1. Immortality

Category Archives: Immortality

"Immortality and Transplanting the Human Stem Cell" | Stella Davies | TEDxCincinnati – Video

Posted on by


"Immortality and Transplanting the Human Stem Cell" | Stella Davies | TEDxCincinnati
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Stella Davies asks a powerful question: If you could save the life ...

By: TEDx Talks

Read the rest here:
"Immortality and Transplanting the Human Stem Cell" | Stella Davies | TEDxCincinnati - Video

Are you living too much in the future at the expense of now? – The Guardian

Posted on by

The question implicit in many peoples early January ponderings is essentially this: how do I or how should we, collectively plan to use the coming year? Your answer might involve getting fit, or finding a soulmate, or making a million dollars selling virtual kale snacks online to idiots. Or it might focus on activism, or just on getting by, and staying moderately sane in trying times. But its worth noting that all these different goals share the same underlying assumption, one so basic its easy to miss: that time is best approached, in the first place, as something you use.

But is it? The problem with treating every year (or week, or hour) as something youre supposed to put to use is that you end up living permanently focused on the future. The more strenuously you try to get something out of life, the more emotionally invested you become in reaching the point at which youve succeeded in doing so which is, necessarily, never now. In other words: try too hard to make life meaningful, and it becomes impossible to derive any meaning from your present-moment life.

John Maynard Keynes articulated the matter well in a famous 1930 essay (in which he did, admittedly, also claim wed only be working 15 hours a week by this point in history). The purposive man, he wrote, is always trying to secure a spurious and delusive immortality for his acts by pushing his interest in them forward into time. He does not love his cat, but his cats kittens; nor, in truth, the kittens, but only the kittens kittens, and so on forward forever to the end of cat-dom. The upside of this attitude is that you get to feel more in charge of your life; the downside is that you never really get to enjoy it.

Certain spiritual teachers, adherents of the philosophy known as non-duality, would go further. Theyd claim that the whole idea of using time is based on an illusory separation between you and the time youre attempting to use. From your first-person perspective, all there is at any given moment in time is just whatever youre experiencing: a tingling in your leg, the sight of your kitchen table, the car alarm going off outside, a vague irritation at being asked to contemplate these kooky New Age ideas. And isnt it a little odd to then decide that some of these arising perceptions are you who must then use the other ones, in some particular way, in order to have used time well? Why not put that stress-inducing notion aside?

In her (excellently titled) book on non-duality, Radically Condensed Instructions For Being Just As You Are, Jennifer Mathews gets straight to the point: We cannot get anything out of life. There is no outside where we could take this thing to. There is no little pocket situated outside of life, [to which we could] steal lifes provisions and squirrel them away. The life of this moment has no outside. Partly, I confess, I like this because it reminds me of the comic Steven Wrights line: You cant have everything where would you put it? But its also a helpful pointer in its own right to the truth that, ultimately, the only purpose of any of this is, well, this.

Robert Wright probes the idea that the individual self might be an illusion in his 2017 book, Why Buddhism Is True

See the original post here:
Are you living too much in the future at the expense of now? - The Guardian

Why No Great Teen Movie Came Out In The Last Decade – The Federalist

Posted on by

On Wednesdays, we wear pink. Ugh, as if! How very. These quotes and dozens like them have peppered the adolescent girl lexicon, as they represent an specific subgenre of film that speaks directly to this group: the high school comedy.

John Hughes and his contemporaries redefined the adolescent experience through cinema by perfecting the teen movie. The genre has been around since the 1950s, when the concept of the teenager first came into existence, and has gone strong ever since. Until the 2010s, that is. As the decade comes to a close, I have to wonder, where was the great teen comedy of the 2010s?

As someone who was in middle school at the start of the decade and am in college as it comes to a close, I have been in the target demographic for these genres the entire decade. Ive seen what may be classified as far too many films of the category, some an embarrassing number of times. From gracing the screen at countless sleepovers to serving as ideal movie-night picks, a handful of classic teen comedies have proven a lasting power. But almost none of them arrived in the past decade.

The classic stock characters getting into predictable but charming comedic situations has been the basis of a plethora of engaging films throughout the decades. The cute jock who falls for the shy girl (Sixteen Candles, Shes All That, Pretty in Pink), the disparate types of teens overcoming their differences (The Breakfast Club, Cant Hardly Wait), the quest to have sex before high school ends (Superbad, American Pie,), the protagonists learning to grow up (Clueless, Bring it On, 10 Things), the evil clique getting their comeuppance from a conniving protagonist (Mean Girls, Cruel Intentions).

Some members of the genre are darker and increasingly self-aware, such as the 80s cult classic black comedy Heathers, a personal favorite. The 1970s and 80s saw a proliferation of horror movies centered around the same teen archetypes, just in far more perilous situations. Yet, regardless of the competing trends in the genre, the classic teen comedy has remained strong, each decade churning out at least one, if not several, modern classics that continue to speak to generations decades after their release.

The seeming immortality of the genre makes it all-the-more noticeable that the past ten years have utterly lacked in a teen comedy that speaks to the upcoming generation. This is not to say that there hasnt been an abundance of teen movies made in the past ten years far from it. But no film has had the staying power of a Mean Girls or The Breakfast Club, or the cult status of Bring it On and Heathers.

There have certainly been contenders, films that for a brief moment appeared might break out and explode into audiences hearts, but they have been forgotten mere months later. Of these flashes-in-the-pan, Easy A, is by far the closest to a classic teen comedy, with an irreverent sense of humor perpetuated by high school stereotypes. Yet most who caught its 2010 release all but forgot about Emma Stone vehicle until being reminded on this article or some other best of the decade teen film list.

The other possible contenders, Too All the Boys Ive Loved Before and Love Simon, leaned more into the innocent rom-com feel, but they each rode into the public consciousness on a wave of hype, only for it to die out months after their release. If they cannot last a few months, what hope have they of remaining relevant years or decades later?

The 2010s were also a decade of independent coming-of-age films that everyones film-nerd friend loved but didnt exactly make a massive dent in the culture. Films like 2012s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, 2016s The Edge of Seventeen, and 2017s Oscar darling Lady Bird dove more deeply into adolescent angst and pain than your typical comedy, to varying degrees of success. Maybe in ten years, one of these films will gain cult status and become a staple of future generations, but they seem far more likely to cling onto some relevance due to their critical acclaim, rather than mass appeal to teens.

However, in this Golden Age of television, it would not be fitting to explore a hole in the entertainment market and not consider its being filled episodically. Indeed, where there has been a dearth of unifying films, two TV shows appear to have had the effect movies could only dream of. Yet they are neither funny nor particularly profound, and represent a dark trend in contemporary media foisted upon and embraced by my generation. These are Netflixs Thirteen Reasons Why and HBOs Euphoria.

I was in high school when Thirteen Reasons Why premiered, and it was virtually impossible to escape. Everyone constantly discussed the series, and the intensity surrounding not spoiling the show for those a little behind has only been matched in my experience by Avengers: Endgame and the final season of Game of Thrones.

People were enraptured by the series, unfazed or maybe even enthralled by the sensationalized depictions of sexual assault and suicide. While the second season did not attain the same love as the first, many teens problems stemmed from the common issue of when a book-based series passes the source material, rather than issues with what was depicted.

As the third season dropped on Netflix to little fanfare or notice, attention shifted to a gorgeously shot yet patently absurd teen drama attempting to highlight the real struggles and lives of adolescents, Euphoria. However, neither Euphoria not Thirteen Reasons Why actually have any intention of deeply exploring their complicated characters and subject matters with any nuance or sensitivity. Rather, the shows seem to fetishize their protagonists pain and trauma. Both series substitute horrible experiences for character development, thus rendering the only interesting characters to be those who have suffered.

The innumerable problems in Thirteen Reasons Why have been torn apart often enough that to repeat them here would be redundant. But the most popular show across high schools for about a year insinuated that suicide was a means of winning against those who have wronged you, which is the opposite message a youth facing record high rates of depression should be hearing. Further, the film substitutes surviving sexual assault for character development, which furthers the harmful intimations made by the series and contributes to the glamorization of adolescent pain.

While most high school-based works sexualize their characters, especially the girls, to an extent, Euphoria makes Skins or Gossip Girl seem like High School Musical. All of the main girls have remarkably blas attitudes towards sex, and remarkably degrading experiences are presented as empowering for the young women. The womens sexualization of themselves is normalized and almost praised, unless it is exploited by a man, at which point he is a monster and she a victim.

Ironically, the one character who is neither unrealistically promiscuous or deeply damaged and is by far the most relatable girl for most teens today is sidelined to an extraordinary degree, the only main character to not get her own storyline or receive any real character development, sidelined for her drug-addicted best friend or sexually exploited sister. This leaves viewers with the dangerous implication that one must experience deep traumas in order to be interesting as a person.

I worry that the media reaching my generation and, more worryingly, the one next, is spreading toxic messages that romanticize serious issues to be provocative. High school comedies can be churned out with little creativity or fanfare to a moderate if forgettable success, so lazy offerings have replaced genuinely charming films with heart. Yet the popularity of older genre works gives me hope.

These films may not always be deep, they may not always have great messages, they may not hold up well in 30 years (heres looking at you, Sixteen Candles), but they have a specific voice and a reason to exist aside from blind attempts to appeal to the youth demographic. The trend of increasingly dark TV is not exclusive to works aimed at teens, and this is not always a bad thing.

However, while adolescence can be very difficult, it can also be absurd, wonderful, and hilarious. The next round of high schoolers deserve a film that humorously captures the insanity and the beauty of today, and can be enjoyed for generations.

Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and current student at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck

Link:
Why No Great Teen Movie Came Out In The Last Decade - The Federalist

Alex Salmond: from the brink of independence to a court room – FRANCE 24

Posted on by

Issued on: 23/03/2020 - 18:10Modified: 23/03/2020 - 18:07

London (AFP)

Alex Salmond came within a whisker of immortality among supporters of independence, when he took Scotland to the brink of a breakaway from Britain.

But six years on from the landmark referendum, he found himself battling to save his personal reputation after being charged with a string of sex offences, including attempted rape.

The feisty ex-politician was the face of Scottish nationalism for more than 20 years, taking it from a fringe issue into a mainstream phenomenon that almost broke up the United Kingdom.

He quit frontline politics in 2014, immediately after the campaign he spearheaded lost the independence referendum by 55 percent to 45 percent.

"Obviously I wouldn't have made the decision if there had been a 'Yes' vote," he said at the time.

Scottish independence though has become a permanent issue in British politics and his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, took up the cause with gusto, as Brexit breathed fresh life into his dream.

"For me as leader, my time is nearly over. But for Scotland, the campaign continues and the dream shall never die," he said at the time.

The rhetoric was typical of Salmond, who fired up crowds throughout his political career with his promise to "break the shackles" of the 313-year-old union with England.

He was set to go down in the history books as the politician who returned the energy to British politics -- and helped create a new type of United Kingdom, gaining paise from arch rivals.

The then UK prime minister David Cameron called him a politician "of huge talent and passion" who "has been an effective first minister and always fights his corner."

But the court case saw even his closest allies move to distance themselves from the jocular former first minister, including his protegee, Sturgeon.

- Made in Scotland -

Alexander Eliott Anderson Salmond was born on December 31, 1954 in Linlithgow, near Edinburgh, and graduated in economics and medieval history from the prestigious St Andrews University.

He worked as an economist with the Royal Bank of Scotland before entering the British parliament but found his calling when in 1990 he took over leadership of the Scottish National Party.

Four years before Tony Blair would do something similar to create "New Labour", Salmond steered the SNP towards the political centre and prepared to do battle.

David Torrance, author of "Salmond: Against the Odds", said both Salmond and Blair were more pragmatic than dogmatic. Their slogan could be: "Whatever works".

In the first elections for the devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh in 1999 -- created under Blair's leadership -- the SNP lost out to Labour and Salmond quit as leader.

He said his decision was "forever" but he was re-elected in 2004 saying: "I changed my mind."

He was rewarded with power, being elected first minister of a minority SNP government in 2007, and then in 2011 won an absolute majority -- and the promise of a referendum.

- Politician of a generation -

Salmond's charisma was hugely effective on the campaign trail but disguised what aides called an "explosive temper" and a talent for the scathing political put-down.

His supporters praise his unflagging determination and his political know-how, while his opponents brand him arrogant and misogynistic with a penchant for populism.

Many on both sides agree that he was one of the most talented politicians of his generation.

Sociable in public, Salmond has been discreet about his private life. His wife Moira is 17 years older and is only rarely seen by his side. The couple have no children.

His passions are horse racing, good wine and Indian curry, along with football and that Scottish invention -- golf.

Salmond also likes a singalong.

His favourite tune is "Scots Wha Hae" -- an ode by poet Robert Burns to an epic victory against the English at the Battle of Bannockburn 700 years ago.

2020 AFP

Original post:
Alex Salmond: from the brink of independence to a court room - FRANCE 24

Naoya Inoue rallies past Nonito Donaire to unify bantamweight titles in Fight of the Year contender – CBS Sports

Posted on by

Forced to prove his greatness in the face of a stubborn legend, unbeaten Naoya Inoue co-authored a modern classic in unifying bantamweight titles on Thursday in the finals of the World Boxing Super Series tournament.

Yet it was Nonito Donaire, in defeat, who may have secured immortality. Inoue (19-0, 16 KOs) overcame a bad cut above his right eye to outlast Donaire (40-6, 26 KOs) via unanimous decision in the clubhouse leader for fight of the year following a dramatic slugfest at the Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

While the judges' scores (116-111, 117-109, 114-113) were indicative of the amount of close rounds that Inoue was able to edge, they did little to tell the story of the fight as Donaire, just one week shy of his 37th birthday, repeatedly rallied to hurt Inoue each time it appeared as if the Japanese "Monster" was on the verge of a stoppage.

Donaire, already a four-division champion, added yet another incredible chapter to his surefire Hall-of-Fame career by improbably rising from a body-shot knockdown in Round 11 before rallying to hurt Inoue in the closing seconds.

"Donaire was very, very stubborn for me," Inoue said. "This is the hardest fight of my career. I had a double vision since the second round but I got victorious. I am so happy and proud of myself and believe I have a bright future."

Respect box? Subscribe to our podcast -- State of Combat with Brian Campbell -- where we take an in-depth look at the world of boxing each week.

Inoue unified the WBA and IBF titles at 118 pounds and hoisted the coveted Muhammad Ali trophy as the winner of the WBSS tournament. It was also announced after the fight that the 26-year-old phenom signed a multi-fight deal with Top Rank that will bring his fights exclusively to ESPN in the United States.

Yet the beauty of Saturday's fight was how much Inoue, who won a world title in his third division in just his 16th pro fight last year, was forced to make adjustments in order to prove that he was everything his reputation had made him out to be.

Ranked among the pound-for-pound best in the world and feared as possibly the sport's most devastating puncher regardless of weight, Inoue was forced to become the boxer for long stretches against a bigger opponent. Donaire, who won titles as high as featherweight, cut Inoue following a patented left hook in Round 2 and courageously proved able to withstand the onslaught coming back at him.

"I think Donaire was a very true champion," Inoue said. "He is very strong and I got victorious but I am the not the greatest of all time yet. I think I have to go over and get stronger. So next year I will keep fighting and get victorious and I want to be the strongest of all time."

Inoue, who also bled from his nose in the second half, relied nicely on his quickness to create distance and pepper Donaire with combinations. By Round 5, Inoue briefly staggered and altered a visibly hurt Donaire with a pair of left hooks, yet it was Donaire's right hand -- a punch he barely used throughout his prime -- that allowed him to work his way back in.

Donaire fought through swelling below his eyes in Round 6 and walked through Inoue's biggest punches. By Round 8, Donaire rallied to hurt Inoue with a trio of right hands that reopened the cut above his eye and left his face a bloody mess at the bell.

The fight began to achieve the status of legend in Round 9 when a looping right hand from Donaire visibly wounded Inoue and bloodied his nose once again. Inoue righted the ship one round later when a series of hard combinations left Donaire in trouble and possibly saved by the bell.

It was Round 11, however, that took the fight to a whole different gear. Donaire ate a left hook to the body and appeared to briefly turn his back as he circled around the ring awkwardly before going down to one knee on a delay.

Referee Ernest Shariff gave Donaire every possible chance to beat the count despite the agony that was visible on his face. Yet in a sequence that brought back memories of Arturo Gatti in the first Micky Ward fight in 2002, Donaire was not only able to barely make it back to his feet, he countered late with an overhand right and rallied back to hurt Inoue in the final 30 seconds.

See the original post here:
Naoya Inoue rallies past Nonito Donaire to unify bantamweight titles in Fight of the Year contender - CBS Sports

Millennials Arent Killing the Funeral Industry But It is Changing – Rewire.org

Posted on by

In 1997, The Onion published the article, World Death Rate Holding Steady at 100 Percent.

While immortality is a quest for lots of fictional characters like Voldemort and the Cullens from Twilight and a few Silicon Valley eliteslike Jeff Bezos, that headline from The Onion still holds true more than two decades later.

Duh. Everybody dies.

But a lingering taboo around death in the U.S. makes it hard to talk about. People in and around the funeral industry are hoping to change that.

Talking about sex is not going to get you pregnant, and talking about death is not going to kill you, said Darren Crouch, founder and president of Passages International Inc.

Not only are we not talking about death, were also trying not to think about it. Only 1 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds plan their own funeral before experiencing the death of a loved one. That number jumps to nearly 20 percent following the death of a loved one, according to CJP Field.

The Green Burial Councils Holly Chan, 24, thinks its time for everyone to start talking about and planning for the inevitable.

At the end of October, shes hosting a talk called Death over Dim Sum at the Reimagine End of Life festival in San Francisco thats bringing together end-of-life experts and Asian Americans of all ages.

Age doesnt really change how much contact you have with death, she said. We could die at any time.

Family members arent any better off not having discussed the wishes of a deceased loved one, she said. Instead, theyre often left with uncertainty and an expensive funeral.

I think this conversation is relevant at any time, she said, adding that its OK to change your idea of what your funeral might look like as your life changes.

Caitlin Doughty runs the YouTube account Ask A Mortician, which has over 900,000 subscribers. She vlogs about topics like budget-friendly funeral options, new types of caskets and scams within the funeral industry. She also talks about death-positivity.

Do not beat yourself up over where you are in your journey to accept death, Doughty said in a video called 7 Habits of Highly Effective Death Positive People.

Yeah, theres a lot about death that sucks, she continued. Its OK to feel bad about death.

But death is a journey that isnt going away. Its time to get comfy with it, she says.

Death doulas are trying to spread the same message by posting about their work on Instagram.

A doula is traditionally someone trained to support and comfort pregnant people and their partners during the pregnancy and birth process. Now, the same idea is being used in end-of-life care.

Chan has found comfort in the growing number of people on Instagram talking about the job of a death doula. She hopes it will bring more attention to the topic of death and dying and spark conversation.

Social media is already shifting some long-held taboos around death, said intergenerational expertHenry RoseLee.

Social media has removed many taboos about what can be seen, shared and discussed, she said.

Younger generations are trying to confront topics that have been impolite to talk about in the past.

Millennials dont want to die any more than any other generation, Lee said. Theyre just embracing the need to discuss quite tough subjects, like death.

[ICYMI: We Asked a Mortician About the Death-Positive Movement, and This is What She Said]

As more people talk about death, more people are moving away from the traditional funeral the kind with a funeral home, casket and everyone standing around in black.

In the same way people are personalizing their wedding ceremonies more and more, people are wanting the same for their funerals, Lee said.

I have even talked to some millennials who are planning a band or performers of some kind, she said. Many see the funeral as a chance to celebrate.

Chan has heard people planning on an end of life celebration before they die, withfirework displays, motorcycles and games.

Lee points out that all this can be done in addition to any traditions, religious or otherwise, you want to include.

Religion does still have an impact on decisions about funerals and death, she said.

However, nearly four in 10 adults ages 18 to 29 are religiously unaffiliated. And they are four times more likely as those a generation ago to identify that way, according to a study by the Public Religion Research Institute.

Due to that shift, it is likely that, in the decades to come, millennials may move away from some of the older traditions, Lee said. Time will tell.

One of the biggest movements in the funeral industry is green funerals, including more environmentally friendly burial options.

In 2018, nearly 54 percent of Americans were considering a green burial, according to a survey released by the National Funeral Directors Association.

Green burial is for everybody, said Lee Webster of the Green Burial Council.

Traditional burial methods like being embalmed and buried in a metal casket take a toll on the environment. Green burial uses biodegradable plain wooden caskets, shrouds, tree pods or coral reefs.And the options are expanding.

One family Crouch talked to put a family members remains in a biodegradable turtle-shaped urn. They dropped the urn into the sea. A real-life turtle swam up next to it, he said.

Its very, very powerful, he said. That family is never going to forget that service.

Though millennials are carrying on the push for greener funerals, boomers actually originated the idea. They were concerned about the land, what we were putting in it and how to conserve it, Webster said. It wasnt a climate change issue then but now it is.

People are living greener and it would be an obvious extension that they may expect to die greener, Crouch said. The problem is the industry has been very slow to change.

But millennials are normalizing the conversation around green burials, and then everybody follows, Webstersaid.

The gap between what people want and what funeral homes currently offer means a persons funeral might not line up with how they lived their life.

The industry is so used to doing the cookie-cutter funeral, Crouch said. Even though they may have driven a hybrid vehicle, maybe they were avid gardeners, maybe they were environmentalists, its not uncommon for that person to be embalmed and buried in a metal casket.

Webster literally wrote the textbook on potential solutions to this problem. Now mortuary school students are learning about environmentally friendly burials.

Its in the best interest of funeral homes to start adapting to what people want, Crouch said.As more and more options become available, think about how youd want to be celebrated and buried.

Washington just became the first state to allow human composting as a burial method. Who knows what could be next.

There are a lot of unique things on the horizon, Crouch said. Some of them may or may not be practical.

But, he said, the modern funeral director should listen to what was important to the person in life and present the family with all their options not just whats been done in the past.

Heather Adams is a freelance reporter based in Los Angeles. She often reports on religion, foster care and disability rights. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more on these topics, plus photos of her two dogs.

Here is the original post:
Millennials Arent Killing the Funeral Industry But It is Changing - Rewire.org

On Nov. 1, remember the witness of our North American saints – America Magazine

Posted on by

The third-century Christian author Tertullian said the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Wherever the church has grown and flourished, it is because it has been planted and watered by the blood of numerous men, women and children who followed Christ so single-mindedly that they gave their lives as witness to a love that is stronger than death.

The story of the flourishing South Korean churcha church with the unique distinction of being sustained by the ministry of the lay faithful for decades after all clergy were expelled in the late 19th century and a church irrigated by the blood of innumerable martyrs during waves of persecutionbears eloquent testimony to the veracity of Tertullians assertion. As the Book of Revelation puts it, Love for life, did not deter them from death (12:11).

Advertisement

In laying down their lives for the cause of the Gospel, the martyrs found the ultimate meaning of their lives, just as Christ said: Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Mt 16:25). How so, one might ask, since the martyrs ministry was thought by their killers and bystanders to have ended in resounding failure?

Sometimes, it is only with the benefit of hindsight that we realize that the martyrs lives were not recklessly thrown away, that they amounted to something. Their blood, poured out like Christs, contained the seed of immortality. Their physical death was not the last word.

We can see many examples among the growing number of saints from the continent of North America. When the French Jesuits Jean de Brbeuf and Isaac Jogues were martyred in New France in the 1600s, their ministry among the Native American tribes seemed unsuccessful. In spite of this seeming failure, many natives would come to accept Christ in the years that followed the martyrs death. The martyrs were indeed the real winners, as Pope Francis recently declared.

How does one realize that the seed of the church planted in a particular land and watered by martyrs blood has flourished? We know this when it yields a harvest of trailblazing saints and revolutionary scholars who simultaneously enrich the Christian community and challenge it to show greater fidelity to Christ and a more courageous witness to the Gospel. We call saints those friends of God who illuminate for others the beauty of dwelling in Gods love and thus become conduits of hope and models of faith.

It is noteworthy that in recent times, a number of North American saints and martyrs have been recognized. The witness of the French Jesuit martyrs, in time, inspired others to follow the path of sanctity, and many have led virtuous lives without the shedding of blood. The church in North America is enriched and challenged by the luminous lives of saints Kateri Tekakwitha, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Katharine Drexel, Frances Xavier Cabrini, John Neumann, Andr Bessette, Damian of Molokai and Marianne Cope. The ongoing sainthood causes of Servants of God Julia Greeley, Mother Mary Lange, Dorothy Day, Thea Bowman and Augustus Tolton truly speak to the universality of the church and its modern-day vitality. And the faith-filled lives of Blesseds Stanley Rother and Solanus Casey, and Venerables Fulton Sheen and Pierre Toussaint, continue to give hope and inspiration to many.

Furthermore, the presence of theologians and scholars who expound, articulate and teach the faith in new, creative and ever more life-giving waysalways in dialogue with cultureis testimony to the churchs health in a particular land. The following American scholars past and present have helped the Christian community to contemplate anew the mystery of faith and to listen to Gods word with new depths of understanding: Avery Dulles, John Courtney Murray, John Tracy Ellis, Cyprian Davis, Richard John Neuhaus, Thomas Weinandy, Matthew Levering, Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Elizabeth Johnson, John Cavadini, Sarah Butler, Walter Burghardt, Robert Barron, Scott Hahn, Raymond Brown, M. Shawn Copeland and Dianne Bergant. Their works have helped the Christian community to better read the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of faith. The church in North America owes them a debt of gratitude.

In the face of the painful polarizations and internecine battles that we often encounter between the so-called traditionalists and progressives, with their debilitating consequences for effective Christian witness in North America, we dare to hope that our communion with these saintly figures and fellow disciples will continue to encourage and challenge us to proclaim the reign of God and to announce the lordship of Christ by working for social justice and lasting peace.

See the rest here:
On Nov. 1, remember the witness of our North American saints - America Magazine

Immortality (In The Style Of CelIne Dion And The Bee Gees) (Karaoke Version) – Video

Posted on by


Immortality (In The Style Of CelIne Dion And The Bee Gees) (Karaoke Version)
Immortality (In The Style Of CelIne Dion And The Bee Gees) Karaoke Version Immense Media 2012, Microcosm Media Released on: 2012-11-09 Composer: Unknown Composer Music Publisher: ...

By: Various Artists - Topic

Read the original post:
Immortality (In The Style Of CelIne Dion And The Bee Gees) (Karaoke Version) - Video

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor: Forging an Army – THE MAD KING’S IMMORTALITY ENDS AT LAST – Video

Posted on by


Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor: Forging an Army - THE MAD KING #39;S IMMORTALITY ENDS AT LAST
Destiny Clan for those who care to join: http://www.bungie.net/en/Clan/Detail/144529 If you want to support this channel and this series specifically, then don #39;t forget to like the video,...

By: TearofGrace

Continue reading here:
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor: Forging an Army - THE MAD KING'S IMMORTALITY ENDS AT LAST - Video


  1. Immortality