Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 757
June 6, 2016
Woman breaks silence among Fukushima thyroid cancer patients
KORIYAMA, Japan (AP) — She’s 21, has thyroid cancer, and wants people in her prefecture in northeastern Japan to get screened for it. That statement might not seem provocative, but her prefecture is Fukushima, and of the 173 young people with confirmed or suspected cases since the 2011 nuclear meltdowns there, she is the first to speak out.
That near-silence highlights the fear Fukushima thyroid-cancer patients have about being the “nail that sticks out,” and thus gets hammered.
The thyroid-cancer rate in the northern Japanese prefecture is many times higher than what is generally found, particularly among children, but the Japanese government says more cases are popping up because of rigorous screening, not the radiation that spewed from Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant.
To be seen as challenging that view carries consequences in this rigidly harmony-oriented society. Even just having cancer that might be related to radiation carries a stigma in the only country to be hit with atomic bombs.
“There aren’t many people like me who will openly speak out,” said the young woman, who requested anonymity because of fears about harassment. “That’s why I’m speaking out so others can feel the same. I can speak out because I’m the kind of person who believes things will be OK.”
She has a quick disarming smile and silky black hair. She wears flip-flops. She speaks passionately about her new job as a nursery school teacher. But she also has deep fears: Will she be able to get married? Will her children be healthy?
She suffers from the only disease that the medical community, including the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, has acknowledged is clearly related to the radioactive iodine that spewed into the surrounding areas after the only nuclear disaster worse than Fukushima’s, the 1986 explosion and fire at Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Though international reviews of Fukushima have predicted that cancer rates will not rise as a result of the meltdowns there, some researchers believe the prefecture’s high thyroid-cancer rate is related to the accident.
The government has ordered medical testing of the 380,000 people who were 18 years or under and in Fukushima prefecture at the time of the March 2011 tsunami and quake that sank three reactors into meltdowns. About 38 percent have yet to be screened, and the number is a whopping 75 percent for those who are now between the ages of 18 and 21.
The young woman said she came forward because she wants to help other patients, especially children, who may be afraid and confused. She doesn’t know whether her sickness was caused by the nuclear accident, but plans to get checked for other possible sicknesses, such as uterine cancer, just to be safe.
“I want everyone, all the children, to go to the hospital and get screened. They think it’s too much trouble, and there are no risks, and they don’t go,” the woman said in a recent interview in Fukushima. “My cancer was detected early, and I learned that was important.”
Thyroid cancer is among the most curable cancers, though some patients need medication for the rest of their lives, and all need regular checkups.
The young woman had one cancerous thyroid removed, and does not need medication except for painkillers. But she has become prone to hormonal imbalance and gets tired more easily. She used to be a star athlete, and snowboarding remains a hobby.
A barely discernible tiny scar is on her neck, like a pale kiss mark or scratch. She was hospitalized for nearly two weeks, but she was itching to get out. It really hurt then, but there is no pain now, she said with a smile.
“My ability to bounce right back is my trademark,” she said. “I’m always able to keep going.”
She was mainly worried about her parents, especially her mother, who cried when she found out her daughter had cancer. Her two older siblings also were screened but were fine.
Many Japanese have deep fears about genetic abnormalities caused by radiation. Many, especially older people, assume all cancers are fatal, and even the young woman did herself until her doctors explained her sickness to her.
The young woman said her former boyfriend’s family had expressed reservations about their relationship because of her sickness. She has a new boyfriend now, a member of Japan’s military, and he understands about her sickness, she said happily.
A support group for thyroid cancer patients was set up earlier this year. The group, which includes lawyers and medical doctors, has refused all media requests for interviews with the handful of families that have joined, saying that kind of attention may be dangerous.
When the group held a news conference in Tokyo in March, it connected by live video feed with two fathers with children with thyroid cancer, but their faces were not shown, to disguise their identities. They criticized the treatment their children received and said they’re not certain the government is right in saying the cancer and the nuclear meltdowns are unrelated.
Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer who also advises the group, believes patients should file Japan’s equivalent of a class-action lawsuit, demanding compensation, but he acknowledged more time will be needed for any legal action.
“The patients are divided. They need to unite, and they need to talk with each other,” he told AP in a recent interview.
The committee of doctors and other experts carrying out the screening of youngsters in Fukushima for thyroid cancer periodically update the numbers of cases found, and they have been steadily climbing.
In a news conference this week, they stuck to the view the cases weren’t related to radiation. Most disturbing was a cancer found in a child who was just 5 years old in 2011, the youngest case found so far. But the experts brushed it off, saying one wasn’t a significant number.
“It is hard to think there is any relationship,” with radiation, said Hokuto Hoshi, a medical doctor who heads the committee.
Shinsyuu Hida, a photographer from Fukushima and an adviser to the patients’ group, said fears are great not only about speaking out but also about cancer and radiation.
He said that when a little girl who lives in Fukushima once asked him if she would ever be able to get married, because of the stigma attached to radiation, he was lost for an answer and wept afterward.
“They feel alone. They can’t even tell their relatives,” Hida said of the patients. “They feel they can’t tell anyone. They felt they were not allowed to ask questions.”
The woman who spoke to AP also expressed her views on video for a film in the works by independent American filmmaker Ian Thomas Ash.
She counts herself lucky. About 18,000 people were killed in the tsunami, and many more lost their homes to the natural disaster and the subsequent nuclear accident, but her family’s home was unscathed.
When asked how she feels about nuclear power, she replied quietly that Japan doesn’t need nuclear plants. Without them, she added, maybe she would not have gotten sick.
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Ash’s video interview:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpmdZYCRIZfvTtTE1sbY3ynaGsfDYmNWn
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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/yuri-kageyama
June 5, 2016
The myth of universal beauty: Actually, we aren’t all beautiful—and that’s OK
Victoria's Secret models Karolina Kurkova, Gisele Bundchen and Adriana Lima. (Credit: AP/Jason DeCrow)
Recently, my brother invited me and my husband to a day party at Encore Beach Club, the Las Vegas pleasure dome that hosts superstar DJs like Skrillex and Diplo and David Guetta for hordes of turnt partiers. There are activities outside my wheelhouse (attending music festivals, football games, eating competitions)—and then there’s day partying: writhing beneath the Nevada sun, 104 noontime degrees caramelizing my shoulders, in a pool of bodies, beer cans floating by like driftwood. But I love my brother and rarely see him, so two weeks ago, despite a burgeoning sinus infection, I spent the weekend in Vegas.
My husband and I met my brother and his three friends on Sin City’s most glittering thoroughfare. Soon, we were in a line that snaked around one lobby of the Wynn’s kid sister, Encore. Though most women towered in epic wedge sandals and I’d chosen flip-flops, beneath my cutoffs and tank top I wore a bikini, and I liked to think my raspy voice—its full capacities vanished three days earlier—made me sound like I belonged.
“Oh yeah, Jo,” my brother joked. “You were tearing it up last night, right?”
We staked out two red cushions on a bench encircling a dwarf palm tree and promptly dipped into one of the pools. We bobbed and talked, drinking light beer from aluminum bottles. “We don’t have those,” a British woman named Sofie told me, laughing. Her blonde hair was heaped on top of her head and the neckline of her crocheted black one-piece plunged.
The bass pounded, warping songs I recognized into trance marathons. People speculated about when the deejay’s set would start. Men dunked their heads and shook off like dogs. A woman bent and revealed her thong bikini bottoms: on one ass cheek, there was a lipstick circle that her friends were recruiting random attendees to smooch. A lanky guy climbed onto one of the stripper poles islanded in the middle of the pool; he began doing a dance move I remembered from childhood Girl Scout sock hops. The fire hydrant? The sprinkler? A lifeguard whistled him down before I could verify the name with my company.
I was both scandalized and not to find day partying so unobjectionable. Was something wrong with me? How could I so easily look past the stratified problems that plagued the entire enterprise? Women were being objectified (my ticket cost thirty dollars less than my husband and brother’s); classism was reigning from the balconies circling the pool area, where fully-clothed dudes gripped drinks in glass and surveyed the general admission crowd splashing in what were coming to seem like feudal baths that grew discomfitingly warm.
Those thoughts breezed through my mind like the whippy Vegas winds. But as is often the case, the women’s room made everything clear.
Here’s the restroom at Beach Club: a hall of silver stalls, four sinks, one attendant handing handwashers paper towels. A platoon of products: Tanning lotion, tanning oil, aloe vera gel. Hair spray, mousse, body lotion, lip gloss, dishes of hard candies. Mouthwash. Q-tips. Cotton balls. Body spray, eau de toilette, baby wipes.
I washed my hands, staring at the soap’s lathering, noticing how the sun had narrowed the colors I could see. All around me, women were courting their reflections. Women crowded around the mirrors, adjusting their boobs and bikini tops, redoing their hair, positioning their cross-body Chanel wallet-on-a-chains just so; one tiny girl regarded herself beatifically while she held out her arms for the attendant to slather with moisturizer. I could feel all their grooming as I worked, invisibly and futilely, to not see myself.
***
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to hunger for my reflection. I wonder what it would be like to be beautiful. I remember the first time I realized I wasn’t. I was seven years old, spending the night at my friend Rita’s house.
The occasion for this sleepover was a talent show. Rita, with an older girl whose hair was so blonde it gleamed like fluorescent light, was performing an uncomfortably sexy dance to Madonna. That’s how I learned what it meant to “Vogue.”
Before the talent show, I hung out in Rita’s bathroom. I sat on the furry toilet seat cover and watched her mom curl her hair. I wore black leggings, a jungle green shirt with a frill on the neck; I remember carefully choosing that shirt. I liked it: it bore dark, shadowy flowers.
When Rita’s head was a mess of gold corkscrews, her mom turned to me. “Let me put some makeup on you, JoAnna Banana.”
Look up, she directed, mascaraing my eyes. Rita’s mom reminded me of Gadget, the young female mouse in “Chip ’n Dale Rescue Rangers.” I still remember when she told me she weighed ninety-seven pounds.
Five minutes later, my cheeks were blushed and my lips were colored a shade that reminded me of the Crayola hue Red-Violet. Rita was gone.
“JoAnna,” said her mom, surprised. “You actually look pretty!”
I don’t remember how I thought of my appearance before, but from then on it was easy to find evidence of my unprettiness. Who could miss it? Yearbook photos, class pictures, candid snapshots my mother took on vacations. When my grandparents told me I looked so pretty on my First Communion, I knew they were lying.
I could engineer the worst version of me in private. I would stare at myself in secluded mirrors, splaying my mouth and piggying my nose. Your face will stay like that, my mom’s admonished my brother when he crossed his eyes. I cherished that threat. If my face became deformed, I’d go from being unbeautiful to pitiable.
Of course, the lure of sympathy eventually obsolesced; it seemed a loser’s prize. Like many an outcast, I pulled myself up by my Doc Marten bootstraps and adopted a jaded attitude about my appearance. Looks were superficial, right? I didn’t want to be shallow. I starved myself—who wouldn’t rather be thin than pretty? Thinness was deep. I hyperbolized my angst: I lined my eyes with so much Wet ‘ Wild black they clicked when I blinked. But, thankfully, I also assigned value to other facets of myself: my mind, my imagination, my ability to be a good friend.
Now I wonder: was I stronger than I gave myself credit for? I survived high school unscarred by my lack of beauty. I was friends with three brunettes—the four of us formed a sort of eating-disordered, self-mutilating squad—who were pretty. I winced when I saw myself next to them in pre-Homecoming pictures, but that sense—that I was inferior to them physically—didn’t really make me hate on myself. I accepted the not-so-hard truth: Boys asked them to dances. Silver foxes, friends of their parents, hit on them. On weekends, one even modeled.
Yes, when I was feeling especially vulnerable, I consoled myself with the fact that trucks of maintenance men would honk at me while I ran—which worked until I realized that they might be mocking me. I’d chide my superficiality in self-talk: Did I really need the attention of sophomore boys? Was I hoping for an inappropriate grope at Christmas brunch?
What did bother me about not being beautiful came not from my own life, but from MTV. What grated on me was how the worst pop music insisted on touting universal beauty.
“You are beautiful, no matter what they say,” is the culminating choral variation of “Beautiful,” Christina Aguilera’s 2002 song. In the video, a lank-haired waif studies her bones; an achromasiac figure stands in a dark bedroom; two men brush noses and kiss; bullies torment a girl with braces to the ground.
My friends and I derided “Beautiful” whenever it came on the radio. Aguilera had gained weight, tabloids reported, and we read the song as a weird and unnecessary defense against her body’s change. But I disliked the message on a more personal level. I’d long learned that beauty was not a given. Beauty wasn’t part of everyone’s lot like birth and death. Beauty was like the ability to hotdog your tongue or wink without moving the rest of your face: fluky and impressive and extraneous.
***
I worry that our culture prizes beauty so highly that we believe everybody wants it. Should we all strive embody “a combination of qualities that please the aesthetic senses”?
These days, the ubiquity of beauty is peddled by the cosmetics industry. Remember the aughts? On The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty webpage, readers—presumably women, based on the image—are asked to “imagine a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety.” Dove, we are told, is working to “[widen] the definition of beauty.”
Surely the aim of this campaign was and continues to be bolstering women’s self-esteem; now, women are encouraged to banish body negativity from their tweets, to #SpeakBeautiful and #TryDove. But soaps and lotions aside, I think there’s something slippery about beauty being the currency that oils the wheels of our self-concepts. It’s homogenizing. How can anyone being offered a spot in the “widened” definition of beauty not feel like the last one picked for the dodge ball team? I’m not bashing body positivity, but I’m questioning if its possible when the definition of what’s positive is everything. Must it be marketed? Mandated? Shouldn’t there also be room for body negativity and even body neutrality?
What I think campaigns like Dove’s and songs like Aguilera’s want to celebrate is not beauty but individuality. We should embrace variety and difference, a bouquet not of one dozen roses but all manner of plants and branches and wildflowers. Some of those plants really aren’t all that pleasing to look at—what would our world be like if that was okay?
The day I returned from Vegas, I was walking my dog when a Los Angeles city bus covered with ads drove by. “I hope you feel beautiful because you are,” read the plug for Amazon’s “Transparent“. The words were plastered over Jeffrey Tambor’s face; immediately, I shrugged them off. The times I have felt least beautiful were those when people insisted I was. I’ve seen—and ignored—myself in mirror, car windows, teaspoons, mixing bowls, stainless steel refrigerators, dark computer screens. I am uneasy about demonizing or glorifying appearance, about externalizing our self-worth. That uneasiness has nothing to do with what my eyes are or aren’t with or without makeup. That uneasiness comes from being asked to value a quality that I know is not a given, a quality about which I care very little, something I’m supposed to want—but don’t.
Ignore the trolls: The foolishness of gauging Hillary vs. Trump based on online comments
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump (Credit: AP/Andrew Harnik/Reuters/Jim Bourg/Salon)
There are weak arguments, and then there is “basing your thesis entirely on the comments anonymous Internet users leave on your blog.” You may as well be taking stock market tips from your cat. Both are about as equally worthy.
Nonetheless, that is the angle taken by Yves Smith of the financial blog Naked Capitalism in a column published on Politico on Thursday. The column’s argument is that the smart, tough progressives who leave comments on Smith’s blog under names like HotFlash and Katniss Everdeen loathe Hillary Clinton so deeply that they will very smartly vote for Donald Trump over her. This sample of preferences of Naked Capitalism commenters and emailers means that the Democratic Party is “about to have a long-overdue day of reckoning.”
Back in 2012, conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan infamously said that she had a gut feeling that Mitt Romney would win based on the fact that in one neighborhood in Florida somewhere, she had seen more yard signs touting him than Obama. Smith’s column is the 2016 update of Noonan’s gut. There is literally no point to it now, at the tail end of the primary season, when Clinton has victory all but wrapped up. Still, it’s worth going through this thing and marveling at its perfect epistemic closure, not to mention the not one but two moments of equating the Clintons and liberals to long-dead and discredited fascist French political movements.
One reader writes:
“If Clinton is the nominee 9 out of 10 friends I polled will [do one of three things]:
A. Not vote for president in November.
B. Vote for Trump.
C. Write in Bernie as a protest vote.
“We are all fifty-somethings with money and college educations. Oh, and we are all registered Democrats.”
Nine out of 10 is a high percentage! And if you extrapolate that number out to the general population of Democrats who have voted in the primaries, you see that Clinton is still defeating Sanders by approximately 3 million votes. (Yes, including caucuses.) So how this one person’s group of friends is indicative of the way Democrats in general feel is anyone’s guess.
To be sure, not all of my Sanders-supporting readers would vote for Trump. But only a minority would ever vote for Clinton, and I’d guess that a lot of them would just stay home if she were the nominee. Many of my readers tend to be very progressive, and they have been driven even further in that direction by their sophisticated understanding of the inequities of Wall Street, especially in the run-up to and the aftermath of the financial crisis[.]
Smith manages to bring up the financial crisis several times, and it is true that Democrats shoulder their share of blame for it. But how you can bring it up over and over without mentioning George W. Bush even once, or the years of financial deregulation that preceded Bill Clinton’s presidency, or even that wealth inequality has been growing for a good 40 years, is beyond me.
Some of them also have very reasoned arguments for Trump. Hillary is a known evil. Trump is unknown. They’d rather bet on the unknown, since it will also send a big message to Team Dem that they can no longer abuse progressives. I personally know women in the demographic that is viewed as being solidly behind Hillary—older, professional women who live in major cities—who regard Trump as an acceptable cost of getting rid of the Clintons.
Again, Hillary Clinton has scored three million more votes in the primaries, so I’m comfortable in saying these women are a distinct minority of Democratic voters. I would also point to polls showing Clinton beats Trump with women by close to 20 points overall, so saying that the majority of women you personally know doesn’t support Hillary and therefore she could lose the election is tunnel vision of a high magnitude.
Under Obama, it was the Blue Dog, Third Way Democrats who were turfed out, while candidates with strong stances on economic justice kept their seats.
Most of the Blue Dog Democrats who have been “turfed out” were in marginal, conservative-leaning districts that they won, particularly in Congress, during the 2006 and 2008 wave elections that gave Democrats large majorities. More leftist candidates have prospered in left-leaning districts and states.
The column goes on and on in this vein. The Obama and Clinton presidencies are responsible for bringing inequality “to Gilded Age, banana-republic levels,” with no mention of the eight years of a Republican president in between those two administrations or any acknowledgement of the fact that Congress was controlled by the GOP for much of that time. There is mention of the old cattle-futures “scandal” of the 1990s, for which no one was ever prosecuted or even accused of specific wrongdoing, as an example of dirt that has stuck to the Clintons. There is the assertion that Naked Capitalism commenters view a Trump presidency as “an acceptable cost of inflicting punishment on the Democratic Party for 20 years of selling out ordinary Americans.”
It is this last statement that is particularly galling. There is ample evidence in Trump’s statements and record, to say nothing of the record of the Republicans who will likely still control the House of Representatives, to show that millions of ordinary Americans would suffer under President Trump. Millions of women would lose their right to bodily autonomy when Trump appoints a Supreme Court justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Millions of Americans would see relatives deported and families torn apart. Wealth inequality would rise under Trump’s economic plan, which includes enormous tax cuts for the rich and rolling back what financial protections we gained under the Dodd-Frank bill, which the real estate mogul has vowed to repeal.
I don’t know what Smith is trying to accomplish here, though I’m guessing trolling Democrats and trying to fan the flames of anxiety over party unity and the ongoing, contentious primary is right up there. Don’t be fooled by this sort of thing. Hillary Clinton will be the nominee. Some of the ideas Bernie Sanders has pushed will make it into the party platform. Everything else is just noise.
The Latest: Miss USA’s 15 finalists named
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latest on the Miss USA beauty pageant contest (all times local):
5 p.m.
The top 15 finalists have been named at the Miss USA contest in Las Vegas.
Contestants from South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona, Alabama, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, California, Missouri, Connecticut, Hawaii, South Dakota, Arkansas, Virginia and Oklahoma will continue on in the beauty pageant.
Miss California, Nadia Grace Mejia, was also named the fan favorite.
During the show, the 20-year-old from Diamond Bar talked about suffering from anorexia and wanting to promote body confidence.
The winner of Sunday’s pageant will compete in the Miss Universe contest.
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4 p.m.
The show has begun at the Miss USA contest in Las Vegas.
The three-hour beauty pageant will feature hosts Julianne Hough, Ashley Graham and Terrence J. The Backstreet Boys, Chris Young and Nervo will perform.
Steve Harvey made a cameo in a video at the start of the show, poking fun of the Miss Universe crowning that he botched in December.
But don’t expect former pageant owner and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to appear.
He sold the organization in September following a falling out with broadcasting partners who cut ties with him after he made remarks that offended Mexicans.
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10:30 a.m.
A new Miss USA will be crowned Sunday night after a series of controversies last year with the beauty pageant organization, including a breakup with former owner Donald Trump and the mistaken crowning of Miss Universe.
Fifty-two contestants will participate in the 2016 Miss USA competition will be held at the T-Mobile Arena off the Las Vegas Strip. The Fox network will carry the broadcast at 7 p.m. EDT. Last year, the show aired on cable’s Reelz network.
In addition to contestants representing each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the pageant also named a “Miss 52 USA.” Alexandra Miller, a 26-year-old from Oklahoma City, got the most fan votes among a group of finalists chosen by the organization.
The winner of Sunday’s pageant will compete in the Miss Universe contest.
Broadway’s ‘The King and I’ to close in late June
NEW YORK (AP) — The Tony Award-winning revival of “The King and I” on Broadway is abdicating.
Lincoln Center Theater’s production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic will close June 26. It will have played some 560 performances. A national tour kicks off in Rhode Island in November.
The 51-cast-member revival at Lincoln Center directed by Bartlett Sher won the Tony for best revival. The musical’s story centers on an Englishwoman who travels to Siam in the 1860s to teach the children of the king.
It opened with Ken Watanabe as the king and Kelli O’Hara, who won a Tony as the teacher. Ruthie Ann Miles won a Tony playing Lady Thiang. Its score includes “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” ”Getting to Know You” and “Shall We Dance.”
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Online: http://kingandibroadway.com
For Ali, there were times even The Greatest wasn’t so great
He was The Greatest, and of that there is little dispute.
Muhammad Ali thrilled wherever he went, becoming the most recognized person on the planet. He showed incredible acts of kindness and moral courage, and fought almost anyone who wanted to get into the ring with him.
But there were times — some of his making, some not — when even The Greatest was not so great.
Here’s a look at a few of them:
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WHAT’S MY NAME?
It was 1965 and the world was still adjusting to the brash young heavyweight champion who scared opponents in the ring and scared a lot of Americans with his affiliation with the Black Muslims.
Ali was set to defend his heavyweight title against Floyd Patterson in Las Vegas, and Ali and his camp were upset that the former champ Patterson tried to portray himself as an All-American man who was going to regain the heavyweight crown for his country against a loudmouth Muslim. Even worse, Patterson, like many in the day, insisted on calling Ali by his birth name, Cassius Clay.
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the rest of the Rat Pack watched from the second row ringside as Ali came out taunting Patterson from the opening bell. He talked constantly to Patterson, saying “What’s my name?” as he beat and battered Patterson around the ring at will in a cruel display.
“It seemed as if all Clay wanted to do tonight, before 7,402 paying spectators including several movie stars, was destroy Patterson forever as a boxer and a dignified human being,” Robert Lipsyte wrote the next day in the New York Times.
The country was already divided by the Vietnam War, which was raging, and there was a big peace march in Washington the next week. The tenor of the period was reflected the day of the fight when the carrier Midway was welcomed back from the war and the mayor of San Francisco told its sailors not to pay attention to the “kooks” who were against the war.
“You should get honors and medals, the spot you was on, a good clean American boy fighting for America,” Ali told Patterson the next day. “All those movie stars behind you, they should make sure you never have to work another day of your life.”
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ALI’S WIFE
Ali was in the Philippines in 1975, preparing for the iconic Rumble in the Jungle with Joe Frazier and was seen about town with Veronica Porsche, a woman he introduced as his wife. The only problem was, Ali had a wife back home in Chicago, and she wasn’t happy when she heard the news.
Ali and Khalilah Ali had been married since 1967 and had four children together. Khalilah promptly hopped on a plane for the Philippines, where she went directly from the airport to the presidential suite at the Manilla Hilton, where Ali was staying.
“He said on the phone that it didn’t happen and to come to the Philippines and see,” Khalilah Ali said in a 2013 interview with The Associated Press. “When I got there I found out he lied. My decision to leave him came right after that, though I promised him I’d stay until he was the 3-time heavyweight champion.”
Ali would later make Veronica the third of his four wives. He had an eye for pretty women, Khalilah Ali said, something she forced herself to tolerate.
“When he really started making money I started having problems. There were women coming out of the woodwork, always the women coming in,” she said. “When he brought them in to the house I had to make a change. Ali was very promiscuous.”
Khalilah Ali, who married Ali as a teenager, remained on friendly terms with him the rest of his life.
“I was a very fortunate young girl to travel around the world and meet kings and queens,” she said. “It was a great adventure being married to him.”
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LAST HURRAH
Ali was just a few months away from his 40th birthday when, desperate to make up for his lackluster loss the year before the Larry Holmes, he went to the Bahamas for what would be his last fight.
The opponent was Trevor Berbick and the unlikely site was an outdoor ring at the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre, where the card was delayed an hour because officials could not locate gloves, water or a bell. The bell was never found, and promoters ended up using a cowbell to signal the beginning and end of each round.
Ali came into the ring with a layer of fat around his waist and a somber look on his face, as if already anticipating his fate. Though the crowd hopefully chanted “Ali, Ali” as the fight began, Berbick was stronger and faster and pounded Ali for 10 rounds before being given a unanimous decision.
It was an ignominious end to a glorious career, and Ali finally admitted Father Time was his toughest opponent.
“I could feel the youth,” he said. “Age is slipping up on me.”
The words were spoken softly, with a slight slur, a portend of things yet to come.
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TV WHIPPING
Ali had a lot of affection for England, and British fans flocked to see him training in a London park before his fight there with Henry Cooper.
He had appeared several times on British talk shows, including the Eamonn Andrews Show, so it wasn’t surprising that he made a remote appearance on the show in 1968. At the time, Ali was suspended from boxing for not going in the draft and he was eager to explain why to British viewers.
“Thank you for letting me come live from Early Bird satellite,” Ali said as he sat in a U.S. television studio with an earpiece in his ear.
What came next was a public tongue lashing from American television host David Susskind, who was a guest interviewer, about his conviction for evading the draft and his refusal to serve his country in the military.
“I find nothing amusing or interesting or tolerable about this man,” Susskind said. “He’s a disgrace to his country, his race, and what he laughably describes as his profession. He’s a simplistic fool and a pawn.”
Ali had been duped, and the look on his face even from across the ocean showed it.
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THE WRESTLER
Ali was the heavyweight champion again and in search of an easy payday when he went to Japan to meet professional wrestler Antonio Inoki in a 15-round match.
Bob Arum was the promoter, and wanted to make sure nothing stood in the way of Ali’s upcoming third fight with Ken Norton. He went to wrestling promoter Vince McMahon to figure out a way to protect Ali in the ring in a promotion that would be shown on closed circuit around the United States.
“He came up with a script that was brilliant,” Arum recalled. “Ali liked it; we all liked it.”
The plan was for Ali to catch Inoki on the ropes and pound away with punches that didn’t really land. Inoki was to have hidden a razor in his mouth and cut himself so there was real blood flowing onto Ali’s white trunks.
Ali was supposed to beg the referee to stop the fight, turning his back on Inoki to make his case. At that point, Inoki was to jump on Ali’s back, taken him down and pin him for the win.
“It’s Pearl Harbor all over again!” Ali was going to yell out after the loss.
The only problem was Inoki had some handlers who thought it was going to be a real fight. For three days the two sides argued in a hotel suite about the rules for the fight, agreeing on nothing.
When the opening bell rang, Inoki raced across the ring and threw a kick at Ali, falling to the canvas. He stayed there in a crab-like position most of the 15 rounds kicking at Ali’s legs.
While Inoki wasn’t in on the plan, the referee was. He declared the fight a draw, much to the displeasure of the crowd in Tokyo.
“It was the low point of my career,” Arum said. “It was so embarrassing, just a total farce.”
William McGirt wins Memorial in a playoff
DUBLIN, Ohio (AP) — William McGirt won for the first time on the PGA Tour with a playoff victory in the Memorial that earned him an audience with Jack Nicklaus and a spot in the U.S. Open.
McGirt won in his 165th start on the tour. He played bogey-free the final round for a 1-under 71, two-putting from 65 feet to get into a playoff with Jon Curran, who closed with a 70.
They finished at 15-under 273.
McGirt won with a par on the second extra hole at No. 18, getting up-and-down from the rough behind the green by holing a putt just outside 6 feet. He will move into the top 50 in the world. He is assured of staying in the top 60 next week to qualify for the Open.
Gov. Cuomo: NY must divest funds linked to Israel boycotts
NEW YORK (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has issued the first executive order in the country forcing state entities to drop investments linked to boycotts of Israel.
Cuomo signed the order Sunday before marching in Manhattan’s Celebrate Israel parade.
The Democratic governor expects state agencies to divest all public funds from any ties to the movement known as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. BDS was founded in 2005 to protest Israel’s actions toward Palestinians by boycotting Israeli products and companies.
State officials must compile a list of businesses and groups engaged in activities targeting Israel.
Baher Azmy, of the nonprofit Center for Constitutional Rights, says Cuomo’s action violates free speech and is a form of “21st century McCarthyism.”
The United Jewish Appeal in New York praised the governor for standing with Israel.
Arrieta’s win streak ends at 20, Diamondbacks beat Cubs 3-2
CHICAGO (AP) — Jake Arrieta’s winning streak ended at 20 games when Patrick Corbin and the struggling Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Chicago Cubs 3-2 on Sunday.
The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner had gone 24 regular-season starts without a loss since Cole Hamels pitched a no-hitter for Philadelphia at Wrigley Field on July 25. Arrieta did lose to the New York Mets in the NL Championship Series last season and was 2-1 in the playoffs.
Arrieta (9-1) lasted five innings this time, allowing three runs and nine hits. He threw 108 pitches and struck out a season-high 12 while walking one.
The Cubs lost for only the second time in 12 games and finished 8-2 on their homestand. Both losses came in starts by Arrieta after they won 23 in a row with him on the mound.
Corbin (3-5) went seven innings to lead Arizona to its second victory in seven games. The left-hander gave up two runs and five hits, struck out five and did not walk a batter.
Tyler Clippard pitched the eighth and Brad Ziegler worked the ninth for his 39th consecutive save and 11th this season. He walked pinch-hitter Anthony Rizzo with two outs before retiring Miguel Montero on a groundout.
Chris Hermann had three hits and scored a run for Arizona. Yasmany Tomas hit a two-run double and Paul Goldschmidt added an RBI single as the Diamondbacks avoided a three-game sweep.
Javier Baez hit a solo homer for Chicago in the sixth. Cubs manager Joe Maddon was ejected for the first time this season in the seventh after Trevor Cahill walked Goldschmidt on a 3-2 pitch with two outs.
The Cubs thought Goldschmidt swung and appealed to first base umpire Tripp Gibson. When Goldschmidt was awarded first, Cahill threw his arms up in disgust and Maddon came out to argue.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Diamondbacks: Arizona hopes to activate OF David Peralta (right wrist inflammation) from the disabled list on Monday, though manager Chip Hale said the team would give Peralta an extra day or two if he needs it. Peralta was to play his final rehab game for Triple-A Reno on Sunday. … Hale said he got a good report on Shelby Miller (sprained right index finger) after the right-hander threw five scoreless innings in an extended spring game Saturday.
Cubs: Chicago got a scare in the first inning when Jorge Soler crumpled to the ground after being hit in the right foot by a pitch. He stayed down for a few minutes while being tended to but remained in the game. … Chicago held Rizzo and OF Jason Heyward out of the starting lineup, giving them some rest.
UP NEXT
Diamondbacks: LHP Robbie Ray (2-4, 4.74 ERA) starts the opener of a nine-game homestand against Tampa Bay RHP Chris Archer (3-7, 4.75).
Cubs: LHP Jon Lester (6-3, 2.29) looks to remain unbeaten against Philadelphia when the Cubs start a nine-game trip against LHP Adam Morgan (1-4, 7.07) and the Phillies. Lester, coming off a complete-game win against the Los Angeles Dodgers, is 5-0 with a 1.71 ERA in seven starts against the Phillies.
Power wins at Belle Isle for first victory of season
DETROIT (AP) — Will Power raced to his first IndyCar victory of the season, overcoming a costly penalty in qualifying Sunday and holding off points leader Simon Pagenaud by 0.92 seconds at Belle Isle.
Power would have set a track record in qualifying earlier in the day, but the Australian was penalized for interference and had his top two laps taken away. Pagenaud won the pole while Power started eighth, but Power prevailed in the end for his 26th career victory and first since the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May 2015.
With about 18 laps remaining, Power passed Pagenaud to take over fifth place — and the top four drivers still had to pit again. Power took over the lead on the 61st of 70 laps on the 2.35-mile street course.
