Category Archives: Immortality

Anna Novikova - February 26th, 2017 12:37 pm

Mila Arutyunyan in Yaroslavl

Mila Arutyunyan in Yaroslavl

No, I wont! You show me your passport, I hear a loud splutter of a drunken teenager. Youre not even Russian, what right do you have to teach me if I can drink or not? Why do I even have to show you my passport to get the booze? Why do you ask me that?, the teenager insists with withering scorn.

Because Im obliged to by law, she responds calmly, while resisting the tears stored up under her long black eyelashes.

The teenager slams the door demonstrably and leaves. She looks back at him and in her eyes, I can see she is remembering the day when, under the shower of bombs, she was forced to leave the mountains behind her.

Her name is Mila. She was born Armenian in Nagorno-Karabakh. Today she works as a cashier at a supermarket.

Mila Arutyunyan Her story by Anna Novikova and Vitaly Vakhrushev

Immediately after the teenager leaves, she is caught up with another client, chatting away and her radiant smile is back again, drowning everything around her with light.

Most of the clients prefer me to other cashiers, she confesses later to me over a cup of tea. People always tell me that I am too kind. So I ask them: what prevents you from being just as kind?, she tells me, gracefully holding her cup in a way that would never let me guess her employment.

What made you so kind? I ask.

She throws a long look out on the dark street and glances back at me with her eyes full of life.

I have spent my childhood under the bombs. Seven years of my life, Anna. The ground was drenched with blood, she stops, takes a sip and drops her voice as if someone could accidentally overhear us. Dont take me wrong, I am not in any way a nationalist. When someone asks me how I feel about the Azerbaijanis, I always say, If that was Gods will, then I must simply accept it. What I cant understand is why someone would start a war with another people. Arent we all the same, arent we all humans? I just cannot understand who makes these decisions that someone is more worthy of living than another.

What did the war teach you?

It taught me to set the priorities. The true, undeniable riches arent countable, Anna. Take my father, for example. He had two houses, carsand then the war took it all away from him. War alters your perspective. You hear about your friends parents being killed, so you start thanking God for yet another day spent with yours. When we came over here to Yaroslavl, it was in November of 1991, and snow dusted the ground already but I had no coat to wear. I was only eighteen and my husband and I were already expecting our first daughter. We didnt have a job and I couldnt even get into a university because I had to leave my school diploma behind. It felt as if we were back in 1941.

By Vitaly Vakhrushev

She tells me with her large, childish eyes, which shine with a special light, making everything she says sound like a fantastic tale.

Simple things like clothes, food and a roof over your head you start appreciating that. I often hear people complain about the economic crisis and I think to myself, They dont know what a real crisis is. Whatever may happen in life, I am prepared to face it. It would be nothing compared to war and utter poverty. And even that I know how to deal with now. I can survive anything. I guess thats what brings me so much freedom and happiness.

Still strong today, her memories take her back to when the Russian troops came to her village.

It was the Defender of the Fatherland Day. I remember we were so grateful for the intervention of Russian soldiers that we simply didnt know how to thank them. We made pies and taught little children to sing Katyusha in Russian.

Isolated in her memory today, 25 years later, the memories of war still bring mixed emotions on her face.

Ill never forget those soldiers. What they did for us will always stay with me. People dont see this now. Money blinds them and they remain unaware of the simple truth that the real prosperity comes from kindness. Thats how you get to live forever, in the hearts of others, and theres nothing more precious than that, she says as I witness a smile entering those dark-lashed eyes.

I watch the silent glow of her angelic aura, feeling I could speak to her for hours and yet, she is the kind of person you want to be silent with. Suddenly I realize, Wouldnt it be wonderful if no words had to be spokenso that we would sit here in silence, feeling each other, gazing into the windows of our souls?

Anna Novikova is an economics Ph.D. and writer, fluent in 5 languages, who has a passion for travel, the arts, music, Russian history, and literature. She has lived, studied, and worked as a translator and interpreter throughout Europe, in London and Washington D.C.

The rest is here:

Faces of Russia: Mila Arutyunyan on Immortality - Argophilia Travel News

Fighting McGregor Has any fighters road to boxing immortality been easier or come with more surefire wins than Floyd Mayweathers? Floyd just turned 40 years old. He is officially retired but there can be no doubt that he will be seen in a boxing ring sometime this year, against a man who is an elite combat sport participant but has never once fought as a professional boxer. The money is too good for Conor McGregor and Mayweather to pass it up and the challenge for Maywesather is too easy for Mayweather to decline.

Depending on your age and when you started following boxing, your opinion varies on what you think of Floyd as a fighter. If you were born after say 1982, you most likely started following boxing around 1997, a year after Mayweather made his pro debut. And by the time you were in your mid-twenties, Mayweather was one of the most elite fighters in boxing. Since beating a shopworn and rusty Oscar De La Hoya in 2007, Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have been the two biggest box office draws in boxing, with Mayweather eventually eclipsing Pacquiao. Today Mayweather is undefeated (49-0, 25 KOs) and arguing his place among the all-time pound for pound greats with fans that never saw the greats circa 1967-2007, is like arguing politics. In other words its a waste of time because the opinions are so far apart.

Instead of going there Ill just say if Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns fought every opponent Mayweather did on the night that he fought them all three would be 49-0 with more than 25 knockouts. Just as if Sonny Liston fought every opponent Rocky Marciano did on the night Rocky fought them Sonny would also be 49-0 with one or two more than the 43 knockouts Marciano recorded.

Most fans who have been around and have seen the greats circa 1967-2007 see Mayweather as a fighter whose undefeated record is due more to brilliant management and matchmaking than to his ability as a fighter. More succinctly put, Mayweather picked his spots. I can name past greats between 1967-2007 who were faster and smarter and more skilled than Mayweather, and if you were around then and saw them you already know their names. However, if youre 35 years old or younger, theres nothing anyone can say thatll convince you there was one, let alone a dozen, fighters greater than Floyd who were active between 1967 and 2007.

Early in Mayweathers career, going back to when he was a prospect, he challenged himself more as a fighter. However, the more he learned about marketing and the more established he became, the less he challenged himself and the more confident he became about promoting himself as an all-timer. Floyd grasped somewhere around 2005 or 2006 that, as long as he could remain undefeated and played the bad guy character, the more the interest there would be in seeing him fight and hopefully lose.Since barely beating De La Hoya in 2007, Mayweather has fought 11 times, but only three opponents Shane Mosely, Miguel Cotto, and Casnelo Alvarez went into the ring with slightly more than a snowballs chance.

Mosley was coming off a significant layoff and the fight in 2010 was five or six years past when beating Shane was a herculean feat. Eight years earlier, Vernon Forrest beat a prime Mosley much more convincingly than Floyd did and at the same weight, yet Forrest never got the accolades for beating him the way Mayweather did. When Floyd fought Cotto, Miguel had only lost twice, but was thrashed by Antonio Margarito, who may have been aided by loaded gloves and by Manny Pacquiao.

Pacquiao stopped Cotto and beat him beyond recognition and there were crickets after the fight. Three years later Cotto gives Mayweather one of the tougher bouts of his career en route to losing a decision and the Mayweather fans were screamingSee, he beat Cotto! And in another genius move, Mayweather fought undefeated Canelo Alvarez when Canelo was still on the way up, before he really blossomed. Not to mention that the style contrast suited Floyd perfectly. In between those bouts he picked his opponents carefully, yes, including Marcos Maidana, who made his name beating Mayweather wannabe Adrien Broner.

Finally, after a six year build-up and conning many fans into believing that he feared a fighter who weighed 106 pounds in his pro-debut, Mayweather agreed to fight Manny Pacquiao in the biggest grossing fight ever. Yes, Pacquiao was an eight division champ, but he picked his opponents and mastered catchweight bouts almost as great as the father of them, Floyd Mayweather.Floyd understood that Manny was like shooting fish in barrel for him stylistically. If you doubt that, read my pre-fight piece the day of the bout May 2nd, 2015.

Many of Floyds bouts were against fighters that had 0% chance to be competitive with him and McGregor is the icing on the cake. Yes, in a boxing ring, McGregor has as much chance of beating Mayweather as Floyd would have to beat Conor in a cage, and it may even be less because Mayweather, being such an accurate striker, could get lucky and stop McGregor wearing 4-ounce gloves. But thats not the point. The point is that Mayweather is playing both boxing fans and MMA fans in this one.

Floyd knows boxing fans want to see him tune up McGregor so they can rub it in the faces of MMa fans saying boxers are tougher and better fighters than MMA combatants. And MMA fans want the same bragging rightsproclaiming that an MMA combatant crossed sports and beat one of boxings best at his own game. How can fans and observers be so foolish? Floyd is using McGregor because as of this moment hes the biggest star in MMA. Its easy money for Floyd and it may turn out to be the biggest or second biggest purse of his career. As for McGregor, hes trying to become the Mayweather, as far as earning potential, in mixed martial artsand at the same time stick it to UFC honcho Dana White. McGregor knows that after the exhibition with Mayweather hell never need to enter an octagon or a ring again if he doesnt want to.

The only other real all-time great who wrapped up his career by defeating an 0-0 guy from another sport was Archie Moore who knocked out wrestler Mike DiBiase. But Archie was 50 at the time (born 1913, not 1916), had 219 previous fights, and wasnt getting paid millions of dollars.

In the final analysis, Mayweather will eclipse Rocky Marcianos record by fighting a man who is 0-0 in the ring while at the same time making a ton of money. When its over Floyd will claim hes the king of combat sports and is the biggest star in both boxing and MMA.again strolling down one of the easier ways to immortality! No fighter or athlete mastered the game of playing the fans greater than Floyd Money Mayweather, nobody.

Fighting McGregor / Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com

Excerpt from:

Fighting McGregor Just Another Easy Step to Immortality for Mayweather - The Sweet Science

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. Jimmie Johnson might have had an easier time had his 6-year-old daughter asked for help with a school art project. Genevieve Johnson instead left dad briefly bewildered with a messier question:

At school, the kids are asking her, saying, Your dads famous, Johnson said. How do you answer that question?

Does your dad dress in a Lowes fire suit, slide into the No. 48 Chevrolet and race on national television every weekend? Does your dad have more than 2.3 million Twitter followers, is he besieged by autograph seekers and asked to voice cartoons on the Disney Channel?

Yes, Genevieve, your father is famous.

But the more contemplative question is this: Is Johnson the greatest to ever drive a stock car? That answer is up for debate, though arguments for other contenders thin as Johnson continues to add to his championship collection.

Seven of em, if youve lost count.

An eighth would push Johnson past Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty for the most ever, leaving him alone as NASCARs greatest.

Johnsons shot at history hit him in 2010 when he won his fifth straight Cup title and talk about chasing eight intensified. He won his sixth in 2013, and his surprising seventh last year now makes an eighth championship seem more inevitable than a longshot.

With 80 career wins and a pair of Daytona 500 victories, the 41-year-old Johnson wont let the record define him.

No, he said, but Im going to try (and win it), though.

Long before he fires up the Chevy, Johnsons championship pursuit begins near dawn with a run. Johnson long ago traded his race helmet for a bicycle helmet during off-hours at the track and put a twist on his Sunday finish line by running the occasional marathon before a race.

At Daytona, he biked 42 miles on Sunday morning hours before he pulled double duty and raced in the Clash and qualified for the 500. Hes inspired and coached members of the NASCAR family crew chiefs, fellow drivers and helped whip them into shape before he whipped them on the track.

With a wife, two daughters and enough race trophies to stuff a storage unit, the fitness freak has never been happier. Johnson has even won over fans who had grown tired of the 48 dynasty built with team owner Rick Hendrick and crew chief Chad Knaus. Before the championship race at Homestead, Johnson was greeted by fans holding up seven fingers, not the one-finger salute hed grown accustomed to receiving.

I get the respect from being around a long time, now he said. I think the age kind of does something.

NASCAR fans are coming around to what the drivers have known for years Johnson is an easy guy to root for.

I dont know anyone who doesnt like Jimmie, 2010 Daytona 500 champion Jamie McMurray said. I feel like hes the guy that you would like not to like because he does win all the time. Hes got a beautiful wife. Hes got great-looking kids. He just kind of like has everything. But hes just always so nice.

Life as a stay-at-home dad will be confined to the winter for now. While Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards have called it quits the last two years, Johnson said hes not even thinking of retirement. He loves racing too much.

When it feels like work someday, Ill stop, he said. It hasnt been there yet.

Certainly not when hes coming off a bit of a surprise championship.

Johnson was practically gifted his seventh title when Edwards aggressive attempt to win the championship ended in a wreck. Johnson got the restart of his life in overtime, took the lead on the very last lap, won for the first time in his career at Homestead and grabbed the final Sprint Cup trophy.

Johnson won all his titles in the Chase era and goes for eight under a rules revamp that divided races into segments and every point counts. Who knows? The format could be just the jolt needed for him to win five straight championships for a second time.

If I did it before, I guess it is possible, Johnson said. Its probably not probable. But its certainly possible.

Just keep some fingers free to count more championships.

Continue reading here:

Johnson chasing 8th title, racing immortality - La Crosse Tribune

As children, you were probably taught that life expectancy was around 75 maybe 80 at a stretch.

However, recent breakthroughs in science and medicine have begun to challenge preexisting assumptions about human longevity.

An international team of scientists funded by the UK Medical Research Council and U.S Environmental Protection Agency has just published a study on life expectancy in the medical journal Lancet.

The findings of the study come with some caveats, but shows a significant rise in life expectancy in most of the 35 developed countries that were studied.

One notable exception is the U.S, where a combination of obesity, risks at childbirth, homicides and a lack of equal access to healthcare is inhibiting the rise. Life expectancy in the U.S is predicted to lag so much behind other developed nations that it will be around parity with Mexico by 2030. Dont tell Trump.

Of all the developed nations studied, South Korea is likely to see the largest increase in life expectancy. According to the study, there is a 90 percent probability that South Korean women will live longer than 86.7 years.

The study also showed that men, who tend to live shorter lives, are closing the gap on life expectancy.

According to the study, Aussies are kicking goals when it comes to living.

The key to longevity may also be a really big knife

Male Australians born in 2010 can expect to live to around 80, which is currently longer than any other country. However, it is predicted that by 2030, South Korean male babies will overtake this and are expected to live to around 84.

Meanwhile, female Australians are currently ranked fourth in life expectancy at around 84. Aussie sheilas born in 2030 can expect to live to the ripe old age of 87ish.

Along with South Korea and Australia, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand and Japan are also doing well.

By 2030, the populations with the highest life expectancies are predicted to be:

1. South Korea 2. France, Japan 3. Spain 4. Switzerland 5. Australia

For men it will be:

1. South Korea 2. Australia 3. Switzerland 4. Canada 5. Netherlands

The study utilised 21 different models of life expectancy in order to come up with as definitive predictions as possible. However, when dealing with the future there is always a degree of uncertainty.

The authors posit that South Koreas top position is most likely due to improvements in the economy and education. In addition, infant mortality has dropped and nutrition has improved. Obesity, something that Aussies need to be wary of, is not a huge issue in South Korea and very few women smoke.

Professor Majid Ezzati, an author of the study, told BBC News:

South Korea has gotten a lot of things right They seem to have been a more equal place and things that have benefited people education, nutrition have benefited most people. And so far, they are better at dealing with hypertension and have some of the lowest obesity rates in the world.

The countries performing well all invest in universal healthcare systems which reach or attempt to reach the entire population.

In Australia, we are lucky enough to have such a system.

Stefan is an Adelaide-based writer who has returned to Australia after living in Taiwan for 14 years. In his spare time he plays nerdy board games, collects vinyl and brushes up on his Mandarin.

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Aussies should prep for immortality, as life expectancy rises - Techly

You can think of The Invention of Morel the opera with music by Stewart Copeland (yes, the co-founder and drummer of the Police) and his co-librettist and director, Jonathan Moore in many different ways. On the one hand, the work, now receiving a winningly haunted and haunting production by Chicago Opera Theater, is the alternately unnerving nightmare and beautiful fever dream of a man on the run who sees no hope for his future until he conjures a relationship with an enigmatic woman.

It also can be seen as the chronicle of a wholly disorienting journey into what Joseph Conrad called The Heart of Darkness. Or you might consider it a meditation on the decadent members of an elite social circle who entertain a wholly delusional sense of privilege and are blind to anyone beyond their tight enclave.

But there is more.

THE INVENTION OF MOREL Highly recommended When:7:30 p.m. Feb. 24 and 3 p.m. Feb. 26 Where: Studebaker Theater in Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Tickets: $39 $125 Info: (312) 704-8414; http://www.chicagooperatheater.org Run time: 90 minutes with no intermission

Barbara Landis (from left), Valerie Vinzant, David Govertsen, Nathan Granner (seated), Scott Brunscheen and Kimberly E. Jones in Chicago Opera Theaters production of The Invention of Morel. (Photo: Liz Lauren)

In fact, so many themes are laced through this 90-minute work based on a 1940 novel by the Argentinean writer Adolfo Bioy Casares everything from the idealization of unrequited love and the tension between science and faith in God to the decidedly mixed blessing of immortality that you might well find yourself diving into its philosophical arguments as much as listening to its winningly eclectic and expertly sung score, a mix of familiar modernist dissonance spiced with a richly refreshing use of percussion, Latin rhythms and the popular dance music of an earlier time.

And on top of everything else in this co-commissioned world premiere with Californias Long Beach Opera, there is the enticing, off-kilter visual world of the piece conjured by set designer Alan Muraoka, lighting designer David Martin Jacques, video designer Adam Flemming and Jenny Mannis, whose costumes (with their hint of the 1920s world of The Great Gatsby) could easily find a place on Fashion Week runways.

The story begins as a bearded Fugitive (Andrew Wilkowske) and his double, who serves as the Narrator (Lee Gregory, like Wilkowske a fine actor and strong baritone), stagger onto a lush, seemingly deserted island in the South China Sea. Its a place with a mythic history, including the outbreak of a devastating plague (and, ironically, it is now the site of genuine geopolitical turmoil). The man, who seems to be a disgruntled intellectual/poet, has fled persecution in Italy and still fears he is being pursued as he takes shelter in a grand museum and mansion whose basement is home to diabolical machinery.

RELATED: Stewart Copeland arrives for world premiere night at the opera

Soon, a luxury ship arrives on the island, dispensing wealthy, self-involved guests who see it as a paradise. There is Morel (the honeyed tenor Nathan Granner, just smarmy and egotistical enough as the inventor who is revealing his monumental discovery), along with Scott Brunscheen as the egotistical architect, Barbara Landis as the Duchess, Kimberly E. Jones as the famous chanteuse and David Govertsen as the man who argues that science and faith need not be mutually exclusive.

And then there is the cool, elusive man magnet Faustine (Valerie Vinzant, a powerful soprano with a supermodel allure, flapper bob and the ability to unfold on a beach towel with balletic grace). The Fugitive immediately falls madly in love with her, even if, in the face of all his efforts to pursue her on the beach, he remains entirely transparent. That unrequited love becomes his driving life force (and fatal compulsion) as he muses on a fabled brothel of the blind in India where men are felt but never seen. His embrace of the very idea of love becomes that feelings best manifestation here, and perhaps a strange key to immortality.

At once eerily realistic and altogether phantasmagorical, The Invention of Morel deftly balances period charm with a contemporary sense of artificial reality. A most intriguing new work.

NOTE: Earlier this month, artistic director Andreas Mitisek announced he will be leaving his position at COT at the conclusion of this season. In April, Mitisek (who eliminated all the companys debt during his tenure) will conduct Phillip Glass opera The Perfect American at the Harris Theater, and he will continue a future relationship with COT as a guest conductor and director in the 2017-18 season (to be announced) and beyond. Beginning in September, COT will be led by general director Douglas Clayton, currently the companys executive director. Asearch for a part-time music director to join the artistic leadership team is planned.

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Blind love and immortality haunt 'The Invention of Morel' | Chicago ... - Chicago Sun-Times

Feb. 18, 2017

By Leigh Torbin

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - Notre Dame's Karen and Kevin Keyes Family Head Women's Basketball Coach Muffet McGraw has taken the penultimate step towards the sport's ultimate lifetime honor as she is included on the list of 14 finalists for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame's Class of 2017, announced on Saturday.

Also a finalist for enshrinement in 2016, McGraw will learn if is she is one of the latest enshrines on April 3 at the men's basketball Final Four in Glendale, Arizona. Joining McGraw as women's committee finalists are Rebecca Lobo, Kim Mulkey and the pioneering teams from Wayland Baptist University as a collective unit.

McGraw, who guided the Irish to the 2001 national championship and seven Final Four appearances, is the winningest single-sport coach in Irish lore with 756 wins. Over her 30-year coaching career, McGraw is 844-267 (.760), making her the sixth-winningest active coach nationally and the 10th-winningest all-time at the Division I level. She is the sixth-winningest female coach in women's basketball history and one of just four women to ever win 750 games at a single school.

She is the 2017 recipient of the Wooden Awards' Legends of Coaching Award, becoming just the third female to receive this honor, joining Tennessee's Pat Summitt and Stanford's Tara VanDerveer. She is the fourth women's coach to be recognized with this honor, joining Summitt, VanDerveer and UConn's Geno Auriemma.

Among her countless other career highlights:

* She is one of five coaches (men's or women's) in Division I history with 800 wins, seven Final Fours and five NCAA title game appearances, joining the elite company of Summitt, Auriemma, Duke men's coach Mike Krzyzewski and the late North Carolina men's coach Dean Smith, all of whom are enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

* McGraw is the only coach to be named the consensus national coach of the year three times, sweeping the Associated Press, Women's Basketball Coaches Association, Naismith Award and United States Basketball Writers Association honors in 2001, 2013 and 2014.

* Only four coaches have ever competed in the national championship game five times and McGraw is joined in this lofty regard by Hall of Famers Summitt, Auriemma and Louisiana Tech's Leon Barmore. The Irish reached the sport's final game in 2001, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015.

* Her decades of consistent winning includes guiding the Irish to 14 Sweet 16 appearances in the past 20 years, making Notre Dame one of just five teams nationally to do so.

* McGraw's 29 20-win seasons ties Georgia's Andy Landers, for seventh in Division I history.

* Over the past six seasons, only UConn (209) has won more games than Notre Dame's even 200.

* Under McGraw, Notre Dame has made 23 NCAA Championship appearances, including a current string of 21 consecutive NCAA tournament berths, marking the fifth-longest active run of consecutive appearances and seventh-longest streak at any time in NCAA tournament history. During this current streak (1996-2016), Notre Dame has won at least one NCAA postseason game 19 times.

* Notre Dame's current stretch of 25 consecutive winning seasons, all under McGraw, is the ninth-longest in NCAA history.

* McGraw has led the Irish to eight regular season or tournament conference championships. Notre Dame is presently three-time defending champions of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

* Her lasting legacy of mentoring successful people along with merely successful players is reflected in having perfect NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) score in seven of the past nine years (2007-16). In that time, Notre Dame is one of four programs in the country to record a perfect GSR score and go on to play for the national title later that same season (something the Fighting Irish have now done four times, most recently in 2015).

McGraw's current Irish team is ranked No. 7 in the nation and stands at 24-3, marking the 11th year in a row and the 23rd time in the past 24 seasons that Notre Dame has won at least 20 games. Notre Dame leads the ACC with a 12-1 conference record as it aims for its fourth straight ACC regular season crown and sixth consecutive outright regular season conference title overall, including the final two years in the BIG EAST. The Irish return to the court at 5 p.m. on Sunday when they face No. 21 Syracuse at the Carrier Dome live on ESPN2.

-ND-

Leigh Torbin, athletics communications associate director at the University of Notre Dame, has been part of the Fighting Irish athletics communications team since 2013 and coordinates all media efforts for Notre Dame's women's basketball and men's golf teams. A native of Framingham, Massachusetts, Torbin graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1998 with a bachelor's degree in sports management. He has previously worked full-time on the athletic communications staffs at Vanderbilt, Florida, Connecticut and UCF.

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McGraw One Step From Hoop Immortality :: Notre Dame Women's ... - Notre Dame Official Athletic Site

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - Sean "The Storm" Grant, 43, introduces himself as The Best Pinball Player of All Time Who's Never Owned a Machine in His Life.

"There are four truly great players in the world," Grant said. "Two of them are American, one of them is from Italy and one of them is from Sweden."

Grant hopes to count himself among those greats some day, perhaps as soon as next month when he represents New York in the National Pinball Championship in Dallas, Texas, after beating out the other 15 best players in this state over the weekend.

"Coming in first is a really big deal to me," Grant said.

Frederic Asher, 15, was the youngest player in Saturday's tournament.

"I have pretty good reflexes," he said.

Beth Centuria was the only woman.

"I think [my reflexes] were kind of bred into me from years of playing with my father," she said.

All three of these pinheads met us at Modern Pinball on 3rd Avenue Thursday, and thanked their fathers for teaching them to play the silver ball, Grant's at a Dairy Queen 40 years ago.

"Sky Jump," Grant said, "it was an old electromechanical game

Every pinball machine is calibrated a little differently, and every game -- with its lights a-flashin' and varying buzzers and bells -- demands different skills and strategies, leaving players with games they like and games they don't.

"Right now I'm adoring Fun House," Senturia said.

"I'm terrible at that game," Asher said.

"Nobody wants to play me in the Twilight Zone," Grant said. "That's my game."

Every tournament works a little differently but generally players are seeded and play head-to-head matches to determine who advances. In New York's state championship, every pairing played a best-of-seven series with the loser of each game choosing the machine for the next one.

"At this point, the tournaments are competitive enough that people know which games I like and which ones I don't," Grant said.

Grant's competed at nationals once before, losing 4-2 in the round of 16 to the best player in the world. On March 16, he'll try for a different result, he hopes flipping his way through machines with soft bumpers and a bracket that allows him as many matches in The Twilight Zone as possible.

"It's all about patience," he said. "Once you get to a certain level it's an entirely mental thing."

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New Yorker seeks pinball immortality - Fox5NY

Reality Of Immortality

Its never fun to write about the struggles of a team, especially one who has dealt with the rollercoaster emotions of a season like Oregon State has, but when it comes down to it, the Beavers are nearing on the edge of history for all the wrong reasons. Its undeniable. With just five games left on their regular season slate, Oregon State has just five more chances to turn their season around and avoid being the worst team in the 116-year history of the schools basketball program. The question is...can they do it?

When Oregon State welcomes Colorado to town on Thursday night, their best chance at breaking their current thirteen game losing skid will be put before them, as the rest of the road ahead for the Beavers looks pretty daunting. Wayne Tinkle and company will need to put forth a monumental effort to finally have that breakthrough theyve been waiting for. The problem for the Beavers is that with their backs against the wall, time is quickly running out.

If the showdown with the Buffs doesn't go Oregon States way, another home game against Utah will at-least give the Beavers the Corvallis-advantage in a duel against an up-and-down Utes program. Utah claimed the first showdown of the season against the Beavers back on January 28th in Salt Lake City, where they knocked off Oregon State, 86-78, despite a career-high 30-point effort from Stephen Thompson Jr..

After those two games, Oregon State will have to try their luck away from home, where theyve been an absolutely abysmal road team with no evidence of that luck changing. Stanford, will be fresh off their rivalry match-up against California, which could allow a let-down scenario for a Cardinal group thats won just four times in conference play. However, California is arguably the Pac-12s best team not named Arizona, Oregon or UCLA. Trying to sneak a win out of Berkeley will be much more difficult than clipping Stanford in Palo Alto.

Finally, the Beavers regular season concludes back in Corvallis in what will be the 348th edition of the Civil War, as Oregon State hosts Oregon on March 4th. The Ducks lambasted the Beavers in their earlier meeting this season, handing them their worst defeat all-season long. If Oregon State hasnt still won by this point, its hard to imagine their arch enemy slipping up with potential NCAA Tournament seeding on the line for the Ducks.

Unfortunately, theres a strong chance that the Beavers could realistically lose five straight games to close out the regular season and head into the Pac-12 Tournament with a 4-27 record overall (0-17 in conference), which would comfortably put their win percentage as the worst in school history (.129%).

[*If OSU loses their next five games...their record would be 4-27 overall (.129)]

The Beavers will return to action on Thursday night, when they welcome a surging Colorado team to Corvallis for a re-match of the Buffs late-January victory. The game is slated for a 6:00 PM PT tip-off and will be televised on the Pac-12 Network.

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Reality Of Immortality: Oregon State Is Five Games Away From ... - Building the Dam

Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only be achieved by such means. The fact that man, for ages, has superstitiously believed in what he calls a God does not prove at all that his theory has been right. There have been many gods all makeshifts, born of inability to fathom the deep fundamental truth. There must be something at the bottom of existence, and man, in ignorance, being unable to discover what it is through reason, because his reason has been so imperfect, undeveloped, has used, instead, imagination, and created figments, of one kind or another, which, according to the country he was born in, the suggestions of his environment, satisfied him for the time being. Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory?

Destruction of false theories will not decrease the sum of human happiness in future, any more than it has in the past... The days of miracles have passed. I do not believe, of course, that there was ever any day of actual miracles. I cannot understand that there were ever any miracles at all. My guide must be my reason, and at thought of miracles my reason is rebellious. Personally, I do not believe that Christ laid claim to doing miracles, or asserted that he had miraculous power...

Our intelligence is the aggregate intelligence of the cells which make us up. There is no soul, distinct from mind, and what we speak of as the mind is just the aggregate intelligence of cells. It is fallacious to declare that we have souls apart from animal intelligence, apart from brains. It is the brain that keeps us going. There is nothing beyond that.

Life goes on endlessly, but no more in human beings than in other animals, or, for that matter, than in vegetables. Life, collectively, must be immortal, human beings, individually, cannot be, as I see it, for they are not the individuals they are mere aggregates of cells.

There is no supernatural. We are continually learning new things. There are powers within us which have not yet been developed and they will develop. We shall learn things of ourselves, which will be full of wonders, but none of them will be beyond the natural.

[Columbian Magazine interview] Thomas A. Edison

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Quotes About Immortality (489 quotes)

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Almost everyone believes in some form of future life (or immortality) because of the extreme inequalities experienced in this life. People just naturally feel that something will be done, somewhere, somehow, to even things out. However, just what immortality means in the minds and hearts of men does vary widelyextremely sowith different groups of people around the world.

The word itself means "endless life." One who is "mortal" will eventually die; one who is "immortal" will never die. Even if his body dies and returns to dust, his "soul" or "spirit" (or what might be called the "soul/spirit complex") continues to exist apart from the body. Belief in immortality in this sense is almost intuitive. It seems so obvious to most people that the soul/spirit is quite distinct from the bodyso much so that, when it finally leaves the body, it just must continue on somewhere else.

All the great philosophers of antiquitySocrates, Aristotle, Plato, etc.thought so, although the precise details of their concepts of immortality were diverse and ambiguous. The same is true of later pseudo-Christian philosophers generallySpinoza, Kant, Hegel, etc. Some of these men tended to believe in the continued existence of individual personalities, others in the merging of individual souls into a kind of "all-soul."

One very widespread belief is that of transmigration and reincarnation (also called metempsychosis), commonly identified with Hinduism and Buddhism, but also found in one form or another in a great many other sects, ancient and modern. In such religions, the soul "migrates" from the dead body to the body of a newborn creature. The latter may be animal or human, depending on the merits of the recently deceased.

There are many others who believe that the personality of the deceased persists in disembodied form, perhaps as a ghost. Such a belief is found widely in animistic cultures, but also in China and many ancient nations. Witness the many tales of haunted houses and the like, even in "Christian" countries.

There are many "spiritualistic churches" professing a diluted form of Christianity and led by "mediums" who claim to have the ability to communicate with departed family members or others. In recent years, numerous "New Age" cults have also risen, many of which involve "channelers" who receive "revelations," either from dead ancestors or from other kinds of spirits. It is significant that all such concepts of immortality assume that only the soul/spirit survives at death; the body is dead and that's the end of it.

They usually assume that some form of evolution was the origin of the whole system. This is not atheistic evolutionism (the strict atheist does not believe in any kind of after-life at all, except the notion that immortality consists merely in one's ongoing influence or in the achievements of his descendants).

But there are many religions that believe in some form of pantheistic evolutionthat is, the concept that Mother Nature (or Gaia, or some such personification of the supposedly "conscious" Cosmos) has somehow generated life as well as individual spirits. The various forces of nature which have been involved in doing this are then likewise personified as various deities to be worshipped because of what they have accomplished (the god of thunder, the goddess of fertility, the god of grain, and so on ad infinitum). This whole system has been called polytheistic pantheism. There are even gods of war and gods of death and gods of various other evils. After all, these also have supposedly contributed to evolution.

It is not surprising that these various systems of pantheistic evolutionary origins have believed in immortality, but none believe in the immortality of the bodythat is, in bodily resurrection. After all, physical death is one of Nature's ways of maintaining a balance of life and even future evolution of new life (at least in their way of thinking). There can be no comfortable role for resurrection in any kind of evolutionary system.

And now there is even a new form of immortality which fits even the premise of atheism. The most influential atheistic periodical today is probably The Humanist, published by the American Humanist Association. A recent article in this journal by a humanist essayist named Brian Trent argues that science is so wonderful that it may soon conquor death altogether.

The scientific evidence offered for this incredible prediction is that a certain scientist at the University of California at Irvine has been able to breed a few fruit flies that are still alive and vigorous at 24 years of age (their usual life-span is only several weeks).

This remarkable research has been published in a recent book2 by that scientist. He calls these flies "Methuselah flies," so he is familiar with the Biblical record of great longevity in the world before the Flood, noting that Noah's grandfather Methuselah lived 969 years.

If these scientists are right, we might soon be able to produce our own immortalitymerely by never dying! Brian Trent seems confident that "the immortals are most likely coming. . . . There may be people alive right now who could live to see endless sunrises."3

To the Christian, however, this is not a happy prospect. To live a million years in a body easily brought "into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Romans 7:23) seems repugnant, at best. In fact, that may well be the ultimate future for those who participate in "the resurrection of damnation" (John 5:29), "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:48), and where "he which is filthy [will] be filthy still" (Revelation 22:11). But as far as this present life is concerned, neither is it a possible prospect. "It is appointed unto men once to die" (Hebrews 9:27). "Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12). That's what God says about it!

God does offer the prospect of true sinless immortalitynot just of the soul, but of the whole individualbody, soul, and spirit! This true immortality can only come from the Creator Himself. He is the only one who intrinsically "hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen" (I Timothy 6:16).

The Greek word translated "immortality" in this passage is athanasia, meaning literally "no death." Only the Creator has intrinsic immortality, but He created the first man and woman "in His own image," with the purpose that they also would be immortal. When they rebelled against His Word, however, they marred that image, bringing in death and becoming mortal, subject to physical death. "Unto dust shalt thou return" was God's pronouncement to Adam (Genesis 3:19).

But the Creator cannot be defeated in His purpose for creation, so He has provided a wonderful redemption for His human creation (that is, for all who will accept it as God's gift). "For . . . this mortal must put on immortality. So when . . . this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (I Corinthians 15:53-54).

In the context of this wonderful passage, it is clear that this great event will take place when our great God and Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ, descends from heaven to re-fashion our mortal, dying bodies, to "be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself" (Philippians 3:21).

To transform mortal bodies into immortal bodies will require a miracle of creation, comparable only to the miracle of the primeval cosmic creation itself. Only the Creator can do this, on the basis of having satisfied the demands of divine judgment against human sin Himself, by dying in our place and then defeating death. And He will do it for this is His immutable promise!

Now for mortals to put on immortality, bodily resurrection will be required, not just spiritual regeneration, though that also is immensely important, and is a part of the whole redemptive work of our Creator. It must be emphasized again that creation and resurrection must go together. The varieties of so-called immortality that accompany the evolutionary religions can never produce resurrection. That can only be the work of the Creator/Redeemer.

We note also that there are two creationist religions in addition to Biblical Christianity (Orthodox Islam and Orthodox Judaism) and they also believe in physical resurrection. However, their respective concepts of creation and resurrection both refuse to acknowledge the Creator as their Redeemer, the One who died for their sins, then rose triumphantly from the dead. Sadly, both Muslims and Jews still refuse to believe that Christ rose again after His redeeming sacrificial death. So their concepts of immortality are as ineffective as those of any other religion, and also as this new but futile hope of naturalistic immortality promoted in The Humanist, as noted above.

True immortality can be realized only through the substitutionary death and victorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. This has all been "made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (II Timothy 1:10).

Cite this article: Henry M. Morris, Ph.D. 2004. Immortality. Acts & Facts. 33 (8).

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Immortality | The Institute for Creation Research