I know my friend John McDermott is a great soccer photographer because I have seen his work for over 30 years.
I also know of his fondness for Italy because of his chats, in Italian, with some of the great names in Serie A. Recently John and Claudia moved from the western outpost of Italy -- North Beach, San Francisco, that is -- to the northeast corner of Italy where he can hear Italian and she can hear German spoken, sometimes at the same time. John did not need to go to the Giro d'Italia this month. It came to him. He found his spots here and there -- kind of like knowing where his pal Roberto Baggio liked to poach -- and he clicked away. This is just a sample. Other photos can be found on his sites: www.mcdfoto.com www.instagram.com/johnmcdermottphoto
Ed Martin
5/25/2016 04:30:07 pm
Thanks for sharing, John and GV. Marvelous.
John—I have admired and followed your photos since I was first introduced to you on George’s site.
George Vecsey
5/25/2016 04:43:23 pm
Ed, good to hear from you. Check out John's website. He had very varied career in California, but I knew him mostly from Olympics and soccer. He once got us into the famed Casa d'Italia, the restaurant the Italian Olympic Committee opens at every Olympics, in the mountains of Norway, watching Alberto Tomba rule the roost at night.
Brian Savin
5/25/2016 08:40:37 pm
These photos are extraordinary, even for our modern digital age. Any idea what equipment JM uses? (Not that it would matter if loaned to me for a month of Sundays.)
John McDermott
5/26/2016 03:25:46 am
Thank you Brian. I have been using Canon EOS cameras and Canon EF lenses since I switched from another brand in 1991 and they have never let me down.
Brian Savin
6/1/2016 08:03:23 pm
Thank you, John. Now, after an upcoming purchase, I will wonder what I do wrong for probably the rest of my life! Beautiful photographs. Thanks for allowing George to share. I appreciate your work.
George Vecsey
5/25/2016 10:38:59 pm
Brian, I do not know...I wonder if he spells it out on his web site. I know he has had commercial ties with major companies while working for various publications and agencies. Perhaps John will answer...I'm sending him the link in Italy.
Doug Mather
5/26/2016 10:42:47 am
John,
John McDermott
5/26/2016 11:18:55 am
Thank you Doug. Life is good here, but I certainly miss all of my SF friends. Your granddaughter is a precious jewel! 8/12/2016 03:18:30 pm
Whoah this weblog is magnificent i like reading your articles. 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 |