New world chess champ: The New York Times reports that Awonder Liang of Wisconsin is the new world chess champion — for players age 8 and under.
Seems like Awonder is a fitting name for the young chess phenom, who won his first 7 games at the World Youth Championship in Brazil before drawing his eighth and then losing in the last round (he won on tie-breakers).
I still love chess although I haven’t played lately… It’s the greatest game ever invented. So pure and so infinite.
* * *
The same issue of the Times featured Toledo mayor Mike Bell, discussing the topic of political redistricting. Here’s a link.
* * *
The Lucas County Department of Health and Environment, Bureau of Vital Statistics, regularly releases a list of “deaths reported.” The list includes the names, ages, addresses, date and place of death, and cause.
Most of the causes are brief medical/biological summaries, such as lung cancer, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, etc.
The one that makes me do a double take is “failure to thrive.”
It’s not exactly a medical term, more of a psychological diagnosis. I believe you can read it as saying that the person could have lived if he or she cared enough to try.
In the latest list, the man who died from failure to thrive was 82 years old. It makes you wonder what the circumstances were in his life that made it seem so hopeless… Sad. Life is just too precious.
