Class 1

Galileos Moon Drawings, the First Realistic

Depictions of the Moon in History (1609-
1610)
in Astronomy, Science | January 30th, 2014 4 Comments
Galileo Galilei did not invent the telescope. The honor is usually reserved for Hans
Libbershey, a Dutch eyeglass maker, who was at least the first person to apply for a patent,
in 1608. But Galileo was a very early adopter, and improver, of the instrument. In 1609, he
made the drawings above from life, the very first realistic renderings of the Moon
(now housed at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence). Prior to Galileos
illustrations, Rice Universitys Galileo Project informs us, virtually no one bothered to
represent the Moon with its spots the way it actually appeared. This was in part due to a
belief, derived from Aristotle, that the Moon, and every other astral body, was perfect, in
contrast to the Earths irregularities. After his observations, Galileo planned the following
year to create an entire series of illustrations, presumably to show how the shadows of
individual features changed with the illumination. This, however, became unnecessary
since even the Jesuit fathers in Rome were convinced that that the Moons surface was
uneven.

Galileo did incorporate his findings into his groundbreaking treatise Sidereus
Nuncius (The Starry Messenger), published in Latin in March of 1610, in which he
promoted the Copernican heliocentric theory with copious evidence (and for which he was
eventually placed under house arrest in 1633). In his treatise, he explained his observations
of a coruscated, pitted, and mountainous Moon and included several additional drawings,
such as those above and below. (He also made scores of drawings of Jupiter and several
constellations.) Like many scholars of his day, Galileo was also an accomplished draftsman,
as you can plainly see. And like scholars still today, he was required to excel at the fine art
of self-promotion, forced not only to compete with his contemporaries, but also to persuade
his patrons as well as mollify the institutional authorities.
In title page of Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo introduces himself as Florentine patrician and
public mathematician of the University of Padua and touts his accomplishments in
devising a spyglass and observing the face of the Moon, countless fixed stars, the Milky
Way, nebulous stars. He is especially proud, however, of his discovery of four moons of
Jupiter, which he calls four planets. These satellites, he writes, were unknown by anyone
until this day, and he names them the Medicean Stars after his influential patron Cosimo
Il de-Medici, duke of Tuscany. It is a dedication, astronomer Nick Kollerstrom argues, that
helped propel Galileo to his position as the court philosopher of Florence. In the rough
sketch of the waxing Moon below, made in January, 1609, Galileo includes at the top a draft
of an astrological nativity of his wealthy sponsor.
Neanderthals Leave Their Mark on Us
JAN. 29, 2014
Launch media viewer

A reconstruction of a Neanderthal skeleton, right, with a modern human skeleton in the

background. Frank Franklin II/Associated Press

Carl Zimmer
MATTER
Ever since the discovery in 2010 that Neanderthals interbred
with the ancestors of living humans, scientists have been
trying to determine how their DNA affects people today. Now
two new studies have traced the history of Neanderthal DNA,
and have pinpointed a number of genes that may have
medical importance today.
Among the findings, the studies have found clues to the
evolution of skin and fertility, as well as susceptibility to
diseases like diabetes. More broadly, they show how the
legacy of Neanderthals has endured 30,000 years after their
extinction.

Its something that everyone wanted to know, said Laurent

Excoffier, a geneticist at the University of Bern in
Switzerland who was not involved in the research.

Neanderthals, who became extinct about 30,000 years ago,

were among the closest relatives of modern humans. They
shared a common ancestor with us that lived about 600,000
years ago.

In the 1990s, researchers began finding fragments of

Neanderthal DNA in fossils. By 2010 they had reconstructed
most of the Neanderthal genome. When they compared it
with the genomes of five living humans, they found
similarities to small portions of the DNA in the Europeans
and Asians.

The researchers concluded that Neanderthals and modern

humans must have interbred. Modern humans evolved in
Africa and then expanded out into Asia and Europe, where
Neanderthals lived. In a 2012 study, the researchers
estimated that this interbreeding took place between 37,000
and 85,000 years ago.

Sir Paul A. Mellars, an archaeologist at the University of

Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh, who was not
involved in the research, said the archaeological evidence
suggested the opportunity for modern humans to mate with
Neanderthals would have been common once they expanded
out of Africa. Theyd be bumping into Neanderthals at every
street corner, he joked.

The first draft of the Neanderthal genome was too rough to

allow scientists to draw further conclusions. But recently,
researchers sequenced a far more accurate genome from a
Neanderthal toe bone.

Scientists at Harvard Medical School and the Max Planck

Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany
compared this high-quality Neanderthal genome to the
genomes of 1,004 living people. They were able to identify
specific segments of Neanderthal DNA from each persons
genome.
Its a personal map of Neanderthal ancestry, said David
Reich of Harvard Medical School, who led the research team.
He and his colleagues published their results in the journal
Nature.

Living humans do not have a lot of Neanderthal DNA, Dr.

Reich and his colleagues found, but some Neanderthal genes
have become very common. Thats because, with natural
selection, useful genes survive as species evolve. What this
proves is that these genes were helpful for non-Africans in
adapting to the environment, Dr. Reich said.

In a separate study published in Science, Benjamin Vernot

and Joshua M. Akey of the University of Washington came to
a similar conclusion, using a different method.

Mr. Vernot and Dr. Akey looked for unusual mutations in the
genomes of 379 Europeans and 286 Asians. The segments of
DNA that contained these mutations turned out to be from
Neanderthals.

Both studies suggest that Neanderthal genes involved in skin

and hair were favored by natural selection in humans. Today,
they are very common in living non-Africans.

The fact that two independent studies pinpointed these

genes lends support to their importance, said Sriram
Sankararaman of Harvard Medical School, a co-author on
the Nature paper. The two methods seem to be converging
on the same results.

It is possible, Dr. Akey speculated, that the genes developed

to help Neanderthal skin adapt to the cold climate of Europe
and Asia.

But Dr. Akey pointed out that skin performs other important
jobs, like shielding us from pathogens. We dont understand
enough about the biology of those particular genes yet, he
said. It makes it hard to pinpoint a reason why theyre
beneficial.

Both teams of scientists also found long stretches of the

living human genomes where Neanderthal DNA was
glaringly absent. This pattern could be produced if modern
humans with certain Neanderthal genes could not have as
many children on average as people without them. For
example, living humans have very few genes from
Neanderthals involved in making sperm. That suggests that
male human-Neanderthal hybrids might have had lower
fertility or were even sterile.
 Overall, said Dr. Reich, most of the Neanderthal genetic
material was more bad than good.

Some of the Neanderthal genes that have endured until

today may be influencing peoples health. Dr. Reich and his
colleagues identified nine Neanderthal genes in living
humans that are known to raise or reduce the risk of various
diseases, including diabetes and lupus.

To better understand the legacy of Neanderthals, Dr. Reich

and his colleagues are collaborating with the UK Biobank,
which collects genetic information from hundreds of
thousands of volunteers. The scientists will search for
Neanderthal genetic markers, and investigate whether
Neanderthal genes cause any noticeable differences in
anything from weight to blood pressure to scores on memory
tests.

This experiment of nature has been done, said Dr. Reich,

and we can study it.

Loot No Longer

A Reporter in France Helps to Return

Art Taken by the Nazis
By DOREEN CARVAJALJAN. 30, 2014
VIEW SLIDE SHOW |10 PHOTOS
A Maze of Information
A Maze of Information
Lauren Fleishman for The New York Times
PARIS I worked nights from a leather chair in my living
room, armed with an iPad, a telephone and a notebook. My
mission was to see if I could reconnect Jewish families and
others with fine art pillaged from their relatives
during World War II.

I have no degree in art history or particularly detailed

knowledge of the Holocaust. My experience with genealogy is
that of an amateur, one who traced my own family to 15th-
century Spain.

But as a reporter, I track people for a living. And I was

intrigued by the difficulties that French authorities report
having as they try to find the heirs to more than 2,000
unclaimed works of art looted or sold under murky
circumstances during the war and now held in French
museums.

Over the past 60 years, the French have returned just 80 of

the so-called orphaned works of art. The rest, some of them
masterpieces, sit or hang in 57 French museums, which are
their guardians until the rightful owners can be found.

History, Yes, but Movie HistoryJAN. 29, 2014

Critics complain that the effort to find heirs has been

sluggish and inefficient, despite increased online genealogy
resources and the rise of social media.

So I decided to see if I could trace the ownership of any of the

works.

Like the French government, I was handicapped by the fact

that many families do not even know what they have lost.
With the tumult of war and the passage of time, families lose
track of their possessions. Relatives die. Their histories,
stories and documents all vanish.

So it is that a large painting by Gustave Courbet can hang in

the Impressionist section of the Muse dOrsay here. Though
it is viewed as orphaned, no one has come forward to claim
it. Until now.
The painting, a view of the chalky cliffs of tretat in
Normandy on a wet summer day, is the poster photograph
on a government website that explains and catalogs the
orphaned works. It took me two weeks to find one of its
likely owners, a descendant of a Jewish migr from Russia
and her husband who consigned the Courbet painting for
sale before they were arrested and deported to Auschwitz,
where the childless couple died. Since I contacted a relative,
alerting her to what I had found, she has filed a claim.

Then I started studying more orphaned paintings. The

possible heirs of two other works took longer to find. One
was an Albrecht Drer chalk drawing from Hermann
Goerings collection of looted art. It once belonged to a
French Resistance fighter, Gabrielle Tuffier, who was
deported in 1943 after the Gestapo arrested her for
clandestinely transmitting radio signals from a castle in the
north of France.

Her brother, Nemours, owned the other work I tracked, a

golden-hued triptych of Christ on the cross that had been
painted by Rubens. It was apparently sold under duress
during the Nazi occupation of France and recovered after the
war from Linz, Austria, where it had been stored, awaiting
display in a museum Hitler planned.

When I found Nemours Tuffiers grandson, Roland Nemours

Tuffier, in a town just outside Paris, I told him the Rubens
now hangs on the second floor of the Louvre. He said he did
not know his relatives had once owned it.

Were really surprised, he said.

To be candid, I had help. His name is Gilad Japhet, and hes

chief executive of MyHeritage.com, a large social networking
site for family trees. When I was stumped by errors in family
history, name changes, misspellings, faulty years and false
matches, he routinely bailed me out.

But there was nothing magical about what we did. We

searched online family trees and Auschwitz death records,
digital databases in Israel for Holocaust victims, and the
photo catalog of the Bibliothque Nationale. The French
states own catalog of the works offered starting clues, with
brief summaries of the history of paintings through the
1940s.

There is really a wealth of information if you are trying to

solve a mystery, Mr. Japhet said. I can only say its not
difficult, and everyone can do it.
Since 1950, the French have tried, in fits and starts, to
reconnect the art with its owners. In 1996, information about
many of the lost works was posted online and replaced in
2004 by a much more detailed inventory. In 2008, France
sponsored an exhibition in Israel of 53 of the orphaned
works.

Critics, though, have long said that the French have largely
waited for possible heirs to show up instead of aggressively
tracking them. Last year, Culture Minister Aurlie Filippetti
said the French would become more proactive and appointed
a group to establish the origins of looted art. In January, she
announced the planned return of three works on which
people had made claims, including a 17th-century landscape
by Joos de Momper.

After six months of work, the ministry said in an email that

noted the difficulties of its additional research, it seems
possible to identify the origin of 20 objects, even if these
clues are only working hypotheses.

Ministry personnel would not identify the other objects. But

they told me one was not the Courbet seaside landscape,
whose likely heir, Sylvie Tafani, I found last fall. She is the
grandniece of Marc Wolfson, who is listed in the French
records as the onetime owner of the Courbet. He and his
wife, Ernestine Davidoff, were part of an elite circle of
expatriates from Russia who were in Paris, a bustling hub of
the art world, when German forces arrived.

Many Jews, fearful of property confiscations, sold artworks

under duress at discount prices. Mr. Wolfson consigned his
Courbet to a dealer in 1941 who in turn sold it for 350,000
francs to the Folkwang Museum in Germany, from which it
was recovered. The records do not say what Mr. Wolfson
made from that transaction. But they said he had been
arrested in July 1942 and died after deportation. Then the
trail in the French records went cold.

I guessed Mr. Wolfson might have been sent to Auschwitz

and tracked down records from that camp that confirmed my
hunch. He had died there, a few weeks after his arrest.

My genealogy detective, Mr. Japhet, then had the idea of

looking for relatives on the tribute pages posted by Yad
Vashem, the Holocaust memorial website. There he found a
posting from 1988 by Mrs. Tafani that listed her name and
her address in the south of France. Alas, she no longer lived
there, I found, but someone by that name was listed as a
board member of a French charity. I called it, and the charity
gave me her email address.
When I reached her, Mrs. Tafani, 61, said she knew nothing
about Courbets painting, The tretat Cliffs After the
Storm. Her mother, she said, was so scarred by the war
she escaped deportation as a child only because she was
hidden by the family that she baptized her children as
Protestant.

It was not until I was 15 years old, she said, that I learned
that we were Jewish because my mother had such fear. Its
complicated. And so I tried to avoid asking questions that
could make her cry.

Finding the Tuffiers and the other paintings followed a

similar path. The French records indicated that the Rubens
triptych, The Erection of the Cross, had been sold, likely
under duress, in 1941 by a N. Tuffier, the son of a
prominent French surgeon, Theodore Tuffier, from whom he
had inherited it. An online newspaper obituary and family
trees led me to find that the son was named Nemours
Tuffier, that he had a sister, Gabrielle, and that they had a
number of descendants who lived near Paris.

Online searches pointed me to Roland Nemours Tuffier, the

grandson of Nemours, who operates a company that sells
yachts in the south of France. Mr. Tuffier, 52, said he is now
preparing a claim with a cousin, Richard Nemours Tuffier,
and that he was both happy and angered by the news he may
be an heir.

How come they have done nothing to find the rightful

owners? he asked of the French government. We have
people who are alive. Why cant they just follow the birth
certificates?

Once he knew what to look for, Mr. Tuffier said he found

family inventories of the works they once owned. He
provided me with a copy, and the Rubens was listed on it, as
was the Drer drawing. He said his cousin recalled the family
discussing that a trove of art had been lost in a fire. Allied
records indeed show that a group of Tuffier paintings were
confiscated by German soldiers from a castle where they had
been hidden before it was torched. But the family did not
know what art had survived.

The law in France typically recognizes the inheritance rights

of extended heirs in cases where property has not been
transferred under the terms of a will, as is the case here with
Mr. Tuffier, a grandson.

Officials at the Louvre and Muse dOrsay referred questions

about the three paintings I tracked to the Culture Ministry.
The ministry said the French are now more aggressively
 tracking descendants and have assigned 15 museum officials
and archivists to the task. New curators will receive
additional training in how to research the history of the
orphaned works, the culture minister, Ms. Filippetti, told me
in an interview, and she expects progress soon.

We cant say today or 2014, she said. But she continued:

There is no French omerta to refuse to return the paintings.
On the contrary, I am committed to move faster and
further.

When I told one of Ms. Filippettis advisers about my finds,

he said the process can be more difficult for state researchers
because they have to track and verify the legal standing of
every potential heir, not just one or two.

And to be fair, many searches would be more difficult than

the ones I attempted. I had the luxury of skipping paintings
for which there were no clues in the French records which
is true of some of them. I concentrated instead on those that
listed some name, partial or full, for a prior owner.

Even here, I met with failure. Several times, I found what I

thought were the families listed in the records only to be
proved wrong, or to encounter people with no interest in
pursuing whether they were indeed related and heirs to a
masterwork.

My mother is certain that her uncle was not looted, said a

Parisian woman whose relative, a Jewish art dealer,
appeared to have owned a Georges Seurat landscape that is
listed among the orphans. In any case, she has no
documents concerning this question.

But the success I did have bodes well for the French as they
go forward with a more vigorous effort. Even when I faltered,
Mr. Japhet, who was my cheerleader as well as my helper,
remained enthusiastic about the ability of such research to
right some very old wrongs.

All you need is a lot of curiosity, he said, a little bit of

intellect, and some luck.

Beatle Fans Hear Yesterday Again

By ALLAN KOZINNJAN. 31, 2014
VIEW SLIDE SHOW |8 PHOTOS
The Birth of Beatlemania
The Birth of Beatlemania
CBS Photo Archive
It was inevitable, time marching on as it does, and yet it also
hard to believe: Half a century has passed since the Beatles
touched down in New York for the first time, on Feb. 7, 1964,
and seduced the country with three performances on The
Ed Sullivan Show and a pair of concerts, at the Washington
Coliseum and Carnegie Hall. Everything about them their
pudding basic haircuts, their Cardin suits and pointed boots,
their sharp, irreverent sense of humor seemed outlandish,
compared with American pop groups. And though their
music was firmly rooted as they were always quick to point
out in American rhythm and blues, soul and rock, they
produced a sound that was fresh, energetic and
unmistakably their own.

To be realistic, the hits that resonated through America

during that first visit, and in the early months of 1964 She
Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Please Please Me
are not what gave the Beatles their longevity. The musical
curiosity that led the group quickly and inexorably toward
more complex ground on Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt.
 Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and onward,
undoubtedly has more to do with it.

Launch media viewer

The arrival of the Beatles changed the lives of American girls, shown here at the Paramount
Theater in New York later in 1964. Jack Manning/The New York Times

The Beatles became a template for generations of bands

whose musicians wrote their own music, dressed as they
liked and said what they thought about a host of issues,
musical, social or otherwise. And though you may revere
songs like Yesterday or Strawberry Fields Forever, but
merely like Love Me Do or From Me to You, its hard not
to have a soft spot for those fresh, seemingly innocent
Beatles who hijacked popular culture, seemingly in a single
bound, in 1964. It was that first explosion of Beatlemania,
after all, that changed the way we thought about pop music
and how it was made.

Recent months have already brought several releases,

including On Air, a second volume of the Beatles BBC
recordings, and an iTunes-only compilation of unreleased
studio and radio tracks, The Beatles Bootleg Recordings
1963. There are also several important new books,
includingMark Lewisohns Tune In, the first installment of
The Beatles: All These Years, his three-part biography, and
Kevin Howletts The Beatles: The BBC Archives 1962-1970.
Below is a list of anniversary events (and a few more records
and books) that will allow those obsessed with (or even
merely fascinated by) the Beatles to knock themselves out.

And in a way, all this is a measure of how the Beatles

changed the way we think about pop music. In 1964, the idea
of generations of music lovers getting together to celebrate a
band that became popular 50 years earlier that is, in 1914
would have been inconceivable.

RECORDINGS

The Beatles U.S. Albums, a 13-disc set (Capitol/Universal)

compiles the American versions of the Beatles pre-Sgt.
Pepper discs, and a 1970 catchall that brought together a
few tracks that hadnt made it to the LPs. The albums song
sequences and artwork and, in some cases, mixes
unavailable elsewhere are retained, and both mono and
stereo versions are included for most of the albums.

The Smithereens Play the Beatles Washington, D.C. Feb. 11,

1964 Concert has this New Jersey band recreating the
Beatles first American concert. (The Beatles concert itself is
available on video through iTunes, as part ofThe Beatles
Box Set, with the groups compete stereo recordings.)

BOOKS

Chuck Gundersons Some Fun Tonight! The Backstage

Story of How The Beatles Rocked America: The Historic
Tours of 1964-1966 (Gunderson Media) is a two-volume
look at the Beatles American tours, lavishly illustrated with
reproductions of tickets, contracts and other documents.

EXHIBITIONS

The Morrison Hotel Gallery, in SoHo and West Hollywood,

Calif., is presenting a photo exhibition, organized by Julian
Lennon (the older of John Lennons sons), with the works of
several photographers renowned for their shots of the
Beatles among them, Ken Regan, Charles Trainor, Curt
Gunther, Robert Whitaker, Rowland Scherman and Terry
ONeill (Friday to Feb. 28).

Ladies and Gentlemen ... The Beatles! a traveling show

assembled by theGrammy Museum in Los Angeles, makes its
first stop at the New York Public Library for the Performing
Arts, at Lincoln Center, where it runs from Thursday to May
10. Included are sections devoted to American musicians
who influenced the Beatles, memorabilia from the time
(including guitars owned by George Harrison) and video
interviews.
The library is also presenting a panel discussion on the
Beatles touring years next Sunday at 1 p.m., an interview
with Mr. Lewisohn, the author, on Feb. 10 at 6 p.m., and a
screening of the Maysles brothers behind-the-scenes
documentary about the Beatles first visit, Whats
Happening! The Beatles in the USA, on Feb. 13 at 6 p.m.

CONCERTS

NYC Fab 50 brings together musicians of every stripe for

America Celebrates the Beatles four Beatles tribute
concerts, with proceeds benefiting the Food Bank for New
York City. The opener, Twist & Shout New York
Celebrates the Beatles, is at the Apollo Theater, with Mary
Wilson of the Supremes, Bettye LaVette, Lloyd Price, Melvin
Van Peebles and Gary U.S. Bonds among the performers
(Thursday at 7:30). Also on the schedule: Across the
Universe Music Festival, with Beatles tribute bands from
around the world, at the Hudson Theater (Friday at 8 p.m.),
and a closing all-star concert, with a roster that includes
Tommy James, Melanie, Marshall Crenshaw, Fred Schneider
(of the B-52s) and Gene Cornish (of the Rascals) among
others, at Town Hall (Saturday at 8 p.m.). A wrap-up party is
being held at the Bitter End (next Sunday, 7 p.m.).

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will join forces with

Classical Mystery Tour, a tribute band that specializes in
playing Beatles songs (as well as post-Beatles solo works), for
a symphonic commemoration, conducted by Martin Herman
at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark
(Saturday at 8 p.m.) and the State Theater in New Brunswick
(next Sunday at 3 p.m.).

EVENTS

For sheer variety, the big event of the anniversary weekend is

the three-dayFest for Beatles Fans, a bash held annually
since 1974 (now with outposts in Chicago and Los Angeles as
well), with well, you name it: performances (by Donovan,
Billy J. Kramer, the Smithereens, Peter Asher and Chad and
Jeremy, as well as several tribute bands), lectures, panel
discussions, film and video screenings, art and photo
exhibitions, look-alike contests, an auction, a battle of the
bands, trivia games, childrens events, a walking tour of New
York, and a marketplace where you can pick up rare
recordings and memorabilia you may have missed. At the
Grand Hyatt (Friday to next Sunday).

Drawing on some of the musicians and representatives of the

Beatles universe who will be appearing the Fest for Beatles
Fans, the 92nd Street Y is presenting It Was 50 Years Ago
Today Celebrating 50 Years of the Beatles in the USA, a
panel discussion with Mr. Asher, Donovan and Mr. Kramer,
as well as Vince Calandra (a member of the Ed Sullivan Show
production crew) and Freda Kelly (the Beatles fan club
secretary, and the subject of the recent film Good Ol
Freda!). Martin Lewis is the moderator (Thursday, 8:15
p.m.).

CBS, which carried the Beatles first live televised

performances in the United States, on The Ed Sullivan
Show, is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first
Sullivan appearance (next Sunday) with two extravaganzas:
CBS News will offer 50 Years: The Beatles, an interactive,
multimedia presentation at the Ed Sullivan Theater and on
the networks web pages. The show, which is presented by
Motown: The Musical (the Beatles were huge fans of
Motown groups, whose songs they covered on their early
albums) includes a symposium, moderated by Anthony
Mason, with Pattie Boyd, George Harrisons first wife;
Andrew Loog Oldham, an early manager of the Rolling
Stones (and before that, an assistant to the Beatles manager
Brian Epstein); Mick Jones, the guitarist for Foreigner; and
the director Julie Taymor, whose films include Across the
Universe. The panel will be streamed live on cbsnews.com,
and another of the networks web pages
cbsnewyork.com/50yearslater will offer archival
television coverage from the Beatles 1964 visit to New York
(next Sunday, 6 p.m.).

After the symposium, CBS will devote the time slot that was
once Sullivans 8 p.m. Eastern to The Night That
Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles a
concert taped in Los Angeles last Monday (the day after the
Grammys), in which several generations of musicians
including the reunited Eurythmics, Alicia Keys, John
Legend, Keith Urban, John Mayer and Maroon 5 perform
Beatles hits. The two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and
Ringo Starr, who performed at the Grammys, join this
tribute as well.

Friends and family of the concert promoter Sid Bernstein

who presented the Beatles first New York concerts at
Carnegie Hall, as well as their two Shea Stadium shows are
presenting a memorial concert and tribute to Mr. Bernstein,
who died last August, at the Cutting Room (Feb. 12 the
50th anniversary of the Beatles two Carnegie Hall shows
at 7 p.m.).
 Barcelona Is Winning on the
Field but Suffering Off It
By ROB HUGHESJAN. 28, 2014

EMAIL
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
SAVE
MORE

LONDON FC Barcelona remains, to quote its motto, Ms

que un club: More than a club.

It stands on top of the Spanish league standings. Its record at

home this season is near perfection played 10, won 10,
with 34 goals scored and six conceded.

Yet Bara is in turmoil. Its president, Sandro Rosell, stepped

down last weekafter a Spanish court accepted a lawsuit
accusing him of misappropriating funds and he cited
unspecified threats against himself and his family.

And the clubs key players, Lionel Messi and Neymar, have
become vulnerable to injury and susceptible to legal
investigations over their money.

Still, Bara keeps on winning. And still the disaffection

festers over Tata Martino, the Argentine brought in last
summer to replace Tito Vilanova as coach after Vilanovas
cancer returned.

Martinos team wins, but not in the Bara way. He is trying

to shield the star players, trying to ensure as much as
possible that they do not arrive in March as worn and
wounded as they did last season. But, again, there is
reluctance by some in Catalonia to warm to Martino,
reluctance because he is not one of us.
Launch media viewer
Xavi Hernndez acknowledging Barcelona fans as they recognized his playing 700
games for the club. He is increasingly wearing the captains armband in place of Carles
Puyol. Alejandro Garcia/European Pressphoto Agency
In any other club, it might be enough to say, we are
winning; judge us by trophies at the end of the season.

In any other place, Tatas rotation policy leaving out and

resting star players when he thinks they need it would be
regarded as in the best interest of the nation. For Bara,
remember, provides the lungs and the style of the Spanish
side that must very soon defend the World Cup in Brazil.

Central to all of this is Xavi Hernndez. He is the core of the

team, even more important to the club than Messis magic or
Neymars promise.

He wears the captains armband with increasing regularity

now that Carles Puyol is succumbing to a lifetime of wear
and tear. Before kickoff Sunday night, the crowd at the Camp
Nou honored him for playing in his 700th game with the
club earlier this month.

On Saturday, Xavi, who started at the clubs La Masia

academy when he was 11, turned 34. He still, when he is on
the field, dictates the rhythm and flow, the tiki-taka style,
that is synonymous with the club, and the national team.
He was at the heart of Sundays dismantling of Mlaga, a
relatively low-key 3-0 win in front of just 56,355 supporters
in the Camp Nou stadium that holds just short of 100,000
when full.

What is the source of the disaffection that leaves so many

empty seats in a place that is home to its 166,000 paid
members?

Is it the dirty laundry being displayed in the courts? Is it the

internecine bickering, the power struggle between Rosell and
his predecessor, Joan Laporta? Might it be the direction the
club has taken, selling the front of its shirt to the Qatar
Foundation and relegating to the back the Unicef symbol
that Barcelona had previously paid money to be associated
with?

Maybe it is all those things, woven into the fabric of a club

that calls itself more than a club.

Maybe it is exacerbated by all the talk of Bara selling its

home, the Camp Nou, and moving to a newer, bigger, more
commercially viable arena that would be built near the citys
famous Diagonal Avenue?

The latest on that is Barcelona may now abandon the $1.65

billion plan to move and build a new stadium. Instead, it may
spend half of that sum to renovate the Camp Nou, add luxury
suites and sell naming rights to the stadium to add to its
already impressive revenue stream.

In all of this, the essence of Bara suffers. The club,

ostensibly owned by its members, should not be torn by the
personal ambitions and battles between elected presidents.

It was all well and good that Barcelona published on Friday,

in the name of transparency, its version of where the huge
sums went relating to Neymars purchase and salary. One
consequence of this is that the interim president will sit
down with Messi and rewrite his contract to ensure that
Messi is the highest-paid player.

Money, money, money. Baras statement insists that the

global cost of the transfer was 57.1 million euros to buy
Neymar, or about $78.1 million.

It comprised 17 million to Neymars previous club, Santos,

and 40 million paid to Neymar and Nadine da Silva
(Neymar Jr.s parents). The club said Neymars total salary
was 56.7 million, including a 2.7 million commission for
his agent, a 10 million signing bonus and a guaranteed
salary of 44 million over five years.
In addition, the deal included commitments to Neymars
foundation, his image rights, an agreement with Santos
regarding the Brazilian clubs youth academy, and another
with Neymars father to scout young talent at the Brazilian
club.

The more you read, the further you get away from what
made, and should make, Barcelona special.

For that, we may need to go back in time, to the style

implanted by Johan Cruyff, carried forward by Pep
Guardiola, and played by the likes of Xavi. And not so far
back, either.

In 2011, Barcelona devoured Manchester United in the

Champions League final, the last time it won the European
Cup.

Uniteds then-manager, Alex Ferguson, admitted that his

club needed to study and try to replicate some of the beauty
and control of the Catalans.

After 26 years with Manchester, Ferguson has just become

UEFAs coaching ambassador. He will remember what Bara
displayed at Wembley Stadium.

Its about doing something extra, not just winning,

Xavi has said on more than one occasion. Bara always tries
to direct the game.

Xavi is as good as his word, conducting an orchestra whose

soloists include Messi and Andrs Iniesta. And Xavi, dark
eyes smoldering, told us that while other teams were happy
to win, Bara has to do it with style.

The house will be full again, and the courtroom empty, once
Barcelona gets back to that.