July Yahoos

It's that time of the month again, when we look at the chess stories that the Yahoo news aggregator dragged in over the previous month. Just like last month's June Yahoos, the July pickings are slim, but not invisible.

2018-07-13: Kentucky governor under fire after saying black kids playing chess 'not something you necessarily would have thought of' (yahoo.com). That's the Yahoo version of the story, which is just a stub -- a place to catch the comments that Yahoo is known for. For this story, there were 195 'reactions', as Yahoo likes to call its comment section.

2018-07-13: Kentucky governor under fire [...]' (thehill.com). That's the original version of the story. It started,

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) is facing scrutiny after he appeared in a promotional video in which he seemed surprised that black schoolchildren play chess. In the video, which featured a chess club at a predominantly black middle school in Louisville, Ky., Bevin says the club is "not something you necessarily would have thought of when you think of this section of town."

There are 100 ways to react positively to the kids' interest in chess. The governor's reaction isn't one of them.

2018-07-26: Marsh & McLennan's (MMC) Q2 Earnings Miss, Revenue in Line (finance.yahoo.com). The second screen capture above is a story that has nothing to do with chess, but I couldn't remember seeing anything like the stock chess image used to illustrate it. A King knocking over another King can be used to illustrate many ideas. An earnings miss -- 'Marsh & McLennan's Q2 results suffered from a rise in expense that outpaced revenue growth' -- stretches the imagination.

For the past few months I've been adding Google News chess stories to supplement the skimpy Yahoo offerings. On top of the July GM supertournaments -- Biel and Dortmund -- I thought these were noteworthy:-

• 2018-07-11: Massive chess pieces, rocks thrown from roof of DC apartment building (wjla.com; '[Washington] DC Police are investigating a bizarre incident in which they believe four suspects hurled giant chess pieces from an apartment building roof to the street 11 stories below.')
• 2018-07-27: Google honors the female chess player who sparked 40 years of Soviet dominance (qz.com; Lyudmila Rudenko)

Getting back to that story about the Kentucky governor, here are some of the 195 'reactions':-

• 'One of the chess players should challenge Bevin to a game of chess and see how he makes out.'
• 'I'm surprised anyone in Kentucky would play chess.'
• 'This is one of the reasons why many African Americans, even with conservative views, don't support the Republican Party.'
• 'And if you look closely enough, you can actually see some of the natives on this side of town using laptop PCs.'
• 'Yo, Governor, some black folks are astronauts, some are doctors, dentists, and the list goes on.'
• 'When people make comments like this, my response is usually, "You need to get out of the house more."'
• 'People don't realize how little time their Congressmen spend mingling in the districts and communities that voted for them.'
• 'Q: What's the state flower of Kentucky? A: The satellite dish.'
• 'The TelePrompter: Never leave home without it.'
• 'And guess what: they may grow up and run for President.'

Don't misunderstand me; I have relatives in Kentucky. Unfortunately, many other comments were overtly racist. Maybe the chess rule 'White always moves first' needs to be reviewed.