Daily Archives: May 1, 2022

Sitting in the basement of a community center in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, listening to shells being dropped all around us, I watched as a young woman sought to explain the violence to her son. Who is bombing us? she asked in Russian, before prompting, Is it fascists? The 4-year-old nodded vigorously. Yes, yes, he said. Yes, it is fascists.

It was January 2015. Russian-backed separatists had taken control of the city nine months earlier, declaring it the capital of their new Donetsk Peoples Republic. Yet fighting continued and the truth is, when we were in that basement, none of us knew who was responsible for the shelling: The Ukrainian army was dug in on the citys outskirts, and separatists were firing from positions close to us.

None, that is, but for the mother I saw speaking with her boy. By fascists, she later told me, she was referring to Ukrainian government forces.

If you got your news from Russian state television, which many people in that predominantly Russian-speaking city and about 90 percent of Vladimir Putins domestic audience did, there was no doubt about who was to blame: Viewers were told that the conflict in Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk was the fault of a fascist junta that had seized power in Kyiv and the Western intelligence agencies who were pulling the strings. Russian media published innumerable stories about how these forces had plunged Ukraine into violence and chaos.

President Vladimir Putins announcement this February that he was ordering Russian troops into Ukraine to carry out a denazification campaignan absurd claim, given that, for a start, Ukraines leader is Jewish and had relatives killed in the Holocaustdrew on those lies from years prior, lies that I saw warping reality in that basement in 2015. Then, I was Moscow correspondent for Britains Sky News. Now I am based in Washington, D.C., for The New Statesman, but the memory of that moment has lingered. Listening to Putins speech on the morning of his invasion, when he declared that he was saving innocents from genocide and compared his actions to the heroic struggle Russians waged during World War II, my initial response was disbelief. Then I realized I had heard this argument before.

The Russian president is the latest in a long line of dictators to manipulate history and manufacture enemies to rally the population against and secure his own hold on power. Past Soviet leaders have drawn on the same core themes, and I have seen this playbook in action in China and North Korea, where Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un insist that they too are defending their nations against hostile foreign adversaries.

Yet we must not assume that this autocratic rewriting of history, driven largely by a desire to consolidate power, affects only a dictators domestic population (though it does). In fact, these retellings matter far beyond, encompassing expansive territorial ambitions and aggressive foreign policies that threaten neighboring democracies, such as Taiwan, South Korea, Japanand Ukraineand whip up nationalist fervor against the United States and its allies.

As Putin is currently demonstrating, these questionable historical narratives in faraway autocracies are a problem for democracies too.

During his re-education in 1984, George Orwells protagonist, Winston Smith, is asked to repeat the Partys slogan about the past. Who controls the past controls the future, he responds obediently. Who controls the present controls the past. Though their individual approaches to controlling that past differ significantly, Putin, Xi, and Kim share an obsession that Orwell would have recognized.

Since he first came to power more than two decades ago, Putin has elevated the memory of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is referred to in Russia, to the status of a national religion and positioned himself as the heir to that legacy, and the tireless defender of Russia and Russians everywhere against their contemporary threats. He calls the Ukrainian leadership fascists to remind his compatriots of the enemy they faced, insisting that they are confronting a resurgent menace.

He does not, however, invoke the terror and the strategic blunders that the countrys wartime leader Joseph Stalin committed. Instead, Putin has sealed off the official version of history from scrutiny, passing new laws that make it a criminal offense to challenge the authorities account or to question the true scale of Soviet heroism. He has also closed down independent organizations that sought to preserve the memory of Soviet-era atrocities. He is interested in remembering only the aspects of history that serve his current political needs.

In this, Putin shares the same outlook as Xi. They clearly both understand World War IIs wider resonance, and the importance of maintaining firm control over their countries histories more broadly. Xi has identified historical nihilism, which essentially means anything that challenges the regimes version of history, as a crucial factor in the Soviet Unions collapse, and he has made plain that keeping a tight grip on history is essential to ensuring the future of the Chinese Communist Partys rule.

Like Putin, Xi has passed new laws to protect the partys version of history from scrutiny and silenced dissenting views. He has introduced new memorial days to commemorate World War II and followed the Russian leaders example in 2015 by staging a bombastic Victory Day military parade to mark the anniversary of the end of the war, the first time such an event had been held in Beijing, with Putin as his guest of honor. He has also extended the length of the war, moving the start date back to 1931 to incorporate what had previously been treated as a separate regional conflict with Japan. Though the change has a credible historical basis, the longer time frame also serves a useful political function by including the earlier period when Communist troops played a more active role in the fighting.

As Xi tells the story now, China fought first and for the longest of any of the Allied nations in the war. According to this version of history, Mao Zedong and his Communist revolutionaries are the ones who rallied the population to fight back against the foreign aggressors and demonstrated why the party must always be in power, and why China must build up its military strength. I saw this weaponization of history in person while reporting from China: During a visit to a high school in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui in March 2018, 16-year-old Yang Yuzheone of an array of thoughtful, genuinely emotional teenagers in a history class I sat in ontold me of how she had thought China was always a very strong country, but I didnt know the recent history. After studying Chinas modern history, however, Yang continued, From then on, I knew that China must be strong again. Those views are echoed across much of Chinese social media today, as the countrys rivalry with the United States grows and the leadership amplifies the idea that modern China must once again be prepared to fight back against its enemies.

Though Chinas version of history is at least credible, if tailored to serve the Communist Partys needs, across the border in North Korea, the Kim regime relies on an absurd fiction and outright lies. For three-quarters of a century, it has claimed victory in two great wars, insisting that its first president, Kim Il Sungthe grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong Unliberated the country from Japanese colonial rule at the end of the Second World War, when in fact he was in the Soviet Union at the time. He then apparently secured a subsequent brilliant victory, over the United States in the Korean War in 1953, which in this version of the past, the U.S. and South Korea are said to have started.

The Kim familys fiction dominates daily life in North Korea. On a reporting trip there in 2016, I saw the enormous Arch of Triumph built in the heart of the capital, which is engraved with the date 1945 to commemorate the first Kims purported victory over Japan. His grandsons top officials drive around in a fleet of gleaming black Mercedes with the prefix 727 on their license plates to mark the supposed victory over the U.S. on July 27, 1953, the date the Korean War armistice was signed. Even as many of his citizens regularly go hungry in his impoverished and isolated country, Kim has invested ample resources in rebuilding and substantially expanding the countrys war museums. Preserving the regimes version of the past is evidently more important than providing for the populations basic needs.

But how can you stop people remembering things? asks Winston in 1984. How can you control memory? One might well ask the same question of Putin, Xi, and Kim and their own efforts to control the past. They cannot determine what individual citizens think or the individual memories they hold, but they can decide what is presented on the evening news and the information that is available on the internet, and they can make it dangerous to challenge the official line in public.

In Russia, now, it is illegal to call the war in Ukraine a war. Russian schoolchildren are being taught that their soldiers are defenders of peace who are liberating grateful civilians. Putin quotes from the Bible and invokes the Great Patriotic War to underline the righteousness of his cause as he insists that he is fighting for a world without Nazism. There is evidence that this approach is working. The mayor of the Ukrainian town of Melitopol has recounted how, in March, he was abducted by Russian troops who told him they had come to free Ukraine from Nazis. Russian soldiers scrawled the words for the children on a missile that hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorska grim irony, as that very strike killed children among the many evacuees who were waiting for a train. Xi and Kim must be encouraged by how well Putins popular support and his propaganda have held up. And that could set a very dangerous precedent, not just for those who live in these societies, but for those on the receiving end of more aggressive policies abroadpeople who live in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and the countries that surround the South China Sea.

The impulse to rewrite history and appeal to glorious myths to rally popular support is not limited to autocrats. But the real danger arises when the official account becomes the only permitted version of history, as is now the case in Russia, China, and North Korea. Though the leaders of these regimes differ in their approach to the past, all three claim that it is their nation that is under threat, and that they must strengthen their military capabilities and ramp up their political control to defend their citizens.

Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth, Winston is told in Orwells novel. The leaders of Russia, China, and North Korea take a similar view, and that has consequences for all of us.

Read more from the original source:

Putin Isn't the Only Autocrat Misusing History - The Atlantic

The century-long history of the University of Illinois Athletic Association (AA), predecessor to the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics, brimmed with highlights, but ended in tumultuous fashion in the late 1980s.

Americas interest in athletics initially formed around the end of the Civil War in 1865, concurrent to the UIs founding two years later in 1867. The student bodys attentiveness to physical well-being evolved from boating, racing and cycling to a new team sport called baseball which history shows originated a couple of decades earlier. It soon became the king of American sports, including Champaign-Urbana. The first record of an athletic contest at the University occurred on May 8, 1872 when a group of UI students defeated the Eagle Baseball Club of Champaign by a score of 2-1. The game eventually progressed into intercollegiate competition seven years later.

By the 1880s, athletics had eclipsed oratorical competitions as the students favorite non-academic diversion. On April 20, 1883, UI students combined their original baseball and football organizations to form the Athletic Association, a group that was responsible for caring for the campuss gymnasium and for organizing the annual Field Day activities. All male students were eligible for membership.

In 1891, the AA obtained land on the north end of campus, and on May 15, 1892, Athletic Park was inaugurated. Its name was changed to Illinois Field in 1896. That same year, UI trustees directed by-laws of the Association to be subject to the approval of the faculty. At the turn of the century, an Athletic Advisory Council assisted in the management of the AA and, shortly thereafter, faculty, alumni and student managers comprised an Athletic Board of Control and Athletic Council to form policy. In 1965, the AAs by-laws were amended to transfer oversight of the intramural and recreation programs to UIs College of Physical Education.

On the heels of Title IX legislation, the athletic administration assumed responsibility for administering the new womens intercollegiate athletic program in 1974. Two years later, UIs Board of Trustees approved plans to change the organizations name to the Athletic Association of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. By 1982, a total of 19 board members oversaw the group.

During the decade of the 1980s, the AA experienced both triumph and tragedy. The football and basketball programs enjoyed monumental success, but overall administration of the AA began to unravel.

When word leaked out to the media that embarrassing scandals and improprieties were taking place inside Director of Athletics Neale Stoners administrative staff, a thorough investigation by the university resulted in dissolving the Association.

Stoner and two aides resigned in July 1988 amid allegations of mismanagement and a plan to reorganize the AA was approved six months later. Chancellor Morton Weir brought the athletic departments business within the jurisdiction of the university administration, an action with which both the states legislature and the Auditor General strongly concurred. By July 1989, new athletic director John Mackovic reported directly to the chancellor, being treated similarly to deans of the engineering and business colleges.

Sunday: Steve Holdren, basketball (36)

Monday: Prince Green, football (19)

Tuesday: Lucas Johnson, basketball (42)

Wednesday: Connor Milton, baseball (20)

Thursday: Calvin Brock, basketball (36)

Friday: Ted Niezyniecki, baseball (55)

Saturday: Joey Gunther, wrestling (25)

By Mike Pearson, author of Illini Legends, Lists & Lore (Third Edition now available in stores). Get more Illini birthdays, trivia and historical tidbits daily on Twitter @IlliniLegends and @Spartifacts2022. His website is http://www.SportsLLL.com.

Read more:

Illini Legends, Lists and Lore: History of UI's Athletic Association - News-Gazette

May Day demonstrators march through downtown Los Angeles last year. Thousands of people took to the streets across the nation that May 1 in rallies calling for immigration reform, workers' rights and police accountability. Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP hide caption

May Day demonstrators march through downtown Los Angeles last year. Thousands of people took to the streets across the nation that May 1 in rallies calling for immigration reform, workers' rights and police accountability.

May Day, celebrated by workers across the globe as International Labor Day, falls on May 1.

But you'd be forgiven if that's news to you. While the day traces its origins to an American laborers' fight for a shorter work day, the U.S. does not officially recognize International Labor Day.

Like other countries that mark Labor Days on different dates, the U.S. and Canada celebrate their Labor Day in September.

U.S. resistance to celebrate International Labor Day also called International Workers' Day in May stems from a resistance to emboldening worldwide working-class unity, historians say.

"The ruling class did not want to have a very active labor force connected internationally," said Peter Linebaugh, author of The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day. "The principle of national patriotism was used against the principle of working-class unity or trade union unity."

That hasn't stopped American workers from commemorating the day, which in recent years has ranged from marching for labor rights to reading literature about Marxism.

"The meaning of that day keeps changing," Linebaugh said.

Before we consider how May Day has evolved in the U.S., let's dive into how it all began.

If you instead associate May Day with baskets of flowers, dancing around maypoles, or simply, the start of summer, those May Day celebrations recall the holiday's much earlier origins. Before May Day was adopted as a day to champion workers, its roots belonged to pagan tradition.

The springtime tradition was inherited from pagan tribes in Ireland and Scandinavia, said Linebaugh, borrowing ancient Roman practices celebrating the Earth's flowering season. When the first Europeans came to North America and erected a maypole in Quincy, Mass., they imbibed copious amounts of beer and danced with the Indigenous people, he said.

"The Puritans of Boston put an end to it by military force," Linebaugh said. "And yet this tradition of May Day as a time of dancing and play and pleasure persisted right into many parts of the U.S. today."

At the end of the day, no matter your version of May Day, it remains a time meant to celebrate togetherness. Inevitably, history shows, that May Day comradery has been met with suppression.

May Day in America was born out of the 8-hour workday movement in 19th-century Chicago. At the time, as the capitalist system gained a foothold in industrial-era America, working-class conditions had worsened. A 16-hour shift wasn't unusual for workers at the time.

Decades before the 8-hour work-day became the country's norm, the organization now known as the American Federation of Labor set May 1, 1886, as the date that workers nationwide should go on strike to demand the 8-hour workday.

"The reason was that the decade before there had been terrible unemployment ... and yet new technology had made the employer richer," Bill Edelman, a professor of labor studies, previously recounted on Talk of the Nation.

The workers followed through. On that May date, anarchists and labor activists in Chicago began a multi-day strike in what became known as the Haymarket affair of 1886. By May 3, the protests turned violent when police "which were basically the armed force of the capitalist masters," according to historian Linebaugh attacked workers demonstrating near the McCormick Reaper plant. The following day, a meeting held in the city's Haymarket Square turned even bloodier. Again, the police intervened, said Linebaugh, triggering clashes that killed both officers and civilians.

A bomb exploded among police ranks in the melee, but historians say it's unclear whether it was intended for the police or the crowd of civilians.

"There was a trial of eight men who were found guilty of conspiracy to murder," Linebaugh said. "Even though no evidence was ever produced that any of them had any relationship to this bomb, and four of them were eventually hanged despite a worldwide campaign in England, Europe, Mexico to save their lives."

Linebaugh points to the influential words of August Spies, one of the convicted men, who just before his execution cried out the famous words: "There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today."

His words "swept the globe," Linebaugh said. "Throughout Latin America, throughout Europe and in North America, to many, the day became this holiday to celebrate working people."

To honor the Chicago workers, the International Socialist Conference in 1889 named May Day a labor holiday, birthing what many nations now call International Workers' Day.

But in the U.S., anti-communist attitudes during the Cold War, as well as opposition to working-class unity, led authorities to suppress May Day's association with labor movements.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower instead declared May 1 "Law Day" dedicated to the principles of government under law and Labor Day is now celebrated in September.

Despite International Labor Day's U.S. origins, said Linebaugh, many Americans, still view May Day as strictly a holiday enjoyed by "communist countries."

In the former Soviet Union, May Day was an occasion to honor workers' contributions with giant parades in Red Square, a tradition that has dwindled in the decades since a fading remnant of the Bolshevik Revolution that's lost its meaning in modern Russia.

"Some of the workers of Czarist Russia also celebrated May Day, but quickly within 10 years, say by the 1930s, it becomes [for] the Soviet Union a day to display military hardware, military weapons," Linebaugh said.

As for Americans this year, he mused, "How it will be celebrated this day?"

"I'm not sure. I think it'll be exciting to pay attention to see the ways in which its history is remembered."

For a day that celebrates reform and revolution, political discussions and petitions, said Linebaugh, there's something in it for everyone. Well, maybe not.

"There's nothing in it for the capitalist class," he said.

Here is the original post:

The changing meanings of May Day - NPR

Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski on Friday nominatedDeputy Chief Sharon PurifoySmoots to be the department's assistant chief. If approved, Purifoy-Smoots will become the highest ranking Black, female fire official in city history.

Recognizing the historicmoment, the Milwaukee Fire Department opted to hold the announcement event at the Wisconsin Black Historical Society.

"It is monumental for not just a single person, not just a single department. Not just a single city. It's monumental for a fire service, monumental for our state," said Lipski.

Cavalier Johnson, the first African Americanto be elected mayor of Milwaukee, attendedLipski's announcement and talked about the significance of representation in positions of authority.

"You're opening doors and opening eyes to so many people, so many kids, kids who live in neighborhoods like this, about the possibilities, because they can see their own reflection in you," Johnson said.

"This promotion I think reflects her background, her hard work, as well as her accomplishments," he added.

Purifoy-Smoots has been with the fire department since 2003. She started as a firefighter and moved up the ranks eventually becoming a battalion chief in 2019, and served most recently as deputy chief of emergency medical services.

She has also served as a fire cadet instructor and as director of recruitment.

Purifoy-Smoots was never recruited by the fire department. She took a test offered by the city and thought she did well but didn't hear anything about her resultsfor 13 years.

She credits the Milwaukee Brotherhood of Firefighters a faction of Black firefighters within the fire department for filing an EEOC complaint in the 1990s which providedopportunity for people of color and women to join the department.

"If you would have known me 20 some years ago, firefighting was never in my future. But I have done really well in the career, moved up the ladder, and it wasn't by me doing this by myself," said Purifoy-Smoots.

Black women, and women in general, have not historically made up a large portion of firefighters in Wisconsinand nationally. Purifoy-Smoots said she recognizes her responsibility to provide opportunities for others.

"I am glad that I am first. But, I know my first is not going to mean much to me unless I am directly responsible in getting the second and the third and the fourth here," she said.

Lipski's nomination will need to be approved by the city's Fire and Police Commission.Dana World-Patterson, a member of the commission, attended Friday's event, indicating a likely favorable review from the commission. Lipski went as far to call her a "shoo-in."

More: 'It's about time': Milwaukee reacts to Cavalier Johnson's milestone as city's first elected Black mayor

More: Fire and Police Commission appoints Aaron Lipski to four-year term as fire chief

Contact Drake Bentley at (414) 391-5647 orDBentley1@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DrakeBentleyMJS.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

Originally posted here:

This Milwaukee Fire Department veteran is poised to become the highest-ranking Black female fire official in city history - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Amanda Haffele

Did you know plastic was a word that originally meant pliable and easily shaped?

Today plastic refers to a type of material, the polymer. Polymers are long chains of atoms arranged in repeating patterns. Synthetic or manmade polymers are made from carbon atoms provided by petroleum and other fossil fuels. The length and patterns of each polymer are what makes them strong, lightweight, and flexible, in essence, plastic.

In 1869, John Wesley Hyatt, invented the first synthetic polymer to reduce the demand for ivory used in billiards. The creation of different types of plastics expanded throughout the 1900s. However, the production of plastic didnt really take off until World War II. During this time period, the need to preserve scarce resources is what drove the production of plastic to an all-time high.

According to the Chemical Heritage Foundation, plastic production increased by 300 percent during the war. In 1935, Wallace Carothers created nylon to replace silk, making it a big player in plastic production during this time. Nylon was used to make ropes, parachutes, body armor, helmets, and other items.

Fast forward to 2021 and plastic is everywherefrom our electronics to appliances to dishes to our vehicles. Plastic has shaped the way we function as a society. It is lighter weight than other materials, therefore, reducing transportation costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Its strong, durable, and relatively inexpensive to make.

However, we must keep in mind that plastic is a manmade material which means it cant break down into anything Mother Nature can utilize. It takes approximately 450 years for a plastic bottle to break down into tiny pieces of plastic, but it never truly goes away.

What can we do? Now thats simple. Buy plastic that we know can be reused or recycled or try to avoid it altogether.

In our community, we can recycle plastic bottles, jugs, and tubs curbside.

Why do we only recycle bottles, jugs, and tubs? Markets and equipment are why. These types of plastic containers have the highest resale value, are the easiest materials to process at a Material Recovery Facility or recycling facility, and have reliable and available markets (meaning a company will buy these in large quantities to be made into new items).

This is due partially to their uniform shape, streamlining of modern technology, and the fact that these materials have been recycled for a longer period of time, therefore, making equipment more efficient and widely available.

Not sure if an item can be recycled? Give us a call and well help you determine the best disposal solution, (715) 346-6297.

Amanda Haffele is the solid waste director for Portage County

See the rest here:

Column: The history of plastic will likely surprise you - Point/Plover Metro Wire

VENICE It starts in the eyes: shy or seductive, gaping or sealed shut, aqueous frontiers between the mind and the world. There are the pupils of the German surrealist Unica Zrn, cohering out of dense, automatic black squiggles. The giant irises of Ulla Wiggen, each unique as a fingerprint and capable of unlocking a credit card or blocking passage across a border, painted in close-up on circular canvases. All over town, on palazzo-side posters and the hulls of the vaporetti, there are eyes announcing the 59th Venice Biennale: ghostly, milky corneas, drawn by the young Mexican artist Felipe Baeza, disembodied, floating in deep space.

Its a commonplace (and one you wont catch me using) to call an art exhibition, especially one as large as Venices, a feast for the eyes. The 2022 Biennale, or at least its central exhibition, is a feast of the eyes: a giant, high-spirited banquet of looking and scrutinizing. Eyes emerge as the key metaphor of a show thats all about bridging realms the brain and the social network, the dream and the ecosystem. The eyes here in Venice are portals to the unconscious but also analyzers of misrule. They stare out from paintings, bulge from videos, and on occasion (as in Simone Leighs bronze totem Brick House) clamp closed. We may be on display, but we are looking back, or looking inward.

This years edition of the worlds oldest and most important contemporary art exhibition has been organized with triumphant precision by the New York-based Italian curator Cecilia Alemani, whos mounted a major show in challenging circumstances: canceled studio visits, choked shipping routes, galloping insurance costs and, now, a land war 900 miles from the lagoon. Alemanis exhibition, titled The Milk of Dreams, was meant to open in May 2021. The coronavirus pandemic pushed both this show and Venices architecture biennial back a year, and shes made very good use of the delay.

Her challenges were not only logistical. For a while Ive felt that biennial exhibitions of contemporary art may have run their course. No coherent new style or movement will be emerging from our perpetually imitative present, and if you visit this years largely appalling national pavilions (the other half of the Venice Biennale, over which Alemani has no control), youll see what slim pickings contemporary art is offering up. So the curator and her team used their extra year to dip into the archives in 2020 Alemani co-curated an exhibition on the Biennales first 100 years and established a 20th-century lineage, notably through Surrealist and feminist traditions, for the themes of this show.

One of these Surrealist and feminist themes is that bodies and technologies cant be cleanly cleaved apart. Nature and society are always reshaping each other more than ever in time of climate crisis and in this show machines act like animals, bodies twitch like robots, flesh merges with prostheses, and metals and plastics keep drooping, leaking, melting.

Another theme is a reenchantment of our spiritless world to arrest the political and ecological crises that empire and patriarchy have reportedly consigned to us. If modern life stripped the divinity out of Venices altarpieces, and made art appreciation a secular enterprise, this show wants to turn the gondola back around. So prepare for a biennial chockablock with spirits and shamans, mutations and metamorphoses, where the world we live in for better, for worse; in beauty and in kitsch regularly takes a back seat to worlds beyond.

Junkies of recent continental and feminist philosophy will recognize the mood music: Rosi Braidottis theories of the posthuman, Silvia Federicis analyses of witch-hunting as gendered violence. And yet: When too many biennials let the labels do the theoretical heavy lifting, Alemanis selections are strongly opinionated and deftly chosen (though not without following some recent fashions: Indigenous cosmologies; weaving as metaphor for computer algorithm; two whole rooms filled with piles of dirt). They include participants from all over, notably Latin America, and never decline into the tokenism that afflicts so many European and American museums.

The show is heavy on painting return of the repressed, baby! and, despite its posthuman inquiries, light on new media. It has frequent surprises and moments of stunning bad taste, such as a sculptural suite by Raphaela Vogel of a cancerous penis on wheels paraded by 10 cadaverous white giraffes. (You read that right.)

All this without mentioning what, from a less subtle curator, would be the headline here: this is the largest Biennale since 2005, and some 90 percent of its artists are women. Just 21 of the 213 participants are men, and all are showing in the Arsenale, Venices former shipyard; in the classical galleries of the Giardini, the number of men is exactly zero. Elsewhere around Venice its still the old game, with concurrent exhibitions of Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz, Kehinde Wiley and other bombastic boys.

This Biennale would have been a failure if reversing the old gender bias were its mere endpoint. For Alemani, the exhibitions disproportion has a much more precise aim: reconstituting the past to let us see the present with keener eyes. She pulls this off primarily in five shows-within-the-show historical parentheses that frame her contemporary selections, each set off from the main flow via colored walls of dusty pink or robins egg blue. (The exhibition design this year is by the young Italian firm Formafantasma, whove subdivided and tamed the Arsenales tricky wide spaces.)

In the mustard gallery of the mini-show The Witchs Cradle, we meet women artists who used masquerades or fantasias to evade or deconstruct male stereotypes. They include the renowned Surrealists Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Leonor Fini and Meret Oppenheim; Italians such as Benedetta, who redeployed Futurist drawing to new subconscious ends; and also many Black American women, including Josephine Baker, Augusta Savage and Laura Wheeler Waring, the last of whom drew Egyptian/Art Deco covers for W.E.B. Du Boiss journal The Crisis. This metaphysical tradition gets picked up today by the Portuguese-British pastelist Paula Rego, who emerges as a star of this Biennale with an entire gallery of her fraught scenes of domestic violence, where love and fear make humans act like dogs.

A second, delightful mini-show presents women artists who examined the topologies of vessels, bags, shells and containers: a beaded purse by Sophie Taueber-Arp, hanging nets by Ruth Asawa, punctured white plaster ellipses by Mria Bartuszov (eyes, eyes, eyes), and incredible papier-mch models of the pregnant human uterus by Aletta Jacobs, a pioneering 19th-century Dutch doctor. (Let me add that, in literal terms, this is the deadest biennial Ive ever seen, with just under half the participants in the grave.) The contemporary Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak, who paints hazy shapes that might be leaves, or breasts, or tear ducts, offers a beautiful contemporary exploration of forms with indistinct interiors and exteriors.

Prosthetics human inventions that make human boundaries indistinct are a related leitmotif. I found myself engrossed here in the life of Anna Coleman Ladd (1878-1939), an American sculptor who used her classical training to craft gelatinous facial protheses, of latex and painted metal, for maimed World War I veterans. That intertwining of flesh and technology ripples through the sculptural works in the show: whether Hannah Levys drooping silicone on spidery metal legs, Julia Phillipss bronze armature supporting a cast of an absent female body, or Tishan Hsus resin hybrids of faces and phone screens. These are among the shows best works, though I wish Alemani had gone all the way and included Matthew Barney: master sculptor of prosthetic-grade plastics, whose attention to permeable bodies and fluid identities prefigures almost all this shows obsessions.

Then theres the automatic drawing and writing, sances, spiritual channeling. We have the Victorian mystic Georgiana Houghton communicating with the dead through tangled watercolors; the dense symmetrical fantasies of Minnie Evans, in which human eyes gaze out from butterfly wings. Mediums and faith healers. Spiraling vines, blossoming flowers. This all gets picked up, among contemporary artists, by Emma Talbots sentimental painting on fabric of starbursts and babies in amniotic fluid, Firelei Bezs rebarbative murals of DayGlo Afrofuturist deities, or else beaded flags depicting animal-human hybrids by the Haitian artist Myrlande Constant. I clocked at least three artists drawing vines and tendrils sprouting from nipples or genitalia.

How much you can tolerate all this will depend on your own particular attunement to the music of the spheres. For my own disenchanted part (and especially as war rages), I have serious misgivings about the escapism of this magical thinking, as if, with just a little more respect for the divine feminine, everything will be all right. You cant take a break from modernity, not even in your dreams a lesson underscored in this Biennale by the quick-witted Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona, who draws seals, whales and octopuses in the drab apartment blocks and municipal buildings of the contemporary Indigenous Arctic. And the most compelling projects in The Milk of Dreams delve right into the incompleteness and instability of the modern world, rather than trying to get back to the garden.

In the Giardini, Alemani has choreographed a brilliant succession of five galleries that turn to gender and computing technologies, and how art might reveal our algorithms powers and misapplications. They begin with Wiggens new large irises, as well as strange and fascinating paintings she made in the 1960s of networked circuits and motherboards. (The word computer, after all, referred initially to predominantly female clerical laborers.) Next we encounter Italian female Op artists Nanda Vigo, Grazia Varisco and four others who put rational forms to eye-bending ends.

After them come two incisive women who reformatted drawing and painting for the computer age. One is Vera Molnr, who in the 1970s drew minimal compositions by outputting code to an early computer plotter (and whos still working from a Paris nursing home at 98). The other is Jacqueline Humphries, whose dense abstractions of halftone dots and emoticons reaffirm painting as an ideal medium of digital perception.

One of the art worlds favorite recent catchphrases is alternative knowledge, cribbed from anthropology and misapplied to just about anything that defies rational expectations. A dream may be beautiful, a dream may be powerful, but a dream is no kind of knowledge at all. A better sort of alternative knowledge is the knowledge imparted by art, at least at its most ambitious: the pulse-racing insight into our human condition we suddenly perceive when forms exceed themselves and feel like truth. The best artists in this determined, imbalanced, and properly historic Biennale look right at that human condition, with unclouded eyes.

59th Venice Biennale: The Milk of DreamsThrough Nov. 27; labiennale.org.

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Looking Inward, and Back, at a Biennale for the History Books - The New York Times

For the third time in their history, the Phoenix Suns will face the Dallas Mavericks in the playoffs, this time locking horns in the 2022 Western Conference Semifinals. While they are 868 flight miles away and have played in the same conference since the Mavericks entered the NBA in 1980, these two franchises do not have a lengthy and distinguished postseason history.

But they do have history. And were are diving head first into that history. Grab your Spanarkel. Youre going to need it.

These two teams have met a total of 168 times in the regular season, with the Suns holding a 94-74 advantage. Weve come a long way since the two teams first tipped off on October 21, 1980.

Dallas leading scorer that night was Jim Spanarkel with 22 off the bench. Now thats a name, right? And makes the above reference makes sense. Nice call back. Phoenix took the game 111-99, led by 21 from Dennis Johnson and six Suns in double figures.

Throughout most of the history of both of these franchises, while one was enjoying success and postseason participation, the other was navigating the draft and attempting to improve their team. The Mavericks did not make the playoffs for the first three seasons of their existence which coincided with the Phoenix Suns final breath of the Walter Davis/Alvan Adams era.

In 1984, Mark Aguirre led the Mavericks to their first playoff participation, the same year a surprising 41-41 Suns club advanced to the Western Conference Finals.

Both teams avoided each other in the playoffs that season, and they would not meet in the postseason during the 1980s. Why? Because the sun was setting on Phoenix and rising in Dallas. The cocaine-fueled 80s werent kind to the Suns, and as drug scandals hit Phoenix, the team went into rebuild mode.

Dallas, however, was getting stronger.

This culminated in a Western Conference Finals appearance for their franchise in the 1988 playoffs. A team that had Aguirre, Rolando Blackman, Derek Harper, Sleepy Sam Perkins, and Detlef Schrempf would push Magic Johnson and the Lakers to a Game 7. They lost to LA, who won the championship, and after five consecutive playoff appearances without anything to show for it, Dallas was preparing to change directions.

While Dallas was shipping Mark Aguirre to the Detroit Pistons, who proved to be the missing link in the Motor Citys championship aspirations, the Suns had acquired Kevin Johnson and drafted Dan Majerle. In Phoenix, arrows were pointing up, as the Mavericks faded into obscurity.

They didnt match up in the playoffs during the Barkley Era because, in 1992-93, the Mavericks won only 11 games. 9 of those games were won with Gar Heard as their head coach, of 1976 NBA Finals fame. If you are old enough to remember the 90s, youd recall that Dallas was kind of a joke during that time frame. Dallas did not win one playoff game in the entire decade.

That changed when Mark Cuban bought the team in 2000.

Dallas had drafted Dirk Nowitzki with the 9th pick in the 1998 NBA Draft, and after winning 19 games his rookie season, he and Steve Nash began developing chemistry in 1999-00. That team went 40-42, but 53-29 in 2001-02.

They were on to something in Dallas. Meanwhile, Phoenix was floundering with Backcourt 2000, and missed the playoffs two out of three seasons. Dallas made a Western Conference Finals appearance against the Spurs in 2003, but after a First Round exit in 2004, changes were seemingly needed in Dallas.

And that change was to not keep Steve Nash.

That summer, he (Cuban) really didnt make a big effort to keep me, Nash told Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes in the All The Smoke podcast, via the Dallas News. I think he thought he didnt want to overpay I think hed overpaid a few guys, and didnt want to overpay an aging point guard and thats how I ended up in Phoenix, really. I dont think he was confident in my future at that point.

Entering the 2004-05 season, both teams were finally playing well enough to make the postseason. And for the first time ever, they would meet, only 10 months after Nash chose Phoenix over Dallas...

In Phoenix, this marked the beginning of the Seven Seconds or Less Era. In 2005, they made their first playoff appearance with a groundbreaking offense that altered the trajectory of NBA history. After beating the Grizzlies in the first round, they faced a playoff-tested Dallas Mavericks club that had parted ways with Steve Nash the previous off-season. It was an opportunity for Nash to seek retribution on the team that had refused to re-sign him.

The Suns easily took Game 1 127-102 behind a dominant 40-point, 16-rebound performance by Amare Stoudemire. Joe Johnson had 25 points, Shawn Marion had 23 points and 11 boards, and Nash added 11 points and 13 assists. It was prior to this game that Steve Nash stood in the middle of America West Arena and hoisted the Most Valuable Player trophy, presented by David Stern.

We were reminded that extreme highs may suddenly turn into terrible lows. If youre unfamiliar with the Suns Cant Have Nice Things narrative, here is a chapter in the history class.

The pendulum swung back the other way for Game 2 as the Mavericks tied the series with a 108-106 victory, but the team took a massive hit in the game.

With 19.7 seconds left in the second quarter, trailing 54-45 to the Mavs, Joe Johnson received the ball in transition and went up for a dunk. Mavericks forward Jerry Stackhouse attempted to stop Johnsons slam attempt near the rim, but Johnson landed awkwardly on his face.

It frustrates me to this day to see that play and Jerry Stackhouse will forever be on my list. The final diagnosis: an right orbital bone fracture. Surgery was required and Johnson wouldnt play again in the series.

Paul Coro, then writer for the Arizona Republic, noted, All season, youre kind of just waiting for something to go wrong. The Suns were playing a real short rotation, so they didnt have a ton of depth. Theyre going super small, and now you lose a big guard who has made up for a lot of your frontcourt size. There was a lot of questions about whether that was gonna be the end of the road now.

Game 3 went to Phoenix, winning easily 119-102 in Dallas. Marion, who had been 7-of-17 on three-pointers in the previous six postseason games, compensated for Johnsons absence by hitting 5-of-7 from deep and scoring 21 points. Phoenix was 11-of-22 on three-pointers as a team and took a 2-1 series lead.

Dallas once again responded, posting a 10-point win in Game 4, 119-109, and tying the series. Steve Nash dropped 48 points (on 20-of-28 shooting) for the Suns, but received no help from their bench. The reserves scored a total of 3 points. We felt that if we could allow [Nash] to score and not have all those other guys become involved in the offense, it would give us a better chance to win the game, Jerry on my list Stackhouse said after the game.

Meanwhile, Dirk got his groove back (he was averaging 24 points in the first 3 games, but on 29-of-66 shooting) as he went for 25 on 60% shooting. Josh Howard went for 29 points and 10 rebounds, and Stackhouse added 22 from the bench.

It was the fourth-quarter efforts of Jim Jackson, former member of the Mavs, that pushed the Suns to a 114-108 victory in Game 5. He went 7-of-8 from the field in the fourth, scoring 15 of his 21 points in the final period as he filled in for Joe Johnson. Steve Nash was in MVP Mode as he posted a triple-double; 34 points, 12 assists, and 13 rebounds.

Mavericks head coach Avery Johnson said after the game, Obviously, Nash still hurt us in the first half, but he was a monster in the second half. We came into tonights game trying to cut off some of his passing angles. We did not follow the game plan, and they just shredded us, shredded us to pieces.

The Suns closed out the series in Dallas with a memorable Game 6 performance by Steve Nash. The Mavericks were in control for the majority of the game, but a furious fourth-quarter by the MVP put the Suns in position to clinch the series. Credit the likes of JAson Terry for hitting clutch shots, but no one was better than Steve on this day.

Nash scored eight points in the final minute of regulation, including an iconic three-pointer with 5.7 seconds left that forced overtime.

That fire carried over into overtime and the Suns clinched the series with a 130-124 win.

While the Suns moved on to face San Antonio, and Dallas was left wondering why they let Steve Nash leave, the Suns were unable to overcome Joe Johnsons injury in Games 1 and 2. Although he returned in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals, the San Antonio Spurs were already up 2-0 and would go on to win the series in five games.

Ill always remember this series with resentment. Due to Joe Johnsons injury, Steve Nash was pushed to perform at a higher level, and winning this series was crucial. However, the loss of Johnson robbed the club a chance at a championship. Johnson agrees. Theres no way you can tell me we wouldnt have been NBA champions if I hadnt got hurt, Johnson once stated.

One year later, the two teams would meet again in the playoffs, this time with a trip to the Finals on the line.

The Suns were coming off of a 54-28 finish in the regular season, good for second seeding in the Western Conference, and did it despite only 3 games from Amare Stoudemire that season. New additions Raja Bell and Boris Diaw had seamlessly integrated with the team and, due to his ability to lead the team to success without STAT, Steve Nash won his second consecutive MVP Award for his efforts.

Dallas was stronger than the year prior, finishing with the second best record in the NBA but the fourth overall seed due to San Antonios winning of the Southwest Division with the best overall record and led the league in offensive rating. Continuity and depth were their strengths as this Mavs team was battle tested and hungry for a chance at a title. They swept the Grizzlies in the First Round and, in an epic second round matchup, faced the #1 seed in the Spurs. 41 points from Tim Duncan couldnt stop Dirk and crew from winning Game 7, 119-111.

Phoenix had their hands full in the First Round, tasked with dispatching the scoring champion, Kobe Bryant, and a post-Shaq Lakers team. Phoenix did so in seven games, but DAntonis short rotations meant miles on the team, and by the time the Suns beat the Los Angeles Clippers in the Semifinals also a seven game series Steve Nash had played 568 minutes in the playoffs.

Playing Game 1 in Dallas, because even though Phoenix had the higher seeding, Dallas had the better record and therefore homecourt (sometimes I just dont understand the NBA), the Suns found themselves down 9 points with 3:26 left to play in the game. Just a few moments prior, Phoenix was dealt a blow when Raja Bell had to leave the game with a strained left calf that turned out to be a slightly torn calf muscle. Its an injury that would keep him out until Game 4.

They ended the game on a 16-4 run, led by Steve Nash, who scored 10 of those points. Phoenix snatched home court by winning 121-118.

Game 2 saw Phoenix score a season-low 17 points in the first quarter and 36.4% from the field in the fourth. Phoenix entered the fourth with a 77-75 lead, but Dirk Nowtizkis 4-of-6 shooting, both from the field and from the line, led to 12 points. The Suns missed 13 of their last 18 shots in the game as they lost 105-98. Phoenix shot 25 less free throws than Dallas and the edge was 17-2 in Q4.

The third game of the series was another defensive victory for the Mavericks, holding the Suns to a playoff-low 88 points, as Dallas won 95-88. Dirk went for 28 points and 17 boards and the Mavs were playing physical and getting into the Suns heads.

When Josh Howard was called for a flagrant foul for hitting Tim Thomas in the face as the Phoenix forward drove to the hoop late in the first half, tempers boiled. As Thomas approached the foul line, he and Jason Terry exchanged shoves, resulting in technical fouls for both players. Were out there with our shoulders slumped, and were not smiling, Nash observed after the game. Were not fighting. Were not, you know, playing with the necessary fire it takes to win.

Raja Bell made his return for Game 4 and it was the spark needed to tie the series 2-2. Dirk went 3-of-13 shooting and the Suns returned the defensive favor to the Mavs, winning 106-86.

Sadly, it was the last win of the season for the Suns.

The teams returned to Dallas and the Mavs convincingly took Game 5, 117-101, behind a 50-burger from Dirk Nowitzki. The Suns had 20 points in the fourth. Dirk had 22.

Dallas won the series in Game 6, when, despite a 16-point lead early in the game, Phoenix couldnt overcome a problem that plagued them throughout the series: foul trouble. Dallas took 43 more FTA throughout the series, and their 31-20 advantage in Game 6 hindered the Suns from getting into any sort of rhythm. Dallas clinched the series with a 102-93 win.

Here we are, 16 years after the mid-2000s postseason battles, on a collision path for the chance to play in the Western Conference Finals. Its a rubber match, with the winner claiming a 2-1 lead in the history series between these two franchises.

Their history goes beyond just the playoffs, however. These franchises are forever tied due to personnel and draft day what ifs?.

What is interesting about the relationship between the Phoenix Suns and the Dallas Mavericks is how intertwined our personnel has been over the decades. Here is a list of players both franchises have shared:

Note that on the current Mavericks coaching staff is former Suns head coach Igor Kokoskov and former player Jared Dudley. Phoenix assistant Mark Bryant played 18 games for the Mavericks during the 2000-01 season.

For the first time in the franchises history, the Phoenix Suns were the first overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. The big question was who to draft. Would it be Deandre Ayton from the University of Arizona, who went to college nearby? Or would it be Luka Doncic, the young European prodigy with whom (then) head coach Igor Kokoshov had a relationship?

The Suns selected Ayton, and it was the Mavericks who moved up and got Luka from the Atlanta Hawks at number three. In that moment the Mavericks once again became a rival with a narrative.

Deandre Ayton played his first NBA game against Luka Doncic to start the 2018-19 season, with the Suns winning 121-100. It would be 1 of only 19 wins for Phoenix that season.

Since the 2018 NBA Draft the Phoenix Suns are 11-3 against the Dallas Mavericks. That includes 9 consecutive wins, which is the second longest such streak in the series between the two teams (Phoenix won 14 straight from 1992 to 1995).

But now the games will carry more weight to them. The two franchises have been on a postseason collision course since the 2018 NBA Draft, and in 2022, we are finally primed to see it occur.

I will always carry a special kind of disdain for the Dallas Mavericks. Sure, they didnt affect my 90s. Growing up they were never a foe, rather, they were a team that we sent players I liked via trade. I loved Michael Finley. AC Green was solid. Cedric Ceballos was another fan favorite. Sure we got Jason Kidd, but the Mavericks took Finley from us, who I thought was the future of the Suns.

The San Antonio Spurs will be remembered as the villain of the Seven Seconds or Less era. But Ill never forget the crushing blows dealt by the Mavericks, one delivered by Jerry Stackhouse and the other depriving us of a championship opportunity by defeating the Suns in the Western Conference Finals.

So here we are now. The Suns just won the most games in the history of the franchise. But in order to achieve the ultimate success, standing in front of them is that silver and royal blue.

Time to write the next chapter in the history of these two franchises. With a Spanarkel.

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An in-depth look at the history between the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks - Bright Side Of The Sun

For the eighth time in franchise history and the first time since 2019, the Milwaukee Bucks will face off against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Playoffs. Before Game 1 of this highly-anticipated series tips off today, here is a look back at the playoff history between the two franchises.

In the seven playoff clashes between the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics in history thus far, the latter has won the series five times.

It started with a matchup in the 1974 NBA Finals when the Bucks were led by none other than the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The former Finals MVP put on a display of dominance as he averaged 32.6 points, 12.1 rebounds, 5.4 assists, and 2.1 blocked shots per contest, while John Havlicek had a brilliant series for the Celtics by averaging 26.4 points, 7.7 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.9 steals. Ultimately, Boston took down Milwaukee in seven games and Havlicek won the Finals MVP.

Following that series, the Bucks and Celtics went several years without seeing one another again before they met four different times in the playoffs in the 1980s. It started with a matchup in the 1983 Eastern Conference Semifinals, where the Bucks, led by an All-Star duo of Sidney Moncrief and Marques Johnson, emphatically swept the Celtics 4-0. The following season, Boston got their revenge over Milwaukee in the 1984 Eastern Conference Finals with a 4-1 series victory thanks to a sensational effort from Larry Bird, who eventually won the championship and Finals MVP.

Two years later, the pair once again faced off in the 1986 Eastern Conference Finals, but Boston proved to be too much for Milwaukee with a 4-0 sweep. Larry Bird was once again stellar in that series as he led the Celtics to yet another championship and earned another Finals MVP that year. The following season, the Bucks were out for revenge in the 1987 Eastern Conference Semifinals, where they took the Celtics to seven games thanks to an impressive team effort. Terry Cummings and Sidney Moncrief both averaged over 20 points per game, while Jack Sikma, John Lucas, and Ricky Pierce were all above 15 points in the series. Yet, the Celtics still prevailed as they had four players averaging 20 or more points for the series, headed by Larry Bird at 29.9, as they won 4-3.

After a surplus of playoff battles throughout the 80s, these two franchises went 31 years before they would see each other again. The seventh-seeded Bucks matched up with the second-seeded Celtics in a first round clash that went back and forth for seven straight games. Led by 23-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo and a berserk Khris Middleton, the Bucks fell just short of taking down an impressive Celtics team as they lost Game 7 on the road. One year later, and the first year under coach Mike Budenholzer, the Bucks were set to battle the Celtics in the second round. After they lost Game 1 on their home floor, Milwaukee dominated throughout the rest of the series thanks to 28.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 1.4 steals, and 1.6 blocks per game from Antetokounmpo and won the next four straight games against Boston.

Now, after seven prior playoff meetings over the years, the Bucks and Celtics will meet on the big stage once more. There is rightfully no shortage of hype surrounding the matchup, and it will be a must-see clash filled with plenty of star power on full display.

Be sure to catch Bucks-Celtics Game 1 today at 12:00 p.m. CST on ABC.

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Revisiting playoff history between the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics - Behind the Buck Pass

While spring breakers typically seek sun, Southwestern Michigan College students pursued a path less traveled for four days through Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Participants included Erin Burggraf, Ashley Herr, Gavin Smith, Kaleigh Conroy, Nathan Lull, Tristan Westrate, Sydney Franks and Isaac Pitsch with sponsors Joe Coti and Jeff and Chloe Dennis.

Snow fell on April Fools Day as the group left at 6:30 a.m. with a send-off by President Dr. Joe Odenwald. Four hours later they crossed the Mississippi River.

At Herbert Hoovers Iowa boyhood home, they viewed the two-room house in which Bertie was born in 1874, his fathers blacksmith shop and the Quaker meetinghouse dear to his mother. Orphaned at 9, Hoover lived with Oregon relatives, but always cherished West Branch and continued visiting until his 1964 death.

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Within walking distance, the 1962 Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum relates his boyhood, education at Stanford University, an overseas career in mining and engineering, his 45-year marriage, World War I efforts on behalf of Belgian orphans and food conservation, 1920s service as Commerce Secretary, his election as the 31st President and post-presidential career. Hoover was an American hero before becoming a scapegoat for the Great Depression, which crippled his 1929-33 administration.

I have been wanting to visit Hoovers historic site for four years, Franks said. Getting an opportunity to visit with the college was astonishing. Knowledge I gained about Crazy Horse and the Des Moines Capitol was eye-opening. My favorite memory has to be history nerds Joe Coti and me throughout the Capitol and Hoovers historic site. Thats a memory Ill never forget!

Saturday started with Dignity: Of Earth and Sky, a sculpture near Chamberlain. A stainless steel construction 50 feet high depicts a Sioux woman clothed in traditional dress, draped in a brilliant star quilt.

Its hard to choose which site was my favorite. I loved Dignity, Burggraf said. Her strength and beauty are truly remarkable. Crazy Horses museum and monument is a nation-building landmark that shows resilient Native communities continue to thrive even after so much loss. The Badlands has beauty all its own and is a vast reminder of how important Native communities are to our nation and culture.

The Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills is larger than Mount Rushmore and has been under construction since the 1940s. The face is now complete of the Lakota warrior who in 1876 led the Indian coalition that destroyed George Armstrong Custers force at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Learning about Native American culture while visiting the Crazy Horse Memorial was absolutely fascinating. Learning about the different aspects in Hoovers life and presidency was interesting as well, Conroy said.

Mount Rushmore, dedicated in 1941, arrays Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln and provided a backdrop for the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock film, North by Northwest, starring Cary Grant as a falsely accused man hunted across the country. A scene at Chicagos LaSalle Street station announces train stops along the route, including Dowagiac, Niles and Lawton.

Sunday they ventured into Wyoming. Devils Tower is a 1,267-foot butte with a 1.5-mile base. Native lore holds its crevassed surfaces were created by a great bear pursuing seven maidens who took refuge on top before escaping into the heavens to form the Pleiades constellation.

Its one thing to view images of a place you are studying, but another thing entirely to physically see them, Pitsch said. I can now better understand why places such as Devils Tower and the Badlands are viewed as sacred. I firsthand felt the powerful tranquility of being in their presence.

My favorite part of the trip was the Badlands, Lull agreed. Its unlike anything Ive ever seen. I enjoyed seeing wildlife up close. I feel I learned a lot about the culture of Native peoples.

This trip was like no other, Westrate said. I had never been to any of the states we visited. My favorite part was the drive through the Badlands. I love beautiful scenery. This was something Ill never forget.

On their final day in Mitchell, S.D., they took in the 1892 Corn Palace, a paean to Plains farmers. Each year, its faade is refashioned from various hybrids and colors of corn to a-maize-ing effect.

The Corn Palace was a bit corny, but a fun stop, Burggraf said.

In Des Moines they toured the 1886 Iowa State Capitol amalgamating Byzantine and Victorian architecture.

Cross-country runner Gavin Smith loved this trip, which made me want to continue to pursue my dream of running and walking across the country. This great adventure felt like a dream. I can honestly say this trip changed my life, showing the world as much bigger and more fascinating than I knew.

The history trip with Professor Dennis was an excellently-organized adventure with great people, Herr said. I thoroughly enjoyed all the destinations we visited and loved that we were able to make adjustments to accommodate things that piqued our interest. This trip sparked an interest in me to continue to learn more about historical events and to visit more memorable sites. I compare our trip to the Magic School Bus. We were being educated, but in such a fun, entertaining way we will never forget things we learned. I would highly recommend anyone who has the opportunity to take this trip or one similar to do it without hesitation. Its 110-percent worth it.

SMC funds a variety of travel opportunities to broaden students experiences. Some examples include SkillsUSA for criminal justice; the American Chemical Society, from San Francisco to Orlando; the American Sociological Association in Los Angeles this summer; and Chicago, from the Auto Show and Lyric Opera to psychology conferences.

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SMC History Students Tour Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming - Moody on the Market

OTTAWA COUNTY, MI The Jenison High School Marching Band plans to make its legacy known across the country with its selection to perform during the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Weve got a long history of really amazing students in the band program, David Zamborsky, Jenisons band director, told MLive/Grand Rapids Press. This is a big thing appearing on national television.

Zamborsky learned his students would take part in the 2023 edition of the parade the first week of March. But he had to wait to share his excitement.

Related: Jenisons marching band picked for iconic Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade

Macys does a really great job at keeping things as tight as possible, he said of the announcement. That was very much the case this morning.

The morning of Friday, April 29, marching band students were excused from class for what they thought would be a special event. Students took their seats inside the performance center and eagerly awaited the news.

As Wesley Whatley, the parades creative manager, took the stage, students began questioning amongst each other on what was happening, but they slowly started to figure it out.

The kids could tell it was a big deal, Zamborsky recalled. They were super excited when Wesley made the announcement.

With him, Whatley also brought a check for $10,000 that will go entirely toward the trip.

The journey to New York City where the annual parade is held started in January when Zamborsky began compiling his bands resume and achievements together to be considered as an entrant.

Now, after being named one of six marching bands across the country to perform on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 24, officials say the real planning begins.

Macys wants every band performance to be memorable and unique, Zamborsky said.

For 90 seconds, the Jenison marching band will have the attention of viewers from all parts of the United States. Being on national television may sound intimidating to some, but for this group of students, its a once-in-a-life opportunity.

The fun part in all of this is going to be what we want to do and what we want to play, he said.

In the next 18 months, Zamborsky and his students will be busy to say the least. Taking around 150 to 200 students to New York, for several days, isnt cheap. In order to fund the trip, Zamborsky said fundraisers will help raise money to ensure no student misses this opportunity.

Being selected, it shows the legacy that our students leave behind here, he said.

This years parade is set to begin at 9 a.m. Thanksgiving Day.

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Jenison marching bands history of really amazing students highlighted with Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade - MLive.com