Category Archives: Immortality

For years, Ronnie Coleman stayed in the best shape known to humanity. He became the face of bodybuilding after Arnold Schwarzenegger, and rightly so. Moreover, he led the way for the most Mr. Olympia title wins with eight victories and completely dominated the bodybuilding circuit for several years. Hence, with those positives comes a whole list of negatives. One of them is the injuries he suffered.

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Undergoing many surgeries on his hip and spine, in 2016, Coleman had to carry out another surgery. With his fans concerned for his health, he gave them an inspiring message that still echoes through the ears of the bodybuilding fraternity. That comment single-handedly elevated his god-like status to immortality. Come what may, he wants to work out.

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For those unaware of his feats, he once squatted 800lbs and completely shook everyone with those double reps. But he needed surgeries after lifting a tremendous amount of weight. Before he went for surgery in 2016, though, he left an inspirational message.

It will be the same as always how you get inspiration from them to go on, get better and get back in the gym. Because I know this is going to go back, so fast. You know, one day I will be in surgery. The next day I will be recovering. And then the next day I will be in the gym, working out again,saidColeman.

DIVE DEEPER

Im Hooked. Love His Story: Inspired by Ronnie Coleman, Game of Thrones FamedProfessional Strongman Spilled Beans About Competing in Bodybuilding EarlierThis Year

about 18 hours ago

Therefore, the level of commitment shown by him speaks volumes about his determination to work out. Coleman loved to work out, which is clear from his conversations. But the tremendous injuries he sustained are heartbreaking. In fact, he walks with his crutches now.

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Even though many bodybuilders worked out to win major championships, Colemans workouts were intense. Ultimately, it led to many injuries, and he had 13 surgeries on his spine. These surgeries compromised most of his mobility. He mentioned how he could not do the stretches he used to do. With various screws and nuts put in his disc, Coleman struggles.

All the hardware kind of interferes with the nerves. I used to be able to bend over and do all these crazy stretches. I cant do that no more,saidColeman.

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It is necessary to understand the level of pain he goes through even now. But whatever is said and done, Coleman will remain the greatest bodybuilder of all time. No one can come close to his dedication to the sport.

WATCH THIS STORY-Ronnie Coleman Delivered His Top 10 Lineups for Mr. Olympia 2022

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Next Day I Will Be in the Gym: Ronnie Coleman Shared an Optimistic Message With Concerned Fans Before Heading for His Seventh Surgery in 2016 -...

It might be hard to imagine that a phrase like soli Deo gloria could be misunderstood or misapplied. To God alone be the glory. What could be unclear or mistaken in those six simple words?

Fortunately, the main burden of the phrase is wonderfully and profoundly clear. Our generation (and, to be fair, every generation before us and after us) desperately needs to be confronted with such God-centered, God-entranced clarity. The clarion anthem of the Reformation has been the antidote to what ails sinners from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. We fall short of the glory of God by preferring anything besides the glory of God above the glory of God. Thats what sin is.

We want the credit, the appreciation, the praise for any good weve done (and pity and understanding for whatever weve done wrong). We were made to make much of him, but we demand instead that he make much of us. That is, if we think much of God at all. John Piper has been waving the red flag for decades.

It is a cosmic outrage billions of times over that God is ignored, treated as negligible, questioned, criticized, treated as virtually nothing, and given less thought than the carpet in peoples houses. (I Am Who I Am)

Gods glory gets less attention than the fibers under our feet and we wonder why life feels so confusing and hard. Five hundred years ago, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and other reformers recovered the priceless medicine: soli Deo gloria. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory (Psalm 115:1).

The Reformers were living in a spiritual pandemic of compromise and confusion. As they walked through the darkness and corruption, they stumbled into the holy pharmacies of Scripture. And what did they find in those vials? They found, above all else, the glory of God. And that startling light became the North Star of all their resistance. They would not settle for any religion that robbed God of what was his and his alone.

Justification what makes us right before God had been distorted and vandalized in ways that uplifted our work, our self-determination, our glory. Gods justifying act was no longer found by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, but in significant measure, muddied by our efforts. And that emphasis on what we do in salvation siphoned off glory from the gospel. To us, O Lord, and to our name, be some of the glory.

The stubborn word of God would not surrender glory so easily, though. I am the Lord, the Reformers read; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols (Isaiah 42:8). I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins (Isaiah 43:25). Then four more times in just three short verses:

For my names sake I defer my anger;for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,that I may not cut you off. . . .For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,for how should my name be profaned?My glory I will not give to another. (Isaiah 48:911)

The only God who saves is a God rightly, beautifully jealous for glory. He plans and works all things, especially salvation, to the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14). Our only hope in life and death is that God will do whatever most reveals the worth and character and beauty of God. All our efforts to find glory beside him or apart from him only lead us further away from him and into sin. Any news that says otherwise, whether from a pope in Rome or an angel from heaven, is a curse, not a gospel.

How, then, might soli Deo gloria possibly go awry? If we wrongly assume that Gods ultimately receiving all the glory means his people receive none. No, if God alone is glorified in our salvation, Scripture promises, then we too are and will be glorified. Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified (Romans 8:30). God himself glorifies someone other than God to the glory of God.

As the apostle Paul unfolds Gods plan in that greatest of all chapters, he says more: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for . . . For what? For the appearing of Christ? For the renewed creation? No (not here anyway). The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:1819). The creation pants to see us what we will be. Why? Paul goes on, The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8:21). When the creation sees us as we will be, it too will be set free.

For us to live in a paradise where fullness of joy lives where God himself lives we have to be something more than we are. Piper writes, You cant put the jet engine of a 747 in a tiny Smart Car. You cant fit the volcano of Gods joy in the teacup of my unglorified soul. You cant put all-glorious joy in inglorious people (Soli Deo Gloria). We will be made glorious enough to swim in the wells of the greatest happiness ever conceived. The oceans, mountains, and stars are lined up outside to get a glimpse of that transformation of our glory.

This thread in Scripture is as stubborn and stunning as the one beneath soli Deo gloria. We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). Even now, here on earth, were growing in degrees of glory. And then one day well close our eyes for the last time on earth, and the next time we open them, well barely recognize ourselves: Beloved, we are Gods children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2). When glory finally comes, it will not merely be a wonder to see, but a wonder to be.

What will happen when Christ returns? The dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:5253). Or as he says a few verses earlier: What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power (1 Corinthians 15:4243). Were destined to live on a real earth like ours, with real bodies like ours, surrounded by blessings and experiences like ours, but without the weakness, mortality, and sin that plague all we know and enjoy now. That world will be like ours, but glorious. We will be ourselves, but glorious.

One of the most staggering and scandalous claims of Christianity is that God not only loves shameful, undeserving sinners, but shares his glory with them. He not only allows them to live in his presence, but he makes them like his Son.

In a man-centered age like ours, it seems right that the overwhelming focus of our theology be away from self and on God. Thirty years ago, John Piper lamented, I find the atmosphere of my own century far too dense with man and distant from the sovereignty of God (The Pleasures of God, 2). I assume the pounds per square inch are even higher today (and many more miles farther from heaven). Soli Deo gloria is a precious, God-breathed chorus for our self-sick generation. Were not in need of many articles exalting our glory.

We might need more than we have, though. Ironically, discovering all that we are and will be in Christ may be one key to escaping the cold cells of man-centeredness. Because anything glorious we discover about ourselves and we will be glorious is a mere reflection of him. We dont receive any glory that does not whisper his glory and therefore glorify him all the more. We are filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:911). If he makes us wise, he is always wiser. If he makes us strong, he is always stronger. If he makes us happy, he is always happier. As brilliant as the stars are each of them blazing fires so bright theyre seen across galaxies their Maker eclipses them all.

At our very, most glorious, nearly unimaginable best sinless, painless, fearless well always still be candles lit by a far greater light, the Glory of glories, God himself.

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You Will Be Breathtaking: Why God Clothes Us in Glory - Desiring God

What is the Bloodstone? Werewolf by Night, the new horror movie special based in the MCU directed by Michael Giacchino, brings in a whole new aesthetic and setting for the franchise. Borrowing from classic Universal monster movies, we follow a selection of hunters who wanted to be the next wielders off the mysterious Bloodstone, currently held by one Ulysses Bloodstone.

The Bloodstone patriarch is dying, and someone has to carry on his work. Could that be the namesake character, or perhaps estranged Elsa? Or Man-Thing? This object is highly coveted, and only the strongest and smartest will come away with the prize.

But what is the Bloodstone in the Marvel series special? Is it much different from the comics? Why does everyone want it so much? Theres a history to be uncovered, and thankfully the comics can give us the answers. This is no Infinity Stone, but it can still alter the paradigm of the universe, and we can tell you exactly how.

The Bloodstone is an ancient gem that landed on Earth thousands of years ago. It was created by the Exo-Mind, a race of beings that wanted to conquer the known universe. They needed to find a host, and were on that mission when they got into a scuffle with a human being.

That human was Ulysses Bloodstone, or him as a hunter during the Stone Age at least. He stumbled onto and fought the Exo-Mind for the bright red stone, and in the fight, therock exploded into several pieces. Much of Ulysses tribe were killed, but he was imbued with a fragment that gave him superhuman powers and immortality.

He spends the rest of his life simultaneously looking for revenge on the rest of the Exo-Mind, and finding others who have pieces of the Bloodstone to stop them using it for harm. This takes many thousands of years, and eventually hes succeeded by his daughter, Elsa Bloodstone.

In the comics, the Bloodstone makes you stronger, faster, gives you higher resistance to the elements, special cognitive abilities like ESP, and an immortality. Werewolf by Night on Disney Plus only really goes into the immortality part, as Ulysses, whose body has started to decay because hes so old, decides to have a group of hunters compete to be his successor.

Later in the special, the Bloodstone is seen as having the power to disrupt other monsters. You can use it to force a transformation, or subdue and control a beast if needed. The limitations of the object are ill-defined thus far, though it seems to broadly have the same origin.

Elsa Bloodstone is the one who ends up holding it. Shes not a fan of her dad, so well have to wait and see what she gets up to with all that power. You can check out our list of the best fantasy series for some ideas.

Read the rest here:

Werewolf by Night: what is the Bloodstone? - The Digital Fix

The chilling details of the Kerala case have shocked the nation. (Illustration: Vani Gupta/ IndiaToday)

By Pallavi: Scene 1: A couple, sitting in their tiny house, call the healer. He had promised they would be rich by following some simple steps. They did everything they were told to do. They found a woman, brought her home and took her life to please God. The walls and floor of the house were purified by her blood. Her body was chopped into pieces and consumed in order to change destiny. But this was months ago. There was still no improvement in finances.

You must repeat the procedure one more time, sacrifice some more, the healer said. And so, the husband and the wife, went on to find another soul.

Scene 2: Lajja Shankar is emphatically chanting mantras, beating a drum in rhythm, and looking at the sky just as an eclipse is about to begin. It is the last step, the last sacrifice to please God. Lajja, immersed in his own consciousness and reality, is just moments away from what he always wanted. No, it is not about money or fame. He only wants one thing -- immortality. He's taking all the risk for only one power. He just wants to live forever.

Cut to this screen.

One of the scenes mentioned above is from a movie, complete fiction. But the other is something that has happened in the real world. Can you figure out which one is reality?

If you have been following the headlines, a case of human sacrifice has caught the interest of the country. In Kerala, two women have been murdered. Their bodies were chopped into pieces, breasts set aside for 'safety', and knife inserted in their private parts. The two women died in this manner in a village because a couple was told this would make them rich.

And yes, scene 1 is from real life. The scene 2 is from Akshay Kumar's movie Sangharsh in which Ashutosh Rana played Lajja Shankar, a maniac who kidnaps and kills children to attain 'immortality'.

According to National Crime Records Bureau, there were 68 murders in India in the year 2021 related to witchcraft and six recorded cases of child/human sacrifice.

If you check local newspapers, you will likely see a story of human sacrifice every other day. But the chilling details of the Kerala case have shocked the nation.

As unsettling details of the case unravel, here are a few such cases from the past that make us question if we are actually living in the 21st century.

In July 1985, a case of human sacrifice and triple murder in Odisha sent shockwaves across the nation. Three teenage boys were lured to a shrine atop a steep hill near Ranpur, 75 kms west of Bhubaneswar, where they were brutally killed and their blood offered in a misguided attempt to propitiate the goddess. India Today had reported that then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi sought a report on the inhuman act.

From the beginning, it was clear that it was a case of human sacrifice in its crudest form -- the children had their heads crushed with sharp rocks at the foot of the idol.

The three lives were taken against the backdrop of villagers of Ranpur gathered on the lawns of the Maninag temple to watch a jatra, a suspense-packed drama about a king and his queen being mesmerised by a tantrik. The villagers held their breath as the tantrik prepared to sacrifice the couple in order to gain glory for himself. But this story of sacrifice had a happy ending - the king's soldiers turned up and slew the wicked tantrik.

Meanwhile, the true horror was taking place at a distance with the three boys.

In 2004, a truck driver working for a big granite exporter claimed he had witnessed human sacrifice by the operators. Blaming the lorry operator, he told the local police station that in the year 1999, he was asked to pick up mentally unstable people. He brought a dozen of mentally challenged people and claimed that two of them were killed, throats slit, and buried at a quarry.

In September 2015, IAS officer U Sagayam, who was appointed as the legal commissioner by Madras High Court to probe into a Rs 16,000 crore granite scam decided to investigate these allegations. The photo of this officer sleeping at the burial site to protect the evidence became viral. In the morning they exhumed 4 skeletons. Days later, two more were found. The company, however, denied the allegations.

In May 2020, as the world tried to fight with coronavirus pandemic, a priest in Odisha got a call from God. As the world suffered from Covid-19 and loss of lives, the 72-year-old priest received an 'order from God'. He killed a 52-year-old man with a sharp weapon to please God and end the pandemic.

The incident took place at a temple near Cuttack district. The accused, however, surrendered before the police soon after committing the crime.

During interrogation, the priest said he committed the murder after receiving orders from god in his dream in which he saw that human sacrifice will dispel the coronavirus.

Read more:

Kerala human sacrifice and the horror of killing in God's name - India Today

In the winter of 1861, the second editor in chief of The Atlantic, James T. Fields, received a letter from Julia Ward Howe, the abolitionist and suffragist. Attached to her letter was a poem she hoped to see published in this magazine. The letter is worth reading in full:

Fields!

Do you want this, and do you like it, and have you any room for it in January number? I recd. your invitation to meet the Trollopes just five minutes before my departure for Washington, so could only leave a verbal answer, hope you got it.

I am sad and spleeny, and begin to have fears that I may not be, after all, the greatest woman alive. Isnt this a melancholy view of things? but it is a vale, you know. When will the world come to end?

In hastesincerely yoursJ.W.H.

Sad and spleeny! We should all be so afflicted by Howes melancholy-inducing imperfections. Howe had just written her poem in a fever burst at the Willard Hotel. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight, she later said, and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Fields, in possession of that most crucial editing skillknowing when to leave copy alonegave it a title and published Battle Hymn of the Republic on the first page of the February 1862 edition. (Howe received, in return, a $5 freelance fee and immortality.)

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

One challenging aspect of employment here at The Atlanticwhich enters its 166th year of continuous publication with this issueis that we have published not only Battle Hymn of the Republic but also Longfellows Paul Reveres Ride, and the first chapters of W. E. B. Du Boiss The Souls of Black Folk, and Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken, and Rachel Carsons meditations on the oceans, and Einsteins denunciation of atomic weapons, and so on, ad infinitum. I sometimes ask my colleagues to look to Edward Weeks, the ninth editor of The Atlantic, as a model; in 1927, while still a junior editor, he brought in Ernest Hemingway. This, I tell my colleagues, should be the ambition of every editor at The Atlantic: to discover the next world-changing writer. We owe this to our readers, and we owe this to our predecessors, who tried very hard to make The Atlantic the great American magazine.

The high bar set by past editors is lowered just a bit in our minds by knowledge that not every article, short story, and poem published since 1857 has been imperishably wise. We have just recently posted our full archive online, and easy perusal has brought us to a number of unfortunate if unsurprising discoveriesfor instance, far too much enthusiasm, at certain moments, for eugenical sterilization; an article from 1934 titled My Friend the Jew, which is roughly what you would expect; and a poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the magazines fourth editor, titled Unguarded Gates, written in response to Emma Lazaruss The New Colossus, which to our chagrin was not first published in The Atlantic but is cast in bronze at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. Aldrichs poem, published in 1892, refers to liberty as a white goddess and warns of accents of menace alien to our air. A predisposition against censorship keeps us from hiding the poet laureate of family separation in some dusty digital subbasement. The history of a great magazine, after all, is as messy as the history of a great nation.

On balance, I should say, the historical record is exemplary. I believe this has to do mainly with the preposterously talented journalists who have been drawn here over the centuries, but The Atlantics excellent record of aesthetic and moral success is due as well to a founding mission statement, crystalline in clarity, that guides us to this day. The authorship of this manifesto, which was published in the first issue, is unclear, though it was most likely drafted by Francis Underwood, the largely unheralded deputy editor who dreamed up the idea for this magazine, and James Russell Lowell, who was placed in charge by the owners at The Atlantics birth. The manifesto has as signatories many, if not most, of the literary worthies of the day: Ralph Waldo Emerson, who appeared in the first issue; Oliver Wendell Holmes, who came up with The Atlantics name; Nathaniel Hawthorne, who would become the magazines Civil War correspondent; and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Americas most popular author, and The Atlantics, too, until she launched an intemperate attack on Lord Byron and cost the magazine thousands of subscribers. (We have since recovered, as has Lord Byron.) To my sadness, Moby-Dick being my favorite American novel, Herman Melville never found a way to contribute, though I like to imagine that both Lowell and Fields tried hard to induce him. I can hear their plea: Anything more on whales would be fine, Herman, really. Try again with the whales.

The Atlantic was founded as an abolitionist magazine, and as a conveyor of the American idea, to quote the founders in their manifesto, although, you will notice upon careful reading, they did not actually define this idea. The manifesto makes very clear that only by concentrating intently on literature, the arts, and politics in equal measure would the editors fulfill the founders mandate to make this a truly American magazine: The healthy appetite of the mind for entertainment in its various forms of Narrative, Wit, and Humor, will not go uncared for.

On culture, The Atlantics founders set out to include the whole domain of aesthetics, and hope gradually to make this critical department a true and fearless representative of Art, in all its various branches.

On politics, their declaration of purpose stated that The Atlantic

will be the organ of no party or clique, but will honestly endeavor to be the exponent of what its conductors believe to be the American idea. It will deal frankly with persons and with parties, endeavoring always to keep in view that moral element which transcends all persons and parties, and which alone makes the basis of a true and lasting prosperity. It will not rank itself with any sect of anties, but with that body of men which is in favor of Freedom, National Progress, and Honor, whether public or private.

The challenges of making this magazine have been, and continue to be, many. In the late 19th century, it was the introduction of photography and graphics into lushly funded New York magazines that threatened The Atlantic. In this century, it was the rise of the internet, and of a battalion of frenetic, clickbaity, hot-take websites, that caused some to believe that magazines like The Atlantic were the albatross of media. (Many of these illustrated weeklies and online ventures have long since proved to be ephemeral.)

But the hardest challenge, especially in a period of national fracturing, cynicism, and populism, is to keep our promise to be above party or clique. You will forgive us if we sometimes fail; the Republican Party of the moment is more or less authoritarian and therefore unconservative in approach, and it is difficult for us to treat Trumpism as a legitimate ideology. Conservatism as traditionally understood is worthy of deep discussion and exploration, and its proponents find a hospitable home for their writing here. We could not be The Atlantic without these writers and thinkers. Our mission is to be big, not small; independent, not partisan; and, above all, rigorous.

We also try very hard to be interesting. This is a prerequisite. If we cant entice you to read our articles, theres no point in publishing our collective findings about America and the world. I believe our team is doing an excellent job of being interesting, and I hope youll agree. Im very glad that you, our readers, are on this ride with us. The Atlantic has been arguing the cause of Freedom, National Progress, and Honor for 165 years now, and, thanks to you, well be doing this for a long time to come.

This editors note appears in the November 2022 print edition with the headline The American Idea.

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The American Idea - The Atlantic

Following Tuck Everlastings debut, stars such as Alexis Bledel and Ben Kingsley continued to find success in the entertainment industry.

The fantasy drama, which premiered in 2002, was based on the book of the same name by Natalie Babbitt. The film explored the topic of immortality by introducing Winnie Fosters (Bledel) adventures with the Tuck family.

According to director Jay Russell, it was important to honor the main message of the original story.

One of my early discussions with the author was that I said Im not going to literally translate your book. First of all I dont think you can do that. And secondly I think its a mistake because then youre competing with the readers imagination because everyone who reads the book is making their own movie and I cant compete with that, he said during an interview with Crosswalk in October 2002. So I said, My film is going to be based on your book and Im going to try and capture those themes and ideas that are so important to your book and Im going to try to get that into the movie. But no, Im not going to translate your book.'

Russell also praised Tuck Everlastings ability to start a discussion among its audience, adding, I think theres a misconception that kids arent interested in movies that are thought-provoking and have themes that are rich. I think thats wrong because Ive sat with kids in previews and you have those worries that kids are never going to sit through a movie that doesnt have explosions or car chase scenes, but they do.

He added: Theyll sit and enjoy this kind of movie. I mean you could have heard a pin drop in the screenings I sat in. And then again, the debate afterwards thats exciting. That means that kids hunger for thought-provoking movies, and I like that.

Bledel, for her part, reflected on the work that came with relating to her characters journey.

I think the love story in the film its a pretty universal desire, that people want to fall in love, and I think its a pretty classic love story in this film, that will appeal to kids as well as adults, she told IGN in 2002. Besides that, I think that most teenagers can relate to Winnie, because shes sort of a timeless character in the sense that she just wants to escape the control of her parents, and I dont know any teenager that doesnt want that.

Scroll down to see what the Tuck Everlasting cast has been up to:

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Tuck Everlasting Cast: Where Are They Now? Alexis Bledel, Jonathan Jackson and More - Us Weekly

Baseball fans could be treated to a double-dose of home run immortality this week, as both Aaron Judge and Albert Pujols are closing in on historic milestones.

In the Bronx, Judges incredible season for the New York Yankees rolls on, as he enters play Tuesday with 59 home runs on the campaign. Judge belted a pair of home runs for the New York Yankees on Sunday, in the Yankees 12-8 win over the Milwaukee Brewers, leaving him just two shy of Roger Maris American League record of 61 home runs in a season, set back in 1961.

Judges second blast on Sunday was a no-doubter off the bat, as you can tell by the reaction from Brewers pitcher Luis Perdomo:

As you can hear from the crowd after that moon shot, the calls for Judge to win American League Most Valuable Player continue to grow. Judge leads the league in a number of offensive categories, including on-base percentage (.419), slugging percentage (.701) and on-base plus slugging (1.120). His 59 home runs leads the majors, and also puts him 20 home runs ahead of Kyle Schwarber, who ranks second in baseball with 39 home runs.

But perhaps the best case for Judges MVP candidacy comes via Wins Above Replacement. Heading into play Tuesday, Judges WAR of 9.6 leads the league, putting him ahead of Shoehei Ohtanis mark of 8.7.

It is also the highest since the 10.7 posted by Mookie Betts during the 2018 season, when he won MVP.

Then there is Pujols, who is closing in on one of baseballs most elite clubs: The 700 club.

Currently, that elite club has just three members: Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth. Pujols is on the cusp of joining them. After a slow start to the season, Pujols locked in as August began, and has 12 home runs since August 10th. On that date, Pujols launched a solo shot off Austin Gomber of the Colorado Rockies, kicking off his late-season hot streak at the plate.

On Friday night, Pujols launched this rocket to deep left off Raynel Espinal of the Cincinnati Reds, giving him 19 home runs on the season, and 698 for his career:

The week ahead should give Judge ample opportunities to reach Maris mark. The Yankees kickoff a homestand tonight, starting with a quick two-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates are expected to start Luis Ortiz on the mound Tuesday night, having just recalled him to Pittsburgh after an injury to J.T. Brubaker, and Roansy Contreras on Wednesday.

Judge has yet to face either pitcher this year, but Ortiz, the young flamethrower, has bounced around between AA, AAA and the Pirates this season. Contreras, another younger arm in the Pittsburgh organization, has spent time at both AAA and with the major league club this season. In just over 83 inning of work with the Pirates, Contreras has allowed ten home runs.

Should Judge get through this two-game set with the Pirates without notching another home run, hell get his chance against the Yankees bitter rivals when the Boston Red Sox come to town for a four-game series, the final meeting between the rivals this season. Judge has 5 home runs in 14 games against Boston this season, and two of those came against Nick Pivetta, slated to start for the Red Sox on Saturday.

Pujols might face a tougher road to reach his milestone, at least in the early part of the week. The Cardinals travel west to start a West Coast swing, starting with three games against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. Mike Clevinger gets the ball for the Padres on Tuesday night, and Pujols has just a single hit in 14 career at-bats against him. Wednesday night will see lefty Blake Snell on the bump for San Diego, and Pujols has just one hit off Snell in his ten career at-bats.

His best chance might come Thursday, when Joe Musgrove is expected to get the call for the Padres. Pujols homered off Musgrove back in April of 2017, when he was with the Los Angeles Angels.

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Aaron Judge, Albert Pujols closing in on baseball immortality - SB Nation

Marcus Ericsson fears his girlfriend is a bigger fan of the clay bust sculpted by Will Behrends than the actual head on his shoulders. Behrends version of the Indy 500 winner has one major advantage for Iris: It doesnt talk back.

Sitting by the pool in Tryon, North Carolina, where the Swede and Iris were joking with each other and relaxing on Tuesday, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver took a few moments to reflect on his life-changing victory in May that led him to take part in one of the events final traditions in posing for Behrends and having his likeness added to the $3 million BorgWarner trophy.

I was impressed, Ericsson told RACER. Hes done a good job. This is the cool thing with the 500, all the traditions and all the things you get to do after winning. And this is probably one of the very coolest things with this sculpture and getting your face on the trophy. I think thats pretty incredible and pretty unique in the sporting world.

Indy 500 winners have a few days to celebrate the achievement before returning to the IndyCar circuit and racing the following weekend. With the season now over, Ericssons enjoying the opportunity to continue celebrating the win without the pressures of driving the No. 8 Honda to worry about.

Its tough, because you go straight from the 500 and the season gets so intense from then onwards with so many races, and obviously, I was right in the thick of that championship hunt for the rest of the year, he said. So you have to put all your efforts into that. And you put so much focus and determination to try and win that championship, its a bit hard to really enjoy and embrace the fact that I won the 500.

So going on a trip like this, and going through this whole process with the sculpturing, its been a new chance to enjoy the result we had in May. And its not confirmed yet, but I think we might get to bring the BorgWarner trophy to Sweden, so that would be amazing.

Ericsson had the honor of being Behrends 33rd Indy 500 winner to sit for the BorgWarner trophy. Hes also becoming accustomed to being introduced as the winner of the worlds biggest open-wheel race.

I think the biggest change since winning is just the fact that you will always be presented as the Indy 500 winner and thats going to be with me for the rest of my life, he said. And also, in the racing industry, you move up a lot of steps and also with the fans because of the 500 Theres been a lot more focus on me, which is different, but Im very proud of what we achieved.

We had a plan going into the month of May and we would follow that plan and execute that plan to perfection. Really, we were strong all month, we did an excellent race and it was just it was just all those things combined for Chip Ganassi Racing. So doing this sculpture and knowing it will be on the trophy for all of us forever, it just makes what we did even more special.

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Ericsson takes another step towards BorgWarner Trophy immortality - RACER

James Earl Jones, the actor who has voiced iconic Star Wars villain Darth Vader since 1977, has reportedly permitted his past utterances to be fed into an AI that will ensure his distinct tones become replicable once he becomes one with the Force.

News that Vader will achieve digital immortality comes from report in Vanity Fair which reveals that a Ukrainian company called Respeecher was hired by Lucasfilm to reproduce Jones's famous baritone for the Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries recently released on the Disney+ streaming service.

Respeecher describes itself as offering content creators to "Create speech that's indistinguishable from the original speaker."

That mattered to the producers of Obi-Wan Kenobi because the show was set between the events depicted in Star Wars Episodes III and IV, and they wanted Vader's voice to reflect that of a younger villain instead of Jones's rather more mature voice.

The story also states that Jones has allowed his archival material to be absorbed by Respeecher for later re-use, as at age 91 Jones has expressed a desire to step back from the character.

Your correspondent thinks Resepeecher could also do worse than to secure the rights for Jones's sublime turn as Thulsa Doom in 1982's Conan the Barbarian, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger brought himself to Hollywood's attention after grunting his way through the titular role.

But we digress.

Respeecher continues to operate from Ukraine. The company describes its wares as a version of the "super resolution" technology used to upscale images captured by magnetic resonance imaging.

"An artificial neural network adds missing details in the time domain by increasing the effective sampling rate of an audio signal," explains a white paper that details the company's tech.

"In the nutshell, our super resolution network is a GAN-based neural audio enhancer that adds extra resolution to recordings with limited bandwidth," the document adds. "The enhancement is performed by an artificial neural network that analyzes the frequency range of the input low resolution audio and completes its spectrum by generating a high frequency signal that blends smoothly with the original audio."

It seems apt to end with a Darth Vader quote, spoken in a conference room on the Death Star in Episode IV.

And you totally read that in James Earl Jones's voice.

Link:

Darth Vader voice actor James Earl Jones allows AI to take over the role - The Register

Everyone wants to live forever. Few, if any, of us will ever achieve such a thing, but its not for lack of trying. Well try every new miracle cure, every wellness fadessential oils, stuffing lord knows what into who-knows-where, generally following the dubious influence of people more attractive than we are. Because if they look like that, then surely theres something valid to this outlandish claim, we think, overlooking the fact that theyre 20 years younger than we are and born with a silver IV drip.

You cant outrace death, which is in part where the idea of a church promising eternal paradise comes ina personal network thatll help reserve you a seat in the afterlife. If death is a certainty, then people can hardly be faulted for not only holding fast to the idea that something elsesomething better, evenis still yet to come, but that we can maneuver our way to the right place. In more far-fetched scenarios, theres also resurrection and reincarnation, but in the event that our bodies eventually break down, and the next plane is a bust, theres always immortality the old fashioned way: Living a legend that exists well after youre gone.

Short of being bit by a vampirejurys still out on that onethe last way is the most achievable way to immortality, but its by no means easy. The shelf-life on a posthumous legend is roughly a generation or two. We typically reserve the plaques and the monuments for those who changed history in some way, and not always necessarily for the bestworld leaders, pioneers in groundbreaking fields, explorers, heroes, saints. But even celebrities arent immune to fading into historys unforgiving ether. Shakespeare made it a few centuries and The Beatles probably have a good shot at being remembered in whatevers left of our world a few hundred years from now. But the rest of us probably wont be so lucky to have documentaries made about our lives and books written about us. And as much as we try to leave an impression through digital means, the Internet isnt forever. Take it from someone whos had to remind himself to download PDF copies of the stories written for websites that no longer exist.

Dying young, however, has an ironic way of making immortality seem strangely closer to achievable. Its in the morbid glamour of the 27 clubartists gone before their time, such as Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain, who feel permanently ingrained in our popular culture. In fact, there was once an entire genre of song based around young lovers meeting tragic ends at the end of a fiery speedway. It began with the Cheers Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots in 1955, eerily just before the untimely death of James Dean, and continued through the following decade through songs like Dead Mans Curve, Last Kiss and, most famously, 60s girl group The Shangri-Las morbid hit Leader of the Pack.

Leader of the Pack is one of the most popular examples of a teenage tragedy song, alternately known as splatter platters. They were a bit like murder ballads but produced for a youth demographic, romantic in their depictions of car wrecks and airplane crashes and other manner of grisly demise. Sometimes with a class ring still on their hand, in the case of Teen Angel, or given a touch of ghostly effects in Johnny Remember Me. And occasionally, like in Jody Reynolds Endless Sleep, they survive in a last minute twistthough Reynolds original version was written with a tragic ending, his label (Demon Records, interestingly enough) thought it too depressing to release as is.

Leader of the Pack is also a work of fiction. Written by Brill Building songwriters George Shadow Morton, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwhich, supposedly after consuming a bottle of champagne and some cigars. Intended as a follow-up for the groups prior single Remember (Walking in the Sand), it tells a fairly simple story of love between a girl and her ill-fated, motorcycle-straddling misfit suitorthink Arthur Fonzarelli but more of a reckless rider. The song is heavy with the sounds of revving hogswhich the group replicated in their own performances, supposedly by bringing an actual motorcycle backstageand dripping with teenage naivet.

The songs most famous line is arguably its first: Is she really going out with him? Borrowed by Joe Jackson and The Damned, its become an oft-repeated pop culture reference point, one of the great opening lines in popular music, but here its intended as an innocent bit of adolescent gossip that slowly walks us into a familiar story between narrator Betty and her hellraiser boyfriend Jimmy. Girl falls for bad boy (My folks were always putting him down (down, down)/They said he came from the wrong side of town), girl breaks it off with bad boy because dads being uncool (and pretty classist, it would seem), bad boy speeds off toward his imminent doom (As he drove away on that rainy night/I begged him to go slow, whether he heard/Ill never know). And with a Look out, look out, look out!, and a climactic instrumental crash, Jimmys story comes to a violent end. Or as Barry in High Fidelity puts it, The guy fuckin beefs it on his motorcycle and dies, right?

Strange as it might have been for youth audiences to be as enamored with the idea of songs about loved ones getting mangled in wrecks 60 years ago, its not exactly a mystery why Leader of the Pack became a hit song, reaching as high as number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Its catchy! I dont imagine there are many of us who wouldnt recognize the title hooktheres immortality for you!and it essentially follows the basic rules of a great pop song, in and out in less than three minutes, memorable chorus, simple melody, dont keep the audience waiting for the hook, and so on. But its also a very weird song in some respects. There are a lot of spoken word parts, and the reverb-laden middle section in which Betty says goodbye to the doomed Jimmy feels pretty weird to sandwich into an otherwise upbeat pop song, but then again, its a pop song about rowdy teenagers meeting an untimely demise, so I suppose it fits. You can hear its echoes on an album like Bat for Lashes The Bride, which uses similar aesthetics in an album that turns the trope upside down by spending most of it working through the aftermath and the grief. And, to a lesser extent, Fucked Ups David Comes to Life.

Leader of the Pack and the many other teenage tragedy songs of the 60s are connected Stagger Lee or Ode to Billie Joe in that they essentially descend from a similar folk tradition of grim and tragic narratives told through song. In fact, folk music had something of a resurgence in popular music at the time, which also saw murder ballads like Tom Dooley, popularized by The Kingston Trio, made into contemporary favorites. The difference is perhaps in the marketabilitythe songwriters behind Leader of the Pack and Dead Mans Curve saw a listenership that craved this macabre romanticism, likely in part because it echoes the inevitable sense of rebellion that every American teenager will at some point embrace. Sure, Jimmys dead, but at least he didnt have to ride his motorcycle responsibly. Safety is for squares.

But maybe theres another, more hopeful explanation is the one that goes back to the idea of immortalitythat if you go out in a fiery inferno with your engagement ring still on, or you lose control of your speedster so you can win your best girls affection, perhaps the tale is just too good not to turn into a song. Sure, eternal youth comes at a cost, but its a lot harder to sell a song about growing old and being forgotten.

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"Leader of the Pack" and the Teenage Tragedy Song | Treble - Treble