Sunday Papers [2018-07-22]

Last week, I missed my Sunday Papers, but I had a pretty good reason: I was exhausted from watching the finale of the World Cup and dutifully celebrating my country's second-only victory the whole afternoon. ✌️ Cheers for the Croats too, the ending result is very favorable to France but it was a difficult, messy and strange game.

It inspired me to write a piece about these bad/good moments in life you remember forever. Of course this piece will somehow stay in limbo for quite some time until I manage to finish it, that is, maybe when I'm retired!
But the key piece is how strangely our brain works: sometimes we will remember forever things that are completely anecdotal for us in the grand scheme of things, and sometimes they are indeed key moments in the life.

France's victory at home in 1998, and this second victory in Russia this year are parts of those many moments that are engraved in my memory. I can tell exactly what I where I was, and with whom. Twenty years later, I still have shivers as I hear Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive song, which, at to least to French people, has been largely associated to the victory since then.

No theme song this time (to my knowledge), but I still have vivid images of these last weeks, particularly of France vs Argentina's game. I am certainly not objective but it seems to be one of the best World Cup matches I've ever witnessed. It was a thriller ; in the end I was relieved, but also disappointed Messi would probably never win the WC.

- ⚽ -

On a related note, I would like to thank @culgin for creating and managing the @steem-oracle contest which consisted in trying to predict every WC game's outcome. Being right in your prediction resulted in obtaining a small amount of STEEM and SBD, while the top 10 predictors in the end would receive SBI shares.
Using steemworld.org, I saw that I gained a total of 0.629 STEEM and 0.781 SBD during the course of the contest. Not bad for the very small effort involved. I also was very happy to win 3 SBI shares in the end as I finished at the 4th place (so I think I've got 9 now, I will have to check).
Also, I decided to use these STEEM and SP to sponsor somebody for SBI, but I'm yet undecided as to whom.

Anyway, this was not to brag (ok, only a very little), but to thank @culgin for a well-managed and transparent contest. 👍 There is a wrap-up of the contest for those curious about it.

---

- 📰 -

Why France’s Victory Matters
By Ben Freeland @ Medium

I really liked this piece. I have been carefully reading French newspapers following last Sunday's victory. Last time, in 1998, it was so unexpected, so incredible (given the opponent, Brazil), that the team was said to have resolved racism and poverty in the country, and that from that moment on, everyone would be happily living in the land of smiling unicorns. It was not to be, and four years later, Jacques Chirac was to be facing right-wing racist and extremist leader for the presidency.

This time, the French press was dithyrambic about the team and its captain, Didier Deschamps, but at the same time, everyone was quick to point out that it is just a - very welcome - respite for the country.
Regardless, the author explains why, given how the world seems to have gone crazy lately, France's win and its multi-ethnic teams means a lot to the whole world.

It's just a 6 minutes read, even if you don't like football (or soccer), I guarantee you it's well worth it.

- 📰 -

The death of truth: how we gave up on facts and ended up with Trump
By Michiko Kakutani @ The Guardian

This is an introduction/recap of the author's book, The Death of Truth, coming out on July, 26th.
Did you know that, according to the Washington Post , Mr. Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims during his first year in office – an average of 5.9 a day?

This article will probably make you angry, or sad, or both. It may be a pain to read it all, not because it's badly written, but because some of the things look too much like science fiction. Unfortunately, it's real.

- ⭐⭐ -

And that's it for this weekend. I hope I'll have enough time this week to prepare something for next #alternativeweekend!