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Preservation Through Play – How Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master Series Brings Video Game History To Life

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Introduction

Few types of media hook me like a good documentary. The genre uses the best elements of traditional filmmaking to amplify what will always be the greatest story ever told: reality. Whether it’s an educational look at the natural world, a gripping true crime tale, or an enlightening biography of a noteworthy figure, the best documentaries manage to educate as effectively as they entertain.

The video games industry is now old enough to have been subjected to its fair share of documentaries, from The King of Kong to Indie Game: The Movie to Netflix’s High Score. But no matter how good they are, they all generate a tough-to-pin-down anxiety in me I never consciously noticed until recently: By the time the film ends, or, more often, in the middle of it, I just want to stop watching and play the games in question.

It’s a frustration shared by Chris Kohler, the editorial director at Digital Eclipse. And it’s one of the reasons why he enjoys working on the studio’s Gold Master Series. Essentially the gaming equivalent of the Criterion Collection, it consists of two titles, The Making of Karateka and Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story. Each game takes players on a playable history lesson of its subjects, be it a single game, a creator, or an entire studio. The result is a new genre Digital Eclipse can call its own: the interactive documentary.

Preservation Through Play – How Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master Series Brings Video Game History To Life

Digital Eclipse’s neon-lit arcade

Built On Preservation

Built On Preservation

Digital Eclipse has led the charge in commercial video game emulation since its early years. Founded in 1992 as Williams Digital Arcade, it specialized in creating arcade-accurate console ports of classic arcade titles via emulation at a time when this was mainly accomplished by replicating an arcade game’s code from scratch.

“It was if you went and bought The Godfather on VHS, and it was just new people trying to recreate the version of The Godfather that was on film instead of somebody coming up with technology that would allow you to take a filmstrip and get that information onto a Blu-ray or DVD or whatever it is,” Kohler explains.

Digital Eclipse is a pioneer in commercial emulation. While the studio’s methods equated to a more enjoyable gaming experience, it also served as an early example of game preservation. Kohler says the company was essentially built on the need to pay retro games the proper respect.

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration

The 2000s saw the company undergo a complicated period of mergers and rebrands before reemerging in 2015 as Digital Eclipse once more. This saw the studio shift its focus back towards preservation in the form of retro game compilations such as the Mega Man Legacy Collection, Disney Afternoon Collection, and Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. These titles included bonus features such as long-lost concept art and other development and marketing materials that, with each release, gradually grew from being a sideshow to almost the main attraction.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, released in 2022, is perhaps the most impressive of these game bundles. In addition to packing in 13 old-school TMNT games, it boasts an exhaustive number of forgotten materials such as original magazine ads, scans of the original game boxes and manuals, comic book covers, and never-before-seen concept art. For ’80s babies, they weren’t just revisiting old TMNT games; they were reliving the franchises’ early pop-culture boom while getting a behind-the-scenes look at how these games were brought to life.

While retro collections help keep old games alive, Kohler says they only offer the “What” of a game’s overall history. They don’t provide the “Who,” “Where,” “How,” and, most importantly, the “Why.” To fill those gaps, Digital Eclipse needed a fresh approach.

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story

Creating A Genre

Creating A Genre

Kohler joined Digital Eclipse in July 2020. At the time, the company had licensed the Karateka IP from creator Jordan Mechner to create a new retro collection of sorts. Unlike its previous projects, Digital Eclipse had full control over the Karateka game’s direction since the studio didn’t have to work with a publisher. The Karateka title became Kohler’s first major project, and the team also gained access to years’ worth of Mechner’s personal materials. These included his journals documenting his daily life while developing Karateka, design documents, publisher correspondences, and more. As Kohler pored over decades-old legal negotiations and Mechner’s written insights into creating Karateka and other games, he and the team saw the potential to tell Karateka’s story in a new fashion.

“And just realizing that there was this incredible narrative behind this game, and because we had Jordanʼs journals where he was writing down day by day everything that was happening in his life as he was creating this game, we could really go far beyond the idea of the retro collection,” says Kohler. “We could really tell this in a narrative way, and the story itself can become the main event, as it were.”

The Making of Karateka

The seed for the interactive documentary had been sewn, and the team began brainstorming. What if they could tell a linear story that takes players down the complete timeline of a game’s development? Better yet, what if players could play not only the finished product but also its various prototypes?

It was around this time that Digital Eclipse began a partnership with Atari to create a title celebrating the companyʼs 50th anniversary. Coincidentally, Atari wanted something different than the average retro collection, and Digital Eclipse saw this as the perfect opportunity to implement its nascent documentary game concept. The idea that was originally envisioned for The Making of Karateka would make its debut in Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection.

In addition to conducting a staggering amount of research, Digital Eclipse filmed interviews with former Atari employees and industry luminaries. Perhaps most impressively, it included over 100 playable Atari games, from the iconic to the forgotten, via emulation. The result was a robust story of Atari’s founding and golden age told through linear timelines divided by chapters. Players read informative blurbs, viewed development documents and other key materials, watched documentary clips, and, of course, played the games that define a generation. As a bonus, it had even developed modern reimaginings of select titles.

Digital Eclipse CSO and Head of Publishing Justin Bailey summons Karateka’s dreaded hawk at the Portland Retro Expo

The result was a resounding success. Atari 50 earned widespread acclaim as one of the most complete and well-made video game compilations ever created. It also worked as a successful proof-of-concept for the fledgling interactive documentary concept.

“By taking that all the way to the finish line, we were able to kind of work out the structure and the format,” says Kohler. “And as weʼre kind of getting towards the end of Atari 50, it was like, ‘Okay, now itʼs time to take all these learnings that weʼve had by finishing out Atari 50 and then revisit that back on to Karateka.’”

By this time, Digital Eclipse had also signed on with famed UK developer Jeff Minter, creator of hits such as Gridrunner and Tempest 2000, for a title documenting his studio, Llamasoft. Thanks to Atari 50, Digital Eclipse found a winning formula for telling more great stories from video game history. The Gold Master Series was born as a result, and The Making of Karateka and Llamasoft adhered to Atari 50’s blueprint to tell their respective stories and expand players’ appreciation for them.

Reshaping History

Reshaping History

“Nobodyʼs really doing what weʼre doing,” says Kohler. “And maybe for good reason. Maybe weʼre crazy, but weʼre doing our best to try to figure out what this new type of video game is.”

The Gold Master Series team consists of former game journalists like Kohler and Dan Amrich, who handle the lion’s share of researching and crafting the resulting narratives. The games are made using the Eclipse Engine, proprietary software specially designed to easily ingest emulators, either licensed or developed in-house, to run several old games from a plethora of platforms. The Eclipse Engine is the secret sauce of the Gold Master Series, as its ability to juggle emulators alongside sound and video in a fast and responsive manner is the reason why navigating the games’ timelines feels smooth and snappy.

Of course, each game needs a central topic, and everyone at Digital Eclipse, as you might expect, has a personal wishlist of subjects. “Iʼm still waiting for that call from Shigeru Miyamoto,” says Kohler. “He has my number.” I found it hard to think that anyone could top Jordan Mechner. His absurdly meticulous note and record keeping (Kohler: “Nobody’s that organized! Who does that?!”) makes him the gold standard when it comes to providing enough reference material to fill a game. But Kohler tells me that so long as the subject is interesting/important, how much they choose to hold on to isn’t a prerequisite to be considered for a Gold Master Series game. If Digital Eclipse needs something, one way or another, they’ll find it. And whatever they gather will shape the game accordingly. Jeff Minter didn’t have as many design documents as Mechner, so Digital Eclipse leaned more into showing what the actual games looked like. Llamasoft includes models of the cassette tapes along with advertisements and reviews from UK gaming mags at the time. Some materials aren’t found until close to the end of production.

Atari 50, for example, had to be patched to include film footage recorded by a Berkeley University student of Atari back when the company was still called Syzygy. Essentially an amateur documentary capturing the birth of Atari, the footage vanished for decades. While the Atari Museum possessed a copy of the film, Digital Eclipse didn’t have the rights to use it. So, instead, the studio had to track down one of the students who made it, get their permission to use their footage, research the legal rights for its commercial use, and patch it into Atari 50 after it was already finalized. “We did so much legwork to get that little like, two, three minutes snippet of a film in this,” says Kohler.

Battlezone designer Owen Rubin at his controller-laden work station

That effort speaks to the length Digital Eclipse will go to ensure its interactive documentaries are as rich and comprehensive as possible. “We have not had a situation yet where weʼve wanted to tell a story and have not been able to find cool things to tell that story,” Kohler says. “So, I donʼt think we ever will. I think we can find the things.”

The closest comparison I offer for the Gold Master Series is they feel like modern museum exhibits. A museum attendee can breeze through exhibits, giving little more than cursory glances, and walk away with a basic understanding of the history lesson told. Conversely, they can read every card, press every button, and play every video to absorb more details. Kohler says Digital Eclipse wants the Gold Master Series to offer the same range of engagement and that either approach, no matter how shallow or deep, is perfectly okay.

Additionally, Digital Eclipse is always looking for ways to add interactivity beyond just playing an emulated game. One great example is The Making of Karateka’s rotoscope theater, where players can watch a short clip of the game while toggling each animation layer, almost like Photoshop filters. In fact, Kohler cites the rotoscope theater as an example of how Digital Eclipse has only scratched the surface of what the interactive documentary can evolve into. That leads to the million-dollar question: Does he consider these types of experiences to be true video games?

‘Yes, I think itʼs a video game,” Kohler explains. “I think itʼs a video game as much as [a] documentary film is a film. And I think that in the same way that filmmakers and film critics back in the ’70s kind of started looking at film and saying, ‘We should be talking about film by making films about film,’ we should be talking about video games by making video games about video games.”

Writing The Next Chapter

Writing The Next Chapter

Kohler says Digital Eclipse regularly receives feedback that players unfamiliar or unattached to the subject of the Gold Master Series are less willing to give them a shot. It’s a constant challenge to communicate that not only has Digital Eclipse made these games with such people in mind, but you’ll likely walk away with a newfound appreciation or even fandom for the games being discussed.

“I think it all goes back to the fact that video games are just such a new medium,” he says. “And weʼre only sort of just scratching the surface of what could be done with that interactive medium.”

Despite this, Kohler says he believes that if Digital Eclipse keeps doing the work, eventually, they’ll attract enough attention to break through to a wider audience. At the end of the day, he believes people do enjoy being educated, as evidenced by the popularity of more traditional documentary-style programs and podcasts. In his eyes, the Gold Master Series isn’t just about teaching – he refers to the term “edutainment” as being “tainted” – but also about bringing more nonfiction into the medium of video games.

The Making of Karateka exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The Gold Master Series titles have unintentionally been released at a cadence of one per year (Llamasoft in 2024, Karateka in 2023, and their spiritual predecessor Atari 50 in 2022). Kohler says not to expect this pattern to continue, but the team has various projects in the works. Atari’s acquisition of Digital Eclipse in the fall of 2023 has presumably provided a stronger financial safety net, so I only hope we have many more Gold Master Series games to come. And while Kohler is hopeful, he also doesn’t want Digital Eclipse to monopolize the genre. He hopes their work creates enough of a demand to inspire other studios to pursue similar projects.

“We should be telling our own stories,” he says. “We shouldnʼt be letting books and films or a Netflix series tell the stories of video games. We should be looking at that ourselves because itʼs all part of the video game industry needing to treat video games with more respect.”

This article originally appeared in Issue 366 of Game Informer



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Science

Ancient volcanic eruption not a catalyst for early Homo sapiens cultural innovations, researchers say

by NewsB
written by NewsB


Ancient volcanic eruption not a catalyst for early Homo sapiens cultural innovations, researchers say
Grotta di Castelcivita. Top: The location of the cave (indicated by a white arrow) at the base of the Alburni massif in the Campania region, southern Italy. Bottom: The excavation trench of the Upper Paleolithic layers. Credit: University of Tübingen

An international team of researchers from the Universities of Tübingen (Dr. Armando Falcucci), Siena, and Bologna analyzed the cultural remains left by groups of early Homo sapiens at Grotta di Castelcivita in southern Italy, dating back to before the major eruption known as the Campanian Ignimbrite.

This explosive event, originating in the still-active Phlegraean Fields about 40,000 years ago, is considered the most powerful volcanic eruption ever recorded in the Mediterranean. Crucially, Grotta di Castelcivita is one of the rare archaeological sites where volcanic ash has sealed a high-resolution archaeological sequence.

By employing a set of cutting-edge methodologies to meticulously reconstruct the methods used in crafting stone tools—the most enduring artifacts unearthed in prehistoric excavations—the researchers demonstrated that cultural development at Castelcivita predates both the deposition of the volcanic layers and the sub-contemporaneous cold climate phase known as Heinrich Stadial 4, which lasted for about 2 millennia.

Ancient volcanic eruption not key to early Homo sapiens cultural innovations
Examples of material culture remains discovered in the uppermost layers of Grotta di Castelcivita, before the definitive sealing of the archaeological sequence by the volcanic eruption. The micro-points (a) were extracted from cores (b) that bear the negatives of these removals. In addition to stone tools, over a hundred marine shells of different species were collected from the Mediterranean shores and perforated for decorative purposes (c). On the right, one of the micro-points is shown on top of a fingertip. Credit: University of Tübingen

The most remarkable cultural innovation recorded at the site is the production of miniaturized stone points from rocks collected near the cave with the most suitable fracture properties. These micro-tools were likely intended to be hafted into multi-component projectile weapons.

This discovery challenges long-held speculations that natural disasters, such as volcanic eruptions and cooling events, were crucial drivers of major changes in the lifeways of hunter-gatherers throughout human prehistory.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, hypothesizes instead that cultural innovations among early Homo sapiens originated from mechanisms of cultural transmission and the establishment of large-scale networks that extended beyond the Alps.

Overall, this research represents a significant step towards understanding how Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies developed sophisticated strategies to thrive in changing environments.

Grotta di Castelcivita is one of the most important prehistoric deposits in Europe, containing a high-resolution stratigraphic sequence with evidence for the replacement of Neanderthals by early Homo sapiens groups about 43,000 years ago.

Excavations and research at this site are conducted with permission from the Italian Ministry of Culture by the Research Unit of Prehistory and Anthropology, Department of Physical Sciences, Earth, and Environment at the University of Siena, under the direction of Adriana Moroni.

More information:
Armando Falcucci et al, A pre-Campanian Ignimbrite techno-cultural shift in the Aurignacian sequence of Grotta di Castelcivita, southern Italy, Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-59896-6

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Ancient volcanic eruption not a catalyst for early Homo sapiens cultural innovations, researchers say (2024, July 5)
retrieved 5 July 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-07-ancient-volcanic-eruption-catalyst-early.html

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Technology

Apple‘s Upcoming iPad Mini 7th Generation Could be Powered by A17 Pro Chipset, Leak Reveals

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Apple recently unveiled its latest lineup of iPad models after a two-year hiatus. Now, a recent leak suggests that it may be preparing to develop future models, including an iPad mini 7th generation and a base iPad 11th generation. As per the identifiers discovered, a purported iPad mini could be powered by the A17 chipset, which also powers the iPhone 15 Pro models. On the other hand, the next generation of the base iPad may get an A16 chip under the hood.

Leaked iPad Models

According to a post on X (formerly Twitter) by user @aaronp613, 14 iPad models were discovered via identifiers found by Nicolás Álvarez. Out of these, six models are said to have been scrapped by Apple. The list of scrapped models includes two A14 chip-powered base iPad models and four M3 chip-powered iPad Pro models in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, the latter of which was ultimately released with an M4 chip instead at the ‘Let Loose’ event in May.

The leak also suggests that Apple may be planning to introduce as many as eight future iPad models. One of the identifiers is said to be linked to a purported iPad 11th generation, which may get Apple’s A16 SoC under the hood. It is speculated to be available with both Wi-Fi and Cellular connectivity options.

Another identifier is claimed to reference an iPad mini 7th generation. This tablet may be powered by the 3-nanometre A17 Pro SoC – the same chipset which also powers Apple’s flagship iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Notably, the iPad (2022) was launched in 2021 while the iPad mini (2021) debuted in 2021, meaning several years have passed since Apple refreshed its lineup.

Although Apple launched new iPad Pro models in May, it is rumoured to be developing the next generation of the tablet, and it may be powered by the unannounced M5 chipset which could be developed based on TSMC’s 2-nanometre fabrication process. The purported iPad Pro is speculated to come in two sizes: 11-inch and 13-inch, similar to existing models, and may be available in both Wi-Fi and Cellular configurations.

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#Apples #Upcoming #iPad #Mini #7th #Generation #Powered #A17 #Pro #Chipset #Leak #Reveals

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Finance

IRS has taken nearly 2 years to get refunds for tax ID theft victims

by NewsB
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Erin Collins, national taxpayer advocate at the Taxpayer Advocate Service, speaks at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., on May 19, 2021.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

There’s a pileup of tax identity theft cases at the IRS — but the agency is working on a “range of improvements” to speed up service.

As of April, the agency had roughly 500,000 unresolved identity theft cases, up from 484,000 cases in September, National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins reported last week. Identity theft victims have waited more than 22 months for resolution, plus several weeks for refunds.

Tax identity theft happens when criminals use stolen personal information to file a fraudulent tax return to claim a refund. If a criminal files before the taxpayer, the IRS rejects and freezes the second return for investigation.

More from Personal Finance:
Romance scams cost people $1.14 billion in 2023. It’s ‘insidious’ fraud, expert says
This ‘bucket strategy’ could lower your taxes in retirement — how to maximize it
Social Security cost-of-living adjustment may be lower in 2025. Here’s why

The wait has only grown longer over the past several months. Collins reported in January that identity theft victims were waiting 19 months for resolution and refunds, which stemmed from Covid-19 shutdowns and pandemic relief.

Those delays have caused “significant hardship” for taxpayers, especially lower earners, she wrote.

Nearly 70% of the cases involved taxpayers with an adjusted gross income at or below 250% of the federal poverty level.

“It has been four years from the onset of the pandemic, and the IRS’ delays in helping victims are unconscionable,” Collins wrote last week.

While taxpayer service has improved through the 2024 season, the backlog of identity theft cases remains “one of the most significant ongoing service gaps,” the IRS said in a statement.

IRS plans for ‘faster service’

The IRS said it’s working on improvements to provide “faster service” to identity theft victims, including more resources to work cases.

The agency also plans to review its processes and engage with stakeholders to “identify and prevent evolving tax-related identity theft threats.”

“Identity theft cases are complex and take time to resolve,” but increased funding has better positioned the agency to tackle these cases more quickly, the IRS said.

IRS has taken nearly 2 years to get refunds for tax ID theft victims

The agency on Tuesday warned tax professionals to protect themselves from identity theft criminals who could be targeting them and their clients.

“Security threats against tax professionals and their sensitive taxpayer information continue to evolve, and it’s critical to stay on top of the latest developments to protect their business and their clients,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement on Tuesday. 



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Arts & Lifestyle

‘Prosper’ Is a Juicy Megachurch Drama

by NewsB
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The Australian drama “Prosper,” on the Roku channel, follows the Quinn family and their megachurch franchise. Dad Cal (Richard Roxburgh) is the slick, energetic leader, the kind of pastor who does not turn the other cheek but instead punches the guy right back, harder. Mom Abi (Rebecca Gibney) is the tough power player, willing though not always happy to cover up her family’s transgressions — a task that takes up nearly all of her time.

The eldest son, Dion (Ewen Leslie), might be too milquetoast to take over. “If you want to inherit the earth, Dion, you’re going to have to be a little less meek,” says one attaché. Dion’s wife, Taz (Ming-Zhu Hii), is more than happy to push him, though. God helps those who help their spouses, right? Issy (Hayley McCarthy) is the pop singer with a showbiz-Jesus husband (Jordi Webber) who would love his own chance to preach, while Jed (Jacob Collins-Levy) is the prodigal son who ditched the megachurch in favor of a soup kitchen but now finds himself sucked back into the fold. And the baby of the family, the adopted, teenage Moses (Alexander D’Souza), is trying to contact his birth parents amid a self-destructive spiral.

“Nobody does church like us,” Cal brags. One hopes! His plan to plant a church in Los Angeles sends his children scrambling for top position, trying to prove both their spiritual and commercial mettle. They compete to baptize a famous young D.J. the way the “Succession” kids tried to close deals. Jesus is lord, but cash is king, and those sprawling buildings, rock-concert stages, private helicopters and image consultants don’t pay for themselves.

“Prosper” has enough tawdry scandals to qualify as a soap and enough Shakespearean power lust to qualify as a fancy drama. Unlike some of its more prestige-chasing brethren, “Prosper” moves; it almost feels distilled. Episodes zip along, and characters tend to announce their schemes and allegiances, and what the show lacks in nuance it makes up for in momentum. Many of its juiciest arcs are ripped from tabloid headlines, but the series avoids tinny caricature and instead finds the real light and longing in its characters, the sincerity of the search within the hypocrisy of the outcomes.



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Politics

As Democratic Convention Nears, 2024’s Divided America Rhymes With 1924’s

by NewsB
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Things should have been settled. The weary delegates should have already chosen a presidential nominee, packed up their Welcome to New York souvenirs and returned home in time for the nation’s celebration of what it stood for.

Instead, the study in indecision that was the Democratic National Convention of 1924 staggered through the Fourth of July weekend, its 3,000 delegates all but ensnared in the red-white-and-blue bunting adorning a tired Manhattan arena slated for demolition.

The convention, which lasted 16 days and an astounding 103 ballots, is notorious both for being the longest in history and for being infected by the Ku Klux Klan, which cast a long shadow over the America of that time. Just a few dozen miles to the south, it was celebrating a white-nationalist Independence Day with a hood-and-robe parade right down the Broadway of a beachside New Jersey city.

The simultaneous events reflected the divide over what it meant to be an American. Instead of proudly asserting who we are, that distant summer day raised a question being debated over the July Fourth weekend a century later: Who are we?

At play were the tensions between the rural and the urban; the isolationist and the world-engaged; the America of white Protestant Christianity and the multiracial America of all faiths; the America that distrusted immigrants and the America that saw itself in those immigrants, and wished to extend a hand.

Exploiting these conflicts was the Klan, the post-Civil War white-supremacist organization that had been resurrected a decade earlier. Its “America First” mantra resonated with an aggrieved Protestant middle class — some Republicans, some Democrats — who sensed their power slipping away.

Today, in the quickening of a presidential campaign that both parties call a battle for America’s very soul, the historian Jon Meacham hears rhyming between 2024 and 1924, when the country was reeling from war and a pandemic, adapting to a transformative medium — radio — and setting exceedingly restrictive immigration quotas.

“Given the demographic and technological changes, the anti-immigrant and racist sentiments, and the anxiety about the loss of a largely white-dominated culture, 1924 has long struck me as an analogous period to our own,” Mr. Meacham said.

The thousands of out-of-towners who assembled for the Democratic convention in late June found a Manhattan determined to shed its image in the hustings as Gomorrah on the Hudson. The streets were swept of pickpockets and debris, delegates were greeted with flowers and boutonnieres, and 25,000 city employees staged a welcoming parade led by the silk-hatted mayor, John F. Hylan, who combed his hair at every pause along the Fifth Avenue march.

The convention took place just off Madison Square, in the second iteration of Madison Square Garden, a massive Gilded Age confection with a tower topped by a 13-foot copper statue of the goddess Diana. But the dazzling allure of the arena — scene of countless balls and prizefights, flower shows and the scandalous murder of its architect, Stanford White — had dimmed. The convention would be this Garden’s last as a venue of consequence.

Still, Diana, as envisioned by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, continued her vigilance over the metropolis from her heavenly perch, a weather vane turning with the fickle wind. Her thick portfolio included goddess of the crossroads, a fitting responsibility given the stark political choices unfolding beneath her.

The two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination to challenge Calvin Coolidge, the Republican incumbent with the mien of an undertaker, almost seemed to represent different parties.

One was William Gibbs McAdoo Jr., a tall, well-educated Protestant lawyer from the South. Stage-ready handsome and as stiff as his starched-neck collar, McAdoo was a reform-minded progressive who disdained political machines like New York’s Tammany Hall and supported the prohibition against the manufacture and sale of alcohol. But he was no progressive on matters of race, and as Treasury secretary, he had enforced the policy of his father-in-law, President Woodrow Wilson, to segregate federal agencies.

The other, Al Smith, governor of New York, wore his Irish Catholic mutt heritage like a sash, and spoke with a gravelly voice that conjured the multilingual street song of his native Lower East Side. Smith had little formal education and often boasted of being an F.F.M. man, for “Fulton Fish Market.” Still, the work ethic developed at the market served him well as he rose from Tammany Hall functionary to a master negotiator who studied proposed legislation as though cramming for college exams. He favored immigration, opposed Prohibition and was determined to thwart the favorite, McAdoo.

The two candidates differed sharply on the nettlesome question of the Klan, whose supporters at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland weeks earlier had snuffed out a resolution to denounce the organization. (Time magazine nicknamed the gathering the “Kleveland Konvention.”)

Smith, who decried the Klan as a threat to democracy, championed a proposed plank in the Democratic Party platform to condemn the Klan by name. McAdoo, though, opposed such specificity and declined to repudiate the Klan, for fear, perhaps, of alienating its admiring delegates and voters.

“The Klan influence on that convention was enormous,” said Linda Gordon, a historian and the author of “The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition.” “And, like many social movements, progressive as well as reactionary, they built themselves up through claims of victimization.”

The June 20, 1924, issue of the Klan’s newspaper, The Fiery Cross, reflected the ideology coursing through the Democratic convention and the national conversation. Tirades against “Romanistic influences.” Antisemitic riffs. Warnings about miscegenation. A call for “militant, old-fashioned Christianity and operative patriotism.”

The intolerance was buffed with a patriotic polish. Amid the odes to the American flag and founding fathers were advertisements catering to nativists. “EAT with Americans at the American Restaurant.” Or purchase a Kluxer’s Knifty Knife, intended for “for two-fisted Americans.” Or buy property in the “100 percent American addition” of the Hiawatha Gardens development in Indianapolis.

“Lots sold to white Protestant Americans only,” the ad said.

“It’s an old story,” said the historian David Levering Lewis, “of a country that is made up of immigrants, but some don’t count because they’re darker, or pro-alcohol, or they’re Catholic or Jewish or otherwise suspect. The great fear was that these people would get on ships and swamp us.”

On the first day of the convention, June 24, the delegates streamed into the Garden in Palm Beach suits and summery linen dresses. Women had won the right to vote a few years earlier and were well represented, but there was reportedly only one Black participant — an alternate who would replace a white delegate — in the excited sea lapping against the flag-festooned main platform.

Jackets were soon removed, and souvenir fans began to flutter. It was as if the delegates were at the circus, with the rising temperature from bloviation and body heat seeming to summon the animal aromas from the Garden’s big-top spectacle a couple of months earlier.

That was how it would be — hot and circuslike — for 16 days.

Democrats bickered for nearly a week over the proposed anti-Klan plank, which would have said the party opposed “any effort on the part of the Ku Klux Klan or any organization to interfere with the religious liberty or political freedom of any citizen, or to limit the civic rights of any citizen or body of citizens because of religion, birthplace or racial origin.”

But after bruising marathons of backroom bargaining and open-floor confrontations, the plank was defeated by a single vote. Instead, the party tiptoed past any mention of the Klan with language that said, in part: “We insist at all times upon obedience to the orderly processes of the law and deplore and condemn any effort to arouse religious or racial dissension.”

In the midst of this debate about the party’s direction, there suddenly appeared on the scene a Civil War veteran named James John Brady, an octogenarian runaway with poor hearing, no teeth and many opinions. Without a word to anyone, Brady had left Mrs. Gray’s boardinghouse in Vincennes, Ind. — in the midst of its own Klan Karnival — and traveled by train to New York City, using savings from his $72 monthly pension. The Travelers Aid Society had generated headlines by taking up his cause to attend the Democratic convention.

For a brief day or two, the penniless veteran was the toast of Gotham. Democratic leaders provided him with a convention ticket. An actress from Indiana invited him to her play on Broadway. (“He’s stone deaf and I don’t think he heard a word of the play,” she later said.) Then he was put on a train back home, his ticket covered by his landlady, his brief appearance like a spectral reminder of principles considered long since settled by brother-against-brother bloodshed.

Amid bobbing banners, tribal roars and shouted snippets of state anthems, the balloting for a presidential nominee began. In the first round, McAdoo won nearly 40 percent of the vote, well more than Smith’s 22 percent but far from the two-thirds needed to secure the nomination.

And so it went, ballot after ballot, through what remained of June and into July, past the scheduled closing indicated in the convention’s official program. The names of dark horses and favorite sons kept popping up, while the contest between the main contenders, McAdoo and Smith — between the rural Klan-adjacent “drys” and the urban Klan-averse “wets” — remained deadlocked.

Some delegates up and left the city, depleted of money or patience or both. As for the rest, the humorist Will Rogers jokingly grumbled that New York had invited these delegates to visit, not to live there.

The 10th ballot. The 20th. The 40th. The 60th. …

Now it was the Fourth of July. The day’s proceedings began with a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Then came the 62nd ballot. The 63rd. The 64th. The 65th.

Americans gathered in homes and the street to hear the first convention to be broadcast by radio. The drama gradually veered into farce, as time after time they heard the roll call of state delegations begin with a disembodied Southern voice declaring: “Alabama casts 24 votes for Oscar W. Underwood!”

Beyond the convention’s confines, Americans embraced the annual rituals of Independence Day. Baseball fans watched the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies split a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds. Nearly half a million people jammed the beaches of Coney Island. And tens of thousands of Klan members and supporters claimed the Fourth as their own in towns around the country, including the Jersey Shore community of Long Branch.

More than 20,000 people wandered the grounds of a Klan-controlled estate just outside the small city. The festivities featured a wedding with bride and groom in hoods; the christening of 16 children; a softball game between New Jersey and Pennsylvania Klan members (who won is lost to time); and speeches, including one by a judge from Indianapolis who reported he had “just come from Jew York.”

“No matter what they do, there will not be anybody but a Protestant as a president or vice president,” the judge asserted.

According to a report in The New York Times, spectators were also invited to throw baseballs at an effigy of Al Smith, a whiskey bottle in its left hand. Three for a nickel.

A Klan member mimicked voting while riding on a parade float.Credit…NEWS

Then, following the lead of a Klansman on horseback waving an American flag, a few thousand robed Klan members — merchants and businessmen and next-door neighbors, enjoying hooded anonymity — marched through a city by the sea. On one float, a Boy Scout held a sign that said, “We Want The Holy Bible In Our Schools.” On another, labeled “Clean Politics,” a Klansman mimicked casting a ballot under the watchful eye of Lady Justice.

Amid cheers and boos and silence, they paraded past the pharmacies and candy stores and luncheonettes, past the signs for movie double features and Hildebrecht’s ice cream, straight down a typical American Broadway.

Meanwhile, in a stifling arena close to another Broadway — the one in Manhattan — the deadlock continued. The 66th ballot. The 67th. The 68th. The 69th. The 70th.

It took a few more days, but the paralysis — and, perhaps, the fever — eventually broke.

On July 9, on the 103rd ballot, a compromise candidate, John W. Davis, a prominent lawyer and diplomat from West Virginia, secured the exhausted party’s nomination after McAdoo and Smith withdrew. Four months later, Davis lost in a landslide to the incumbent, Coolidge.

William McAdoo went on to serve as a senator from California. Al Smith won the Democratic nomination in 1928, but lost to the Republican, Herbert Hoover, in another landslide tarnished by pervasive anti-Catholicism.

Back in Indiana, James John Brady, the Civil War veteran, recounted his New York adventure to anyone who would listen. “As far as the Ku Klux Klan issue goes,” he would say, “well, the Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.”

His words proved prophetic. This second iteration of the Klan — a third would emerge a generation later in violent backlash to the civil rights movement — would continue strong for another couple of years, but its popularity would plummet amid sex scandals, criminal behavior and internecine quarreling. By decade’s end, it would be a shell of a fraternal organization foundering for relevance.

Within two years of the disastrous convention of 1924, the grand old Madison Square Garden was a memory, knocked down to make room for an insurance building. But its golden goddess, Diana, found a home at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she continues to keep watch. Bow drawn, arrow at the ready, forever at the crossroads.



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#Democratic #Convention #Nears #2024s #Divided #America #Rhymes #1924s

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World

Debris flies through air as tornado hits China city

by NewsB
written by NewsB


Eyewitness footage shows a funnel-shaped column ripping through Shandong province.

Rescue operations are under way, after the tornado killed one person and injured 79 people, according to the Dongming Emergency Management Bureau.

China has seen extreme weather conditions in recent months, from searing heatwaves to torrential rain.



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#Debris #flies #air #tornado #hits #China #city

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Sports

Ukraine’s Soldiers Cheer National Soccer Team in Euro 2024

by NewsB
written by NewsB


They had won one battle, and then sat to watch a battle of a different kind. Eight Ukrainian National Guard soldiers who had helped stall a Russian offensive in the northern Kharkiv region of Ukraine took the afternoon off on Monday to watch the men’s national soccer team play its first game of the European Championship.

“Football unites — it gives adrenaline and motivates,” said Evhen, 34, a soldier in the 13th National Guard Brigade who asked to be identified by only his first name, in accordance with military protocol.

The soldiers huddled in a bunker with soft drinks and chips to watch Ukraine play Romania in Munich, only to suffer heartbreak when their team lost by 3-0. But like most Ukrainians, they nonetheless take special pride in their sports team during the war.

“We have one team on the field and a million on the front,” said Andriy Shevchenko, a former soccer star who is Ukraine’s most famous player and now heads the national soccer federation. Like all Ukrainians, he said, “soccer players start their day by opening their phones and checking the situation on the battlefield.”

For the National Guard soldiers, who have been fighting together for more than a year, soccer became a chance to bond in the safety of a basement and cheer their national team. Huddled underground, they watched Ukraine quickly fall behind against Romania.

“At war, we look at things differently,” said a commander who uses the nickname Jackson. “Even now, while watching the game, we understand that at any moment we might have to leave and go into the trenches to fight. We are always ready.”

Soccer, he said, is important for Ukrainians, even during the war. “I don’t question it,” he said of people who support soccer players along with the army in wartime. “We are fighting and playing for our country.”

When Russia launched a cross-border attack north of Kharkiv last month, opening a new front in the war, Ukrainian soldiers stopped the advance within about 10 days. In one area of urban fighting, in the town of Vovchansk, they also drove Russian forces back from their leading positions.

With its soccer leagues all but hopelessly disrupted by war and occupation, Ukraine barely qualified for this tournament, needing to beat Iceland in a playoff on March 26 just to get in. That match was played in Wroclaw, Poland, since Ukraine cannot host games on its own territory because of the threat of Russian missiles.

Ukraine also has had no home games since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. Since then, professional soccer players who joined the army have been killed, along with countless soccer fans. Numerous soccer fields and other sports training sites have also been destroyed by the war.

The Sonyachny soccer stadium, which was shelled in May 2022, was badly damaged. While under occupation for a month at the beginning of the war, the soccer field in Borodianka, north of the capital, Kyiv, was defaced by Russian soldiers who dug a trench in the form of a huge “V” across the whole field. Russian soldiers mark the letters “V” and “Z” on their tanks.

Oleksandr Tymchyk, who played in the game against Romania on Monday, lost a brother when he was killed in action in Donetsk Oblast in August 2023.

Since February 2022, FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, and UEFA, the European governing body, have imposed a ban on all Russian clubs and national teams.

The game on Monday began Ukraine’s fourth appearance in the European Championship. The first time, in 2012, Ukraine co-hosted the tournament, with Poland, holding several games in the city of Donetsk, two years before Russia occupied the city.

But this year, most of the nearly one million men in the Ukrainian Army, National Guard, paramilitary police and other units could not watch. Some on the front line watched on screens hooked to batteries and satellite internet links also used to convey artillery coordinates and other military data.

Unlike civilian fans of the game, soldiers are prohibited from drinking.

“Beer is really missing here,” Evhen noted. He said he missed his circle of soccer-fan friends at home. “But I also have a really good team of friends here,” he added. “These are great guys.”

Ukraine hopes to use the tournament to draw international attention to the country’s plight, including that of its sports facilities.

Kharkiv is the region where the biggest number of sports facilities have been destroyed in the war. And ahead of Ukraine’s match on Monday in Munich, the national federation, the Ukrainian Association of Football, displayed part of the badly damaged stand from the Sonyachny stadium on the Wittelsbacherplatz plaza in the city.

Members of the Ukrainian national team also recorded a video showing rocket damage to each of their hometowns. Some are from occupied Donetsk and the surrounding area. The midfielder Mykola Shaparenko is from Velyka Novosilka in the Donetsk region, which is under Ukrainian control but has been destroyed in the war.

Ukrainian sports news media and bars are also using the momentum of the tournament to bring in donations for the army. The Beer Pub Kutovy in Kyiv announced an auction of the soccer player Nazar Voloshyn’s T-shirt to collect the money for the Third Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Ukraine will play its next game, against Slovakia, on Friday. Teams play three matches in a group stage to determine who advances to the knockout rounds. This means Ukraine still has a chance for a victory.

The soldiers lamented the team’s loss against Romania.

“Well, we are all upset,” said Evhen, the soldier in the 13th National Guard Brigade. “But it is good that no one’s life depends on this match.”

Still, they joked, they had plenty of opportunities to vent their frustration.

“We will get some rest with the guys, then go fire mortars until the victory, to let a bit of steam out in this way,” Jackson, the commander, said.



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#Ukraines #Soldiers #Cheer #National #Soccer #Team #Euro

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History

Garden From Emperor Caligula’s Reign Unearthed Near the Vatican

by NewsB
written by NewsB


Garden From Emperor Caligula’s Reign Unearthed Near the Vatican

Archaeological excavations near the Vatican have unearthed the remains of an ancient garden that likely belonged to the Roman Emperor Caligula (reigned 37-41 AD). This discovery was made during the construction of a pedestrian piazza intended to connect Castel Sant’Angelo to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Via della Conciliazione boulevard, some of the most frequented tourist areas in Rome. 

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Caligula, Ancient Rome, Roman Entertainment Venues, Roman Baths & Villas, Gardens, Vatican
#Garden #Emperor #Caligulas #Reign #Unearthed #Vatican

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