Get out the broomson Fridaynight, for the Golden State Warriors are poised to capture their second NBA titlein three years, and a spot as the greatest team in NBA history. The Warriors scored the final 11 points in the closing minutes of sensational game three of the NBA finals, 118-113, at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland to take a commanding 3-0 series lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Warriors continue their unstoppable winning streak. DUB Nation is an astonishing 15-0 this postseason, a mere win from an historic 16-0 NBA record. They have the opportunity to cap off a flawless playoffs.

Trailing by seven points late in the fourth quarter, the Warriors mounted a furious rally in The Land and stole one as Kevin Durant hit a go-ahead three-pointer with 45 seconds in the exhilarating game every NBA fan has been eagerly waiting for. The shot symbolically represents the changing of the guard in the NBA; the moment KD surpassed King James as the games best player. Its the defining moment in Durants career.

The main storyline of the 2017 NBA finals has been the battle for league supremacy. LeBron James helped foster Durants departure from the Oklahoma City Thunder to head to the Bay Area in the first place.

Durant is following the template LeBron set up in 2010, when James joined the Miami Heat, a so-called Superteam. As Durant casually dribbled the ball past the half-court line, no one imagined he dared attempt a three-pointer. However, he realized James heels were behind the line, so he let it fly. You could hear a pin drop when it swished through the net.

Game three was a devastating loss for the Cavaliers. Everything went right, and still those final minutes will haunt them. They went ice-cold at the worst possible time, going 0 for 8 down the stretch.Trailing by three, 116-113 with 12 seconds remaining, the Cavaliers had a ripe chance to send this thriller into overtime with a three. On an errant inbound pass, Andre Iguodala blanketed James, deflecting the ball off LeBrons arms, and the fate was sealed.

Kyrie Irving had his breakout performance, shaking and baking for 39 points, while LeBron James added 38 points. The duos 77 combined points was outstanding in defeat.

Unfortunately for the city of Cleveland, LeBron and the Cavaliers choked and gave this one away. Should James fall short once again, his NBA finals record will be 3-5. That means his pursuit of catching Michael Jordan to become the G.O.A.T. is officially over. Jordan not only was a flawless 6-0 in the finals, his Chicago Bulls never needed seven games to win the title.

Redemption shall be attained in the form of the glistening Larry OBrien trophy if the Warriors sweep their archrivalsthe Cavs bycelebrating on the floor of the franchise that ripped their heart out last year. In the aftermath of an historic comeback, the Warriors avenged consecutive game three finals losses.

The Cavaliers have dug themselves an even greater hole than last year, when all looked hopeless facing a 3-1 series deficit. This year, the Cavaliers will have to one-up their recent comeback history. Game four will air Friday, June 9, on ABC. Tipoff is scheduled for9 p.m. EST.

Christopher Floch has covered two Super Bowls, UCLA and USC football, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and three Rose Bowls. In his spare time, he loves to spend time with his nephew, Liam.

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Golden State Is One NBA Finals Victory From Immortality - The Federalist

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Cleveland did everything right for 44 minutes and 52 seconds. The teams gameplan was working to perfection. LeBron James was doing all the stuff that makes you go I am glad I am alive to watch him play basketball. Kyrie Irving was throwing up H-O-R-S-E shots that went in despite the fact that he was hoisting them up from impossible angles. Kevin Love wasnt scoring (he went 1-for-9 for nine points), but it didnt matter, because he was rebounding (13 on the night) and forcing turnovers (six steals). Besides, J.R. Smith and Kyle Korver combined to drop 24, so Loves off night wasnt a killer.

It didnt matter. Nothing matters. Well, thats a lie. The only thing that matters is that Golden State has assembled a team that no one can beat at the very least, no team as currently assembled can beat them in a seven-game series.

Over the final three minutes and eight seconds of the game, Cleveland did not score. Golden State scored a lot. By the time the final buzzer sounded, the Warriors won, 118-113. Heres the win probability chart.

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Golden State Is One Win Away From Immortality, And The Cavs Can't Do Anything About It - UPROXX

As changing technologies and preferences make government-funded broadcasting increasingly preposterous, such broadcasting actually becomes useful by illustrating two dismal facts. One is the immortality of entitlements that especially benefit those among societys articulate upper reaches who feel entitled. The other fact is how impervious government programs are to evidence incompatible with their premises.

Fifty years and about 500 channels ago, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created to nudge Lyndon Johnsons Great Society it aimed to make America great for the first time the final inches toward perfection. Today, the CPB, which has received about $12 billion over the years, disperses the governments 15 percent of public televisions budget and 10percent of public radios. Originally, public television increased many viewers choices by 33 percent from three (CBS, NBC, ABC) to four.

Twenty-five years ago, Sen. Al Gore, defending another appropriation increase for the CPB, asked what he considered a dispositive question: How many senators here have children who have watched Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood? ... This is one thing that works in this country. So, senators, mostly affluent, should compel taxpayers, mostly much less affluent, to subsidize the senators childrens viewing because it works, as measured by means that Gore neglected to reveal.

Eighteen years ago, some public broadcasting officials, who understood the importance of being earnest and imaginative testified to Congress that public televisions educational effects on the workforce give the economy a $12 billion boost. Fifteen years ago, however, the then-president of public television said, We are dangerously close in our overall prime-time numbers to falling below the relevance quotient. Relevance? To what?

Today, Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, thinks we can risk terminating the CPB. This would reduce viewers approximately 500choices to approximately 499. Listeners to public radio might have to make do with Americas 4,666 AM and 6,754 FM commercial stations, 437 satellite radio channels, perhaps 70,000 podcasts, and other Internet and streaming services.

(Zoeann Murphy,Dani Player,Whitney Leaming,Malcolm Cook/The Washington Post)

America, which is entertaining itself to inanition, has never experienced a scarcity of entertainment. Or a need for government-subsidized journalism that reports on the government. Before newspaper editorial writers inveigh against Mulvaney and in support of government subsidies for television and radio, they should answer this question: Should there be a CPN a Corporation for Public Newspapers?

The CPB was created to encourage public telecommunications services which will be responsive to the interests of people. Of course: peoples interests, not peoples desires. The market efficiently responds to the latter. Public broadcasting began as a response to what progressives nowadays call market failure. This usually means the markets failure to supply what the public has not demanded but surely would demand if it understood its real interest.

One reason many Americans are becoming cord cutters, abandoning cable and satellite television, is that they want an a la carte world. One reason ESPN has lost 12 million subscribers in six years is that it is an expensive component of cable and satellite packages and many of those paying for the packages rarely watch ESPN.

Compelling taxpayers to finance government-subsidized broadcasting is discordant with todays a la carte impulse and raises a point: If it has a loyal constituency, those viewers and listeners, who are disproportionately financially upscale, can afford voluntary contributions to replace the government money. And advertisers would pay handsomely to address this constituency.

Often the last, and sometimes the first, recourse of constituencies whose subsidies are in jeopardy is: Its for the children. Big Bird, however, is more a corporate conglomerate than an endangered species. If Sesame Street programming were put up for auction, the danger would be of getting trampled by the stampede of potential bidders.

The argument for government-subsidized broadcasting is perversely circular: If the public were enlightened, there would be no need for government subsidies. But, by definition, an enlightened public would understand the inherent merits of subsidies by which the government picks more deserving winners than the market does.

However, because government-subsidized broadcasting exists, any argument for it would be superfluous, given what governmental inertia usually accomplishes for government enterprises. Long ago in January there was bold Republican talk about Congress restoring regular order: There would be 12 appropriations bills, and they would be enacted before the 2018 fiscal year begins Oct. 1. Instead, there probably will be another swallow this or shutter the government omnibus bill in which almost everything survives by sparing almost everyone the torture of choices. This is, of course, a choice.

Read more from George F. Wills archive or follow him on Facebook.

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Public broadcasting's immortality defies reason - The Washington Post - Washington Post

On Sunday, millions of Iranians marked the 28th death anniversary of Ayatollah Rohullah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. Doubtlessly, he was one of the most consequential figures in the 1970s and 1980s.

While the Ayatollah is no longer among us, the question arises as to how he managed to reach such a reputation. To understand that, one has to bear in mind the following:

1. For many political and religious analysts, Ayatollah Khomeini was internationally acclaimed simply because of his genuine faith in God as well as courage to stand up to bullying superpowers.

2. The Ayatollah had deep belief in the peoples prowess and will to bring about changes, and asserted that a nation who is motivated enough and awakened can revolutionize the status quo.

3. Islamic thinkers argue that the Ayatollahs panacea for human beings and societies to change was a mash-up of heavenly and earthly forces. It is only through the miraculous mixing of the internal and external sources that a society can be energized so much so that it moves ahead in pursuit of change.

4. A distinction of the Ayatollah was his emphasis on justice. The late messiah saw it impossible for a given society to reach transcendence unless rulers and grassroots coexist in balance, a concept to which many rulers of the contemporary Middle East were alien.

5. Ayatollah Khomeinis thorough, deep-rooted perception of religious cause as the engine of political dynamism ignited a series of developments in the 1970s, which were for so long unseen due to sheer disregard for religion in the global community.

6. An unparalleled trait of the Ayatollah was his soul-searching spirit and high regard for ethics, turning him into a reconciliatory sociopolitical leader, a quality many of his followers chose to die for.

7. In the international arena, the Ayatollah was an adamant hero to challenge the global arrogance which favored submission and was against awakening the oppressed. To put it differently, he believed that a chain of powers, including capitalist elements and multinational cartels, sought to rule the world. And hence, fighting them was the only way to unshackle human beings.

8. Many are of the belief that Ayatollah Khomeinis Neither-East-nor-West agenda was in a sense rejection of bifurcating the world into Western and Eastern blocs. In fact, the enlightened Imam conceived of the West-East dichotomy as one of historical determinism, of which the human society needed to get rid. A new system on the basis of public will had to replace the historical determinism and this was not possible unless nations and their elites were awakened.

9. Ayatollah Khomeinis look at power and governance revolved around winning hearts and minds of human beings rather than their bodies as he believed that governments mission was to penetrate in the souls of human beings rather than imposing themselves upon societies through coercion and guns.

To come up with a conclusion, these days the Iranian nation is commemorating a leader who was among and for the people and who did his best to be close to all walks of the society. His art was to rectify the society on the basis of sublime Islamic teachings.

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The Ayatollah and his immortality - Tehran Times

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

AI experts: Prepare for a sad immortality Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists AI experts: Prepare for a sad immortality. By Lucien Crowder. For a June special issue on The Benefits of Building an Artificial Brain, the good folks at IEEE Spectrum decided to ask a range of technologists and visionaries a few questions, including:.

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AI experts: Prepare for a sad immortality - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Diane Paulus was thinking about mounting a production of Peter Pan.

Then, a viewing of Finding Neverland, the movie explaining Peters creation, sent her in a new direction. The Tony-winning director was captivated by the 2004 film starring Johnny Depp as Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie.

Its about the power of imagination, she says. Its about J.M Barrie as a writer breaking rules which I love in the theater.

Plus, she was inspired by a couple of other fans.

I watched it with my two girls, Paulus recalls. I saw their faces light up.

The rest, as they say, is history. The touring production of Broadway musical Finding Neverland, directed by Paulus, opens Tuesday, June 6, at Orlandos Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

The musical explains how playwright Barrie came to create Peter Pan through his involvement with an unusual family.

Her daughters, Paulus says, would dance to the shows pop-flavored music while it was in development. It opened in 2014 at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., where Paulus is artistic director.

Now 10 and 12, her girls have grown up with the show, Paulus says. Finding Neverland debuted on Broadway in March 2015, with Matthew Morrison (Glee) and Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) in leading roles. It ran for more than a year.

I just always felt it was a show that could be shared across generations, says Paulus, who is based in New York. I saw the potential of kids coming to Finding Neverland and seeing the puzzle of how Captain Hook came to be, how did Tinker Bell happen?

Paulus, whose Tony came for the 2013 revival of Pippin, knows all-ages entertainment. She created Amaluna, a touring Cirque du Soleil show, and in 2003 directed The Golden Mickeys show for Disney Cruise Line. It would later also play at Hong Kong Disneyland, where it ran for more than a decade.

More people have seen The Golden Mickeys than any other show Ive created, she acknowledges with a chuckle.

Peter Pan wasnt part of that show He hadnt entered my life yet but Paulus has a theory on his storys enduring appeal.

Its about immortality, an immortality connected to the idea of a child, she says. A child inside us, the child we once were that maybe weve lost and that maybe we want to capture again.

mpalm@orlandosentinel.com

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Diane Paulus sees immortality in 'Finding Neverland' - Orlando Sentinel

The jockeys riding in Saturdays Randox Health Grand National at Aintree may face slightly different challenges to those faced by my generation in the 1990s - just as we faced very different challenges from those riders who tackled the upright gorse obstacles of the 1950s in cork helmets.

But even while the course continues to evolve, the Grand National remains a race like no other. Reg Green, the Grand National historian, even called one of his books A Race Apart'.

It still holds a place close to the countrys heart and though it may not be quite the family occasion when we drew the curtains and all gathered round a television set in the sitting room to watch it undisturbed, a good percentage of the nation will nevertheless see it one way or another - as will some 600 million around the world.

Form goes out of the window. The safest bet is that every Arthur in the country will have a small wager on One For Arthur, that Katie Walsh on Wonderful Charm will be this years housewives choice and, in China where red is a lucky colour, Definitly Red and Vieux Lion Rouge will be popular.

Click here for your guide to the best odds, free bets and offers >>

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Why the Grand National is the holy grail and sporting immortality the prize - Telegraph.co.uk

James Madison Toy was an average, 19th century major league baseball player and average might be generous.

In two unremarkable seasons, he batted .211. He finished his career with one home run. And he played on awful teams, which combined to win 65 games and lose 165.

When he died in 1919, the newspapers did not pay special attention.

Yet, Toy managed to achieve something few ballplayers do: baseball immortality.

Not because he was the first Beaver Countian to play in the big leagues, though he was. Not because he suffered a particularly gruesome career-ending injury, which he did.

Rather, Toy achieved baseball immortality more than four decades after his death because of a distant relative's baseless and apparently false claim about his heritage and a well-respected baseball historian's failure to investigate that claim.

"I'm not sure where it got started, but there were parts of the family that insisted he was part Sioux Indian," said Toy's great-great-nephew, Jim Toy, 57, of West Mayfield, Beaver County. "No one had any documentation to prove it.

"My dad always kind of questioned the claim."

Others did not.

And so James Madison Toy, an average, white major league baseball player from Beaver County, became known, incorrectly, as the first Native American to play in the big leagues.

That didn't sit well with some.

Real life

James Madison Toy's pro baseball career began in 1884 in the short-lived Iron and Oil Association, a minor league that included teams from Western Pennsylvania and Ohio. His New Brighton team disbanded before the season ended, and the league went under a few days after.

Over the next two seasons, Toy played for three minor league teams in New York and one in Georgia.

In 1887, Toy got his big break. He landed a spot on the newly created Cleveland Blues in the American Association, then a major league. In announcing the signing, Sporting Life described the 5-foot-6, 160-pound Toy as "a tall, athletic young fellow, a splendid back-stop and very fine thrower."

He batted .222 in 109 games and slugged one of the team's 14 home runs. The numbers weren't eye-popping, but it was the dead-ball era.

The Blues were awful. They won just 39 of their 131 games and finished last in the American Association. After the season, owners let go of 16 of the team's 25 players, including Toy. He spent the next two years toiling in the minor leagues for the Rochester (N.Y.) Jingoes.

Toy returned to the majors in 1890 with the American Association's Brooklyn Gladiators. They were even worse than the 1887 Blues. The Gladiators won 26 of 99 games and folded before the season ended. Toy batted .181 and suffered a career-ending injury when a baseball struck him in the groin.

The injury pained Toy for the rest of his life, according to his great-great-nephew from West Mayfield.

Toy returned to Beaver County and took up work as a stove molder for the former Howard Stove Co. The 1900 Census showed him living in Beaver Falls with his wife of 14 years, Ida, and their three children: Pearl, 13; Gertrude, 12; and George, 10.

Toy died in Cresson Sanatorium, where tuberculosis patients were treated, in 1919. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Beaver, family members said.

'First of the natives'

In 1963, an ambitious project by baseball historian Lee Allen to obtain biographical information about every major leaguer who played brought more notoriety to the late Toy than he enjoyed in life.

"There have been approximately 10,000 players and we have heard from 4,198. We would be most proud to have a record of Mr. Toy and anything you can do to aid us will be greatly appreciated," Allen, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's chief historian, wrote in a letter to Hannah Toy of Beaver Falls.

Copies of letters exchanged between Allen and Toy's relatives are included in a file in the National Baseball Hall of Fame's archives.

James M. Toy, Hannah Toy's son, filled out the questionnaire. On a line asking for the player's nationality, Toy typed: "SIOUX INDIAN."

Allen replied immediately, writing: "I think he must have been the first Indian in major-league history, which gives him another distinction. There were quite a few after him, but none before that I know of, and I have questionnaires now from 4,321 players."

Allen went public with the claim in his Sporting News column, "Cooperstown Corner."

"It has often been printed that the first American Indian to appear in the majors was Louis Sockalexis, that folk hero out of the Penobscot country of Maine," Allen wrote in the 1963 column. "But now it develops that Sockalexis was not the first of the natives, that the honor should go to James Madison Toy of Beaver Falls, Pa."

It's unknown what, if any, independent research he did to try to confirm the claim.

Allen died in 1969.

Imposter

Journalist and author Ed Rice spent decades disputing the claim, starting in the 1980s as he began researching Louis Sockalexis for a biography on the Penobscot legend.

"What Lee Allen was trying to do was laudable," said Rice, 69, of New Brunswick, Canada. "But to strip Sockalexis of being recognized as the first American Indian to play major league baseball, that was an injustice."

Rice, who formerly lived in Maine where the Penobscot Nation is based, contends that Toy didn't deserve the distinction even if he was Native American because he was not listed in a Census as an Indian or registered with a tribe. Furthermore, there are no accounts identifying Toy as being an American Indian or being identified by others as such. Rice applies the same criteria to other players whose names emerged as being the first American Indian to play in the majors.

But Rice reserves particular disdain for Toy, who never claimed to be Native American during his lifetime. In a 2015 op-ed in the Bangor Daily News, Rice refers to Toy as an "imposter."

Rice was so determined to prove Toy wasn't Native American that, in 2006, he said he lied to Cambria County officials in an attempt to obtain a copy of Toy's death certificate. He told them over the phone that he was a family member, and they mailed it.

The certificate listed Toy's race as white.

Rice has urged Cooperstown to weigh in on the debate. But its library director, James L. Gates Jr., told the Tribune-Review: "The Hall of Fame is not a sanctioning body for ethnic backgrounds. (Lee Allen) was writing for himself when he made that claim. We don't stipulate anybody as being the first in terms of ethnic background."

0.0 percent

Genealogical research and DNA analysis appears to show that Toy wasn't Native American.

While numerous accounts suggest that the ballplayer's father was a Sioux Indian, records stored at the Beaver County Genealogy and History Center list the ballplayer's parents as James and Caroline (Caler) Toy. Toy's father was the son of Henry and Mary Toy, both of whom were born in Ireland.

And results of a DNA test added recently to Toy's file in Cooperstown show that the ancestral composition of another one of Toy's relatives, James Woods, who couldn't be reached, amounted to 0.0 percent Native American. Woods' great-great-grandfather John Wesley Toy was the ballplayer's brother.

Woods said in an email accompanying the DNA results that he took the test "not to discredit any family lore, but to accurately document my family history."

What matters

West Mayfield's Jim Toy, the ballplayer's great-great-nephew, can't believe the issue has generated as much debate as it has. While family members respected the significance of James Madison Toy's distinction, questions about its authenticity weighed on some of them.

"My grandmother (Hannah Toy) and her sister Kate insisted that Caroline Caler married an Indian," Jim Toy said. "They knew James Madison Toy when he was alive, and they were very adamant about it. My father (who filled out the questionnaire in 1963 and died in 2014) felt like, who was he to say yes or no? He didn't have proof one way or another.

"My dad was more interested in the fact that James Madison Toy played baseball."

A relative of Sockalexis, who began his career in 1897 with the Cleveland Spiders, didn't appear to be concerned with the debate.

"We've always thought that Louis Sockalexis was the first," Chris Sockalexis, chief historic preservation officer for the Penobscot Nation, said of his distant relative. "I think he set the standard for all minorities in the game."

He added: "This is the first time I've ever heard of Jim Toy."

Tom Fontaine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7847 or tfontaine@tribweb.com.

Excerpt from:

The baseball immortality of Beaver County's James Madison Toy - Tribune-Review

New York Post

How two trades pushed Patrik Elias into Devils immortality | New ... New York Post For years they had been inseparable, off the ice and on the ice, where they made magic as sweet as any set of NHL matched-pair wingers have in a very, very ... Elias Retires from NHL, Will Skate Once More With NJDNHL.com all 73 news articles »

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How two trades pushed Patrik Elias into Devils immortality | New ... - New York Post

Atlassian co-CEO Scott Farquhar speaking at the AWS Sydney Summit.

Atlassian co-CEO Scott Farquhar has shed light on a major challenge facing the $8.7 billion Australian-born software giant, as its customers shift to the cloud, and played down the chances the company will imminently pursue more acquisitions.

Speaking before an audience of technology industry executives in Sydney on Wednesday, Mr Farquhar outlined his ambitions for Atlassian to "survive for 100 years" and not succumb to the traps that many dominant, brand name corporations fell into in recent decades.

"It's actually easier to build a big company than it is to build a long-term company," he said at the annual Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit in Sydney on Wednesday.

"Companies today are optimised for the current environment they live in, and when change happens, as it inevitably does, companies can't adapt.

"It's not the largest company, it's not the most successful company, it's not the strongest company, it's the most adaptable companies that are going to survive".

To that end, he said Atlassian was already taking steps to transform its business.

For example, the company is in the process of moving its global operations from being hosted on its own servers, to being hosted in the cloud by AWS, the outsourcing vendor famously used by Netflix and a string of other giant corporations.

This comes as Atlassian expects many of its customers to shift from using its software products hosted on company-owned servers to versions hosted remotely in the cloud over the next decade.

"About a third of our revenue, give or take, comes from the cloud," he later told journalists in a briefing.

"There are many companies that haven't yet adopted the cloud and want to choose to run something internally for various reasons.

"We have invested heavily so we have leading cloud versions of our products ... we see the future. In 10years time I would think 90 per cent of our customers will be in the cloud."

Atlassian in January paid $US425 million ($561 million) to acquire Trello, a collaboration and project management tool, the biggest of the 18 acquisitions it has made in its history. Trello is used in creative industries, as distinct from the company's flagship JIRA software, which is typically used by technical teams of software developers and IT help desks.

"For us,it fits in our portfolio really well," Mr Farquhar said of the acquisition. "The integration is going really well.

"At the moment we wouldn't do any more acquisitions, but we could do in the future. We want to make sure any acquisition we do is really successful, so we don't do big ones back to back."

Research house Gartner estimated last year that up to $US1 trillion in IT spending by companies could be affected by the shift to the cloud by 2020. It has also estimated that 80 per cent of software vendors will have shifted to cloud-based, subscription-based selling models by that point.

However, there can be a short-term margin impact for software companies making this shift. This is because installed software typically involves higher upfront fees than subscription-based products.

Referencing fallen corporate giants such as the airline Ansett and grocery chain Franklins, Mr Farquhar added: "When things changed they didn't adapt to the changing environment. And as a result they are no longer the large companies they once were."

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Atlassian aims for corporate immortality in the cloud - The Australian Financial Review

Genetic Literacy Project

Decoding death: Craig Venter's quest to uncover secret to immortality in our DNA Genetic Literacy Project Craig Venter, the man in the late 1990s who, frustrated by the slow progress of the government-funded Human Genome Project, launched an effort that sequenced human DNA two years earlier than planned[is] back with his most ambitious project since his ... and more »

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Decoding death: Craig Venter's quest to uncover secret to immortality in our DNA - Genetic Literacy Project

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Lecture 18 - The Badness of Death, Part III; Immortality ...

In between matches earlier this month at the state wrestling duals, Danny Bertoni bites into an oversized chocolate cookie with orange frosting.

In another hour, Bertoni, a senior at Middletown High School, will pin Sparrows Points John Harris in 1 minute, 4 seconds at 138 pounds, helping the Middletown wrestling team to a 56-19 victory and its second consecutive state duals championship in Class 2A-1A and raising his own record in high-school matches to an astonishing 171-2.

In another month, Bertoni will be chasing state history as he seeks to become the first wrestler from Frederick County and sixth in Maryland history to win four individual state championships.

But all of those things seem pretty far from his mind at the moment.

Sitting in the first row of bleachers at North Point High School in Waldorf, wearing a dark warmup jacket over his singlet, the wrap on his hands for recent thumb and wrist injuries still fresh from the state duals semifinals, Bertoni is light-heartedly asked if he should be munching on a cookie with another big match pending.

He smiles, raises his eyebrows and says, Probably not.

It is, however, in accordance with his every-man charm that makes Bertoni as likable as he is successful.

If you walked into the same room as Danny, you might not know he was there, Adam Bain, a friend, teammate and regular training partner said. He is not going to be bragging about his accomplishments or anything.

In fact, all of Bertonis well-earned accolades in high school wrestling alone three state titles, four regional championships, four county titles, the most wins ever for a Frederick County wrestler command a spotlight he does not actively seek.

I am not a shy person, he says.

But hes not an outwardly expressive one either.

After winning his third state title last March, something only two other Frederick County wrestlers have done, Middletown assistant coach Yank Strube implored him to smile.

He understands the benefit of humility, Bertonis father, Dan, said. He is not going to go out there and make himself a target, talking about what he has done or what he is going to do.

Hence, Bertoni strives to treat every match exactly the same, regardless of its importance. A state final might as well be a nondescript match in the middle of the season in his mind.

Every opponent is treated with the same amount of respect, regardless of skill or experience.

We have always emphasized there are no special matches, his father said. When you make a match special, thats when you are going to start to wrestle differently. No one is more important than the other.

This approach has afforded Bertoni enough margin for error that should he be offered, say, an oversized chocolate cookie with orange frosting in between matches at the state duals, things arent likely to veer off course wildy.

He almost never has to cut weight to compete.

I always told Danny, Expect to win. Prepare for the worst, his father said. If he finds himself in a hole, he has to be able to get out of it.

Bertonis wrestling schedule extends well beyond the high school season into the early part of summer.

It takes him to, among other places, Virginia Beach, where he has placed as high as second in his weight class at the National High School Coaches Association National Wrestling Championships, and Fargo, North Dakota, where a broken nose once prevented him from placing in an Olympic-style national tournament.

However, by the middle of the July, the singlet gets packed away and wont be worn again until the leaves are no longer green.

Bertoni steps out in the backyard of his home in Jefferson and begins to kick the soccer ball around with his friends or his sister, Maria.

In addition to being the schools preeminent wrestler, Bertoni has been a midfielder for Middletowns soccer team, which captured back-to-back 2A state titles in November.

Playing another sport is a foreign concept to most wrestlers of Bertonis caliber. They devote their full time and attention to wrestling and compete year-round.

Soccer season, however, is one of the things that sustains Bertoni going on the mat. It allows him the chance to get away, clear his mind and rest his body.

Wrestling is tough, mentally and physically, Dan Bertoni said. Its not a game. When you are having a bad day in soccer, you can kick it to a teammate, and they can take care of it.

In wrestling, it all falls on your shoulders. There are times when you need to step away from it and rest, mentally and physically.

Dan Bertoni, who was a high school wrestler in upstate New York, has watched a number of kids burn out on the sport by maintaining a schedule that never allowed time for anything else.

He never wanted that for his son.

There are a lot of talented guys out there, he said. They compete all of the time, year in and year out. Then, all of a sudden, they quit the sport. It catches up with them.

For his son to reach his full potential as a wrestler, there had to be an extended break every year.

Its nice to have soccer to get my mind off of things, Danny Bertoni said. It helps me to become a better wrestler. I am just more fresh mentally, more mentally tough.

I just focus a lot better when I do get back in the [wrestling] room [in October]. I want to be back after having that break.

Bertonis matches often seem straight out of a wrestling textbook.

Much like his personality, they are direct, straight-to-the-point affairs, often not stretching beyond one two-minute period. Theres no allowance for any wasted movement or nonsense.

Just watching him wrestle as a freshman, I thought there is a guy who could win four [state] titles, said Catoctin wrestling coach Ryan Green, who works with Bertoni on his Mason Dixon Mat Hawgs club team.

Just because of how technically sound he was, how good he was, not only with wrestling positions. He was just so composed in the big matches.

Bertoni doesnt give opponents much to work with. Hes quick, strong, smart, agile.

While opponents probe for an opening, any sign of weakness, Bertoni is already busy twisting them into a pretzel.

In four years of high-school wrestling, he has yet to lose to anyone from Maryland.

Thats quite an accomplishment in itself, Linganore coach Ben Arneson said. Being able to say you have never lost to a kid from your own state.

Thats not to say there havent been setbacks.

When you wrestle in high-profile tournaments across the country, such as the invitation-only Journeymen Classic in Albany, New York, where Bertoni placed fifth at 135 pounds last October, You are going to lose matches, his father said.

Its the nature of the beast.

Bertonis only two losses in a Middletown singlet occurred in the same building, Mount St. Joseph High School in Baltimore, during one of the toughest tests on the wrestling schedule, the Mount Mat Madness tournament.

After a 44-0 freshman season at 106 pounds, Bertoni arrived at Mount Mat in December 2014 with a raised profile. But he wrestled an admittedly sloppy match against Anthony DeLorenzo of Queen of Peach High School in wrestling-rich New Jersey and lost 3-2 at 126 pounds.

That was a wake-up call, Bertoni said. There was a bunch of things I was doing wrong. Some of my shots werent very clean. I was rushing things.

The following season, during a 46-0 junior season, he won the Mount Mat title at 132 pounds.

In December, a bid for a second consecutive Mount Mat championship was thwarted by one of the top wrestlers in the country, Malcolm Robinson of one of the preeminent programs in the nation, Blair Academy in New Jersey.

Wrestling in the championship final at 138, Robinson scored a rare first-period takedown of Bertoni, and that proved to be enough for a 2-1 win.

Bertoni rode Robinson for the entire second period and then picked up an escape point early in the third. But he could not find the takedown he needed, and Robinson was eventually named the tournaments Outstanding Wrestler.

I learn from the losses, each and every one of them, Bertoni said. They teach me what I can do better, where I can improve.

Some wrestlers look like they want to rip someones head off.

They pace back and forth. They seethe. They just reek of intensity.

Bertoni, on the other hand, comes off as the guy you would want babysitting your kids.

By all accounts, hes humble, hard-working, a good student, the model teammate on and off the mat.

He has always been very level-headed, Yank Strube said. He has never thought of himself as better than anybody else on the team. Thats part of what makes him such a good leader.

Today, Bertoni will walk into the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro, a wrestling scholarship to the University of Maryland already in hand, as one of 36 state qualifiers from Frederick County.

His high school record has grown to 177-2, and, with four more victories and no losses, he will join Aberdeens Matt Slutzky (1989), Owings Mills Steve Kessler (1994), Herefords Josh Asper (2005), Southern Garretts George Scheffel (2007) and Centennials Nathan Kraisser (2009) as Marylands four-time state champions.

I think its incredible, something that might happen once in 15 years, Bain said. If it happens, I think everyone there will realize how spectacular an accomplishment that really is. Danny deserves it.

Bertoni is within arms reach of a milestone not even he might have thought was possible back when he was 4 years old and wrestling his first match, barely weighing more than his singlet.

He admittedly didnt know what he was doing in those days. He was just rolling around with the other kids. There was no pressure to win and no heartache or frustration with the losses.

I knew he had potential, his father said. He has been the hardest worker in the room since he was little. Hes always been very coachable. He has an incredible drive and a will to win. I am not surprised he has been successful.

During a jog around a local track in Jefferson with his young son, Dan Bertoni was randomly stopped by a woman who suggested the boy had the look of a good wrestler. Maybe he should give the sport a try.

Now, that same boy is on the verge of becoming one of the states wrestling immortals.

Bertoni is the prohibitive favorite at 138 pounds in Class 2A-1A. Every other wrestler in his bracket has at least four losses this season, or two more than the Middletown standout has in his high-school career.

But, staying true to himself to the final whistle, Bertoni is not taking anything for granted. Nor is his family.

I am trying very hard not to think about [four state titles], his father said. The journey is not over. When you think it is, thats usually when something bad happens. I am a cautious man. I am just hoping Danny can finish this season the best way he knows how.

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Middletown's Bertoni is 4 wins away from 4 titles, state-wrestling immortality - Frederick News Post (subscription)

Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images Chad DundasMMA Lead WriterMarch 1, 2017

UFC President Dana White announced Wednesday that Georges St-Pierre's return to the Octagon will be a middleweight title fight against Michael Bispingand, boy, is that going to be an unpopular decision.

Of all the likely candidates for St-Pierre's returnincluding superfights against Anderson Silva or Conor McGregorBisping was unilaterally regarded as the least appealing.

In the wake of White's appearance on ESPN's SportsCenter to confirm this fight, early reviews have been mostly negative:

This unrest is nothing against the 185-pound champion himself but, rather, a compliment to the overall strength of the middleweight division. With top contenders like Yoel Romero and Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza already beating down Bisping's door, there was just no good reason to further stymie that division's already-slow-motion title picture.

That is, except for the two reasons that trump all else right now in the eyes of this fight company and these fighters: money and immortality.

Since winning the title with a surprise knockout of Luke Rockhold at UFC 199 in June 2016, Bisping has eschewed the UFC's official rankings in favor of trying to chase down lucrative matchups for himself. He's defended the title just once, against Dan Henderson at UFC 206 four months ago.

You can't blame Bisping for this approach. At 38 years old, he'd long been considered a nice cog in the middleweight machine but not championship material. Here he's got an unprecedented and unexpected chance to earn a nice bonus after 11 years and 27 fights' worth of service to the UFC.

And for GSP?

Well, what he gets in his return to the Octagon after a three-year absence is a potentially winnable championship fight, a nice payday and a chance at the history books.

If St-Pierre is able to return to action at nearly 36 years old and win another UFC title in a weight class above his natural division, there will simply be no argument against anointing him the greatest MMA fighter of all time.

He's already routinely mentioned on the short list of contenders for that honor alongside former middleweight champion Anderson Silva and former light heavyweight champ Jon Jones. Defeating Bisping would definitively put GSP over the top in that three-horse raceat least for the time being.

Silva's claim to the throne has taken a big hit in recent years.

Back-to-back losses to Chris Weidman at UFC 162 and 168 signaled the end of his career as a truly elite middleweight, but had Silva walked away then, he might still have been able to lay credible claim to greatest-of-all-time status.

Unfortunately, he soldiered on and has gone just 1-4-1 dating back to the middle of 2013 (that record includes the Weidman losses). His only official win in that span came three weeks ago, in a controversial unanimous decision against middling contender Derek Brunson.

Perhaps most damaging, Silva's win over Nick Diaz at UFC 183 was overturned after he tested positive for two banned substances. It's tough to take any case for GOAT seriously from a guy who has tested dirty for performance enhancers.

Jones, meanwhile, is the most gifted athlete and strategist the UFC has ever seen, but he has had a hard time keeping himself on the organization's active roster of late.

He's managed to fight just once a year the past three years and has missed significant time, first while sorting out legal issues stemming from a hit-and-runand then after testing positive for banned substances during the lead-up to a canceled fight against Daniel Cormier at UFC 200.

According to Jones' attorney, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency later substantiated the fighter's claim that the positive test resulted from a tainted dietary supplement, but as of this writing, Jones is still out serving a one-year suspension.

If Jones can return and win back his light heavyweight title at age 30, he'll still have plenty of time to move past both Silva and St-Pierre for consideration as best ever. That future has never appeared less secure than now, however, as Jones' out-of-cage transgressions have taken on considerable momentum and left him facing what might be his last chance with UFC ownership.

For the time being, St-Pierre leads his two closest competitors by a nose. Even before he makes this comeback, the case against him as greatest of all time must be made primarily on style points.

From 2006 to his announced break from the sport at the end of 2013with the exception of roughly one year spent without the title after a fluke loss to Matt Serra at UFC 69he ruled the UFC welterweight division with merciless zeal. He defeated 12 consecutive challengers, more often than not taking out the best 170-pound fighters the UFC could find without so much as losing a round.

Critics called it boring, but the truth is, it was amazing. Without any organized background in wrestling, St-Pierre transformed himself from a stand-up-oriented, Kyokushin karate stylist to one of the most dominant grapplers in Octagon history.

He beat wrestlers such as Matt Hughes, Jon Fitch and Johny Hendricks. He beat potent strikers such as Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit. He beat submission aces such as Serra (in their rematch at UFC 83), BJ Penn and Jake Shields.

It didn't matter what they did. St-Pierre beat them all.

Meanwhile, his built-in Canadian audience turned him into the UFC's single biggest pay-per-view draw to that point. It was a different time for the UFC, but GSP's PPV numbers are still staggering. He sold an estimated 625,000 PPVs for his fight against Fitch at UFC 87, 770,000 against Dan Hardy at UFC 111 and 800,000 against Shields at UFC 129.

In today's UFC, there is next to no one who can consistently provide those kinds of numbers, outside of McGregor.

That's one place St-Pierre's detractors fall flat. The notion that MMA fighters need to be "exciting" only exists because of the PPV model. Conventional wisdom preaches that fighters need to impress audiences to convince them to shell out $60 to watch them fight.

But GSP never had a problem with that. In fact, he did it better than anybody else from his era.

Can he still? That remains to be seen.

His accomplishments to this point are nearly peerless, however. Now, if St-Pierre can return from his lengthy hiatus, defeat Bisping and win another UFC title in a different weight class?

With all due respect to Silva and Jonesand to borrow a phrase from longtime MMA announcer Michael Schiavellothat's good night, Irene.

Estimated pay-per-view numbers courtesy of Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, as compiled at MMA Payout.

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Georges St-Pierre Takes Aim at Immortality in Title Shot Against Michael Bisping - Bleacher Report

Lord Voldemort, a wizard who sought after, and temporarily achieved, immortality

Immortality (or eternal life) is the concept of living in a physical form for an infinite or inconceivably vast length of time. Immortality is one of the known limits to magic; it is nearly impossible to make oneself immortal; the only known and working ways are making and using a mystical object of great power to sustain life (such as the Philosopher's Stone created by Nicolas Flamel or a Horcrux, the latter having been used by Lord Voldemort). If one were to possess the three Deathly Hallows, it is fabled that they would possess the tools to become the "Master of Death". However, being a true "Master of Death" is to be willing to accept that death is inevitable.

Immortality is not to be confused with amortality, which is for something being unable to die due to never having been alive.

The Elixir of Life

The Philosopher's Stone, a stone created by famous alchemist Nicolas Flamel, is able to produce the Elixir of Life, one of the known means of immortality. In 1991 and 1992, a weakened Lord Voldemort tried to gain possession of the Stone so he could rise again after his downfall ten years prior. The Stone was then destroyed by Albus Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel himself in order to prevent this from happening again. With the destruction of the Philosopher's Stone, all individuals who were immortal because they drank the Elixir of Life (like Flamel and his wife) died after the supply of Elixir ran out.[1]

The Elixir does not truly grant immortality, as it only extends the drinker's lifespan, as opposed to rendering them invulnerable to damage. Thus, it is possible for them to die even while drinking the potion. It must be drunk regularly, for all eternity, to maintain one's eternal youth.

Some of Voldemort's Horcruxes

A Horcrux is an object chosen for the purpose of being a receptacle of part of one's soul, split by doing the most inhumane action: murder. If all the Horcruxes (and by extension the wizard's soul) are intact, the wizard is considered immortal. Splitting one's soul is considered a violation of the very laws of nature, and existence in such a form is preferred by very few, and is therefore considered Dark Arts of the most vile.[2]Herpo the Foul was the first wizard ever to create a Horcrux, and therefore the person to be accredited to this Dark magic's discovery.

Lord Voldemort split his soul six times in order to maintain his status of immortal being, and kept his Horcurxes a secret from absolutely everyone to protect his own life. He had split his soul that many times in the likely belief that seven is a powerful and magical number, but had intended to make only six Horcruxes, with the seventh part of his soul remaining inside himself, thus a seven part soul. He is the only wizard in history to have created more than one Horcrux and therefore considered the one closest to true immortality. Unbeknownst to him, his soul was split a seventh time. The seven Horcruxes were all items owned by reputable people that played an important or scarring role in his life, including the Four Founders. His best plans were, however, beaten due to his arrogance, when Regulus Black, Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger discovered his secret and found each one of his Horcruxes and destroyed them (Vincent Crabbe also destroyed one, but he did it unknowingly and likely did not know that Voldemort had any at all), returning Voldemort his mortality and led to his eventual and final death.[3]

Fawkes's rebirth from his ashes

Whenever phoenixes die, whether from old age or something like a Killing Curse, they will always be reborn from their remaining ashes, technically making them immortal. They are so far the only living beings who possess natural immortality, as it seems there is no known method to truly and permanently kill a phoenix. They are also the only creatures who defy the absolute law that nothing can truly bring back the dead. A phoenix bursting into flames to die and then to be reborn (usually by old age) is known as a Burning Day.

Fawkes, the pet phoenix of Albus Dumbledore, has been reborn from old age many times, and revived instantly from his remaining ashes when swallowing Lord Voldemort's Killing Curse meant for Dumbledore during their duel in the Ministry Atrium, he exploded after swallowing it.

Unicorn blood, which maintains the drinker's life

Unicorn blood has the gift to save a drinker from death even when they are nearing it. This makes it similar to the Elixir of Life, which also extends the life of the drinker. However, if taken, it will lead the drinkers to be cursed for all life, as they had slayed an innocent creature.

Quirinus Quirrell drank unicorn's blood while he was possessed by Voldemort, in order to maintain both of their critically near-end lives, until they can gain access to the Elixir of Life. Later, Voldemort had Peter Pettigrew to craft a Dark potion that requires unicorn blood as one of the ingredients to regain his rudimentary physical form, which would require him continuous intake of the potion to maintain the little health he regained.

Symbol of the Deathly Hallows

Many wizards believe that the person who masters the three Deathly Hallows (which are the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility) will be the Master of Death and will achieve some form of immortality, while a larger proportion dismiss both the concept and the three artefacts as a fairy-tale.

However, becoming immortal from gathering the three is a misconception, as being a true Master of Death is realising and accepting the fact that everyone will die and there are worse things than death. Harry Potter collected the three Hallows and was willing to accept death and so became the Master of Death. According to Dumbledore, the Hallows were a desperate man's dream, dangerous, and a lure for fools. Indeed, many died in their pursuit of the Hallows and the "Master of Death" legend.

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Immortality | Harry Potter Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia

As a biological researcher studying aging, some of the most common questions I get asked by people are: How can I live forever? or Have you discovered the fountain of youth yet?

I usually reply with some quirky comment about being close to a Nobel Prize-worthy breakthrough in the lab that is going to be huge. But all kidding aside, there are some organisms that are considered biologically immortal, such as bristlecone pines and marine life we can find along Maines coastline (ex: American lobster, and hydras).

Biological immortality is a bit different than true immortality, in which you live forever and never die. A 100-year-old lobster would be massive, most likely weighing 20-plus pounds and be about the size of a toddler. On a side note, there have been several of these large lobsters documented, one in New Brunswick as recent as last November.

Unlike most animals who stop growing upon reaching adulthood, lobster can continue to expand, molt, and even regrow lost appendages regardless of adult age. Their cells possess the ability to regenerate and dont show signs of deterioration with each consecutive cell division. This provides the lobster a youthful internal system, while appearing mature and hardy on the outside. The larger the body, the less likely the lobster will fall prey to predators such as cod, flounder, and dogfish.

Ultimately, the main predator for adult lobster would be humans. This means that even though biologically the lobster has cells that are immortal they can still become our dinner, and thus succumb to their mortality.

But now the wheels are turning, how can humans reach biological immortality?

Research with model organisms from microscopic yeast to large primates indicates that aging can be slowed down, and perhaps one day reach biological immortality. Science is finding that aging really boils down to a few general factors: 1) genetics, 2) environment, and 3) life choices.

Although we have little control over the genes we are given from our parents, we can control some aspects of gene expression. Certain genes are activated upon eating, others while sleeping, and some while exercising, smoking, imbibing, are drug activated or repressed (and the list can go on). What this means is that we might not be able to control what genes we are given at birth but to some extent we can alter the way genes are expressed.

This is where environment and life choices can really impact the rate in which we age. We heed warnings to stay away from environments containing radioactivity as it can cause death with exposure, but the simple act of reducing the amount of calories ingested daily without reducing nutrition has been shown time and time again to slow down aging (at least in model organisms).

Notice I said this was a simple lifestyle change? Which in reality, is not simple at all. I enjoy eating, drinking, and living this mortal life too much to want to restrict my eating so that I can delay aging. Instead, scientists (myself included) are involved in seeking out biological ways to activate the same anti-aging pathway without having to deprive oneself of that slice of cake (remember Nobel Prize in the making).

Perhaps one day we will truly be biologically immortal and can eat our cake, too.

Amber Howard has been an assistant professor of biology at the University of Maine at Augusta since 2015. She is a 2011 Ph.D. graduate of Georgia Regents University, and recent postdoctoral researcher for the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. She primarily focuses her research and teachings on physiology, disease mechanisms, and the biology of aging.

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The mortal side of biological immortality - Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel

In this weekly media highlights, Alexander Rubtsov reflects on the sad state of affairs in the Russian show business; Andrei Movchan offers his outlook for the Russian economy in 2017; Meduza fact-checks Alexei Navalnys presidential program; Valery Solovey shares his insights on the countrys political developments; and Peter Topychkanov discusses the Kremlins potential response to Donald Trumps nuclear initiatives. If you are interested in receiving this weekly roundup in your mailbox every Friday, let us know at info@imrussia.org.

One of Russia's most recognized pop-singers Philip Kirkorov who gained popularity in early 90s performs at the New Year's Night show at Channel One. As some experts observe, the fact that there are very few new faces in the country's show business reflects the general conservation trajectory in society. Photo: Dmitry Serebryakov / TASS

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Nathan Andrews helped compile this week's roundup.

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Living Immortality, Russian Economy in 2017, How Big Is Russia's Inequality Gap, and the Kremlin's Risky Plans - Institute of Modern Russia

Wichita Eagle (blog)

Frank Mason becomes a part of KU basketball immortality Wichita Eagle (blog) An emotional Frank Mason is embraced by Kansas coaches after leaving Monday's game for the final time. He helped spur the comeback that overtook Oklahoma 73-63. Rich Sugg Kansas City Star. By Bob Lutz. blutz@wichitaeagle.com. LinkedIn · Google+ ... and more »

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Frank Mason becomes a part of KU basketball immortality - Wichita Eagle (blog)

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.

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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

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