Pelé Will Receive Honorary Doctorate at Hofstra in April -- Revised.

2/13/2014

The great Pelé will be awarded an honorary doctorate at an academic conference on soccer at Hofstra University on Long Island from April 10 through 13. The star of Santos and the Brazilian World Cup champions and the New York Cosmos is associated with a new version of the Cosmos, who play at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium. Over 100 speakers will be present.

NOTE ADDITION

I should have also written that one of my great regrets as a latecomer to soccer is that I never saw Pelé play. His Cosmos days were my Dalai Lama-JP II days. A fair trade, I guess. My pal Alex Yannis, who covered soccer for so many years, used to play in choose-up games with Pelé after that. Pelé is the nicest man -- yes, being himself, a great brand, but he cannot fake the warmth and love of his sport. I always talk to him about his friend Julio Mazzei, The Professor, who taught me so much. Being around Pelé is a jolt every time.

END ADDITION

I will be part of a panel on Saturday afternoon and plan to be around my alma mater on all days, learning more about the sport -- plus shamelessly plugging my book, “Eight World Cups: My Journey Through the Beauty and Dark Side of Soccer,” to be published by Times Books/Holt in mid-May, just before the World Cup in Brazil.

For further information:

http://news.hofstra.edu/2014/02/10/hofstra-awards-honorary-degree-to-soccer-legend-and-philanthropist-pele/

www.hofstra.edu/soccercon <http://www.hofstra.edu/soccercon>

And then there’s my book:

http://www.georgevecsey.com/eight-world-cups.html

Ed Martin

2/12/2014 09:05:15 am

That makes two Futbol Hall of Famers affiliated with Hofstra, in my book. I wonder where they evr got the idea of honoring Pele?

George Vecsey

2/12/2014 10:35:16 am

Ed: The Cosmos play there...at Shuart Stadium. GV

2/12/2014 01:36:16 pm

I did read that, but led to a similar question. Anyhow, If I was on LI it would be nice to see pros play there.

Gene Palumbo

2/12/2014 07:53:46 pm

George has a column in today’s (Tuesday, Feb. 12) Times: “Jeter’s retirement announcement hits the right note.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/sports/baseball/jeters-retirement-announcement-hits-the-right-note.html

Gene Palumbo

2/12/2014 08:03:17 pm

Sorry, got the date wrong. It's Wednesday, Feb. 13. But the link is right.

Ed Martin

2/13/2014 02:30:13 pm

Hi George, this is apropros of your last posting, and hoped posting it here would catch up.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151988151286275&set=a.180479986274.135777.177486166274&type=1&theater

George Vecsey

2/14/2014 12:39:46 am

Ed, thanks, Stewart has it right. GV

Janet Vecsey

2/13/2014 08:42:54 pm

What a busy man. Do you ever rest?
From:
Your proud sister.

George Vecsey

2/14/2014 12:42:01 am

Janet, thanks, this is better than rest. It's my therapy web site. I keep typing away on this and the book, and once in a while the NYT has me write. What else is there? Love, G

Ed Martin

2/14/2014 02:25:11 am

Janet, and it is our therapy (and delight) and my guess is that the reader demographics would be unique in many dimensions. Thank you GV.

Alan Rubin link

2/14/2014 09:47:43 am

George

If you could add physical therapy to your site, it would be a gold mine.

Mendel

2/14/2014 01:04:11 am

As much as I talk about baseball and the Mets, my kids - growing up in the Middle East - play soccer at school. Perhaps it is time to broaden my horizons and discover new metaphors...

George Vecsey

2/14/2014 01:35:42 am

Dear Mendel: A friend of ours, when he lived in Cairo, used to ask people which was their favorite team, Zamalek or Al Ahly -- the two great teams of that city. Of course, he asked it in Arabic. He always got a smile. But that's the point of football....it is the universal language. GV

Mendel

2/14/2014 01:43:53 am

But can I call it soccer?

George Vecsey

2/14/2014 05:57:10 am

Mendel, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. The sport sounds more mobile, more fluid, when you call it football rather than soccer. GV.

Ed Martin

2/14/2014 04:05:21 am

George, evidently the weather forces were slow in responding to your Superbowl request.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/13/nyregion/snowfall-totals-map.html?ref=nyregion

Alan Rubin link

2/14/2014 09:45:01 am

George

You should have diverted some of the snow ro Sochi.

Alan Rubin link

2/14/2014 09:53:40 am

Way to go George. My all-time soccer favorites, Pele the player and George the journalist, together at George's alma mater. What could be better?

However, I not clear on who is receiving the honorary degree and who is on Saturday afternoon's panel.

George Vecsey

2/15/2014 12:17:30 am

From the PR release:
"Topics will include women and soccer; the semiotics, history and governance of the game; how the sport is represented in art and literature; and its influence on religion and cultural identity. The keynote speakers are David Goldblatt, PhD, a sociologist at Bristol University, U.K., and author of the book The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football and Jennifer Doyle, PhD, professor of English at the University of California, Riverside and author of the blog The Sport Spectacle.Pelé will address a youth symposium and a celebratory banquet on Friday, April 11, and participate in the ceremonial unveiling of his stadium plaque on Sunday, April 13."

I (George) am on some panel Saturday, not sure of topic or time or other journalists. GV

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Pelé Will Receive Honorary Doctorate at Hofstra in April -- Revised.

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