How the highway to hell has changed for COVID – Campus Times

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Well hello, humans! I hope you are surviving in New Hell. It is I, Nix, your favorite demon girl coming to you from Hell.

I first want to thank all of you who sold your souls to me over the years. Last you saw of me, I was super sick with COVID-19, and without your souls, I would not have recovered so quickly.

Even though Im in Hell this semester, and not lurking in the tunnels, dont despair! Ill be holding Zoom sessions for you to get all the soul selling taken care of. There may be a small increase in prices, but thats the cost of the pandemic and remote deals with the demon.

Like many of you, I was left without an internship this summer due to that pandemic. So I did what was only natural: I turned to smuggling humans into Hell. Its a perfectly legal job to help humans get to a better place, in case you were wondering, and they needed extra help this summer (Im paid per person smuggled).

Typically, we only see a few humans try to get into Hell a week. This summer, thanks to rona, you were trying to get into Hell like we had the secret to immortality. Okay fine, we do have it, but in the end youre still going to Hell.

I get why everyone wanted to come here. Weve only had three cases, theres free healthcare and housing, and its more pleasant than what youre experiencing on the surface or in your doomsday bunkers. It seems like most humans seem to have forgotten the criteria to come here. You typically have to do something really bad.

Well, that was before. What better time than a Pandemic for Hell to roll out its new slogan: Hell is the New Heaven. So just for the duration of coronavirus, we changed around our criteria to help us stay COVID-free.

Our first criteria is that you have to wear a mask. Not a surgical mask or an N95. We wont accept anything less than a full-on gas mask. Extreme? Perhaps. But do you really want to be breathing toxic fumes the whole time? While I definitely have some nostalgia for the asbestos and mold spores lingering in the air back on campus, nothing can compare to the sweet sweet smell of cyanide vapor, petroleum, and durian.

Next, any human trying to get into Hell has to spend a month quarantining in purgatory with mandatory daily COVID-19 tests. You want to get into Hell? Is it that important to you? Lets first see you survive a week with no outlets, no games, and over 100 pages of customs, tax, and immigration forms to fill out.

Finally, if youve somehow not gone insane from us asking you if youve ever gotten a parking ticket 500 times, the last step is giving up your soul. Just think of it like a security deposit. Once we have your soul, thats when the fun begins anyway. Its just a short ride down the River of Blood, through the Cataracts of Insanity and into the Tunnels of Despair, and if your mind is still intact, congratulations! Youve successfully gone from one Hell to the other! Be sure to rate us a 5 on Airbnb. Sure, its Hell, but compared to whats up above, it may just be paradise.

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How the highway to hell has changed for COVID - Campus Times

Batman’s Son Finally Does What Bruce Wayne Never Could – Screen Rant

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In DCeased's latest issue, Damian Wayne shows just how different he is from his father Bruce, when reunited with longtime Bat-Family ally Jim Gordon.

Warning: contains spoilers forDCEASED: DEAD PLANET #3!

Batmanexcels in many area, but showing affection isn't one of them. While the most Bruce Wayne could ever muster for his police liaisonCommissioner James Gordonwas a handshake, his son Damian Wayneis a different kind of Dark Knight, as he shows when reunited with his allies in DCeased: Dead Planet #3.Last seen at the end of DCeased: Unkillables, Damian happily reunites with Red Hood and Batgirl when the Justice League meet with other Earth survivors in Poison Ivy's Gotham sanctuary, following a gruesome battle with the Anti-Living version of Wonder Woman. But unlike his father, Damian is able to express how much the reunion means to him.

Introduced in the 2006 storyline "Batman and Son," Damian is Bruce Wayne's biological son and a clear favorite to become the Batman of the future. WhileBatman #666depicted a potential future where Damian sells his soul for immortality, becoming a demonic Batman, later depictions of Damian's future have been a lot more generous to this prickly but frequently misunderstood character. Happily, while theDCeasedtimeline depicts a world gone to hell, it also depicts a healthy, happy Damian.

Related:The Real Enemy of DCeased is Going To Kill EVERYTHING

While repairing Jonathan Kent's Superman cape, the Batman who Sews is greeted by Jim Gordon, who - accustomed to a more emotionally distant Dark Knight - welcomes him back with the usual handshake. Damian surprises him by opening his arms for a big hug, to which Jim Gordon states the obvious, "Your father wasn't much of a hugger."

No longer the arrogant and condescending Robin Jim Gordon remembers, Dead Planet shows how the events of DCeased have matured Damian, especially after inheriting the role of Batman from his father. While Damian may have moments of overconfidence and violence, hestill honors his father by being the best Batman he can be for this new and unexpected world. Damian has shown he's definitely more in touch with his feelings, hugging former Robin Jason Todd after getting his approval and privately kissing current Wonder Woman Cassie Sandsmark during a moment of comfort. Damian's Batman is not afraid of getting close to people, despite their odds of survival in this nigh-apocalyptic situation.

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Batman's Son Finally Does What Bruce Wayne Never Could - Screen Rant

Reading Sulaiman Areeb’s ode to man’s immortality on his 50th death anniversary – The Express Tribune

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Koi Hindu hai koi Musalman

Kis se poochoon main Insaan kahaan hai

(Someone is a Hindu, someone a Muslim, what a calamity

Who should I ask, where is humanity)

Marg-e-Insaniyat (The Death of Humanity), on partition, Sulaiman Areeb

Sulaiman Areeb, who passed away from throat cancer 50 years ago today, was born on April 5, 1922 in Hyderabad Deccan. Though Areeb had started reciting poetry from the time of studentship, he systematically started reciting poetry since 1944. In the beginning, he also wrote short stories, dramas and essays but he abandoned writing prose afterwards.

Areeb became a member of the Communist Party of India in 1948 and he was arrested by the military government after the police action in Hyderabad for the crime of reciting his revolutionary poem Mujahid-e-Telangana (The Crusader of Telangana) and he spent two years in jail. After being released from jail, he was elected as the secretary of the Peace Committee and the Anjuman Awami Musannifeen (Peoples Writers Association); and in 1952 he was re-arrested in connection with the strike of the students and remained in jail for two months. In 1954, Areeb disassociated from the Communist Party.

In 1948, Areeb was the editor of the weekly Jamhoor (People); and remained the editor of the monthly Chiragh (Lamp) in 1951 and the editor of the monthly Sab Ras (All Quintessence) in 1953. At the time of his untimely death, he had been issuing the monthly Saba (Breeze) himself since 1955.

In his short life, Areeb managed to release only two collections of poetry, the first one titled Paas-e-Gareebaan (Near the Noose) in 1961 and a second one, Kadvi Khushboo (Bitter Fragrance), published posthumously in 1973. It is strange that the leading literary critic Khalilur Rahman Azmi, in his magnum opus on the Progressive Writers Movement published in 1979, dismisses Areeb, among other poets, in just one line as being painfully uniform, despite the fact that Areeb himself admits in the preface to Paas-e-Gareebaan that he discarded a great part of his poems because they had a preponderance for sloganeering and belonging to the lesser proportion of literature.

About the poem in my original translation here Insaan Nahi Mar Sakta (Man is Immortal) which we may regard as one of his most important poems, Areeb says that it was one of the poems he did not discard because this was not mere propaganda and he had an emotional attachment to it, in that this was perhaps his final poem after which he could not write another poem.

This poem, written in 1951, is a beautiful ode to the immortality of man, written by a great poet who passed away even before he was fifty. His optimism for man and life is on offer in the last stanza of this poem:

Chashm-e-tareekh ne har baar magar dekha hai

Mere jamhoor kabhi dab na sake, jhuk na sake

Aur sarfaraz rahe

Mera insaan kabhi mar na saka, mit na saka

Aur insaan nahin mar sakta.

~

Many times before these turns have come

Your anklets rhythm

The sound of your bracelet throwing a tantrum

My verses, my songs, my tunes, my destined connection

My songs sung during my passage for battle

Were changed into a grieving tinkle

Were dissolved into a death rattle.

These turns have come many times before

The goblet and the jar were seized from the wine drinkers

Seized too was every pleasure

Honours, modesties were offered up for auction

Farms were looted, wages grabbed by usurpation

Spurned by the kings mansion

How many Pyramids given to construction

The hunger for loot birthed Hitlers, birthed wars, birthed desolation

Life was decorated by pain, crushed, became a dripping laceration.

Many times before these turns have come

For bread and clothes, for the lamps, for the home

For the ornaments, bangles, the sindoor-filled hair partings, the good fortunes of wifehood

For the smiles of the rosy-cheeked

For the twist in the tresss fragrance

For love and elegance

For the gardens of springs, for the rose gardens

For the protection of peace and freedom and prosperity and civilisation.

Whenever we rise in rebellion

Ready, arrayed, we who are under subjugation

The chains came forward to welcome

And the doors of prisons opened in unison

The ropes of the noose waved in anticipation.

But it has been witnessed every time by the eye of history

My people could never be suppressed, or bent before any functionary

And remained elevated on a pedestal

My Man could not be removed, was ever immortal

And Man is immortal.

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Reading Sulaiman Areeb's ode to man's immortality on his 50th death anniversary - The Express Tribune

Immortality from the Apostolic Fathers to Augustine

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In tracing the Christian development of the doctrine of the nature of the soul, one soon finds that "very few Fathers attempt lengthy rational proofs for immortality." The pressing apologetic needs of the church's early centuries necessitated that attention largely be devoted to other subjects. Yet more than ample material exists from which to evaluate the thinking of the great writers of the early church on this matter. Citing selected quotations from that era, this paper will endeavor to illustrate what that thinking was and what trends were evident.

It is readily discovered that the theologians of the primitive age disagreed regarding the soul's immortality. Several of them "were persuaded that the soul was mortal by nature but could become immortal by good works, or, as others preferred to stress, by union with the Spirit of God, a teaching they thought to find in St. Paul" (Brady, p. 465). Specifically the teaching of innate immortality is absent from the Apostolic Fathers, those Christian writers who lived nearest to or whose lives partly paralleled the last of the apostles. The trend toward the view of inherent immortality, it will be shown, developed with the subsequent Ante-Nicene Fathers.

Before presenting the evidence, however, a few things must be kept in mind in the interest of accuracy:

Indeed we have scarce anything remaining of what was written in the first century, and little of what was written in the second. And besides, the writings of these and after times have been so interpolated, and so many spurious pieces have been ascribed to the writers of these ages, that it has been difficult to know their true and real sentiments.

Likewise it should be mentioned that it was generally common with the patristic writers to go to the other extreme when they set themselves against a particular doctrine (ibid., p. 265).

Earliest of the allegedly authentic writings of the Apostolic Fathers is an epistle by Clement of Rome. Though facts surrounding his life are obscure, he is identified by some third century writers as Paul's companion spoken of in Philippians 4:3. His date of death was around A.D. 100.

Characteristic of 1 Clement is the statement that "life in immortality" is the gift of God to Christians: "how blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in perfect confidence . . . ." Man, he says, is but a "mortal creature, consisting only of dust and ashes" (chs. 38, 39, 17). Never does Clement speak of the natural immortality of the soul.

Next chronologically among the Apostolic Fathers is Ignatius (died ca. 107), bishop of Antioch, Like Clement his life also is surrounded by obscurity, though it is known that he suffered martyrdom during Trajan's reign by being thrown to wild beasts.

Ignatius declared that our Lord was anointed "that He might breath immortality into His Church" (Eph. 17). His belief in the natural mortality of the soul is made in the unequivocal statement, "For were he to reward us according to our works, we should cease to be" (Mag. 10). He is also silent in his epistles in regard to the concept of innate immortality of the soul.

The Epistle of Barnabas is seldom if ever ascribed to the apostle Barnabas, St. Paul's friend and companion. Nevertheless it dates to the time of the Apostolic Fathers. This unknown Barnabas echoes the theme of other writers of this era, stating typically:

It is well, therefore, that he who has learned the judgments of the Lord, as many as have been written, should walk in them. For he who keeps these shall be glorified in the kingdom of God; but he who chooses other things shall be destroyed with his works (ch. 21).

Such was the conditional immortality voiced by Barnabas.

One scholar, having exhaustively reviewed the Apostolic Fathers, came to this sweeping conclusion:

From beginning to end of them there is not one word said of that immortality of the soul which is so prominent in the writings of the later fathers. Immortality is asserted by them to be peculiar to the redeemed. The punishment of the wicked is by them emphatically declared to be everlasting. Not one stray expression of theirs can be interpreted as giving any countenance to the theory of restoration after purgatorial suffering. The fire of hell is with them, as with us, an unquenchable one; but its issue is, with them as with Scripture, "destruction," "death," "loss of life" (Constable, p. 167).

Belief in the mortality of the soul was by no means confined to the aforementioned era, however. Several of the Ante - Nicene Fathers (ca. 150-325) also maintained this position.

First in this series is Justin Martyr (ca. 106-ca. 165), the foremost apologist of the second century. Says Justin:

Now the soul partakes of life, since God wills it to live. Thus, then, it will not even partake [of life] when God does not will it to live. For to live is not its attribute, as it is God's; but as a man does not live always, and the soul is not forever conjoined with the body, since, whenever this harmony must be broken up, the soul leaves the body, and the man exists no longer; even so, whenever the life is removed from it, and there is no' more soul, but it goes back to the place from which it is taken (Dialogue, ch. 6).

Considered perhaps the "most orthodox of the Ante-Nicene fathers" was Irenaeus of Gaul (ca. 130-202). In an age in which Transition to innatism was taking place, he nonetheless wrote trusting that Christ would "in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy" (Against Heresies 10:1). Here immortality once again is not perceived as a natural endowment but rather that which must be conferred.

So in similar fashion did Novatian (210-280), presbyter of Rome, contend, declaring that "the word of Christ affords immortality" (On the Trinity, ch. 1). Again immortality is pictured as that which must be acquired.

Arnobius, who lived in northern Africa from the late third to early fourth centuries, would appear to be the last conditionalist spokesman among the Fathers (Froom, I, 917). His definition of final punishment of the unsaved leaves no doubt as to his view of the soul's nature:

This is man's real death, this which leaves nothing behind. For that which is seen by the eyes is only a separation of soul from body, not the last endannhilation: this, I say, is man's real death,when souls which know not God shall be consumed in long-protracted torment with raging fire (Against the Heathen 2:14).

Before moving to the rise of the immortal soul doctrine it should be mentioned that, in this area of thought, the pressing issue was that of ultimate reconciliation (the teaching that all mankind will eventually be saved) versus eternal torment of the unrighteous. Even this arena of conflict drew far less attention than the Christological controversies of the day. More precisely, the position taken by ultimate reconciliationists was that the punishments of the condemned are not eternal, but only remedial; the devil himself being capable of amelioration." Its leading spokesman was Origen (ca. 185-254) of Alexandria. It is noted that, while it is not essential to universalism, Origen affirmed innate immortality (Hagenbach, p. 221).

Athenagoras (ca. 127-190), however, appears to be the first Ante-Nicene ecclesiastic to assert innate immortality. Writing after the Apostolic Fathers, he states matter-of-factly that the soul is immortal (The Resurrection of the Dead, chs. 13, 20, 23, 24).

The better known Tertullian (ca. 160-240) of Carthage penned that "the soul, then, we define to be sprung from the breath of God, immortal. ..." He adds, "Some things are known even by nature: the immortality of the soul, for instance, is held by many; the knowledge of God is possessed by all. I will use, therefore, the opinion of a Plato when asserting 'Every soul is immortal.'" (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. 3).

Such quotations as these express the rising trend of belief in natural immortality. With Augustine (354-430), bishop of Hippo and the most illustrious of the Latin Fathers, the die was cast. He was the first Christian philosopher in the West to write a formal treatise on the immortality of the soul.

Therefore, if the soul . . .is the subject in which reason is inseparably present, then, by the same logical necessity with which reason being in the soul is proved, reason is immortal; so the soul, since the soul can be only a living soul.

The influence of Augustinian theology through the next millennium cannot be overstressed. Its dominance was such that the medieval church was virtually a unit in holding the doctrine of inherent immortality. Complete annihilation of evil was rejected as heretical by the fifth century.

Many have asserted that the rise of immortal-soulism has its roots in the influence of pagan thought and Greek philosophy. That, however, is outside the scope of this paper.

In closing, we frame the entire discussion within this perspective:

The whole question, however, had more of a philosophical than Christian bearing, as the idea of immortality itself is abstract negative. On the other hand, the believer by faith lays hold of eternal life in Christ as something real and concrete. The Christian doctrine of immortality cannot therefore be considered apart from the person, work, and kingdom of Christ, and rests upon Christian views and promises (Hagenbach, p. 223).

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Immortality from the Apostolic Fathers to Augustine

MLB Hall of Fame: Their mortality brought them immortality – Call to the Pen

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If Dick Allen, who died Monday, is as many expect elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame next year, he will be only the latest in a string of stars whose immortality appeared to have been enhanced by their mortality.

Allen is considered one of the most likely candidates for enshrinement when the Golden Days committee convenes a year from now. Allen was most recently on a Veterans Committee ballot in 2015. He and Tony Oliva led the field, but both fell one vote short of election.

Between 1983 and 1997, Allens candidacy was considered 14 times by the Baseball Writers Association of America, but he never emerged as a leading candidate. In fact, under present rules, his name would have been removed from the ballot in 1983, when he was supported by just 3.7 percent in his first year of eligibility.

Allens candidacy peaked at 18.9 percent in 1996, when he finished 11th. He was a career .292 batter with 351 home runs and 1,119 RBIs over a 15-season career. Playing for the Chicago White Sox, Allen led the American League in both home runs (37) and RBIs (113) in 1972, and led again in home runs in 1974, when he hit 32.

He played nine of his 15 seasons with the Philadelphia in two stints, 1963 through 1969 and 1975-76.

Allen played in one post-season series, the 1976 NLCS, which his Phillies lost to the Cincinnati Reds.

As maudlin as it sounds, Hall decision-makers have a long history of overlooking a candidate until his death, and then suddenly sweeping him into enshrinement. At least a half dozen times in the course of the Halls history, candidates lingered on the ballot well into old age without receiving the necessary support, then were elected at the earliest opportunity following their mortality.

Were not talking here about enshrinees like Roberto Clemente or Lou Gehrig, who were quickly inducted in circumstances anticipating or immediately following an early death. Nor does it consider non-players such as Marvin Miller, who was elected last year following his death, which followed many years of consideration of his candidacy.

Heres a look at one of the Halls oddest, most awkward, election tendenciesone that may find Dick Allen next in the starring role.

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MLB Hall of Fame: Their mortality brought them immortality - Call to the Pen

Genomics and genre – Science Magazine

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If the double helix is an icon of the modern age, then the genome is one of the last grand narratives of modernity, writes Lara Choksey in her new book, Narrative in the Age of the Genome. Hybridizing literary criticism with a genre-spanning consideration of a dozen distinct literary works, and imbued throughout with deep concern for the peripheral, the possible, and the political, the book seeks to challenge the whole imaginative apparatus for constructing the self into a coherent narrative, via the lexicon and syntax of the molecular.

To a reading of Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene (1976) as a repudiation of class struggle and E. O. Wilson's Sociobiology (1975) as a defense of warfare, Choksey juxtaposes another kind of ambiguous heterotopia in which genetic engineering is a tool of neoliberal self-fashioning. In Samuel R. Delany's Trouble on Triton (1976), Bron, a transgender ex-gigolo turned informatics expert, is caught between sociobiology and the selfish gene, between the liberal developmentalism of progressive evolution, and the neoliberal extraction and rearrangement of biological information. Even the undulating interruptions and parentheticals of Bron's thoughts [mimic] the description of the activation and silencing of genes, she suggests, tying together gene and genre in a way that encapsulates neoliberal alienation.

Choksey next explores the ways in which collectivist fantasies of biological reinvention under Soviet Lysenkoism fused code and cultivation through a close reading of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic (1972) in which cultivated utopian dreamworlds become contaminated by alien forces, resulting in fundamental ecological transformations beyond the promised reach of human control. The novel brings to light not forgotten Soviet utopias but literal zombies and mutations. In a world where planned cultivation fails entirely in the face of the unfamiliar, even as new biological weapons are being developed, Earth itself viscerally reflects a fractured reality of lost promisesa world in crisis with all meaning gone, and survival itself a chancy proposition.

Framed as a family history, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is actually a horror story, argues Choksey.

As the promise of precision medicine emerged, so too did new forms of memoir. In Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005) and the film Gattaca (1997), for example, the traditional aspirational narrative of a pilgrim's progress is subverted: As the unitary subject disappears into data, algorithms, and commodities, a new grammar of existence emerges, albeit one in which the inherited problems of the pastracism, ableism, and the fiction of heteronormativityremain ever-present.

In Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother (2006) and Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing (2016), Choksey sees a reorientation of genomics away from the reduction of self to code and toward new forms of kinship and belonging that offer a reckoning with the histories of brutalization and displacement upon which liberal humanism is founded. Even as genomics seeks to locate the trauma of enslavement at the level of the molecular, communities seeking reunion and reparation know that technology alone cannot do the cultural work of caring for history that narrative can offer.

Reading Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) as a biography of Black horror which tries, time and again, to resolve itself as family romance, Choksey identifies the perils of narratives unable to recognize their own genre. She argues that by blurring the lines not between fact and fiction but between horror and family history, the dehumanization of Black lives as experimental biomatter echoes inescapably with larger histories of the extraction of Black flesh for the expansion of colonial-capitalist production.

What emerges as most compelling out of this entire tapestry of readings is the author's interpretation of the limits and failures of the extraordinary cultural power of the genome. Concluding that genomics has privileged a particular conception of the human that is in the process of being reconfigured, Choksey ventures that the uncomplicated subject, the Vitruvian Man of the Human Genome Project, has reached its end. What is left is neither dust, stardust, nor a face erased in the sand (as Foucault would have it) but rather whatever might emerge next from the unwieldy kaleidoscope of possible meanings.

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Genomics and genre - Science Magazine

The 50 Best Albums Of 2020 – Wisconsin Public Radio News

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At certain moments, 2020 felt like a year that might not ever come to an end. Now that it's mostly in our rear view, can a retrospective give a shape to that swarm of weeks and months? Can we make sense of layer upon layer of fear, anger, frustration, confusion, exhilaration and exhaustion that piled up like soil falling over our heads? Sometimes art breaks through. Better to think of the best music of 2020 as an urgent cacophony of distinct voices rather than a chorus with a single melody. Many voices, with many stories to tell. Here are the 50 best albums of a year unlike any we can remember.

The 50 Best Albums Of 2020:50-41 / 40-31 / 30-21 / 20-11 / 10-1

For decades, country and Americana fans have marveled at Mavericks frontman Raul Malo's ringing tenor, asking each other, "Where does it come from?" Here's one answer. Malo grew up bilingual in Miami, in a Cuban family, and throughout his career he's taken cues from a global array of Spanish-language music in honing his own sound. The band's first all-Spanish language album shows its mastery in many forms, from Mexican son jarocho to Cuban mambo and the Mexican-American Tejano sound. The Mavericks originated as a Florida party band, and brings its trademark verve and versatility to a set that persuades instead of posturing, expanding minds by melting hearts. Ann Powers

Rina Sawayama makes pristine pop about messy feelings. Her debut full-length album, SAWAYAMA, is an air-locked vessel of glossy Y2K pop and nu-metal drama, matching the weight of unresolved emotions with spot-on, glittering production at each emotional cue. On its most bombastic and quiet tracks alike, SAWAYAMA never falters in its emotional specificity. "STFU!" channels its righteous nu-metal rage against the racism Sawayama has experienced in her life and career, with exquisite payoff. "XS" is a hyper-packaged metacommentary on capitalist excess bubbling with anxiety on the long-term devastation of extraction in art and consumerism. "Bad Friend" explores the particular devastation of feeling like a failure in friendship through the memory of a night out in Tokyo. Sawayama never reduces these subjects depression, navigating her Japanese and British identity, intergenerational trauma to a digestible pop formula, instead detonating each one into songs whose strength lies in keeping every nerve ending bare. Stefanie Fernndez

"Take a trip to Muthaland," BbyMutha raps over an energetic trap beat in "Cocaine Catwalk." You have to surrender to the suggestion; Muthaland is the ultimate vacation destination, a getaway into BbyMutha's life and rich interiority as she waxes poetic about sex, regretful baby daddies, gatekeeping Black culture and music, surveillance, crushing expectations from fans and the joys of raising her children. On her first official album, BbyMutha opts for bravado in the face of doubt and skepticism. At 25 tracks, it's a loaded project, but nothing feels extraneous. She spends just over an hour oscillating between the predatory nature of entertainment culture and living her life in earnest. Her Southern drawl commands attention, highlighting the versatility of her flows. With all of the album's whimsicality, it may be her most personal music to date. LaTesha Harris

In an album of kaleidoscopic color, light and shade, the Icelandic pianist sets up a fascinating musical "dialog" between two French radicals who lived some 200 years apart. The baroque-era Jean-Philippe Rameau literally wrote the book on French harmony, while Claude Debussy, in the early 20th century, threw its ideas out the window, as lafsson says. Pieces from each composer seem to be in conversation with each other. Debussy's respect for Rameau's keyboard style is found in "The Snow is Dancing." It sits beside Rameau's "Les tendres plaints," which unfolds in striking, almost Debussy-like harmonies. A highlight of this endlessly listenable album is "The Arts and the Hours," lafsson's own beautifully measured, transfixing arrangement of a scene from Rameau's final opera sure to lower you blood pressure by at least 10 points. Tom Huizenga

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During the last 25 seconds of the title track of Brent Faiyaz's second studio album, F*** the World, the singer-songwriter describes his audience as people who possibly engage in "empathetic narcissism." While Faiyaz may be projecting, he at least knows what his listeners want to hear. F*** the World is a journey, equally vulnerable and facetious, through Faiyaz's universe, one that has been turned upside down by fame and fortune. Songs like the contemplative "Clouded" speak directly to the infinite thoughts flooding Faiyaz's mind at any given moment, while the Timbaland-influenced "Been Away" is more simple and straight-forward a vibe to cruise to. At 26 minutes long, F*** the World plays like a short peek into the life of one of R&B's rising stars. Kiana Fitzgerald

Set My Heart on Fire Immediately opens with an inhale, instantly reminding you that a physical human body is responsible for the music you're about to hear. Perfume Genius' Mike Hadreas participated in a series of modern dance performances before making this album, which helped him connect the body and the mind. This is an album that you feel, that is designed to be danced to, full of sensuous drama and drumbeats that might as well be the sound of your heart pounding. Hadreas also takes physical leaps with his voice, soaring above the propulsive pop of "On The Floor," near-whisper tip-toeing over the grungey guitars of "Desire," stretching into the heights of his falsetto in "Jason" and pitched-down to the ground in "Leave." That physicality extends to the lyrics, too; themes like touch, movement, the human form and intimacy are made all the more exhilarating given the circumstances of the year it was released. In a time of social distancing Set My Heart on Fire Immediately feels like actual human connection. Raina Douris (World Cafe)

Mary Lattimore plays the harp like the wind moves through leaves in circles that slowly spiral outward, shifting the scenery in small gestures that open to wide vistas. Classically trained, but unmoored to classical figures, she builds small, looping worlds out of effects pedals and synthesizers. For Silver Ladders, she's joined by producer Neil Halstead. With more than 30 years of making pretty music that's just a little bit sad, he's a sympathetic companion, especially when he adds ambient guitar to a few tracks. But like Halstead's work with Slowdive and Mojave 3, Lattimore's music is what you bring to its reflective beauty, in melodic shades of mourning, quietude and peace. Lars Gotrich

There could have been no better year for Spider Tales -- Jake Blount's exquisite exploration of Black and Indigenous Appalachia than 2020, when everything seemed to go wrong and we were all sent home by the power of nature to think about what we've done. Joined by an all-star cast of string players, Blount titled his finest work yet for the creative spider god Anansi of Akan mythology. Then he leaned into the timeless pairing of fiddle and banjo for songs about hard times, rural life and mortality that highlight the impeccable, too-often overlooked styles and voices that have fueled folk music since before there was a name with which to categorize and sell it. Kim Ruehl (Folk Alley)

"Come to a place where everything's everything," Bartees Strange sings on "Jealousy," an apt description of a debut album that grabs from emo breakdowns, hip-hop cadences, indie-rock riffs, glitchy production and gentle minimalism. Though many of the songs are about feeling hemmed in, Live Forever is purposefully expansive, grounded in a singular vision. "These songs make sense because I'm Black and because my voice ties these songs together," he told NPR Music. It takes conviction to gesture, as the title does, toward immortality, especially in a music industry that has never adequately valued Black musicians, that insists on categorization ("Genres keep us in our boxes," he bemoans on "Mossblerd"), that says putting all your chips on your art is too big a risk. Luckily for us, Bartees Strange has it. Marissa Lorusso

Left savoring the tasty morsels of 2017's critically-acclaimed Drunk and 2018's Drank (its "chopped not slopped" remix album), it was an absolute pleasure to sink hungry ears into Thundercat's It Is What It Is this year. The bassist born Stephen Bruner blurs genre boundaries, dishing out dizzying acrobatics on "How Sway," beefy funk vibes on "Black Qualls" (featuring Steve Lacy, Steve Arrington and Childish Gambino) and cheeky R&B hilarity on "Dragonball Durag." Coproduced by longtime collaborator Flying Lotus, It Is What It Is drips with curtains of lush vocals. The album chronicles a broken heart's analysis of grief and its subsequent recovery by asking probing questions and finding joy where it can to survive pain, uncertainty, rejection and isolation. It's an enchanting tale of hope and growth in a year that served us heaping portions of gloom and melancholy. Nikki Birch

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The 50 Best Albums Of 2020 - Wisconsin Public Radio News

‘Lovecraft Country’: What to Expect From the Season Finale – Hollywood Reporter

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This Sunday (Aug. 18), the first season of Lovecraft Country reaches its epic conclusion, and the stakes couldn't be higher.

With the series having significantly departed from Matt Ruff's novel of the same name over the course of the past few episodes, there's no telling what showrunner Misha Green has in store for viewers with the finale. But given Lovecraft Country's penchant for emotional devastation, genre-bending insanity, historical and contemporary significance (and, of course, bloodshed), there's no doubt that the finale will travel to hell and back perhaps literally.

Before we make the trip, now is the perfect time to backtrack where the show has been and theorize about where it might be headed. Ahead, six final predictions before the Lovecraft finale airs.

Tic's Fate

At the center of the impending finale is Tic's (Jonathan Majors) life, which Christina (Abbey Lee) plans to sacrifice on the autumnal equinox in order to gain immortality. Ji-Ah (Jamie Chung) has had visions of Tic dying, but doesn't know how, and Tic's future son George Freeman recounts in his novel (also titled Lovecraft Country) that his father died on the autumnal equinox.

Ji-Ah's vision saw Tic unconscious and strapped to a wooden surface, presumably in the moments before his death. But, as we learned from the multiverse machine, the future is fluid and it's possible Ji-Ah saw a vision of another world in which Tic dies, a possibility of his fate rather than the final outcome.

There's also the fact that Tic has a monster of his own: a vampire, or shoggoth, that Christina doesn't know about, that could help turn the tide somehow. And of course, Hippolyta (Aunjanue Ellis) has returned with 200 years of multiversal knowledge, a new moniker, Motherboard, and a resolve to save her family that's stronger than ever. With a monster, Hippolyta, Leti, Montrose (Michael K Williams), Dee (Jada Harris), and maybe Ji-Ah at his side, Tic has quite the force behind him, while Christina stands alone, except forwell, we'll get to that. Given Tic's status as Lovecraft Country's male lead, and his journey towards becoming a hero, a family patriarch, and learning magic, it seems like a safe bet that he will survive the finale and live to fight another day.

Christina's Plan

There's no way Christina succeeds with her plan, right? For Tic to live, Christina's plan has to fail, which means she won't achieve immortality. The finale is titled Full Circle, and with a title like that it's hard not to wonder if Christina will face the same fate as her father, Samuel Braithwhite (Tony Goldwyn).

But much like Tic, it's doubtful that there's death in Christina's future. Lovecraft Country is as much her story as it is the Freemans', and, at least for right now, she's the most prominent living metaphor for white privilege and white ancestral evil in the show. There's still too much that remains unknown about the world of magic, and Christina, for better or worse, is the best source for that information.

The role of white women in the continued systemic oppression of Black people is an ongoing conversation, and it seems that even if Christina doesn't achieve her goal this season, she'll still be a significant part of Lovecraft Country's future.

Ji-Ah

Ji-Ah still remains something of a wild card. She traveled to Chicago in order to warn Tic, but Tic shunned her and denied any love they ever shared. Despite the undeniable connection between the two characters, it seems Tic has made his choice. And now with Leti given a more equal footing in the world of magic, and the fact that she carries Tic's child, it seems there's little room for Ji-Ah to re-enter Tic's world romantically.

While Ji-Ah's return might seem like the perfect opportunity for a love triangle, Lovecraft Country has continually pushed against expectations and television tropes. For Tic to be drawn back to Ji-Ah, of his own volition, simply doesn't feel like an honest character choice. So where does Ji-Ah go from there? Does she remain on the side of good, or is she pulled into the dark? Expect to see her show up in the finale, but for her goals to remain enigmatic as ever.

Ruby's White Side

Ruby (Wunmi Mosaku) has made some decisions in the last couple episodes, to say the least. She's a woman who wants what she wants, and hooking up with Christina certainly hasn't made her a better person. While she tentatively patched things up with Leti, expect to see the sisters at odds once more. Christina is the path to the life Ruby wants, and because of this she may be willing to stand against her entire family and side with Christina, even if that means trying to sacrifice Tic.

In the previous episode viewers saw Ruby callously cut the oxygen to Dell's (Jamie Nuemann) comatose body, and express her desire to inhabit the body of a white woman with red-hair. I predict that the end of the season will find Ruby fully aligned with Christina, and ready to kill a white woman and become the next season's big bad.

From Patriarchs to Matriarchs

In The Hollywood Reporter's recent conversation with Jonathan Majors, the actor discussed Tic's journey to becoming the patriarch of the Freemans. But at the center of Lovecraft Country's story of strength and resilience has been Black women. It's hard to argue against the fact that Leti and Hippolyta are better equipped to lead the family than Tic or Montrose. While the finale will undoubtedly leave all of the major characters significantly changed, Leti and Hippolyta might have the most to gain.

I predict it will ultimately be Leti and Hippolyta's efforts that save Tic and pave the way for the future of the Freeman family, both in terms of Leti's child, and Hippolyta becoming a science fiction hero straight out of Dee's comic books.

Dee and the Future

With the Book of Names on hand, the Freemans now have the ability to save Dee. But saving her doesn't mean she'll be safe. She's been touched by the world of magic now and there's no going back.

While Christina doesn't know it yet, Dee is Tic's half-sister, which means her blood could be just as useful to Christina's as Tic's. There's also the factor of Dee's drawings, which previously simply suggested she was a great artist and paid homage to overlooked female comic creators of the mid-20th century. But those drawings could mean something more. From the skull over Ardham, to Hippolyta growing ever closer to resembling Orithyia Blue, it's possible Dee may be a seer, with supernatural insights into the future.

Returning to The Hollywood Reporter's conversation with Jonathan Majors, blood memory was central to the discussion, and if magic exists in Tic then it must certainly exist within Dee. But that's not all. When Tic traveled to the future, or a possible future, through the multiverse machine, he said he saw white people rioting in the streets and a hooded woman with a metal arm gave him the book, Lovecraft Country by George Freeman. Viewers saw that Dee's arm was damaged by her encounter with Topsy and Bopsy. Perhaps in order for her family to save her, they'll have to remove her arm.

I predict that Dee is the hooded woman with the metal arm in the future, and that the very end of the season finale will give viewers a peak at that future world Tic visited and set the stage for season two. We'll see just how close these predictions are when season one of Lovecraft Country concludes Sunday night.

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'Lovecraft Country': What to Expect From the Season Finale - Hollywood Reporter

Miracle on the Hudson pilot trashes Trump in new ad – Yahoo News

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Capt. Chesley Sullenberger knows a thing or two about leadership -- and the Miracle on the Hudson pilot says President Trump doesnt have what it takes.

The man who saved 155 passengers when he made a successful 2009 emergency landing in the river blasts Trump in a new ad released by the #NeverTrump conservative Lincoln Project.

Serving a cause greater than ones self is the highest calling. And its in that highest calling of leadership that Donald Trump has failed us so miserably, Sullenberger says.

Sullenberger, a retired Air Force pilot from a military family, spoke out this month when reports claimed Trump derided veterans as suckers for sacrificing for the common good.

The pilot recalled his own heroics by urging Americans to step up to the plate and send Trump packing.

Eleven years ago, I was called to my moment. Now, we are all called to this moment, Sullenberger says in the ads conclusion. All we have to do is vote him out.

Sullenberger, who is remembered fondly as Sully by New Yorkers, won a place in Gotham immortality when he steered crippled US Airways Flight 1549 to a safe landing in the Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009. Everyone onboard the flight survived.

The episode, instantly dubbed the Miracle of the Hudson," cheered the spirits of a nation battered by the great recession in the days before President Obama took office.

2020 New York Daily News

Visit New York Daily News at http://www.nydailynews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Lucifer fans call out confusing plot hole with the devils immortality after tense shoot-out in season 5 – The Sun

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FANS of Lucifer have called out a plot inconsistency in season 5.

Avid viewers have noticed the plot hole in the fantasy drama following a shoot-out between Dan Espinoza and Lucifer.

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Fans are still confused why some attacks seem to affect Lucifer (Tom Ellis) more than others - while other times he remains untouchable.

The scene in question was when Dan pulled a gun out and shot Lucifer when he admitted to being the Prince of Darkness.

The inconsistency came to light after the bullet bounced straight off him with Lucifer fans questioning the shooting and the effect it had/didn't have on him.

They took to Reddit to debate whether Lucifer should have been knocked to the ground when Dan shot him in the chest.

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A fan posted: How is it that when Dan shot Lucifer he fell backwards, but other times he got shot with a full clip but didn't even blink?

Another replied: This is one of the most inconsistent things about the show, I think their explanation might be that when it's unexpected it hits differently, kinda like tensing up before getting punched.

A fan added: "Only hours later, Dan attempts to shoot him and he's invulnerable again. I imagine it has a lot to do with the conversation he and Chloe had just had, but part of me's hoping that being unable to help his partner has something to do with him suddenly becoming bulletproof."

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Meanwhile, the final season will have fewer episodes as Netflix struggles to get the cast to set.

The streaming giant made the decision to chop the number of episodes in the sixth season down to ten from 16.

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Filming for the second half of season five will kick off later this month as production was put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Lucifer's cast and crew will then immediately begin shooting for season six, albeit with fewer episodes to work on, according toTV Line.

There has been a lot of last minute changes that the team has had to grapple with as Netflix originally extended the number of episodes on seasons five to compensate for the chopped up season.

The writers had to complete rewrite the ending to season five, not only because Netflix added extra episodes, but also because the streaming decided the fifth season would not be the show's last.

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Lucifer fans call out confusing plot hole with the devils immortality after tense shoot-out in season 5 - The Sun

Saint of the Day: Sts Cornelius and Cyprian – Wednesday, September 16 – Aleteia EN

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Martyrs (d. Third Century)

Their story

+ Cornelius was elected bishop of Rome in 251. As pope, he fought against various heresies and, with the help of the bishop Cyprian, he also worked to enforce the papal authority.

+ Driven into exile by the Emperor Gallus, Cornelius died in 253. His body was later returned to Rome and buried in the Cemetery of St. Callistus.

+ Cyprian was born to pagan parents in Carthage (North Africa) around the year 210.

+ After his conversion to Christianity, Cyprian was ordained and became bishop of Carthage in 249. Through his writings and pastoral care, Cyprian guided his flock through difficult times.

+ Cyprian was martyred during the persecution of the emperor Valerius, in the year 258.

+ These two martyrs have been honored with a common feast for several centuries and their names are included in the Roman Canon (the First Eucharistic Prayer).

+ Pope Saint Cornelius is invoked as a patron of those suffering from earaches, fevers, and those with epilepsy. Saint Cyprian is honored as the patron of Algeria and all of North Africa.

For prayer and reflection

You cannot have God for your Father if you do not have the Church for your mother. God is one and Christ is one, and his Church is one; one is the faith, and one is the people cemented together by harmony into the strong unity of a body.Saint Cyprian

Spiritual bonus

On this day we also honor the memory of Saint Ninian. The son of a Briton chieftain, he was born in Cumbria (Britain) and later studied in Rome under Pope Saint Damasus I. After being consecrated a bishop, he returned home and began a lifetime of missionary work in Scotland. Saint Ninian died around the year 432. He remains one of the great saints of the Scottish church and he is honored as the Apostle of Northern Britain.

Prayer

God our Father, in Saints Cornelius and Cyprian you have given your people an inspiring example of dedication to the pastoral ministry and constant witness to Christ in their suffering. May their prayers and faith give us courage to work for the unity of your Church. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(from The Roman Missal)

Saint profiles prepared by Brother Silas Henderson, S.D.S.

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The truth about Altered Carbon’s mystery creatures – Looper

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In an interview with Inverse, Morgan explained his model for the Elders. "Something I learned very early on in my trade, is that with aliens, the closer you get to them, the more difficult it is to make them stick," the author explained. "What I've done is sort of cheated by saying there are aliens but they're all gone and we don't know much about them or understand what they've left behind, and we're scrambling around for clues."

Although the show and the books have slightly different takes, as can be expected, it appears the Elders were always meant to be somewhat unknown and ominous. Viewers are, in fact, still scrambling around for clues, even after season 2, as so much about the Elders remains unclear. Whereas in Morgan's books all the aliens have been gone for tens of thousands of years, if not longer, the show has one of them still alive and well. Morgan admits that keeping the aliens a mystery makes it easier to not have to fully explain them while still alluding to the fact that they should be somewhat feared.The show appears to take these mysterious beings and shed some light on them a change Morgan completely understands. "In the show, there's mention of them being an intensely militaristic species, but in the books, depending on who you are as a person, you project onto them what you want them to be."

That, of course, doesn't make the aliens any easier to pin down, but Morgan does make it clear that "we do know they were fighting either amongst themselves or fighting someone else."

While the Elders aren't from Mars in the TV series, the books featured an alien ship that belonged to Martians. Morgan imagined the aliens to be "pterodactyl-like," perhaps a combination of "a pterodactyl and a fruit bat." Even still, Morgan explains that the books don't tell much about the "mummified corpses" that are found on the ship.One of the biggest questions the audience has after season 2 is how the Elders' technology works, but Morgan doesn't hammer home a definitive answer. The audience, it appears, is supposed to accept the fact that these aliens created technology that's incomprehensible to humans humans who are bound to have their own interpretations.

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Our Thought AdjustersPart 19: The Attainment of Immortality – BlogTalkRadio

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This week we resume our study with the fourth paper in this series on the Mystery Monitors, we'll be readingPaper 110, Relation of Adjusters to Individual Mortals,7. The Attainment of Immortality. This last section isthe study of our attainment of eternal union with our Thought Adjuster and its implications.

When a human being has completed the circles of cosmic achievement, and further, when the final choosing of the mortal will permits the Adjuster to complete the association of human identity with the morontial soul during evolutionary and physical life, then do such consummated liaisons of soul and Adjuster go on independently to the mansion worlds, and there is issued the mandate from Uversa which provides for the immediate fusion of the Adjuster and the morontial soul. This fusion during physical life instantly consumes the material body; the human beings who might witness such a spectacle would only observe the translating mortal disappear in chariots of fire.

Most Adjusters who have translated their subjects from Urantia were highly experienced and of record as previous indwellers of numerous mortals on other spheres. Remember, Adjusters gain valuable indwelling experience on planets of the loan order; it does not follow that Adjusters only gain experience for advanced work in those mortal subjects who fail to survive.

Subsequent to mortal fusion the Adjusters share your destiny and experience;they are you.(1212.35)110:7.24,

The ear of the human mind is almost deaf to the spiritual pleas which the Adjuster translates from the manifold messages of the universal broadcasts of love proceeding from the Father of mercies. ...toan animal mind so completely dominated by the chemical and electrical forces inherent in your physical natures. (1213.1) 110:7.6

http://tobtr.com/11802600

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Bill Higgins: Talking Ted, 60 years after his final, heroic swing – Cape Cod Times

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The major league baseball season is winding down, even if it feels like it just began (because it did). Youre excused, however, if you havent been paying attention.

It has been an abysmal couple of months in Boston. The Red Sox, who only two years ago won 119 games and the World Series, have managed a dubious double. Theyre boring and irrelevant, on their way to losing close to 40 games in an abbreviated 60-game season.

Heres a quickie quiz. What do Mike Kickham, Phillips Valdez, Robert Stock, Andrew Triggs, Austin Brice and Jeffrey Springs have in common? Ding-ding-ding. Youre a winner if you guessed theyve all pitched for the Red Sox in 2020.

Now be honest. You didnt have a clue. I didnt either. I cheated and looked it up.

Where have you gone, Drew Pomeranz? Or John Wasdin, for that matter.

So lets turn to a more enjoyable subject this morning. That would be the 60th anniversary of Ted Williams final game. It was September 28, 1960, a Wednesday afternoon at Fenway Park and those Red Sox were also dreadful, closing out a 65-89 campaign, a mere 32 games behind the Yankees.

Of course, all good Sox fans only remember that the great Splendid Splinter went out with a thunderous bang, smashing a towering home run in the final at bat of his Hall of Fame career. He circled the bases, crossed home plate and disappeared into the first base dugout.

Many of those fans and they would have to be about 70 years or older today might tell you they were there for the moment immortalized by John Updikes seminal New Yorker essay Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu. In truth, Updikes lyric little bandbox of a ballpark, was sparsely filled with only 10,455 on hand, and who knows how many had left Fenway by the eighth inning when Teddy Ballgame connected off Baltimores Jack Fisher.

I was not there that day. I was just 6 years old when Williams retired in 1960 and never saw him play a game in his 21-year career.

Over 43 years at the Times, my bosses wallets provided me the privilege to witness many wonderful achievements. I covered Carlton Fisks epic homer (If it stays fair) in the 1975 World Series. I saw a Muhammad Ali title bout in New Orleans. I watched Seve Ballesteros win a Masters green jacket. I witnessed Marvin Hagler destroy Tommy Hearns in Las Vegas. I was at the finish line when Meb Keflezighi emotionally won the 2014 Boston Marathon the year after the bombing.

But never seeing Ted Williams at the plate is regret.

However, a suitable consolation prize came on a March day in the 1980s when the Red Sox still held spring training in Winter Haven, Florida. Williams was a special instructor and would arrive in camp each year, mostly to spend time with minor leaguers.

One morning I skipped those tedious drills of pitchers covering first base and wandered down to a back field at Chain OLakes Park. Williams was there in a golf cart, wearing baseball pants, a tattered blue nylon jacket and a Red Sox cap. He was in his mid-60s then, but still a man in full, animated and loud.

Williams sat close to the batting cage to observe young players hitting. He would bark, his language often laced with salty curses. Occasionally he would climb from his cart with a bat and, as Updike wrote, wring resin out of the bat handle with his vehement grip, switching the stick at the pitcher with an electric ferocity.

Williams was dissecting the science of hitting. (He wrote the book with John Underwood with that title). He was teaching, his strong hands, like a surgeons, sliced through the air at imaginary fastballs, his eyes blazing as if Jack Fisher was again 60 feet, 6 inches away. Hed spit some tobacco juice and return to his golf cart. And resume cursing.

I spent most of the morning as close to Williams as possible, a fly on the wall or bug in the grass. It was as if watching Michelangelo at work on the Sistine Chapel or the sculpture of David. Who knows if the wide-eyed rookies understood the genius of the lessons? Updike again, writing after Williams final majestic swing in 1960:

The ball climbed on a diagonal line into the vast volume of air over center field. It was in the books while it was still in the sky. He ran as he always ran out home runs hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didnt tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted We want Ted for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. Gods do not answer letters.

Williams was 83 when he died in 2002. He once famously said his goal was to walk down the street and have folks say there goes the greatest hitter who ever lived. For sure, he has a seat at the table. He won the batting title six times and had a career average of .344. In his final season, at 42 years old, he batted .316 with 29 home runs. And, of course, he hit .406 in 1941.

Sadly, in death, Williams is not remembered enough as a baseball legend or an American hero who served his country in two wars as a fighter pilot. Instead, there are those sordid stories of his head being severed and frozen, with his torso. They are stored at an Arizona cryonics company in a macabre, twilight zone hope he can be thawed out and resurrected.

But not here. I choose to see him still on that sun-splashed spring day. He was no longer The Kid, but he was every bit the one and only Ted Williams, and that fond memory endures.

Retired Cape Cod Times sports editor Bill Higgins can be contacted at bhiggins54@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillHigginsCCT

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‘The Water Man’: Toronto Review | Reviews | Screen – Screen International

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Dir. David Oyelowo. US. 2020. 92 mins

The directorial debut from David Oyelowo is a rewarding, (older) family-friendly adventure which packs some crisply executed moments of nail-biting peril into a moving story which deals with grief, loss and newly forged friendships.

Oyelowos intention is to enable young black children to see themselves represented in the kind of rich adventure fantasy picture which has its roots in 1980s Hollywood

Gunner (a lovely, soulful performance from Lonnie Chavis) and his family have newly moved to the town of Pine Mills. But Gunner has to adjust not only to being the new kid in town, but to building a relationship with the largely absent father Amos (David Oyelowo) who has resigned his naval commission to care for Gunners gravely ill mother Mary (Rosario Dawson). An avid reader, Gunner (12 years-old, at a guess) stumbles on a book which suggests that the local legend of The Water Man might hold the clue to saving his mother. His quest to find the mythical figure that haunts the forests unites him with Jo (Amiah Miller), a girl who weaves fantastic stories to cushion herself from a sadder truth.

Oyelowos intention with the film was to enable young black children to see themselves represented in the kind of rich adventure fantasy picture which has its roots in 1980s Hollywood. Spielberg is a clear influence, as is Stand By Me, but theres also a thematic parallel with the more recent A Monster Calls. The pictures scariness will take it out of the domain of younger kids, but older children and teenagers should relish the skittering menace of threats both real and imagined. Its a film which would benefit from the collective experience of a theatrical release but could certainly hold its own on a VOD platform.

Closer to his creative mother than his authoritarian father, Gunner is a sensitive, artistic soul who draws a supernatural graphic novel in his spare time. His sketches are brought to life sporadically in little animated segments. But a more striking visual aspect is the films vivid drenching of colour. Vibrant amber hues flood into every frame from the hoodie that hangs on Gunners lean frame, to the graffiti on the walls to the light which glances off his cheekbones at night.

The choice of yellow ties into the mythology at the heart of the film. Alfred Molina, slightly underused as a cantankerous local eccentric, reveals a key back story about the mysterious Water Man, the tall, shadowy figure spotted by generations of locals emerging from a lake, with fire on his chest and hungry hope in his eyes.

Water Man was a past resident of the town who found a seam of glowing yellow rock while working in the mine. Shortly afterwards, a nearby dam burst, drowning all its inhabitants. All, except the man in possession of the rock, a mineral which has no value to the living but is invaluable to the dead. He came back to life and spent his immortality seething and searching for the remains of his dead wife so that she, too, could be reanimated.

Blue-haired outlaw kid Jo claims to have seen the Water Man, displaying a fresh scar on her neck as proof. Dishonesty is not in Gunners register; it doesnt occur to him to question her claims. So, equipped with his fathers samurai sword and all his savings, he sets off with Jo to learn the secrets that lurk in the woods. As locals repeatedly warn him, the forest is a pretty spooky place, and Oyelowo flirts with horror devices as indistinct shapes brush past the periphery of Gunners head torch. But in addition to the shadowy threats, theres a more immediate danger: a forest fire threatens to cut the children off from safety. The supernatural mystery morphs into a nail-biting escape.

While Gunner might not find what he had hoped for the film still finds a satisfying, if sadness-tinged conclusion which doesnt talk down to its young audience.

Production Company: ShivHans Pictures, Yoruba Saxon, Inc., Harpo Films

International Sales: Endeavour Content ecfilmsalesinfo@endeavorcontent.com

Producers: David Oyelowo, Carla Gardini, Shivani Rawat, Monica Levinson

Screenplay: Emma Needell

Editing: Blu Murray

Cinematography: Matthew J. Lloyd

Production design: Laurence Bennett

Music: Peter Baert

Main cast: David Oyelowo, Rosario Dawson, Lonnie Chavis, Amiah Miller, Alfred Molina, Maria Bello

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Wolverine: Logan Is the Only Hero Who Sees a SECRET Threat to the X-Men – CBR – Comic Book Resources

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After Wolverine found himself at the hands of Dracula, Logan realized a strong comparison between mutant resurrection and vampires.

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Wolverine #5, by Benjamin Percy, Viktor Bogdanovic, Matthew Wilson and VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.

In Wolverine #6, Logan found himself betrayed by the mutant Omega Red, who turned against his fellow mutants on Krakoa out of his true loyalty to Dracula and the Vampire Nation. The villain tricked Wolverine and sent him plunging underwater, where he ended up frozen solid and left in a block of ice. The vampires then placed the frozen block of Wolverine in a barn where Dracula joined them to help drain him of blood, allowing them to become Blade-like Daywalkers.

Luckily for Wolverine, three young teenage vampires found and rescued him. They were able to convince Logan they were there to save him and hoped his blood could cure them, which was not the case. But when Wolverine realized what was happening as the other vampires using his blood to attain more power, he saw a parallel with the resurrection system in Krakoa, where any mutant can be resurrected from the dead, essentially as they were.

This issue of Wolverine had two moments that created a strong parallel to the vampires and the mutants in Krakoa. Dracula was the first to point out the similarities, as he mentioned that Wolverine is a lot like himself and other vampires. He said that being almost immortal, they both lived through so much and witnessed horrors while those around them perished. Dracula noted that, just like him, Wolverine "knows even the sunniest day will be eaten by the night."

RELATED: Psylocke Just Put Down Marvel's Most WILD Mutant

While that could've be written off as villainous monologuing, Wolverine also had similar thoughts to what the new resurrection protocols meant to the mutants in Krakoa. As Wolverine headed into town to take on the two vampires that allied themselves with Dracula and consumed his blood, he had a theory about the current state of mutants as compared to the vampires that lived throughout the world.

It all started with Logan thinking about a story a man told him once in a bar. The man said that if a person used to be good and became wealthy, they became even better, donating money to charities or other worthy causes. However, if someone were bad and got rich, it would make him worse, possibly a very dangerous individual. Wolverine then realized that it could quickly happen with the mutants in Krakoa, where every mutant received forgiveness for their past sins. Mutants like Omega Red proved that this newfound trust was not always warranted.

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Wolverine: Logan Is the Only Hero Who Sees a SECRET Threat to the X-Men - CBR - Comic Book Resources

Canton City Council to receive invocation from Hindu cleric with noteworthy past – Peoria Journal Star

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CANTON -- Rajan Zed has recited Hindu prayers to open sessions of legislative bodies that range from the U.S. Senate to the Rockford City Council.

Shortly after 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Zed plans to give the invocation at the Canton City Council meeting. It is to be conducted remotely, over the Zoom video-conferencing platform.

Zed, a Nevada-based Hindu cleric, asked Canton officials if he could participate in the meeting. It isnt clear why. Canton Mayor Kent McDowell said hes aware of only three or four practicing Hindu families in his Fulton County city of about 14,000.

"I was concerned at first, because I was kind of stumped. Why Canton?" McDowell said.

"Im just thinking that the gentleman probably knows that there is a small population of practicing Hindus in this area, so hes reaching out to that area."

In granting Zed permission to offer the invocation, the mayor also cited constitutional protections regarding freedoms of speech and religion.

"I just felt like having been in law enforcement all my life and sworn to uphold the Constitution, this is the right thing to do," said McDowell, a former Canton police chief.

When McDowell first received an unsolicited email from Zed, the mayor thought the cleric was from Canton. But the immigrant from India resides about 1,800 miles to the west.

Zed is president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, based in the northern-Nevada city of Reno. According to Zed, the organization promotes Hindu identity and fosters interfaith dialogue.

Among other things, Zed helped lead a recent campaign against nightclubs using as decor statues Buddhists and Hindus consider sacred. He also was successful in persuading Wayfair, an online home-goods retailer, to stop selling a beach towel that featured an image of a Hindu deity.

In 2007, Zed offered the first official Hindu prayer in the U.S. Senate, where he appeared as a guest chaplain. Christian protesters in the Senate gallery apparently disrupted Zeds prayers.

According to reports, Zed has led prayers at numerous legislatures and councils, mostly in the American West. One published report suggested Zeds appearances usually arent controversial, although his background is somewhat of a mystery.

When Nick in the Morning twice asked Zed by email why he chose Canton as a prayer location, he did not answer. Instead, he responded with a list of Illinois locations where he had been welcomed. Among them were the state legislature and the Kane County Board.

"I requested Mayor Kent A. McDowell for scheduling me to read (the) invocation remotely in Canton City Council and he replied: Wed be happy to accommodate you," Zed wrote.

In a news release, Zed stated he plans to recite in the Sanskrit language from the Rigveda, an ancient collection of scriptures. Afterward, he intends to recite the prayers in English. His presentation is expected to last about three minutes.

"Lead us from the unreal to the real, Lead us from darkness to light, and Lead us from death to immortality," Zed wrote regarding the content of one of the prayers.

McDowell said he performed due diligence by internet about Zed before his request was approved.

At in-person Canton council meetings, a Christian minster usually offers an invocation. During remote meetings conducted since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, McDowell recites an invocation, with suggestions from local pastors.

"I think its important," McDowell said about the pre-meeting prayer.

Regarding Zeds scheduled appearance, McDowell said he received one message of complaint from a Canton resident.

"Why would you allow this to happen in our city? My simple response was its a First Amendment right," McDowell said.

That appeared to satisfy the complainant. McDowell also appears ready to satisfy other, non-Christian clerics who want to pray in front of the council before it gets down to business.

"If theres somebody who practices Judaism or Islam, I wouldnt deny anybody that right, either," the mayor said. "I dont believe I have the right to deny somebody like that."

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Lovecraft Country and the Specter of Racial Violence – SF Weekly

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Zeitgeisty with a capital Z: thats Lovecraft Country, HBOs adaptation of Matt Ruffs novel of the same name. In the series, a Korean war vet from the South Side of Chicago discovers that his familys roots are entangled with a group of diabolical conspirators. They are the Sons of Adam, based in a remote mansion in Ardham County Massachusetts.

The cast of Lovecraft Country must discover their connection to the blonde, blue-eyed members of this cult, led by the descendants of the fabulously wealthy explorer and slave-trader Titus Braithwaite. These villains, the whitest people this side of England, quest for immortality. They intend to crash the Gates of Eden and redo creation.

Ardham is a deliberate misspelling of Arkham, the shunned place that H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) wrote about in novels and stories. Arkham is a name to conjure with. It is the site of the ancient Miskatonic University and its forbidden library, and it is the source of Arkham Asylum in the Batman universe.

In the opening, the vet Atticus, called Tic, and played by the muscular and soulful Jonathan Majors is riding out of the South on a bus in 1954. The lady in the seat next to him in the Colored Section notices a confederate generals name on a bridge and comments, He fought for slavery. You dont get to put an ex in front of your name for that.

Lovecraft has the same indelible mark on him. The writers fertile imagination was tethered to a narrow mind. He was the creator of the cephalopod-God Cthulhu, of Herbert West the Re-Animator, and of that accursed tome, the mad Arab Abdul Alhazreds Necronomicon. His texts still give readers nightmares, but he was a virulent racist. His prose about elder gods and subterranean abominations was sadly informed by the kind of eugenic claptrap that was even bigger in the 1920s than it is now.

Here, ancient evil rhymes with the everyday terrors of American racism in a Jim Crow age, in Sundown Towns where Black faces are not to be seen after sunset. (Ardham is a Sunset County.) Not that the cities are any safer: as when the Chicago PD punishes a lady who crosses the color line with a rough ride, slamming her around in the back of a careening paddy wagon.

Tic is a big reader of pulp fantasy he was a spectacled geek until he went into the military and buffed up. When he went in, it caused a rift between him and his bitter father Montrose (played by Michael K. Williams). A cryptic letter from the vanished dad spurs Tics journey into mystery. Atticus heads to Ardham with his warm-hearted uncle George (Courtney B. Vance), the editor of a Green Book-like travel guide. This guide book showed people of color where they could eat and sleep on the road. The subject is far more intelligently handled here than in the sentimental, redemption-soaked 2018 movie Green Book.

And in the early episodes, the show speeds along in a marvelous vintage car, a maroon 1948 Packard Station Sedan with wood panels. (After months of quarantine, one wants to overpraise any scenes of driving on an open road.) This is a Mystery Machine if ever there was one.

Looking good behind the wheel is one of the shows standouts, Jurnee Smollett. She plays the gorgeous and untrustworthy Leti, Tics old high school friend, a fine-art photographer, and a reader of Lovecraftian horror herself. Shes in a prickly relationship with her half-sister Ruby (Wunmi Mosaku), a saloon singer of the style of Big Mama Thornton.

Id seen Smollett as Black Canary in Birds of Prey. There, she was a long-legged vigilante going around kicking guys in the chin, and I hadnt thought about her twice since the credits ended. In Lovecraft Country, Smollett is even more physical than she was when she was a superhero. And as is the case for Charlize Thereon, theres something about the 50s clothes and makeup that suits Smollett exceptionally well.

The cast returns to Chicago in the shows third episode for a straightforward haunted house chapter. Getting the cast off the road meant that Lovecraft Country started to lose momentum. Its a little frustrating since this show has so much going on. The deliberately anachronistic soundtrack works: Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets funny and corrosive Whiteys On the Moon is dubbed over a supernatural ordeal. Alice Smiths cover of Nina Simones version of Sinnerman on the end titles fits as well here as that song did at the end of David Lynchs Inland Empire. The production design is tops; consider all the work put in just to have a five-second exterior shot of the imaginary Denmark Vesey Bar and Grill. Wouldnt it be something if we could toast the memory of slave-revolt martyrs in bars named after them?

The best quality of this Jordan Peele- and JJ Abrams-produced series is the way that it looks not to Stephen King but to August Wilson (Fences).

Show-runner Misha Green (Underground) focuses on bruised family relations, frenemies, and frustrations, which is more interesting than watching the ensemble fighting hell-beasts. Less scary than the howl of CG ghosts is the reality of a Chicago elevated train that shakes Montroses apartment, as if the place were having a fit of rage. Theres a dialogue in bed between George and his wife Hippolyta (Aunjanue Ellis) that has some of the deftness of the bedroom scenes in Charles Burnetts To Sleep With Anger.

Also impressive is Michael K. Williams performance as Montrose. Reconciling with his son, hes good enough to sell some very ordinary dialogue. You got to be a great man despite me. Your mother would have been proud. Lovecraft Country is a strangely soft-spoken show until the eldritch critters turn up.

But then came the weakest episode yet, A History of Violence. The cast harrows an Indiana Jones-like death maze under a museum in Boston, to get some lost pages from the book of names the infernal Necronomicon.

Cruel, square-jawed aryan racists make great villains. Its always satisfying watching them get whats coming to them, either from a shoggoth bite (a shoggoth is a saber-toothed, multi-eyed monster) or by a plummeting elevator that shears off their heads. Good riddance! White audiences deserve no credit for wanting to see a bigots guts scattered, because they know full well whats in their own guts: what kind of racism was forced down their throats like colostrum, as they grew up in the U.S.A. The tactic this well-cast and provocative show takes is depicting racism as an evil spell, an indomitable curse in the tradition of New England horror.

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Lovecraft Country and the Specter of Racial Violence - SF Weekly

Pirates Of The Caribbean: 10 Times The Movies Referenced The Ride – Screen Rant

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Pirates of the Caribbean has grown from a Disneyland ride to a billion dollar franchise, but the ride inspiration is clear and present in the films.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a timeless Disneyland attraction treasured in the hearts of fans everywhere. The ride first opened in 1967 at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and was the last ride that Walt Disney was personally involved in designing before his death. The pirate tale was brought from a simple theme park boat ride to the big screen in 2003 by Gore Verbinski and Jerry Bruckheimer with Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl.

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Since then, the Piratesfranchise has grown to includes 5 movies, a short film, video games, novels, and a reboot that is currently in the works. Though each movie has its own unique story, there are many ways thatthey reference the beloved source material of the original Disneyland ride.

One of the most memorable parts of the Disneyland attraction is the jaunty pirate tune. Yo Ho (A Pirates Life for Me) was originally written by George Bruns, a composer for Disney films, and Xavier Atencio, a Disney Imagineer.

The Curse Of The Black Pearl begins with young Elizabeth Swann singing the classic theme, and later in the movie, Elizabeth and Jack Sparrow sing more of the lyrics as they drunkenly dance around a fire. The song continues to be referenced throughout the films.

Its incredible that Disney created an entire plot for a film from a very small piece of the ride. Following the second drop, the attraction glides into Dead Mans Cove. The cave is full of skeletal pirates, frozen in various mundane activities such as captaining a ship, drinking, or playing chess.

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As the boat continues on, there are other skeletons surrounded by gold pieces that would inspire the story for The Curse Of The Black Pearl and the Aztec gold that curses the pirates with a cruel immortality.

The ride starts in a dark, quiet bayou surrounded by flickering fireflies, houseboats, and the sound of quiet banjo music. The setting and the rickety houseboat seen at the entrance to the rest of the ride is extremely reminiscent of Tia Dalmas home in Dead Mans Chest.

The mystic is eventually revealed to be none other than Calypso, a sea goddess that had fallen in love with Davy Jones.

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Pirates Of The Caribbean: 10 Times The Movies Referenced The Ride - Screen Rant

The First Emperor of China Who Died in His Quest Pursuing Immortality – Interesting Engineering

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Once upon a time, over two thousand years ago, the first Emperor of China was so great, powerful, and ambitious that he spent his entire life pursuing his ultimate goal: Trying to find a potion that could make him immortal. Indeed, in the end, he found immortality in the history books.

This crucial chapter in Chinese history unfolded in one of the oldest cities in China, the city ofXi'an. The birth of China's first imperial dynasty took place during a time of conflict, betrayal, and lust for power that shaped the future of the nation.

The Zhou Dynasty was the longest-ruling Chinese dynasty. It lasted from 1122-255 BC. The Qin Dynasty(pronounced chin), the first dynasty of Imperial China, was the shortest-ruling Chinese dynasty (221-206 BCE). It lasted only 15 years, well against the First Emperor's wishes. The latter is the dynasty that occupies our interest.

The Qin Dynasty reunited China and laid the foundation for 21 centuries of imperial rule. Our focus is on the tragic and ironic destiny of the First Emperor of China, who died during his search for the elixir of life after a life-long fear of death.

Qin Shi Huang (Ying Zheng) was born in 259 BCE in Hanan, but the exact date is unknown.It is believed that the name Qin is the etymological ancestor of today's name of the country, China. Some scholars, though, dismissed this etymology.

Ying Zheng was the son of King Zhuangxiang of Qin and Lady Zhao Ji. Or that is what the King believed. A legend says that Lu Buwei, a rich merchant, and his wife, Zhao Ji, had got pregnant when Buwei arranged for Zhuangxiang to meet and fall in love with her. When Zhao Ji gave birth to Lu Buwei's child in 259 BCE, the King believed the baby was his own.

Ying Zheng became King of the Qin state upon the death of his supposed father. The young King was only 13 years old. His prime minister and likely real father, Lu Buwei, acted as regent for the first eight years.

According to the Records of the Grand Historian, in 240BCE, Lu Buwei introduced the King's mother, Zhao Ji, to Lao Ai as part of a scheme to depose Qin Shi Huang. The queen dowager and Lao Ai had two sons. In 238 BCE, Lao Ai and Bu Buwei decided to launch a coup. Lao Ai raised an army with the help of the king of nearby Wei. He tried to seize control while Qin Shi Huang was traveling.

However, Qin Shi Huang found out about the rebellion. Lao was executed by having his neck, arms, and legs tied to horses, which were spurred to run in different directions. The young King forced his mother Zhao Ji to watch, while soldiers went to kill his two half-brothers.

Lao's whole family and all relatives to the third degree (uncles, aunts, and cousins) were also killed. Zhao Ji was spared, but forced to spend the rest of her life under house arrest. Lu Buwei was banished after the incident. He lived in constant fear of execution. In 235 BCE, Lu Buwei committed suicide by drinking poison.

After the Lao Ai incident, Qin Shi Huang grew increasingly suspicious of everyone around him. He survived two murder attempts.

Qin Shi Huang had around 50 children including Fusu, Gao, Jiangl, and Huhai, but had no empress. His most notable quote is: "I have collected all the writings of the Empire and burnt those which were of no use." Of not use for him, that is.

Zheng assumed the sacred titles of legendary rulers and proclaimed himself Qin Shi Huang (First Sovereign Emperor of Qin). He claimed that his dynasty would last 10,000 generations. However, the 15 years of the Qin dynasty was the shortest major dynasty in the history of China, consisting of only two emperors. The 35-year reign of Qin Shi Huang brought both rapid cultural and intellectual advancement as well as much destruction and oppression within China.

Yet, the Qin dynasty inaugurated an imperial system that lasted from 221 BCE until 1912. The Qin introduced a standardized currency, weights, measures, and a uniform system of writing, which aimed at unifying the state and promote commerce. The military used the latest weaponry, transportation, and military tactics. The Confucians portrayed the Qin dynasty as a monolithic tyranny, citing a purge which was known as the burning of books and burying of scholars.

As the Emperor entered middle age, he grew more and more afraid of death. Qin Shi Huang became obsessed with finding an elixir of life, a potion for immortality. The court alchemists and doctors devoted day and night to find potions for the Emperor, many of them containing quicksilver (mercury). Slowly, the ironic effect of the potions resulted in the death of the Emperor, rather than preventing it.

The Emperor also ordered the construction of a gargantuan tomb for himself, in case the immortality treatment failed. Plans for the Emperor's tomb included flowing rivers of mercury, cross-bow booby traps to thwart would-be plunderers, and replicas of all the Emperor's earthly palaces.

In 211 BCE, a large meteor fell in Dongjun, representing an ominous sign for the Emperor. What followed was a stone found with the words "the First Emperor will die and his land will be divided." The Emperor ordered everyone in the vicinity to be executed, since no one would confess to the crime.

A year later, while touring eastern China, Qin Shi Huang died on September 10, 210 BCE in Julu Commandery. He was 49 years old. Details of the cause of Qin Shi Huang's death are largely unknown to this date. However, it is known that the cause of death was mercury poisoning.

Reportedly, he died from Chinese alchemical elixir poisoning due to ingesting mercury pills --made by his alchemists and court physicians-- believing it to be an elixir of immortality. The Emperor, who had feared death since a young age, wanted to conquer death at any cost and was kin on trying immortality treatments.

Qin Shi Huang believed that as the Emperor of China, he would need an army in the afterlife, in the event that his elixir of life failed him. He believed an army could protect him. So, his subjects built 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots, and 670 horses out of terracotta to help protect the great Emperor from his rival armies in the afterlife. The project took off and a mausoleum was carefully planned.

The construction of the one-of-its-kind mausoleum began when the Emperor was just 14 years old, and long before he took on power. We are talking about a 14-year-old child who witnessed the preparations for his own death before he had the chance to live, which might explain his life-log terrifying fear of death.

In the second year of their reign, Kings began building their own tomb. his father died when he was 13 years old. Qin Shi Huang ordered the construction of his mausoleum at the age of 14.

As his own tomb grew, so did his fear of death. The fear of death would accompany him for the rest of his life, well until the end.

It took immense manpower to complete the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, which was only discovered, and in part unearthed, in March 1974.

The Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor and First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, was constructed for over 38 years, from 246 to 208 BCE. The Mausoleum is underneath a 76-meter-tall (249 feet) tomb mound-shaped like a truncated pyramid in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi province of China.

The tomb complex contains an estimated 8,000 life-like clay soldiers, chariots, horses, weapons, and mass graves with evidence of brutal power. Archeologists have been reluctant to open Qin Shi Huang's actual tomb.

The Terracotta Army is a collection of over 8,000 real-size sculptures depicting the armies of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Archeologists first found 8,000 warriors. Each warrior has very distinct facial features. Most recently, archeologists in China found over 200 others. Experts in military say the discovery of the warriors depicts how the Qin military used to operate.

The Terracotta Army is a display of the militar formation of the Qin army. The first three rows are archers facing forward. Behind them, stand infantry men in 38 rows, poise to strike upon commander's orders. The flanks are defended by troops on the peripheric, facing upward, watching for threats from any direction.

The funerary massive art collection was buried with the Emperor in 210-209 BCE to protect him in his afterlife. All the terracotta warriors are facing east, and there is a reason for that.

During the 3rd Century BCE, the land we now call China was a bloody battle ground, and battles went on for decades. According to historical records, the original ruling area in Qin was the west, whereas all the other states were in the east of China. Qin Shi Huang's goal was to unify all states. The fact that the warriors and horses are facing east confirms his determination for unification even in his afterlife.

Each Terracotta Warrior is 1.80 centimeters (6 feet) tall and weighs 160 to 300 kilograms (approximately 300 to 400 pounds). An interesting fact is that the hands were made in one whole piece and separately, they would only be added at the end.Each Terracotta Warrior was molded with individual and unique facial features. The bodies and limbs were mass-produced from molds.

The FBI has estimated that each 300-kilogram Terracotta Warrior is worth $4.5 million. Perhaps this explains why in December 2017, someone broke off and stole a Terracotta Warrior's left thumb from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, in The United States, where 10 of the ancient relics were on loan. Although the event speaks more about ignorance than about greed.

The Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the construction of the Great Wall around 221 BCE to protect his Empire from the recurrent threat from the north, raids by the nomadic Xiongnu, who were the ancestors of Attila's Huns.

The labor force that built the enormous defensive wall was largely made up of hundreds of thousands of slaves and convicts. The work was completed between 220 and 206 BCE. Thousands died during that period at the task.

The northern fortification formed the first section of what later on would become the Great Wall of China. In 214, the Emperor ordered the construction of a canal which would link the Yangtze and Pearl River systems, the Lingqu Canal.

The Great Wall was not just built by slaves and convicts. Scholars who refused to allow their books to be burned following orders from Emperor Qin Shi Huang were either burned alive or sent to work on the wall.

In 213 BCE, the Emperor's orders were that all books that were not about agriculture, medicine, prophesy, or related to his reign had to be burned. It was a way of weakening scholars and teachers, especially Confucianism and a number of other philosophies. Qin Shi Huang viewed these schools of thought as threats to his authority. Let's not forget that knowledge is power, and the Emperor wanted absolute control and power over China.

Approximately 460 scholars were not lucky enough to work on the wall as slaves. Instead, they were buried alive for daring to disagree with the Emperor. Other 700 scholars were stoned to death. From then on, the only school of thought approved by the Emperor was legalism, which meant to follow the Emperor's laws, or face the consequences.

Whether Qin Shi Huang should be remembered more for his architectural creations and cultural advances, or for his brutal tyranny is a matter of dispute. All scholars, however, agree that Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty and a unified China, was one of the most important rulers in the whole Chinese history.

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The First Emperor of China Who Died in His Quest Pursuing Immortality - Interesting Engineering