Day: June 16, 2020

Roger Goodell would like to see Colin Kaepernick back in the NFL this season.  The NFL commissioner said during ESPN’s “The Return of Sports” special on Monday that he is encouraging teams to sign the 32-year old quarterback, who hasn’t played the past three seasons. Kaepernick was with the San Francisco 49ers in 2016 when he kneeled during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.
“If he wants to resume his career in the NFL, then obviously it’s gonna take a team to make that decision. I welcome that, support a club making that decision and encourage them to do that,” Goodell said during his interview with ESPN’s Mike Greenberg.
Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said last week that he received a call from another team about Kaepernick. Carroll and the Seahawks brought in Kaepernick for a workout in 2017 and had another planned in 2018 before it was canceled.
Goodell set up a tryout for Kaepernick in Atlanta last year for scouts of all 32 teams to attend, but it unraveled at the last moment due to lack of media access and what Kaepernick’s representatives saw as an unusual liability waiver. Instead of the workout taking place at the Falcons’ training complex, Kaepernick conducted an impromptu session at a high school in front of media and scouts from eight teams.  The NFL released a video on June 5 in which Goodell apologized for the league for not doing a good job of listening to concerns by players on racial inequality. Goodell though was roundly criticized for the apology not mentioning Kaepernick.The video came out a day after many players released a video criticizing the league for not condemning racism following the May 25 death of George Floyd.  “We had spent time prior to that understanding all the frustration, fear and sadness. When the video came out on Thursday it was very powerful. It was appropriate for me to respond,” Goodell said. “We should have listened to our players earlier including Colin Kaepernick, Eric Reid, Kenny Stills, Malcolm Jenkins and so many people really brought these issues to light.”Atanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan said Goodell’s video was a great step in the right direction.
“We all need to be on the same page and address some of the uncomfortable things that need addressed,” he said.Goodell did not answer how the league would respond if President Donald Trump continued to criticize them if players kneeled for the National Anthem. Goodell also said that he wants to include Kaepernick’s voice on how the league should approach social issues.”I hope we’re at a point now where everybody’s committed to making long-term, sustainable change,” Goodell said. “If his efforts are not on the field but continuing to work in this space, we welcome him to that table and to help us, guide us, help us make better decisions about the kinds of things that need to be done in the communities.”NBA commissioner Adam Silver said when the league gathers at the Disney campus it would provide an opportunity for the league to do more to promote social and societal change — especially since players, who will be confined to the campus, will have plenty of free time on their hands and with what’s expected to be a sizable media contingent present.”How can we use our larger platform, the NBA together with our players, really to affect change?” Silver asked. “There’s an appropriate role, of course, for protests. There’s an appropriate role for those who choose not to engage in the game of basketball down in Florida. But … for those who decide to come, together with the league, what are those things we can be doing?”Another interesting point in what Silver said was the acknowledgement that some players may choose not to go to the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex for the restart of the season. A group of players, led by Kyrie Irving, has made it clear in recent days that they want their colleagues to think about the ramifications of playing at a time of racial and social unrest.Portland guard Damian Lillard has been part of a protest and said he hopes that people realize “that the black community has had enough” when it comes to injustice. But he also said he plans to play, even though he expressed some reservations about how safe it will be from a health perspective.
“This is what we do. This is our job,” Lillard said. “And this is how we take care of our families. And this is my way of providing for communities and impacting my community. So to play the game I love, to resume the season, I guess it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”Goodell, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and MLS commissioner Don Garber acknowledged there will be positive tests once their sports return, but that they are hoping to isolate those as quickly as possible along with aggressive use of contact tracing.Monday’s show began with baseball commissioner Rob Manfred casting some doubt on whether there will be games this season after a breakdown in talks with the players’ union on salaries. Manfred said last week he was 100% certain games would be played.  “I’m not confident. I think there’s real risk; and as long as there’s no dialogue, that real risk is going to continue,” Manfred said. “The owners are 100% committed to getting baseball back on the field. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that I’m 100% certain that’s going to happen.”
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Spoiler alert: 2020 has been rough on the American psyche. Folks in the U.S. are more unhappy today than they’ve been in nearly 50 years.This bold — yet unsurprising — conclusion comes from the COVID Response Tracking Study, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. It finds that just 14% of American adults say they’re very happy, down from 31% who said the same in 2018. That year, 23% said they’d often or sometimes felt isolated in recent weeks. Now, 50% say that.The survey, conducted in late May, draws on nearly a half-century of research from the General Social Survey, which has collected data on American attitudes and behaviors at least every other year since 1972. No less than 29% of Americans have ever called themselves very happy in that survey.Most of the new survey’s interviews were completed before the death of George Floyd touched off nationwide protests and a global conversation about race and police brutality, adding to the feelings of stress and loneliness Americans were already facing from the coronavirus outbreak — especially  for black Americans.Lexi Walker, a 47-year-old professional fiduciary who lives near Greenville, South Carolina, has felt anxious and depressed for long stretches of this year. She moved back to South Carolina late in 2019, then her cat died. Her father passed away in February. Just when she thought she’d get out and socialize in an attempt to heal from her grief, the pandemic hit.”It’s been one thing after another,” Walker said. “This is very hard. The worst thing about this for me, after so much, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”Among other finding from the new poll about life in the pandemic:— The public is less optimistic today about the standard of living improving for the next generation than it has been in the past 25 years. Only 42% of Americans believe that when their children reach their age, their standard of living will be better. A solid 57% said that in 2018. Since the question was asked in 1994, the previous low was 45% in 1994.  — Compared with surveys conducted after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans are less likely to report some types of emotional and psychological stress reactions following the COVID-19 outbreak. Fewer report smoking more than usual, crying or feeling dazed now than after those two previous tragedies, though more report having lost their temper or wanting to get drunk.— About twice as many Americans report being lonely today as in 2018, and not surprisingly given the lockdowns that tried to contain the spread of the coronavirus, there’s also been a drop in satisfaction with social activities and relationships. Compared with 2018, Americans also are about twice as likely to say they sometimes or often have felt a lack of companionship (45% vs. 27%) and felt left out (37% vs. 18%) in the past four weeks.What is surprising, said Louise Hawkley, a senior research scientist with NORC at the University of Chicago, was that loneliness was not even more prevalent.  “It isn’t as high as it could be,” she said. “People have figured out a way to connect with others. It’s not satisfactory, but people are managing to some extent.”The new poll found that there haven’t been significant changes in Americans’ assessment of their families’ finances since 2018 and that Americans’ satisfaction with their families’ ability to get along financially was as high as it’s been over nearly five decades.Jonathan Berney, of Austin, Texas, said that the pandemic — and his resulting layoff as a digital marketing manager for a law firm — caused him to reevaluate everything in his life. While he admits that he’s not exactly happy now, that’s led to another uncomfortable question: Was he truly happy before the pandemic?”2020 just fast forwarded a spiritual decay. When things are good, you don’t tend to look inwards,” he said, adding that he was living and working in the Miami area before the pandemic hit. As Florida dealt with the virus, his girlfriend left him and he decided to leave for Austin. “I probably just wasn’t a nice guy to be around from all the stress and anxiety. But this forced an existential crisis.”Berney, who is looking for work, said things have improved from those early, dark days of the pandemic. He’s still job hunting but has a little savings to live on. He said he’s trying to kayak more and center himself so he’s better prepared to deal with any future downturn in events.Reimagining happiness is almost hard-wired into Americans’ DNA, said Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside.”Human beings are remarkably resilient. There’s lots and lots of evidence that we adapt to everything. We move forward,” she said, adding that she’s done happiness studies since the pandemic started and found that some people are slightly happier than last year.Melinda Hartline, of Tampa, who was laid off from her job in public relations in March, said she was in a depressed daze those first few weeks of unemployment. Then she started to bike and play tennis and enrolled in a college course on post-crisis leadership.  Today, she’s worried about the state of the world and the economy, and she wonders when she can see her kids and grandkids who live on the West Coast — but she also realizes that things could be a lot worse.”Anything can happen. And you have to be prepared,” she said. “Whether it’s your health, your finances, whether it’s the world. You have to be prepared. And always maintain that positive mental attitude. It’s going to get you through it.” 
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Next year’s British Academy Film Awards have been postponed by two months, organizers said Tuesday. The move follows a decision by Hollywood’s film academy to shift the 2021 Oscars from February to April because of the coronavirus pandemic.The British Academy said the awards will be held on April 11, rather than the previously announced Feb. 14. The academy has also changed eligibility rules so that films whose theatrical releases were curtailed or switched to online-only releases will be eligible for consideration.Film committee chair Marc Samuelson said the new date would “give all films the best possible chance to be released and considered properly.”Movie theaters in Britain have been closed since March 20 as part of a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19.The date of the 2022 awards, known as BAFTAs, is being reviewed.On Monday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the ABC Television Network announced that the 93rd Academy Awards will now be held April 25, 2021, eight weeks later than originally planned because of the pandemic’s effects on the movie industry. It’s the fourth postponement in Oscars history.The British awards are usual held a week or two before the Oscars and have become an important awards-season staging post. 
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World renowned guitarist Steve Masakowski didn’t want to push his children into music, but both kids, including daughter Sasha, embraced jazz anyway. The children are now adults and the New Orleans family continues to bond over its shared passion — something they’ll celebrate this Father’s Day.
Camera: Claire Bangser  Producer: Dora Mekouar, Matt Haines
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