The Pope” for his belief in his own infallibility); Bill Cowher (nicknamed “The Face” for his jut-jawed visage) and Tomlin, who is too fierce and tightly wrapped to have a nickname, but who, in press conferences, barks out answers in the manner of a drill sergeant.
But while the late Dan Rooney wanted to win as much – if not more –than anyone else in the NFL – his real idea of victory was spiritual, social, civic, racially just, and familial. It is the way to lead, and a lesson for every prominent public figure.
A month ago I attended the annual dinner of the Irish-American Fund in Pittsburgh, held at the stadium club at Heinz Field. A gentle snow had covered the turf with a dusting of white.
Inside the club, the hundreds in attendance were talking about Rooney, who was absent for the first time since he’d started the organization. He was in the hospital, suffering from an accumulation of ailments that would soon claim his life.
I sat at the Rooneys table with Arthur Rooney II, Dan’s eldest son, and the current president of team, and his wife, Greta.
Also at the table was a young man with a player’s frame and a quiet demeanor. We talked. He’d played high school ball in Pittsburgh, then was the starting quarterback at Dartmouth. He was thinking of heading to business school after a few years of working low-level jobs with the Steelers, starting as a young novitiate water boy.
Of course, he was Dan Rooney III. His grandfather and namesake was dying, but the young man seemed quite confident that he knew just how he should live his own life, carrying that name.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oAfKMf
0 notes
Text
You Need To Know About The Life of Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney
WASHINGTON – Daniel Rooney died at 84 last Thursday during Holy Week in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He will be buried there on Tuesday after what will surely be one of the most crowded, loving and civic funeral masses ever held in St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of the city.
The day before the mass there will be a public viewing in the Champions Club at Heinz Field, where the Steelers play. Thousands are expected. It’s the Steel City equivalent of lying in state.
If Pittsburgh, founded as a military outpost by the French in 1754, had had a king, it would have been this wiry little man who turned the Pittsburgh Steelers football team from a hapless local laughing stock into one of the most inspiring and unifying sports franchises in the world. In the process, he helped turn the NFL into a centerpiece of American culture.
Rooney and his family are the kind of public leaders that Donald Trump – who once owned a small-time football team – could not in his most egotistical dreams match.
Except for Pittsburgh and its suburbs, Trump last year won most of “Steeler Country:” Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Maryland. How can Democrats get those voters back? They could start by finding candidates who embody and express Rooney values.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Dan Rooney was instrumental in saving the spirit of a failing city, easing racial tensions nationally, giving crucial aid to his family’s ancestral home of Ireland, offering a timely boost to a politician named Barack Obama, and demonstrating that American Catholicism could – and does – encompass both ritual and the social gospel. And he was, for most of his life, a Republican.
He did all of this without ever unnecessarily seeking the limelight, rarely giving speeches. Even when he was U.S. ambassador to Ireland, listening to others at town halls was his preferred form of politics. He didn’t tweet. He didn’t really want his name in the paper. The Steelers PR department rarely had much to say about him, which is how he wanted it.
Of course he was not a choir boy. Between the chalk lines, the Steelers were as rough, if not more so, than the other teams. He could and did play tough in business. His manner could be tart to people that he did not know or did not care to know.
But, all in all, his public life was superb, and worth contemplating as Christians and Jews, on Easter and Passover, give thanks for the blessing of freedom and of spiritual rebirth in a time of doubt about the future of our America.
The political lesson of Dan Rooney’s life shows that it is within all of us to do good, and it is logical to start within our own lives and world – and not the more distant one that we complain about. Start with your family, your town, your work, and build out from there. It’s “resistance” one step at a time.
Reared in a racially mixed neighborhood on the city’s north side, where his father was a saloon keeper turned new team owner, Dan attended the local Holy Ghost Fathers’ Duquesne University – just at the time when the school was featuring one of the first superstar black college basketball players, Sihugo Green. Catholic colleges overall were early in breaking the color line, but Duquesne became one of most famous and successful.
He wasn’t so much colorblind as eager to break through annoyingly outdated racial lines that stood in the way of the team’s success.
When he took over operation of the Steelers, Rooney had the novel idea of hiring the top sportswriter from the local black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, to scout historically Black colleges and other universities that were willing to play African-Americans. A parade of those draft picks became NFL all-stars.
Rooney led the way for the NFL to change its hiring rules to ensure that African-Americans were considered for opening in any team’s leadership. “The Rooney Rule” worked – and has been emulated by corporate America.
He put his own money where his heart apparently was, hiring Mike Tomlin as the Steeler’s first African-American head coach.
The NFL is rife with problems, to be sure, but its share-and-share-alike business structure is in good measure due to Rooney’s influence. He led the way to guarantee revenue sharing and salary caps. There was financial self-interest, of course: he owned a small market team. But it was also consistent with his ethos, which began with family, analogizing this to the rest of his life.
During the 2008 presidential elections, the Clintons were hoping that Rooney, who generally stayed out of politics would endorse former Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Instead, he chose Obama – at a key moment in which Pennsylvania, always pivotal, made the difference in the election.
Newly elected President Obama later chose Rooney to be ambassador to Ireland. Twenty years earlier, Rooney and Ireland-born Anthony O’Reilly, former CEO of Heinz at the time, launched the Irish-American Fund. It has since poured millions into helping the poor and other social projects in Ireland. Rooney and his wife bankrolled a prestigious literary prize for young Irish writers.
At the core of all of these endeavors was family and faith. If there is a royal family in Pittsburgh today, it is not named Heinz or Mellon or Carnegie – it is Rooney.
While they surely did not intend to serve as civic cheerleaders, he in effect led Pittsburgh through tough times after he took over in 1969. The steel industry was dying; only sports – in the form of the Steelers, as well as the Pirates baseball and Pitt football teams – was thriving. The town became the self-styled “City of Champions,” encouraging the locals to think like winners.
“When you play the Steelers,” the grandiloquent ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell later said, “you were playing the whole city.”
The functional leader of that city was the slight but incredibly willful, shrewd man who lived all his life within walking distance of the stadium.
In all of this, the church was at the center. He attended mass daily, gave liberally, and was friends with bishops and cardinals, one of whom, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, had special vestments made of the Steelers black and gold colors.
But faith mixed alchemically with football. Rooney had started with the team as a water boy when he was five, taking every job that had anything to do with supporting the team on the field and its reputation off of it.
In their 1970s heyday, and sporadically since, the Steelers play like the terrifying Hounds of the Lord. You dare not get in their way. The Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969 – Chuck Noll (nicknamed “The Pope” for his belief in his own infallibility); Bill Cowher (nicknamed “The Face” for his jut-jawed visage) and Tomlin, who is too fierce and tightly wrapped to have a nickname, but who, in press conferences, barks out answers in the manner of a drill sergeant.
But while the late Dan Rooney wanted to win as much – if not more –than anyone else in the NFL – his real idea of victory was spiritual, social, civic, racially just, and familial. It is the way to lead, and a lesson for every prominent public figure.
A month ago I attended the annual dinner of the Irish-American Fund in Pittsburgh, held at the stadium club at Heinz Field. A gentle snow had covered the turf with a dusting of white.
Inside the club, the hundreds in attendance were talking about Rooney, who was absent for the first time since he’d started the organization. He was in the hospital, suffering from an accumulation of ailments that would soon claim his life.
I sat at the Rooneys table with Arthur Rooney II, Dan’s eldest son, and the current president of team, and his wife, Greta.
Also at the table was a young man with a player’s frame and a quiet demeanor. We talked. He’d played high school ball in Pittsburgh, then was the starting quarterback at Dartmouth. He was thinking of heading to business school after a few years of working low-level jobs with the Steelers, starting as a young novitiate water boy.
Of course, he was Dan Rooney III. His grandfather and namesake was dying, but the young man seemed quite confident that he knew just how he should live his own life, carrying that name.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2oAfKMf
0 notes
Text
You Need To Know About The Life of Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney
WASHINGTON – Daniel Rooney died at 84 last Thursday during Holy Week in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He will be buried there on Tuesday after what will surely be one of the most crowded, loving and civic funeral masses ever held in St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of the city.
The day before the mass there will be a public viewing in the Champions Club at Heinz Field, where the Steelers play. Thousands are expected. It’s the Steel City equivalent of lying in state.
If Pittsburgh, founded as a military outpost by the French in 1754, had had a king, it would have been this wiry little man who turned the Pittsburgh Steelers football team from a hapless local laughing stock into one of the most inspiring and unifying sports franchises in the world. In the process, he helped turn the NFL into a centerpiece of American culture.
Rooney and his family are the kind of public leaders that Donald Trump – who once owned a small-time football team – could not in his most egotistical dreams match.
Except for Pittsburgh and its suburbs, Trump last year won most of “Steeler Country:” Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Maryland. How can Democrats get those voters back? They could start by finding candidates who embody and express Rooney values.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Dan Rooney was instrumental in saving the spirit of a failing city, easing racial tensions nationally, giving crucial aid to his family’s ancestral home of Ireland, offering a timely boost to a politician named Barack Obama, and demonstrating that American Catholicism could – and does – encompass both ritual and the social gospel. And he was, for most of his life, a Republican.
He did all of this without ever unnecessarily seeking the limelight, rarely giving speeches. Even when he was U.S. ambassador to Ireland, listening to others at town halls was his preferred form of politics. He didn’t tweet. He didn’t really want his name in the paper. The Steelers PR department rarely had much to say about him, which is how he wanted it.
Of course he was not a choir boy. Between the chalk lines, the Steelers were as rough, if not more so, than the other teams. He could and did play tough in business. His manner could be tart to people that he did not know or did not care to know.
But, all in all, his public life was superb, and worth contemplating as Christians and Jews, on Easter and Passover, give thanks for the blessing of freedom and of spiritual rebirth in a time of doubt about the future of our America.
The political lesson of Dan Rooney’s life shows that it is within all of us to do good, and it is logical to start within our own lives and world – and not the more distant one that we complain about. Start with your family, your town, your work, and build out from there. It’s “resistance” one step at a time.
Reared in a racially mixed neighborhood on the city’s north side, where his father was a saloon keeper turned new team owner, Dan attended the local Holy Ghost Fathers’ Duquesne University – just at the time when the school was featuring one of the first superstar black college basketball players, Sihugo Green. Catholic colleges overall were early in breaking the color line, but Duquesne became one of most famous and successful.
He wasn’t so much colorblind as eager to break through annoyingly outdated racial lines that stood in the way of the team’s success.
When he took over operation of the Steelers, Rooney had the novel idea of hiring the top sportswriter from the local black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, to scout historically Black colleges and other universities that were willing to play African-Americans. A parade of those draft picks became NFL all-stars.
Rooney led the way for the NFL to change its hiring rules to ensure that African-Americans were considered for opening in any team’s leadership. “The Rooney Rule” worked – and has been emulated by corporate America.
He put his own money where his heart apparently was, hiring Mike Tomlin as the Steeler’s first African-American head coach.
The NFL is rife with problems, to be sure, but its share-and-share-alike business structure is in good measure due to Rooney’s influence. He led the way to guarantee revenue sharing and salary caps. There was financial self-interest, of course: he owned a small market team. But it was also consistent with his ethos, which began with family, analogizing this to the rest of his life.
During the 2008 presidential elections, the Clintons were hoping that Rooney, who generally stayed out of politics would endorse former Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Instead, he chose Obama – at a key moment in which Pennsylvania, always pivotal, made the difference in the election.
Newly elected President Obama later chose Rooney to be ambassador to Ireland. Twenty years earlier, Rooney and Ireland-born Anthony O’Reilly, former CEO of Heinz at the time, launched the Irish-American Fund. It has since poured millions into helping the poor and other social projects in Ireland. Rooney and his wife bankrolled a prestigious literary prize for young Irish writers.
At the core of all of these endeavors was family and faith. If there is a royal family in Pittsburgh today, it is not named Heinz or Mellon or Carnegie – it is Rooney.
While they surely did not intend to serve as civic cheerleaders, he in effect led Pittsburgh through tough times after he took over in 1969. The steel industry was dying; only sports – in the form of the Steelers, as well as the Pirates baseball and Pitt football teams – was thriving. The town became the self-styled “City of Champions,” encouraging the locals to think like winners.
“When you play the Steelers,” the grandiloquent ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell later said, “you were playing the whole city.”
The functional leader of that city was the slight but incredibly willful, shrewd man who lived all his life within walking distance of the stadium.
In all of this, the church was at the center. He attended mass daily, gave liberally, and was friends with bishops and cardinals, one of whom, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, had special vestments made of the Steelers black and gold colors.
But faith mixed alchemically with football. Rooney had started with the team as a water boy when he was five, taking every job that had anything to do with supporting the team on the field and its reputation off of it.
In their 1970s heyday, and sporadically since, the Steelers play like the terrifying Hounds of the Lord. You dare not get in their way. The Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969 – Chuck Noll (nicknamed “The Pope” for his belief in his own infallibility); Bill Cowher (nicknamed “The Face” for his jut-jawed visage) and Tomlin, who is too fierce and tightly wrapped to have a nickname, but who, in press conferences, barks out answers in the manner of a drill sergeant.
But while the late Dan Rooney wanted to win as much – if not more –than anyone else in the NFL – his real idea of victory was spiritual, social, civic, racially just, and familial. It is the way to lead, and a lesson for every prominent public figure.
A month ago I attended the annual dinner of the Irish-American Fund in Pittsburgh, held at the stadium club at Heinz Field. A gentle snow had covered the turf with a dusting of white.
Inside the club, the hundreds in attendance were talking about Rooney, who was absent for the first time since he’d started the organization. He was in the hospital, suffering from an accumulation of ailments that would soon claim his life.
I sat at the Rooneys table with Arthur Rooney II, Dan’s eldest son, and the current president of team, and his wife, Greta.
Also at the table was a young man with a player’s frame and a quiet demeanor. We talked. He’d played high school ball in Pittsburgh, then was the starting quarterback at Dartmouth. He was thinking of heading to business school after a few years of working low-level jobs with the Steelers, starting as a young novitiate water boy.
Of course, he was Dan Rooney III. His grandfather and namesake was dying, but the young man seemed quite confident that he knew just how he should live his own life, carrying that name.
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