Category Archives: Immortality

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Nick Sabans coaching rehab at the University of Alabama is two-fold.

It creates opportunities for coaches to reinvent themselves and endear themselves to a passionate fan base; however, it also opens them to other enticing job offers in the future and a coach that was starting to be loved by fans has to part ways from them.

This song and dance happens again with Stephen Steve Ambrose Sarkisian.

After two seasons with the Crimson Tide, the University of Texas desired him and hired him to be its next head football coach.

Before he becomes a full-time Longhorn, Sarkisian operated the nations most explosive offense this season. Hes coached three Heisman finalists, including two in the top-four. Mac Jones (quarterback) and DeVonta Smith (wide receiver) have both done more than enough to grant the Tide its third Heisman winner in school history, but we will see what happens next Tuesday.

For now, the primary question is will the news on Sarkisian become too much of a distraction for Alabama in the College Football Playoff?

He will coach the offense in the CFP National Championship Game versus Ohio State on Jan. 11 at HardRock Stadium in Miami, Fla.

We saw moments with Kirby Smart (2015) and Jeremy Pruitt (2017) where it was not an issue, but we also saw in situations with Lane Kiffin (2016) and multiple coaches in 2018 where it was an issue and it cost Alabama a national title.

Smart and Pruitt both finished the job with national titles, prior to assuming roles as head coaches.Sarkisian is a savvy professional and he wants to finish what he started.

He has a chance to win his first national championship as an offensive coordinator.

The last time he was on top of the college football world was in 2003 as a quarterbacks coach for the University of Southern California.

When it comes to this team, the 2017 class is its saving grace. With six five-stars leading the group, the class arrived under a lot of pressure and expectations.

Despite the responsibility, the 2017 bunch has accomplished a lot. It has an opportunity to be cemented as one of the best classes to come through the program. While the 2009 signing class was a part of three BCS National Championships, the significance of the group was felt in two of them. The 2017 class snatched victory from defeat in the 2018 CFP National Championship, as Tua Tagovailoa, Alex Leatherwood, Najee Harris, Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs III and DeVonta Smith all played versus Georgia.

Saban knew he had recruited the talent in 2017, but he also knew he brought in players with hunger.

Najee Harris is the talker of the group, but he will hurdle you back in place. Mac Jones has been through so much as a first-year starting quarterback, but he refuses to end this season with a championship. Three of the Tides four permanent team captains Mac Jones, DeVonta Smith and Alex Leatherwood were from the 2017 class. Harris, Smith, Leatherwood and Dylan Moses all returned for an opportunity to leave as national champions. Even with their individual accomplishments, this class knows its career is not complete without a second national title ring. Expect a fierce week of practice and complete focus from Alabama, as the 2017 class wont allow distractions to happen. This group is one win away from immortality and becoming the second team of the Saban era to finish a perfect season with a national championship.

The Tide will be prepared for Ryan Day and Ohio State.

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Stephen M. Smith is the managing editor and seniorwriter forTouchdown Alabama Magazine. Youcan like him onFacebookor follow him on Twitter, via@CoachingMSmith

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Does of the news of Steve Sarkisian taking Texas job become a distraction in CFP? - Touchdown Alabama Magazine

During his time in the DC Universe, Batman has faced off against many threats but none have challenged him like Cthulhu, the greatest evil.

The beauty of Batman as a character is how versatile and adaptable he really is. His origin, skillset, and background can be applied to virtually any number of alternate world stories. It's a flexibility that characters like Superman and Wonder Woman lack due to being firmly routed in a very specific narrative related to their powers and origins. But the concept of Batman can be applied to virtually any scenario. A Victorian Era Gotham City, a futuristic one, and almost two decades ago, a '20s Gotham City where Batman faced off against a Cthulu-like entity.

In Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham by Mike Mignola, Richard Price, Troy Nixey, and Bill Oakley, Bruce Wayne has been away from Gotham for about 20 years. He traveled the world acquiring skills much like his main continuity counterpart, he even picked up alternate versions of his first threeRobins along the way. But what prompted Bruce to leave Gotham for all this time is a little different from his usual origin story in Crime Alley.

RELATED:Batman: Bruce Wayne Makes a BOLD Costume Choice for His Most Personal Battles

As usual, young Bruce was out with his parents when they were accosted by an armed assailant. But the man who killed Thomas andMartha Wayne wasn't Joe Chill and he certainly had no intention of stealing pearls. Their murderer was fueled by pure rage towards Thomas Wayne and his family. Bruce managed to flee into a nearby church, but upon climbing to the top of the bell tower, he was met by a hanged man that warned him of "The Thing" and that it was coming and how Bruce was the only one who could stop it. The experience traumatized Bruce, but also informed his decision to leave Gotham to train. He would train, not for a war on crime, but to one day do battle with whatever force had robbed him of his parents and seemed to be behind the supernatural forces hidden within the city. And20 years later he finally donned the cape and cowl to search for answers, but what he discovered was even more bizarre and disturbing than he could have imagined.

In a unique spin on Ra's al Ghul, he was not an immortal eco-terrorist but a deranged cultist, bent on freeing Iog-Sotha, a Lovecraftian horror, from its prison. The reason Bruce was dragged into the supernatural proceedings was that his father was directly involved in making Gotham the site of its return. The Thomas Wayne of this universe was in fact centuries old, having been involved in a ritual with one of Iog-Sotha's followers that granted him immortality. But recognizing what would happen if they went through with the ritual, Thomas and his cohorts built Gotham over the temple that Iog-Sotha would return through.

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Batman Fought Lovecraftian Horrors in The Doom That Came to Gotham - CBR - Comic Book Resources

As we leave a very difficult 2020 behind, were grateful to have had so many incredible voices as part of Magazine, and for the places their words, ideas, images, and music have taken us. We asked some of our contributors to share a wish for 2021 in a form of their choosing; something theyre looking forward to, something they hope for, or something theyd like to see. Their responses below show the connections we still find through artand the uninhibited dancing in a crowd we still seek.

In 2021, may we welcome a world that is closer together. The pandemic has made us understand that we are one species, sharing similar goals and aspirations. The pandemic has also acted as a mirror, reflecting our good traits and exposing the hate and anger that all too often is the weak response to challenge. May we see this point in history as an opportunity for global compassion and kindness.

Read "Taken for Granite: A Climber Sees Yosemite from a New Vantage Point."

Image courtesy of Conrad Anker.

Image courtesy of Conrad Anker

I am reading a great novel called The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. My wish for 2021 is that this becomes a massively popular book that youd see on the coffee table in every home. This book encourages the kind of innovative thinking humanity needs. I also wish for all artists, musicians, and creative people to come out of this stressful time with healthy minds, so they can get back to making beautiful things.

Listen to "A Portable Embrace."

A wish for 2021: for a continued widening arc of engagement, critical discourse, and art-work that is responsive to the seismic transitions of this present moment. This hope is that the growth and learning we have done together both in art and in the world over this past year continues to expand our perspectives and transform us alongside the transformations we see in the world.

Read "Re-Imaging America."

In a year that has brought so much radical change to so many people, my wish is for a 2021 that brings increasing clarity and perspective, inner calm and balance alongside enduring attention and commitment to systems of creative and holistic care of workers and artists and art workers through and beyond institutional spaces. I'd also love to see it become possible to reconvene again on a dance floor as a collective celebration of continuing to hold and make space; the imagination and possibility there is one we've all longed for as we've sashayed across our living room floors alone with the speakers bumping at different points. Movement spurs thought and so my hope is for more ways to movemove our bodies, move one another, move the world.

Read "Re-Imaging America."

Like everyone, I wish for the return of civility and liberalism in our national discourse and the retreat of the virus that is COVID and the sickness that is Trumpism. In addition, I wish for antidepressants that dont have sexual side effects; my childrens recovery from the relative isolation that the virus has engendered; an honest reckoning with police brutality; more things sold with less packaging; travel; easeful death for people I love who are in decline; recovery for other people I know who are in decline; a boom market; more curiosity in my children; a release from the bonds of the screen for people who grow lonely as they interact with it; reduced anxiety; cures for what wants curing but not for anything else; art that is full of complex meaning but also looks nice on the wall; to stay the age I am a while longer; to keep my children from telling lies; to see the opioid epidemic stemmed rather than revenged; a pair of brown monk strap shoes; an end to global warming; peace in the Middle East; peace outside the Middle East; a new generation dedicated to equality but also respectful of merit; the end of the stigma around, indeed the word for, appropriationism; the rebuilding of the American educational system; beauty and truth in every day; a Pulitzer prize; a cure for psychosis; the cancellation of Brexit; a chance to go into orbital flight; the reuniting of separated children at the US border with their parents; immortality; the breakup of oppressive monopolies; athletic grace; and the ability, for me and everyone, to learn from human suffering.

Listen to "The Case for Artistic Genius."

I figure the planet-level stuff is sort of obvious. Personally, though? That Shuhada Sadaqat (Sinead OConnor) feel good and put out another record, that my fifteen-year-old start listening to me about her posture, that I get better about forgiveness and finishing things.

Read "Another Country" and listen to "The Deepest Cuts."

I dont have a wish per se, but I have a new song and video called "Cant Escape into Space," which is kind of a wish.

Wolfgang Tillmans, "Can't Escape Into Space." Music written by Wolfgang Tillmans, Tim Knapp, Bruno Breitzke. Produced by Tim Knapp, Bruno Breitzke and Wolfgang Tillmans. Vocals and lyrics by Wolfgang Tillmans.

Listen to "On My Own."

Here's my wishI wish people would stop dying from Covid-19. I wish a vaccine was just a shot, a neutral thing that prevented a deadly disease. That's a privileged position. Vaccines, like illnesses, are always loaded with cultural and political meaning. We are collectively deciding how much trust to place in our government institutions (and pharmaceutical companies), perpetrators of systemic white supremacy and violence against marginalized bodies. I hope we can trust these shots, and the trust is not broken. I hope we can be free.

Look at "Love Sick."

I wish that in 2021 we will be able look back on this strange and terrible year with relief and satisfaction that it's over, and some prideeven joyon how we and our friends and colleagues and neighbors responded to its many challenges with dignity, responsibility, solemnity, but also creativity and humor. And that the habits and abilities forged in crisis don't leave us too quickly or fully.

Read "Can Drawing Be a Crime?"

My wish for 2021 is to de-center the human and to foreground the phenomenon within nature.

Read and watch "Cooking with Artists: Anicka Yi."

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We Are All Related: Artists, Writers, and More Share Wishes for 2021 | Magazine - MoMA

Man lives on food, water and air but not for them. One universal law of life, in a world with limited resources, is the constant struggle of living organisms for these, in order to leave behind maximum copies of themselves in the form of their progeny. This simple rule of nature has carved our bodies and minds over millions of years, as new species evolve, better adapted to their environments. It operates silently at the level of our genes, by selecting those genes from the pool which code for such behaviour as will maximise their survival.

But we do not fall in love in order to produce a large brood, nor do we look after our children only because they are the means of propagation of our genes. We do things that seem far removed from this Malthusian world of struggle for survival. And it appears we liveforthem. We sing and dance with our friends, we invent wildly improbable supernatural beings and equally preposterous means to appease them, we pierce our bodies to put on trinkets, we toil in our gardens to beautify our surroundings, we invent intricate systems of sounds and body-movements and derive rapturous joy listening and watching people who have mastered these, we zealously guard little leisure wrenched from the gruelling task of earning livelihood and spend it holding hands of our beloveds, we fritter hard-earned money to travel to far-off lands to watch sun sink behind an interminable ocean, we pave mountains, we carve stones, we paint caves.

Are all these activities in pursuit of happiness? If by happiness we mean sum-total of pleasurable stimuli during a sensory experience, much of our lives are spent in ventures which are far from pleasant when being performed. An act of creation is the most tormenting experience of man: be it painting, sculpture, writing, music, or scientific invention. People spend excruciating lives in these pursuits. We only learn of those who succeed. Even they admit that the process of achieving their objective is an unmitigated misery.

Writing a book is horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

-George Orwell, Why I Write

These human endeavours at least provide for an illusion of immortality. One feels they are leaving behind a part of themselves for the posterity. What about people who live and die in strange, hostile lands to spread the message of their imaginary God. People spend their precious youths in climbing remote, inhospitable mountains or charting the seas of the world.

People with exquisite intellect whittle away their most productive years in inventing esoteric streams of abstract knowledge which has no apparent utility for mankind. What is this gigantic human industry for? If it is not for the immediate pleasure and apparently not to maximize individual survival, what then drives it? What does man seek in this relentless labour?

It seems this unflagging strife is in pursuance ofmeaningin life. Meaning, not in the sense of Cosmic truth of existence, but meaning in the sense of a goal, a value, that makes every moment of life worth living. Meaning gives a narrative to our past and a direction to our future. It gives us a feeling that our life is not a mere collection of random occurrences but each moment is a component of the whole which we can strive to carve. It is a known fact that life without meaning, though not lacking in pleasure, is rarely felt to be happy. While a life devoid of much pleasures but seen to be meaningful is considered rewarding.

People find this meaning in various activities: in arts, science, music, travel, charity; in being a dutiful parent or a loving spouse; in building empires or in simply being an honest, sincere citizen.

Science presents another interesting view of life.

Human life is inconsequential in the realm of cosmos, though inseparably woven in its fabric. Origin of human life was a cosmic phenomenon, like any other. In this infinite vastness of universe, we inhabit a speck of dust called Earth which is itself an insignificant planet revolving around a moderately sized star. There are billions such stars and planetary systems in our galaxy and billions such galaxies in our universe. It would not make any difference to universe if all of a sudden human life was to be snubbed from it. Planets would go on revolving around their stars, stars will go on exploding into supernovae or collapse into black holes, universe will go on expanding and as this expansion slows, perhaps one day it will vanish into a void from which it had risen.

Universe grinds according to certain simple laws. These laws are blind. They have no purpose. Mans search for meaning in his ephemeral life, seen in the context of the meaninglessness of existence is intensely tragic, if not outright absurd. Steven Weinberg, a Noble laureate in physics, thought that the more universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

Scientific explanations, stark and trenchant as they are, appear to sap life of its vitality. But when approached with a longing only for truth, they expose a vista of unparalleled simplicity about origin of universe and life on earth. In a few words they give us the law which explains the origin of the most exquisite living machine.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable!

-Shakespeare

This relentless search, a by-product of our thinking mind itself a fruit of evolution, is as real as the supreme brain that stirred it, however fruitless it may be.

It is this endless quest, which makes human life shine with a singular beauty.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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Meaning in it all - The Times of India Blog

2021 is a year that began with the coronavirus pandemic and will continue with a vaccination framework to eradicate the level of contagiousness of the Sars-Cov-2 virus. The new year will feature a total of 18 holidays, which is expected to serve to prop up tourism after being one of the worst hit sectors in 2020 by restrictions to contain the virus.

The first holiday of the year was January 1, on the occasion of the New Year: the next will be Carnival, Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th February.

In March , the holiday of the 24, for the National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice. The following month theApril 2(Veterans Day and those who died in the Malvinas War and Good Friday) and later on May 1 (Workers Day).

He 25 of May, will be a holiday for the May Revolution, then the June 20th, for the passage to the Immortality of General Manuel Belgrano.

In 2021, the last permanent holidays will be theJuly 9th(Independence Day),December 8(Day of the Immaculate Conception of Mary) and theDecember 25th(Christmas).

Portable holidays will be the June 17 (Step to the Immortality of Gral. Gemes), which will be commemorated onJune 21; he 17 of August (Passage to the Immortality of General Jos de San Martn), which will be commemorated onAugust 16th.

Then the holiday of October 12 (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity), which will be commemorated onOctober 11thand theNovember 20(National Sovereignty Day).

Finally, holidays for tourism purposes will be el May 24, October 8 and November 22.

The Government informed by means of the decree established in the calendar of holidays, that with the incorporation of the long weekend extended from Friday 8 to Monday 11 of October, the national Government encourages tourist getaways in spring, to replicate the successful experience from the recovery of the Carnival Holidays and continue to reactivate the sector, hit worldwide by the Covid-19 pandemic .

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What is the calendar like? - Explica

This essay was born out of two Twitter exchanges: the first with German geographer Simon Kuestenmacher and the second with Silicon Valley investor Balaji Srinivasan. Kuestenmacher tweeted out a map that showed the startlingly small geographical area responsible for bringing in half of the global GDP. Srinivasan wrote in his tweet, The SF (San Francisco) Bay Area is one of the richest places in the world. We really dont need to commit to making rich places richer.

We need to decentralise technology to the entire world. Im more excited to invest in the Middle East and the Midwest, Nigeria and India, than in SFBA.For most of humanity, the vast amount of the worlds productive activity and riches have coagulated in major cities, from Rome to Baghdad, London to Tokyo, New York to Mumbai. This aggregation gave cities both their ephemeral sense of immortality and their mythology.

It also made them very crowded and, in more recent times, struggle to deal with issues such as little open spaces, limited parking and air pollution. The question to ask is not how to decongest cities, but what made them crowded in the first place?Simply, aggregation has economic benefits. Proximity helps build efficiencies in the flow of information, helps build resilient networks and cheapens cost of transportation. There is, therefore, natural economic logic to the cheek-by-jowl-ness of a large city.

But no matter where one looks, from Silicon Valley heavyweight companies moving base to Texas to Indian tech entrepreneurs trying out models of working from villages, there are signs of the aggregated urban model disaggregating. There are many reasons for this: low taxes, cleaner environments, better quality of life and low expenses.

Such impulses to move locationnever easy for big businesshas also been propelled by the supply chain resilience impetus created by trade wars and the Covid-19 pandemic. It is supported by mass digitisation, rising internet speeds and cloud computing technology, which is creating what I call an anything, anywhere world. This AA world, if you will, promises one of the greatest disruptions for business and urbanisation in history.

It holds within it the promise for workers to work from anywhere, on anything, without the need to relocate. It must be stressed here that we are talking about relatively privileged workers here whose work is based on the use of tech platforms. If you think about it, what does this amount to, really? It holds within it the promise of bridging the gap that our latest wave of globalisation has createdbetween the active participants and beneficiaries, and those left behind.

It is a spread of companies, jobs and work, and in turn, of income towards places that might have suffered from the tyranny of distance in the aggregation model. The benefits of the earlier age of globalisation, in many ways, came to those who could relocate to the major hubs of capital, commerce and jobs. From now on, perhaps the entry barrier would only be as high as those who can access high speed internet.

That, after all, is whats left behind if there is nowhere specific that you have to go to access the fruits of the best markets. Instead, the markets are at your doorstep, or perhaps more accurately, at your desktop. Such a spreadwhether you think of this in terms of Mahatma Gandhis self-sufficient villagesor Prime Minister NarendraModis plan of rolling out numerous smart citieswould assist in decongesting the accumulation of population and wealth in very concentrated dots of geography. This kind of tech-driven spread would not be the suburbanisation of yore.

There would be no need to make the harried trip to the downtown office every day. The AA model opens the gateway for peopleat least those whose work is connected to technologyto locate themselves in the geography of their convenience. Remember the map that we started this essay with? The concentration of the worlds wealth is, as we hear everyday, one of the biggest challenges facing society. It is tearing our world apart. But notenough is discussed about how this concentration is not only among people (the infamous 1%) but also in geographical locations.

The anything, anywhere model breaks this hegemony for it is fundamentally inclusive in terms of that vital elementgeography.This works to Indias advantage. India is simultaneously working to develop its hinterlands, expand its city network, empower villages, and present itself as a suitable alternative in the global value chains.

It also has one of the most efficient and low-cost internet networks in the world, which is fast expanding. The anytime, anywhere world helps both myriad Indian products tucked away far from major cities to find markets with ease and for the country to insert itself more effectively in global supply chains. An AA situation, if there was one.

HindolSengupta (hindol.opinion@gmail.com)Vice President & Head of Research at Invest India, GoIs national investment promotion agency

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The anything, anywhere model of globalisation - The New Indian Express