Category Archives: Immortality

INDIANAPOLIS Who will be the NEXT driver to win The Greatest Spectacle in Racing?

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway stage is set for the 101st Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil today with a lengthy list of intriguing contenders in search of the ultimate accomplishment and the prestigious honor of adding their name and likeness to the Borg-Warner Trophy.

2008 Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon will start from the pole for a third time in his No. 9 Camping World Honda. He is one of seven former winners in this 33-car field, joined by three-time winner Helio Castroneves, two-time winner Juan Pablo Montoya, Tony Kanaan, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Buddy Lazier and defending champion Alexander Rossi.

Its always hard, Dixon said. Its competition, man.

The best of the Verizon IndyCar Series full-time drivers is joined by several one-off entrants, including the most celebrated newcomer in recent history, two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso, whose No. 29 McLaren-Honda-Andretti Honda qualified fifth.

I hope he does well, defending series champion Simon Pagenaud said of Alonso, because it will keep a lot of people interested.

As Alonsos inclusion and the subsequent worldwide media attention reminds, this race defines careers. Pagenaud, who qualified 23rd in his No. 1 Menards Team Penske Chevrolet, is just as succinct about what the Indy 500 means.

I wont be complete until I win this race, Pagenaud said. I do believe I can.

Andretti Autosport has six cars, the most ever for Michael Andretti, who is looking for his fifth Indy 500 win as a team owner. Among those entrants is his 30-year-old son, Marco, who desperately wants to achieve what his father could not as a driver. Marco Andretti, the grandson of 1969 Indy 500 winner Mario Andretti, has come close so many times in finishing second as a 2006 rookie, third three times and fourth in 11 starts.

I believe having an awesome car here is only 60 percent of the battle, said Marco Andretti, whose No. 27 United Fiber & Data Andretti Honda will start eighth. You need to be in the top five to have a chance at the end. The way it seems, when youre following three or four cars its tougher to pass because they have enough of a tow; theyre going fast enough. Top three is ideal in a shootout, for sure.

Ive lost this race because I trimmed, and Ive lost it because I didnt trim. We hope to make the right decision.

Graham Rahal is also looking to add to a family legacy. Rahal, the son of 1986 Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal, qualified 14th in the Steak n Shake Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda. Graham Rahal has two top-five finishes in nine starts, including third in 2011.

Running well on Carb Day definitely gives you confidence for the race, Rahal said after posting the sixth-fastest speed in Fridays final one-hour practice.

Starting alongside Dixon in the front row is another familiar face, two-time Indy 500 pole sitter Ed Carpenter, who grew up in Indianapolis with dreams of winning this race. Carpenter, the series only owner/driver, is confident his No. 20 Fuzzys Vodka Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet can fulfill his destiny. Carpenters best finish in 13 starts is fifth in 2008.

Theres been so much heartbreak here over the years, Carpenter said. Theres certainly a ton of things you can do to control the outcome, but even if you get everything right, it doesnt mean youre going to win.

Kanaan was denied in so many close calls before becoming one of the most popular winners in 2013. Hes also finished second, third twice, fourth twice and fifth in 15 starts. This time, he starts seventh in the No. 10 NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.

Kanaan contends that the track chooses the winner a driver in the right place at the right time is ultimately rewarded at the end of this 200-lap test of endurance and patience.

I do believe that, 100 percent, Kanaan said. I have no doubt.

One of his best friends in racing, Castroneves, has hopes of finally winning for a fourth time and joining the Hall of Fame contingent of A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser in that distinction. Castroneves starts 19th in the No. 3 Shell Fuel Rewards Team Penske Chevrolet.

It changed more the first time when I won and did not know about it, Castroneves said of his perception about the Indy 500 after his triumphant debut in 2001. Im still learning, to be honest, the history.

Although Alonso is an Indy 500 rookie, he raced at this venue five times in F1. He finished second in the 2007 United States Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

Career ambition has brought him back, but this time to compete on the 2.5-mile oval. Alonso, a 35-year-old Spaniard, has his sights set on the career triple crown; hes won the Monaco Grand Prix and needs the Indy 500 and 24 Hours of Le Mans to become just the second driver to accomplish this feat. The other was Graham Hill, who won the 1966 Indy 500 in his first attempt.

"When we came here in Formula One, it was just something special, because we were racing first in the States, which is always something amazing for Formula One, and secondly, (in) the biggest place in the world, Alonso said. I remember coming here (in 2001), the first year that I raced here, and, yeah, I was taking pictures of the entrance for the speedway. You know, capital of the world, motorsport. I was taking pictures.

So it's a special place for motorsport in general. To race here in May (for) the Indy 500, it feels (like) quite a big thing.

Indeed it is. And today, one driver will stand alone as a champion in the greatest race in the world.

Who will it be? Who has what it takes to add their name to his glorious legacy?

If you dont believe it, Pagenaud said, youre not going to win it.

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Who will be NEXT to achieve Indianapolis 500 immortality? - INDYCAR

By Ralph Negron

Memorial Day is an old and established American tradition that dates way back to the Civil War. Following the war, Union veterans began honoring their fallen comrades by taking time every spring to decorate their graves. Confederate veterans followed the tradition as well, ultimately resulting in the federal government designating the last Monday of May as an official holiday to remember all members of the armed services killed in the line of duty.

Observance of Memorial Day has morphed into a significant American holiday that has strayed far from its roots. Today many Americans associate Memorial Day with the running of the Indianapolis 500 and other festive events that signal the beginning of summer fun. In all the hoopla, the simple message seems to have been forgotten.

In addition, many people have difficulty differentiating between Memorial Day and Veterans Day in November. Nov. 11 is Veterans Day, a separate but important holiday honoring members of the armed services, present and past, for their service to our nation. It is understandable why Americans might be confused by both holidays since less than 1 percent of the American population is on active duty in the armed forces. According to the Veterans Administration, only 7 percent of the population has ever served in uniform. On Veterans Day in November, thank a veteran for his or her service. On Memorial Day, say a little prayer for the young men and women who gave their all for our nation.

Nobody ever goes to war thinking that they will never return; rather, to most young men and women, war is simply a digression from everyday life plans -- perhaps to marry a high school sweetheart, buy a new car, finish college, or buy a house and have kids. All these dreams are simply put on hold until they can get back home and resume their lives. Most young adults have a feeling of immortality as they march off to war. They are oblivious to death, an affliction suffered only by the old. The immortality of youth is not a novel idea. It has been a popular theme in literature going back to the first epic novel ever written in Western civilization -- Gilgamesh. At some point, the reality of war sinks in and the notion of immortality starts to wear thin. Perhaps it occurs when the first shots in anger are fired or when a buddy is killed.

As a young Marine lieutenant bound for Vietnam, I found reality as I waited with a group of fellow Marines at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa for our flight to Danang Airbase in Vietnam. While we waited, we all paused in silence, perhaps the deepest silence I have ever experienced, to watch 12 or 15 coffins loaded onto an Air Force cargo plane. The early morning mist and the eerie silence captured for me one of those forever moments that you never forget. I recall that a young lance corporal in the group broke the silence by loudly exclaiming Holy ----, those are ------- coffins! He was absolutely right and was almost instantaneously shut up by a gunnery sergeant who wanted the rest of us to continue our meditative trance. I imagine others in the group had also reached their reality point. Our dreams for the future were now mixed with the stark reality that we may never see home again.

The real heroes of any war are those who never return home. They paid the ultimate price for a war that they did not start. Youth have not been around long enough to know the meaning of a lifetime. It is not until you have been through a lifetime that you can appreciate it. After 50-plus years of marriage and having nine grandchildren, I can now define a lifetime, and it saddens me to know just how much of it they missed. Old soldiers never die because its the young ones who do the fighting. Many never had a chance to marry, have kids, or even buy a new car. Their lofty and noble dreams, which we all take for granted, were shattered along with those of their family and friends.

This is why we observe Memorial Day. May they rest in peace knowing that a grateful nation keeps them in their thoughts and prayers and celebrates their memory on this their special day.

Ralph Negron, a Vietnam veteran, lives in Hyannis.

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On Memorial Day, remember the young soldiers who thought they were immortal - Cape Cod Times (subscription)

Lions coach was once asked what he actually does. It is his fervent hope that the All Blacks are about to find the answer

Stephen Jones, Rugby Correspondent

Warren Gatland has been a success wherever he has coached. He revived Galwegian RFC in Connacht when he became their player/coach; he revived Connacht, Ireland and then Wasps the club were bottom of the Premiership when he took over as head man in 2002. Waikato were successful when he made one of his occasional prodigal returns to his homeland in New Zealand; he came back again to revive Wales and made them the best team of the era in the Six Nations.

The only black mark on his career is the almost complete failure against the three southern hemisphere nations, because against all other teams, his record is in the black. The traditional and bitterly frustrating inability of Wales to show anything like their

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Gatland's shot at immortality - The Times (subscription)

The end, whenever it came, was always going to be too soon for Katsushika Hokusai. There was still so much to see. So much he had not painted. On his deathbed, Hokusai, attended by his doctor, said a prayer. If heaven will extend my life by ten more years. He paused and made a private calculation. If heaven will afford me five more years of life, then Ill manage to become a true artist. He may have been 90, but he wasnt done yet.

In life, Hokusai (17601849) painted dragons, creatures of long life, by the dozen. He has them disappear in puffs of inky smoke, then reappear across the page. He painted the phoenix, bird of resurrection. He painted Mount Fuji, immutable, enduring, outlasting all his fellow painters, calligraphers, woodblock-cutters and sellers of coloured books who scrabbled for a living in Edo, modern Tokyo. They were but cherry blossoms, pink for a season, maple leaves washed away by a current.

He changed his name more than ten times in his long life. In his seventies, he was Manji, which meant ten thousand things or everything. That is what he wanted to paint everything. The 15 volumes of the Hokusai manga (18141878) went some way towards it: a pictorial encyclopedia of everything under the sun: frogs, snakes, samurai, sumo wrestlers, parasols, fish markets, farm ploughs, oceans and tea bowls.

He signed his woodblock series One Hundred Views of Mt Fuji (1849): Brush of Manji, old man crazy to paint. He does look a bit mad in his 1842 Self-portrait, aged 83 (see p49) skinny, stooped, his face wrinkled and puckered as a pickled plum, pointing at something hes seen in the distance. Something to sketch? He looks as if hes turning to call to someone, perhaps his daughter Eijo, an artist in her own right, asking her to bring his brush and ink. Not his glasses, though. He proudly signed his surimono luxury print Pine tree and full moon (1848): eye glasses not needed.

If a work wasnt up to snuff, he excused it with the note: painted while drunk. He would sooner admit to inebriation than infirmity. In his last years, he stamped a one hundred seal on his paintings a statement of intent to reach his century. Only then could he call himself a true artist.

From the age of six, he said, I had a penchant for copying the form of things, and from about 50, my pictures were frequently published; but until the age of 70, nothing I drew was worthy of notice Thus when I reach 80 years, I hope to have made increasing progress, and at 90 to see further into the underlying principles of things, so that at 100 years I will have achieved a divine state in my art, and at 110, every dot and every stroke will be as though alive.

The British Museum dedicates its summer exhibition Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave to the Hokusai who at 70 was just beginning. He joins Titian, Rembrandt and Turner as an artist who became more inventive, restless, curious and daring in his dotage. Like his near-contemporary J.M.W. Turner (17751851) he was mesmerised by water in all its moods. How to catch its movement, light and colours. Beyond the Great Wave asks us to see more of Hokusai than his much-reproduced Great Wave, properly: Under the Wave Off Kanagawa (1831). You could drown in Great Wave souvenir socks, scarves, key rings, duvets and tea towels. Theres even a Great Wave emoji.

While there is more to Hokusai than the tsunami wave that curls like a dragons claw above a Mount Fuji no higher than a molehill, waves and water do swell and roil through his work. One of his earliest woodblock prints was of the Kabuki actor Segawa Kikunojo III as Oren (1779), made when Hokusai was 20 and working in the workshop of Edo print-master Katsukawa Shunsho. The screen behind the actor is painted with the very first of Hokusais angry waves. It threatens to crash out of the painted surface, soaking the actor as he preens in his kimono.

Shunsho was the leading producer of ukiyo-e floating world woodblock prints. The floating world was Edos pleasure quarter. A place of geishas and kabuki theatres, transgressive and unregulated. Uki means floating, frivolous or carefree.

The ukiyo-e prints of beautiful courtesans (bijin-ga), portraits of actors (yakusha-e) and erotic couplings (shunga), found a keen, literate audience. A merchant or artisan could buy a print of Hokusais Beauty with an umbrella under a willow (c.18014) for the price of a helping of noodles. The most successful prints could sell in their thousands. Hokusais later landscape prints such as the Views of Mt Fuji, among them Under the Wave Off Kanagawa, may have run to 8,000 impressions.

Views of Mt Fuji was printed with Prussian blue mixed with traditional Japanese indigo. This pigment aizuri ichimai newly arrived from Europe gave an extraordinary, deep, saturated colour. Hokusai, steeped in blue, paints waves, waterfalls and whirlpools, eddies and seasick swirls. Waterwheels turn and tip; a fisherman strains against his lines; porters wade across the river Oi with pilgrims on their shoulders; skiffs battle the current. Carp swim against rapids; plovers skim the surf; and ducks dive for pondweed, up tails all.

He amused the shogun Tokugawa (176086) with his chicken trick. He painted a broad band of blue on a long sheet of paper. Then, pulling a live chicken from a bag, he dipped the birds feet in red ink and had it run across the sheet. He called it Autumn leaves on the Tatsuta River.

He liked to show the wind whipping the spray or, in mischievous spirit, lifting skirts, stealing hats and carrying off umbrellas. In the woodblock print Ejiri, Suruga province (1831) a straw hat is blown off and soars upside-down like a flying saucer. In other prints, snow settles on the peaks of pointed hats, and climbers of sacred mountains lift their brims to see the way. He drew Fuji with a hat (c.1834) showing the top of the mountain wearing a kasa-gumo a cap of cloud.

When Japan opened to the west after 1854, prints by Hokusai and his contemporaries Ando Hiroshige and Kitagawa Utamaro flooded European art markets. Hokusais prints were bought by Van Gogh and Gauguin. The flat modelling of ukiyo-e style was taken up by Manet, Whistler, the impressionists and les nabis. Calligraphic black lines in sumi Chinese ink inspired Bonnard, Degas and Aubrey Beardsley. The brocade richness of colour and patterning influenced the Pre-Raphaelites, the arts and crafts movement and Tiffany. Hokusais delight in the littleness of everyday life a geishas toothpowder, a kitten pulling its leash thrilled Baudelaires Painter of Modern Life crowd. Modernism begins with Hokusai.

Today, the smartphone apps Prisma and Moku Hanga turn your holiday snaps into ukiyo-e prints. I am in Tokyo as I write, Hokusai-ing my photos and playing spot-the-hat at the Sumida Hokusai Museum. We have arrived, everyone tells us, just late for the cherry blossom. Too short a season.

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How Hokusai achieved immortality - Spectator.co.uk

CRAIG GORDON speaks about staying in the moment which must be pretty difficult when only days from possible immortality.

Make no mistake, should this Celtic team, on the 50th anniversary of the clubs greatest achievement, win a treble without losing a single game, the names of the players will never be forgotten.

They wont be up there with the Lions including the years before and after 1967 but this group will be put on the same pedestal as the beloved centenary double winning team and Martin ONeills great side which made the clean sweep in 2001.

Read more:Leigh Griffiths: This is a chance for Celtic players to become legends

History beckons for Gordon and his team-mates. Just one final push against an Aberdeen team they have already beaten five times this season, including once at Hampden, and all their dreams will come true.

Asked about becoming invincible, which remains a strange question, Celtics goalkeeper said: You never think you are going to do that in a career at any level in any league.

The opportunity we have to go and do that now is enormous and its something that would be remembered for a very long time. But at the same time we have to concentrate on this game.

If we start looking beyond that at records and things that could be said in the future about this team, it wont matter if dont win the game. We cant think too far ahead. We have to stay in the moment and if we prepare as we have been for every game well do alright when the game comes around.

If we didnt win the final it would take a bit of getting over, but thats football and these things can happen. But we have an incredible opportunity to make sure thats not the case.

Read more:Leigh Griffiths: This is a chance for Celtic players to become legends

Players will make mistakes, but we have to continue to pull for each other and make sure we come out on top. Weve come back from situations and gone on to win games and that had just grown from the start of the season.

Every challenge we have been set we have come back from and when you start doing that you start to feel every situation is possible no matter what happens in a game.

"Nobody panics regardless of the situation, everybody stays calm. We do what we have to do to make sure if we are winning games. It doesn't matter if somebody has to come off, or we need to change the shape, or whatever it is, that is what needs to be done, everyone sticks together. We have done that really well this season.

Nobody knows for sure, apart from Gordon himself, how close he came to joining Chelsea in January which would have meant him missing all this.

His heads was turned and who could blame him. The English champions tend to pay their employees pretty well and so it was an inviting offer despite everything he had at Celtic Park.

In the end he stayed, won a new contract, and after what we all know was a sticky start to the season, Gordon has gone on to enjoy another fine campaign.

He said: Whats done is done and you move on and play away. Chelsea picked up the league trophy, but the chances are that I might not have played very many games in terms of achieving of that.

I walked out at Celtic Park to the show of the Lisbon Lions, and basically the show of that whole day, and lifting the trophy, was phenomenal, brilliant.

Read more:Leigh Griffiths: This is a chance for Celtic players to become legends

"There would have been positives no matter what. I'm quite happy with whatever would have happened. But that was a good day and hopefully there are more to come.

Gordon won the Scottish Cup as a Hearts player in 2006 when they were almost as heavy favourites as Celtic will be on Saturday when they took on tiny Gretna who had defied all odds to reach Hampden.

That Hearts side split the Old Firm, were full of good players, but were to find out that winning major silverware is not so easy.

Gordon recalled: It was a great day, although it took us slightly longer to win the cup than we would have liked. It was a difficult game.

"It had been a long, hard season for us at Hearts. We had a lot of changes, different managers but we still managed to split the Old Firm at the top of the league with not a very big squad.

By the time we got to the cup final, we were kind of running on empty to try and get over the line. It took us penalty kicks to finally do it.

We went into with confidence. We had just got into the Champions League qualifiers by finishing second in the league. So I dont think we felt under more pressure.

There was certainly a bit of tiredness there at the end of the season but I dont think there was any over-confidence. It was a very warm day and we struggled to play the way we had been playing, with real intensity and pressing.

Its hard to envisage Celtic encountering the same problems come Saturday afternoon.

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Craig Gordon is trying to live in the moment with Celtic immortality perhaps just a day away - Glasgow Evening Times

Alex Kuffner Journal Staff Writer kuffneralex

SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. At a time when President Donald Trump and others are accusing the media of manufacturing fake news, award-winning TV reporter Vladimir Duthiers, in his commencement address at the University of Rhode Island on Sunday, defended journalism as a profession that gives voice to the powerless.

At the universitys 131st commencement ceremony, Duthiers, a 1991 graduate in political science, spoke about his time as a CNN correspondent in Nigeria covering the terrorist group Boko Haram. An activist once told him that even after more than 1,000 people had been killed in a series of attacks by the group, their families only rarely heard from the government, he said.

But they do see journalists, Duthiers said. Journalists who take what theyve seen, what theyve witnessed, the voices of those theyve spoken with, and put this all in front of the countrys leaders. To hold them accountable in front of the world, so that you and everyone else with access to a free, fair press will know.

That knowledge may not bring someone home from the clutches of a terrorist, he continued. It certainly wont bring someone back from the dead, but in remembering them, we honor them. In a sense, we immortalize them.

Duthiers, who is now a correspondent for CBS News, was one of two journalists who spoke during the schools commencement weekend. On Saturday, Boston Globe columnist and associate editor Thomas Farragher, a member of URIs Class of 1977, delivered the keynote address to students receiving graduate degrees. Farragher was part of the Globes Spotlight team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for investigating sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

Both Duthiers and Farragher were awarded honorary doctoral degrees on Sunday. The other honorees were Loren Spears, Class of 1989, executive director of the Tomaquag Indian Museum; Alfred J. Tella, Class of 1955, an economist, professor, composer and author; and Robert L. Carothers, the president emeritus of URI.

The road to the university quadrangle was a sea of black robes as thousands of graduates marched in for the ceremony just after noon. As they went to take their seats, relatives and loved ones gave them hugs and cheered them on.

In all, 4,122 graduates were honored. The youngest was 20 years old and the oldest was 77, said university president David Dooley. There were 78 military veterans in the graduate and undergraduate classes and nine sets of twins.

All together, our youngest to oldest, we represent this creative, vibrant and dynamic public institution of research and higher education in Rhode Island, Dooley said.

Gov. Gina Raimondo urged them to remain a part of the Rhode Island community.

I want all of you to think about sticking around Rhode Island, she said. We need your talent."

Duthierscame to journalism later in life. He worked in finance after graduating and decided to switch careers at the age of 37.

It was the fulfillment, he said, of words attributed to Saint Augustine: The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

After getting a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University, he joined CNN as an unpaid intern, working first for foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour, another URI graduate, and then Anderson Cooper. He reported on the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and then became a correspondent in West Africa, covering such stories as the kidnapping of more than 200 young girls by Boko Haram, reporting for which he won a Peabody Award.

He told the graduates not to fear change and to look for a life of meaning.

Ive come to realize that yes, the key to some kind of immortality is living a life worth remembering, Duthiers said. But Ive come to see this isnt just about my own life being memorable. Its about being a conduit for the stories of others.

And now I do what I do so others will not forget those who would otherwise be forgotten, he said.

University of Rhode Island's 131st Commencement

3,383 undergraduate degrees; 749 graduate degrees awarded in Saturday ceremony

Undergraduate speaker: Vladimir Duthiers, CBS News correspondent and anchor

Student speaker: Colin Rumbel

Graduate degree speaker: Thomas Farragher, columnist and associate editor at The Boston Globe

Honorary degree recipients: Robert L. Carothers, URI president emeritus; Loren Spears, executive director, Tomaquag Museum; Alfred J. Tella, economist, educator, composer and fantasy fiction author; Duthiers and Farragher

akuffner@providencejournal.com

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On Twitter: @KuffnerAlex

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URI speaker: Telling stories of others is one key to immortality - The Providence Journal

The best songwriters can take an old idea and make it sound fresh. And Jason Isbell is one hell of a songwriter. Even though its a thought that most of us have had, his rumination on the idea that any life-long couple will eventually reach a point where one of them has to die first still manages to be heartbreaking. It certainly doesnt hurt that If We Were Vampires features Isbells real-life wife crooning right alongside him about how lucky the undead have it. Prepare for some dusty onion moments on this tender track.

The sparse and mellow folk arrangement isnt exactly out of left-field for someone like Isbell, but it stands in stark contrast to the cuts weve heard already from his upcoming album The Nashville Sound. Hope The High Road and Cumberland Gap were dark and driving, more akin to Springsteen than anything from his last album. Vampires gives us hope that when Isbell says hes taking on the Nashville Sound, he means all of it. It might be readig too much into things, but Im ready to hear him run his voice through as many rock, folk and country permutations as can be found in that musical city.

The Nashville Sound drops June 16 via Isbells own Southeastern Records.

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Jason Isbell Pines For Immortality In The Heartbreaking 'If We Were Vampires' - UPROXX

Brendan Cummins: Tipps bid for immortality will fail if they fall into trap of old and take eye off the ball

Independent.ie

It's the Tuesday night before we play Cork in the 2010 Munster quarter-final. Having run Kilkenny so close in the previous year's All-Ireland final, we're odds-on favourites to make it back to Croke Park in September.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/hurling/brendan-cummins-tipps-bid-for-immortality-will-fail-if-they-fall-into-trap-of-old-and-take-eye-off-the-ball-35714721.html

http://www.independent.ie/incoming/article35714209.ece/ee97d/AUTOCROP/h342/1134568.jpg

It's the Tuesday night before we play Cork in the 2010 Munster quarter-final. Having run Kilkenny so close in the previous year's All-Ireland final, we're odds-on favourites to make it back to Croke Park in September.

It's Liam Sheedy's third year in charge and this is our year. This is our mindset.

After training, one of the lads asks me not to swap jerseys with a Cork opponent after the game.

He wants mine for a friend of his. I don't see an issue with this and reply: 'No problem.'

Five days later, we lose by ten points at Pirc U Chaoimh and when I sat down on the Monday to reflect on why everything had gone so wrong, and the factors that fed into our flat performance, the jersey issue gnawed at me. Eye off the ball.

It was a little thing but when you give six months of your life preparing for a championship opener, that work can be derailed by mental weakness in the days leading up to it.

The disillusioned supporter in the stand wonders what on earth happened during those 70 minutes, why were they stuck to the ground?

Players ask the same questions but when they honestly reflect, they realise they've made poor decisions in those crucial days before the match - sometimes without even realising it.

Any time we were flat during my career, there was always a reason. It could be as big as a discussion around a planned night out after a game or as small as that jersey swap. Eye off the ball.

The successful teams looking to create legacies deal with those challenges better than others, and the hope for every Tipperary person in Thurles next Sunday is that the mental filters have worked, that this team's DNA is different.

Of course, all players have no choice but to meet people every day before a game. I used to nod politely when hurling talk struck up but the ability to do that was as important to me as any striking drill in training.

But in my mind, I was in the pre-match team huddle, when all you see are the burning eyes of your team-mates moments before battle.

I had to take myself there. And if any conversation took a negative tone, I'd tell this person, in my head, that what you're going to see on Sunday will blow your mind.

If things were right, chatting with people wasn't an issue. But when they weren't, I'd have to work harder to block out what was being said to me.

Michael Ryan's biggest challenge for the next six days is to ensure that their business is conducted in an air-tight environment.

They're All-Ireland champions but the county hasn't won back-to-back titles since 1964/65. Why? It's a complex question.

When you get to the top of the hill, you can often feel, subconsciously, that you've arrived. But the more sacrifices you make and the quality of your attention to detail will determine whether you'll succeed again.

The distractions have been greater for these players since last September. When you win an All-Ireland, the lure of social media can be more difficult to ignore.

You're letting people into your life and you're fielding more requests to promote various products. Everybody wants a piece of you and that's a mental drain.

The danger is that you lose a piece of yourself, and some of the drive that made you the animal you were last year.

The players and teams who can sacrifice their lives, even more, for the greater prize are the ones who have the best chance of retaining All-Ireland titles.

They don't make the same mistakes that I saw, and avoid the old, familiar traps.

I often wonder should I have said more, or spoken up when I noticed that standards were slipping.

Ahead of a new season, Tipp are raging hot favourites next Sunday; even Cork supporters acknowledge that.

That brings expectation but this is hurling after all, and anything can happen.

Still, next Monday morning's headlines will be written by Tipperary, either way. That power is in their hands.

If they lose, the glass half full brigade will say it's a good opportunity to go through the back door, which it ultimately was in 2010.

The glass half empty crowd will nod and think 'that's the end of that, sure they were never good enough anyway.'

Since Adam was a boy, that's how it's always been.

But that Monday morning narrative depends on the little things. Forget about where you might be going for the few drinks on Sunday night, forget jersey swaps.

Get yourself mentally right for 4pm, and the rest should take care of itself.

Irish Independent

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Brendan Cummins: Tipp's bid for immortality will fail if they fall into ... - Irish Independent

On the second day of freshman orientation back in August 2013, I walked into Belfer Hall for the first time. The whirlwind first 24 hours of my Yeshiva University experience had been a blur of new faces, informational sessions, and meet and greets, and I was beginning to wonder if all of this stuff was wholly necessary. The reason I thought I came to college the promise of an education that would pave the path toward medical school or an engineering degree had been buried under counseling center pamphlets, student life swag, and maps of Washington Heights.

The meeting in Belfer was a First Year Writing orientation for honors students. The writing professors sat scattered among the students, and Dr. Gabriel Cwilich, the director of the Honors Program, stood at the front of the room. He told us that several sections of the introductory writing course would be reading Rebecca Skloots The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a book I had never heard of, and, as it wasnt assigned for any of my science courses, had already decided I didnt care about. In my mind, I had already consigned my First Year Writing course to the collective of humanities classes I would tolerate, not enjoy.

Then Dr. Cwilich began his presentation. The book, it turned out, was about a black woman who died from cervical cancer in 1951, and whose biopsied cancer cells were the first human cells to survive immortally in culture. Her cell line has proven invaluable to countless scientific breakthroughs, including the polio vaccine, cancer research, and AIDS medication. As Dr. Cwilich spoke, I realized that I had used Henriettas cell line HeLa cells in research I did in an oncology lab mere weeks before arriving on campus. A book about biology that might be relevant to my career goals? I was hooked.

But as I discovered throughout the next few weeks, the story is not merely one of scientific achievements. Skloot takes pain to seek out Henriettas family, who knew hardly anything about the extent of her cells importance. Along the way, the author confronts religion, race relations, and the ethical dilemmas of science as she endeavors to give Henrietta the legacy she deserves.

The Immortal Life acted as a springboard from which I launched into my own personal trajectory through the liberal arts. It taught me about the imperatives of writing: lending voice to the voiceless, making sense of complex ideas, building bridges between communities ordinarily isolated from one another. It turned my attention to the crossroads between medicine and the humanities, an area that has since become one of my deepest passions. It ultimately led to my honors thesis, a screenplay about Rosalind Franklin, another woman whose contributions to the discovery of DNAs double helical structure went largely unnoticed.

Fundamentally, Henrietta Lacks story is one of faith, dedication, and the search for justice. It is a story of empathy, which is to say, a story of humanity.

In a way, its also a story of us, Yeshiva University students. We all know David Foster Wallaces spiel about the liberal arts: the value of viewing the world through a lens of compassion and complexity, the power of connecting with others and sharing ideas, etc. etc. But its only now that Ive walked out of my last undergraduate class that I realize the extent to which my experiences here have changed the way I see the world.

The thing about HeLa cells is that they only survive and grow under proper conditions. They need just the right amount of moisture, a constant temperature of a toasty 37 C, and a certain balance of the nutrients surrounding them. When everything is just right, they form a colony, a microcosm, a community.

As I reflect on my time at YU, I think about the extraordinary environment Im leaving behind. I think about the spell that will break when I graduate next week. Because this place is magic, and I truly mean that; its Narnia, it's Hogwarts, it's Alagasia. It alters the very fabric of time and matter: you look up one day and realize the stranger borrowing your pencil has transformed into your best friend; your professors have charmed you into being passionate about things you couldve sworn you didnt care about, gravity itself has shifted and the world suddenly seems somehow larger and smaller at the same time. This place exists outside of the timeline of whats next?, outside of the mainstream quid pro quo mentality, outside of the zero-sum game well face when we leave.

As I tend to do when all things come to an end, I find myself searching for circles. Im desperate for signs of completion, perfection, and wholeness. I tell myself its fitting that Ill eat at the same restaurant after graduation as I did when I came to New York almost six years ago to interview for YU. I tell myself how profound it is that the first book I read in college was about a woman whose impact on medicine goes unrecognized, and now four years later Im writing a senior thesis about another woman who deserves a legacy for her contributions to science.

But then I realize that this isnt really about me. Henrietta Lacks original cells no longer exist; the nucleotides and peptides and phosphates that made up her cells have long since been replaced by new molecules. But its their genetic code, their continuity that stretches back to Henriettas conception back in 1919, that gives HeLa cells their significance. My legacy does not lie in any contribution Ive made as a student, a Commentator writer, or a student council president. The legacy lies in the very fabric of liberal arts college, and the more specific Jewish traditions of YU. Generations of individuals before me have left their marks on this place, and the impacts these people had continue to be felt today. This legacy has existed since long before I got here, and it will continue long after Im gone. Its not a circle; there is nothing to seal, nothing to complete. I havent finished yet, and neither has Yeshiva University.

Within these walls, this chaotic Petri dish of accountants and writers, lawyers and professors, doctors and rabbis, we exchange the elixir of life. Within these walls we are immortal.

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From the President's Desk: YCSA Thoughts on Immortality - The Commentator

In Brief On YouTube, MinuteEarth explains how telomeres play an important role in aging not just in humans, but in several critters that can exist in a seemingly perpetual middle age. Telomere Trouble

If humans cant yet achieve immortality, the next best thing would be finding a way to slow down or even reverse the process of aging. While theres an entire industry devoted to so-called anti-aging, the biological truth is that our fate is written in our DNA. Specifically, the end bits which are called telomeres.

These caps dont hold thecodes for proteins like genes do, so when the telomere gets a bit shorter each time the DNA replicates, no important information is lost. In humans, those telomeres will eventually get too short and codingDNA will start to be lost in the replication process, throwing a major hitch into cell regeneration. If our cells are no longer replicating at the rate they once did, the impact is felt throughout our body in short, we start getting older and slowing down.

In one of their YouTube videos, MinuteEarth explains the role telomeres play in aging across multiple species and why some animals, such as the naked mole rat, dont seem to age at all. Despite their wrinkly appearance, naked mole rats produce a special enzyme that rebuilds the telomeres that keeps them young. Or, at the very least somewhat indefinitely middle-aged.

They arent truly putting a stop to aging, however: the naked mole rat may be able to live longer at a younger age, and they may have the unique ability to evade cancer, but they arent immortal. In fact, the longer the critters live, the higher their chance of being gobbled up by a predator.

If humans could extend their lives in a similar capacity to the naked mole rat, we may not have to worry about being eaten by something bigger than us but unlike our perpetually middle-aged, hairless, wrinkly pals, we can and do fall prey to cancer.

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Ending Aging: Scientists Say Telomeres May Be the Key to Unlocking Near-Immortality - Futurism