Today in History: Nov. 17

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The “Heidi Game” was played on this date in 1968.

A late afternoon football game, New York Jets at Oakland Raiders, was on NBC. That network had been advertising the television debut of a new TV movie, Heidi, based on the children’s story, all week. It was an expensive movie, with one sponsor, Timex, footing the entire bill. A football game with interested viewers on both coasts was a great venue for advertising the movie.

The announcements about the movie continued all game long. But so did the game. At 7:00 p.m. EST, with the Jets in the lead 32-29 and very little time left on the clock, NBC started the broadcast of the movie, as advertised. The game was as good as over, as far as NBC executives were concerned.
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Lauri Love Extradition Ordered

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The US has ruthlessly persecuted hackers and digital activists for years, and nobody expects that to improve under President Trump. Theresa May set a good example by protecting Gary McKinnon back in 2012. For a Home Secretary in her government now to willingly send a brilliant and vulnerable UK citizen [Lauri Love] to Donald Trump’s America beggars belief.—Sarah Harrison, Courage Foundation Acting Director

On Monday, Amber Rudd, the United Kingdom’s Home Secretary, signed the order to approve Lauri Love’s extradition to the United States. From that day, Monday, he and his legal team have fourteen days to file an appeal. The team reports that it intends to do so.

Love is accused of stealing data from U.S. government agencies in 2012 and 2013 as a part of a hacking protest known as #OpLastResort. Because he is in Great Britain and the data breach took place in the United States, the fact that indictments have been filed against him in three district courts is known but how the U.S. plans to proceed is not known. His lawyers estimate that Love faces—if he is extradited, charged with the crimes that they think he is to be charged with, tried, and convicted—up to 99 years in prison.

Love and his lawyers have yet to see any evidence against him.
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Clean-up in the Shakespeare Aisle

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

There is nothing wrong with Shakespeare that couldn’t be fixed by getting rid of all the violence, and, oh! those sad endings. So many of his plays end with a pile of bodies on stage and no detective to sort it all out for us and arrest the bad guys. No one leaves the theater smiling after seeing one of those productions.

For the first few generations of critics and theater producers that followed Shakespeare, this was a common attitude. The audiences loved Shakespeare from the start, the 1590s, when his plays started to be performed in London, even if they missed some of his … finer points. There were a lot of entertaining murders, after all.
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