Years before he journeyed to "The Twilight Zone," Rod Serling made a brief detour to the strike zone.

To many, he's the foreboding figure in black and white who gave the world the heebie-jeebies with those bizarre, mind-bending tales of cannibal aliens, talking dolls and phone calls from the grave.

Smoldering cigarette in hand, he unleashed macabre mayhem in a classic TV show that resonates decades later in endless reruns.

"That's how a lot of people pictured Dad," daughter Anne Serling said.

But, there was another dimension to Rod Serling: His love of baseball.

And Serling aficionados and sports fans will soon get a chance to experience it. Think there's no baseball on the radio? Think again.

"O'Toole From Moscow," a long-lost comedy Serling wrote about the national pastime, is on deck.

It's a screwball romp, with a side of whimsy: At the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, a Soviet Embassy worker fritters away time rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, then skips town with a comrade who suddenly becomes the greatest slugger ever for the Cincinnati Reds.

Serling's 1955 script, which was performed only once, is being brought to life in Cincinnati. A public radio station there will air it March 25, which originally was the eve of the opening day matchup between the host Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals, before the coronavirus prompted MLB postponements.

"Kind of a gift from my dad back in time," Anne said. "There is a magical quality to it, isn't there?"

"It's his voice," she said from her home in Ithaca, New York. "I could so much imagine my dad writing this."

Easily, in fact.

"There's a line in there: 'Give me a stick and I'll beat it to death.' That's an expression he used all the time," she said. "There's so much of my dad in this. I can envision his words throughout this."

Hers, too. Anne is the narrator and introduces the program, as the stage directions called for, in clipped Rod Serling style.

The hour-long show is peppered with references to brawny Reds slugger Ted Kluszewski, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Duke Snider and other stars of the day and begins at 8 p.m. Wednesday on WVXU-FM 91.7, with live streaming at wvxu.org.

A twi-nighter, of sorts. OK, but why Cincinnati?

From 1950-54, Serling worked there for WLW, typing out promos, ads and other fixtures. At night, though, he wrote freelance scripts for local and national TV shows.

"O'Toole From Moscow" was televised live by "NBC Matinee Theater" on the afternoon of Dec. 12, 1955, during the days of the Red Scare.

Famed big league manager Leo Durocher and John Banner, best known as Sergeant Schultz in "Hogan's Heroes," appeared in the show that featured Chuck Connors, the former major leaguer who later starred in the TV Western, The Rifleman.

There are no known tapes or recordings of that show, which aired four years before Serling created "The Twilight Zone."

That's where John Kiesewetter got involved. The Serling fan, longtime Cincinnati Enquirer newspaperman and current Media Beat blogger for WXVU first heard about the show in 1989 and was intrigued. He eventually tracked down the script and oversaw a project to adapt it for radio.

"Not many people can say they spent a summer rewriting Rod Serling," he kidded.

Kiesewetter lined up the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music to provide actors, guided by CCM professor of acting and directing Richard Hess, and recorded the show in November.

Reds organist John Schutte was brought over from Great American Ball Park to play "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," other stadium background and even a little Russian folk music. But none of those eerie echoes from "The Twilight Zone" theme.

Kiesewetter also went to a local gym where a couple guys hit with wood bats, recording the loud cracks with his phone to set the scene.

"The ball sounds like it's exploding," he said. Great sound effect.

For Anne Serling, such sounds bring back fond memories of driving around the Los Angeles freeways with her dad, listening to a ballgame.

He loved the Dodgers, hearing Vin Scully on the radio. I can recall him being quite enraged, slapping his palm against the wheel when things didn't go right for them.

Carl Erskine pitched for the Dodgers back then, starting in 1948 with Brooklyn. Now 93, the All-Star is prominently mentioned in this version of Serling's comedy.

"Now that's a real script. That's amazing," Erskine said from his home in Anderson, Indiana. I liked 'The Twilight Zone' and I remember the music that played behind it. Nice to hear I'm in this one.

A postscript, submitted for your approval:

Why Serling picked the name "O'Toole" remains a mystery. It certainly wasn't common in sports. Until Serling's script, there had been exactly one O'Toole in the majors -- Marty, a pitcher who debuted in 1908 with (naturally) the Reds and stuck around the bigs for a bit.

Some older fans might note that a few years after "O'Toole from Moscow" ran, a young lefty came out of college and showed up in Cincinnati. Jim O'Toole was pretty good, pitching Cincinnati into the 1961 World Series.

But try to explain this: Serling wrote only one baseball-themed episode of "The Twilight Zone," about a robot pitcher titled "The Mighty Casey." It ran in 1960 and starred Robert Sorrells as the unusual moundsman.

Sorrells, sadly, drew attention later in life. At 74, he shot and killed a man in a Southern California bar and died in prison years later.

News reports of the case listed Sorrells' acting credits, but mostly skipped his work in a long-forgotten TV comedy from the early 1960s with a Navy backdrop.

It was called ... Ensign O'Toole.

Coincidence? Could be. Or maybe just cue the "Twilight Zone" music and let that Serling touch slip into the shadows, too.

Visit link:
Twilight Time: Serling baseball comedy on deck - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

By ROY GACHUHIMore by this Author

All hands on deck is an expression of naval origin made by the captain of a stricken ship. It required all sailors on board to stop what they were doing and immediately report to the deck to help navigate the vessel through a storm or whatever other emergency it was in.

Kenyan football is in a similar situation. It is in a life-threatening state, showing weak spasms of movement here and there, and if Football Kenya Federation is allowed to continue at the helm alone, our football will die.

Some people actually think it is already dead but to me there is still a feeble pulse. However, without further loss of time, it must be all hands on deck now before it succumbs to mismanagement and incompetence.

Never in the history of this country has our national sport been in such a bad state. Even in the amateur days when players sometimes staged coups against their elected officials, livelihoods were not an issue.

Today, players are going without food. And these are players, so-called professionals, who depend entirely on their football career to feed themselves and their families. If this is not an emergency, what is?

Imagine watching an award-winning photograph of yourself scoring a goal or saving one on the morning that red-eyed street toughs wielding huge padlocks and chains come to lock your house because you have defaulted on rent payment despite several reminders.

You are two diametrically different people at the same time: one is a national asset who bears our flag on international duty and the other is a man who cannot provide for his family through no fault of his own but because of the incompetence, arrogance and possible corruption of others. What kind of life is this?

In all my career, I cant remember reporting on a match where the home team gave its visitors a walkover because it could not afford to host them.

In fact, the problems I covered revolved around clubs splitting into two with each claiming to be the bona fide team.

There were walkovers all right but that was because of disagreements over who should play; sometimes exasperated referees blew the final whistle after 10 minutes just to break the deadlock. In other words, there was too much football, not too little of it.

And despite passing the hat around to raise money, teams still managed to travel to other towns, the wrangle-ridden ones causing mayhem over who the match officials should admit into the pitch. The history of our game shows that some of the best known teams, although now long dead, were actually splinter sides. Think about that kind of vibrancy.

Today, some home teams cant raise a side. What is more, even our most popular clubs are now practically destitute. They beg their players to play after scrounging around for somebodys lose change so as to make partial payments.

This has been made to look normal and it isnt. It is utterly abnormal. If the federation cannot attract sponsors for the most popular game in Kenya and the world, its raison d'tre ceases. It should go home at once. It is a deadweight on the country.

Football Kenya Federation is currently grappling with a debt of Sh109 owed to former Harambee Stars coach Adel Amrouche. Its president, Nick Mwendwa, who all facts show wilfully got Kenya into that hole, wants the public to foot that bill.

It is one of the most obnoxious habits by far too many public officials in Kenya. Without even the slightest pretence to any modicum of responsibility, they transfer personal misconduct to overtaxed Kenyans to deal with.

One world leader whose views I could never stomach was the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. But she once made a speech on taxes whose contents I filed somewhere.

She said: Let us never forget this fundamental truth the State has no source of money other than the money people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. And it is no good thinking someone else will pay. That someone else is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers money. And no nation ever grew more prosperous by taxing its citizens beyond their capacity to pay.

When Nick Mwendwa asked the government to foot Adel Amrouches bill, the government should have responded by surcharging him with the same.

Harambee Stars coach Adel Amrouche gives instructions to players from the touch-line during their GOtv Cecafa Senior Challenge Group A match East against South Sudan on November 30, 2013 at Nyayo Stadium. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

The government has no money for such a purpose and Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed was right on the ball when she told him as much.

That money is Nick Mwendwas debt to pay and if he cannot do that, he should be dealt with as the law demands. Nothing less, nothing more.

Football Kenya Federation president (FKF) Nick Mwendwa address delegates during the Special General Meeting at Safari Park hotel, Nairobi on January 28, 2020. PHOTO | LUCY WANJIRU |

I asked Sam Nyamweya how Kenya came by this bill which his successor at FKF wants us to pay. He told me: Adel Amrouche had a valid contract with us. But when he was suspended by CAF, it became imperative to hire somebody else to handle the national team. That is why we turned to Bobby Williamson. But I made it clear to him that he was with us on a temporary basis pending the return of Adel.

This is what I said to Nick. I told him that to terminate Adel, he had to pay him. To continue with him, he had to pay him. So it was a question of whether he wanted to pay him to work or not to work because either way, he was going to pay him.

But once in office, Nick arbitrarily threw everything out of the window and brought in his own man, Stanley Okumbi. The millions FKF was going to pay Adel were a forgone conclusion from day one. It was not a question of if but when and how much.

Kenyas football scene is completely desolate. In a manner of speaking, the clubs and their players are dead men walking. The stadiums they play in are virtually empty.

The sponsors are gone. One of the two main stadiums in the country has not been available for more than two years and the other one is usually only free after a struggle. Its surface, when it rains, turns into a mud bath while its roofs gush in floods. And the federation has nothing to say about all this to the government even as its city-based teams travel distances out of town, digging into bare pockets to stage their matches.

The federation, reeling under a mountain of self-inflicted debt, exists to exist. Its primary goal is self-preservation, not service provision. That is why it concocted a raft of rules to disbar everyone but its own to run for its presidency.

But thank goodness there was a Sports Disputes Tribunal to call it out. As things stand in the country today, if FKF is allowed to continue at the helm of Kenyan football, we must give up on our future which will continue to belong to other Africans Algerians, Cameroonians, Nigerians, Senegalese and practically everyone else.

Sports Disputes Tribunal chairman John Ohaga delivers the ruling on December 2, 2019 in Nairobi. PHOTO | CHRIS OMOLLO |

This is untenable. It cannot and should not be allowed.

We cannot wait for the captain to shout All hands on deck! He wont. He would rather the ship sinks than part with the controls.

We must seize the deck and assume control of the vessel. The time for a normalisation committee is now because the term of the present office has already expired.

I have been a voracious consumer of books by African writers. One of the novels I enjoyed the most was Elechi Amadis The Great Ponds. In an early scene, Ejimole, a prisoner held captive for poaching fish in the Pond of Wagaba, decries the conditions of his captivity:

This treatment is worse than death, he sobs.

His captor is unmoved. Dont be too sure, he tells Ejimole. At any rate, death is not always the worst thing that can happen to a man.

What begins as a fight between two villages over control of fish ponds gradually turns into their own devastation by a mysterious disease. People die one by one and it is gut-wrenching. Nobody is able to stop the deaths. Grave after grave fills up.

From the anonymous villager to the chief, the society is grappling in the dark, trying this and that for a cure, praying to this or that god. They are helpless. The very last paragraph of the novel reads:

But it was only the beginning. Wonjo, as the villagers called the Great Influenza of 1918, was to claim a grand total of some twenty million lives all over the world. This week, I googled this occurrence and various sources put the deaths at between 50 and 100 million.

The Great Ponds, a compelling work of literature by one of Africas most elegant writers in my estimation, is now haunting me and I will admit that I cant remember the last time I have spent days on end holed up in my house in such low spirits. A mysterious disease called coronavirus is upon us and it is consuming people one by one all over the world at a frightening rate.

It has shut down the world and I am very sad, no matter how I try to raise up my spirits. The figures of people expected to die that experts are putting across are more or less those claimed by Wonjo.

Who among us will live and who will die? And we are being told that a vaccine is 12-18 months away. The sense of helplessness is crushing. Death is not always the worst thing that can happen to a man? Of course. Doesnt knowing if you will be one of the statistics mean just that?

See original here:
All hands on deck to save Kenyan football stranded at the high seas - Daily Nation

Use your (arrows) to browse

CHARLOTTE, NC NOVEMBER 13: Cam Newton #1 and teammate Christian McCaffrey #22 of the Carolina Panthers look on against the Miami Dolphins in the second quarter during their game at Bank of America Stadium on November 13, 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

A tumultuous period for the Carolina Panthers football offseason is approaching fast. The patches and plugs for every teams supposed needs will be receiving calls and making plans for the upcoming season and Carolina will undoubtedly be in the mix to make some big moves.

For the past two seasons Carolina has used free agency to remedy the obvious needs of veteran mentors and talent on their roster by signing players like Torrey Smith and Bruce Irvin. The Panthers have already started down the same path this off-season with an addition of left tackle Russell Okung. Now they have to set their sights on other targets.

The free agent market just became flooded with starting talent all across the board, particularly at the defensive lineman position. The chance that Carolina will find a reasonably-priced plug for their issues on run defense before April just increased drastically (although I believe theyll still walk away with at least one defensive tackle from this draft).

This works to the benefit of the Panthers as they can shift the draft priority around and find some long-term options to fill the voids left by linebacker Luke Kuechly and (possibly) James Bradberry with the acquisitions of some backfield barracudas in the first and second round. Additionally, the Panthers will avoid breaking the bank for a quarterback and a running back which will leave room to acquire more replacements for their losses this off-season.

It looks like Dontari Poe wont be returning to the Panthers, so now theres more cap space to make all of the other necessary moves. The re-signature of Tre Boston could be the beginning of a serendipitous cascade of events if the Panthers play their cards right.

Use your (arrows) to browse

Here is the original post:
Carolina Panthers poised to stack the deck this offseason - Cat Crave

This story is part of Yahoo Sports Shes Got Next series, featuring women in sports on the rise who deserve their time in the spotlight.

----

Santia Deck has two sporting idols: Florence Griffith Joyner and Barry Sanders.

They couldnt be more different. The late Griffith Joyner, still the fastest woman ever, was flamboyant on the track, with her long hair and longer nails complementing her colorful running uniforms. Sanders was the opposite with the Detroit Lions, never outwardly celebrating any of his 109 touchdowns and walking away on his own terms years before anyone thought he would.

Deck dreamed of making it to the Olympics, just like Flo-Jo. As injuries derailed her collegiate running career, Deck believed she was meant to be an athlete and spent several years bouncing between flag football and rugby. That led her to the Womens Football League Association, a full-pads tackle league set to start in 2021.

The league announced in December she signed to a multimillion-dollar contract, the first for a woman in football.

I was at the theater with one of my friends, we were in the middle of watching the movie and my mom called me and told me the [contract] offer, and I just ran out the theater screaming, Deck said recently, laughing at the memory. My friend thought somebody died, and I was like, No, if you knew what my mom just told me, you would understand. And my life has changed after that.

Deck isnt just expected to be one of the WFLAs best players, but her contract and the ensuing publicity also made her the face of the upstart league, founded by California businesswoman Lupe Rose. So far, musician Ja Rule is among those buying in, owning the New York team.

Exhibition games begin this spring, with eight scheduled.

Its been an adventure getting to this point.

Deck began running track at age 6, not long after seeing a cheetah in full sprint on television. She told her mother, Cynthia Robles, that she wanted to be a cheetah. Robles laughed and told her young daughter that wasnt possible, but promised to put her in track.

And then I was diagnosed with scoliosis when I was 12 years old and the doctor had told my mom that he recommended me never playing any sports because if I got hit the wrong way, fell the wrong way, that I could end up possibly paralyzed, Deck said.

Scoliosis is a sideways curvature of the spine that happens before puberty. While doctors now know that it cant worsen with athletic activity, there was once that fear.

Robles considered pulling Deck from track but she knew track was my life, Deck said. I had dreams of going to the Olympics since I was like 5 years old, so she knew that would pretty much destroy me. She ended up praying on it, and she ended up letting me go ahead and whatever God has planned is what He had planned.

She kept running and drew inspiration from the iconic Flo-Jo.

I was obsessed with her, from the time I saw her until now, Deck said. A lot of my style is [derived from] her. I used to wear my hair down. I used to wear full makeup. I got the mismatched socks and everything. I actually started running like her, as far as her coming out of the blocks, the little side-to-side she used to do, even though in real life, that didnt translate well for me. I ended up developing that habit that to this day is still hard for me to break.

Deck ran well enough to earn a scholarship to Division II Texas A&M Kingsville, but a series of back and hamstring injuries meant she didnt see much improvement.

Despite that, Deck wasnt ready to give up on track. After graduating in 2014, she kept training in an effort to qualify for the 2016 Olympics. She finally saw improvement, and then suffered another hamstring injury. Shed told herself that if she got hurt again, she was done with the sport and she reluctantly walked away.

She turned to a sport she knew well: flag football.

Growing up, I was a tomboy I did everything my brothers did. I was out there running routes, doing cone drills. I even went to a few of my twin brothers Pee Wee practices, and honestly, thats why I think I have the edge that I do in football because I was doing that stuff, she said. A lot of girls, they dont get that until theyre in high school or college. I was lucky in that way.

Story continues

As Decks flag football highlights spread on social media, rugby fans and coaches asked if she wanted to try that sport.

Once someone mentioned the chance to qualify for the Olympics, Deck was in.

She spent much of last year training and traveling overseas, playing with the Atlanta Harlequins, Stars Rugby 7s and the Bay of Plenty Rugby Union in New Zealand.

And then

I got injured again, unfortunately, Deck said. So, that slowed down my whole Olympic journey once again, and that was that.

I went into a depression because I was so close, super close to making the team and I got that injury and I couldnt come back from it. I was exhausted. I put my body through so much. I was going from Australia to New Zealand to London just to train, to get that experience because I was so new to the sport and I was literally running my body and my mind into the ground. So, when I got the injury, I didnt listen to the doctors. I kept going until my body shut down.

Not long after taking a step back from rugby, Rose asked if Deck would consider joining the WFLA. Deck had turned down the first offer earlier in 2019 while she focused on rugby.

Deck, a running back for the Los Angeles Fames, then turned to her second role model, Sanders, calling him poetry in motion.

Rose has promised WFLA players will be paid living wages, making it the first womens football league to pay players.

With the rebirth of the XFL and the memory of the short-lived AAF in 2019 still fresh, Deck is hopeful the WFLA will thrive where others have failed.

Knowing the owner and knowing who she is and the connections and who she knows and her history and how she has gotten to where shes at, she has so much, not only pull, but so much passion for this league that theres really no way that I could not see it happening, Deck said. She has really put in everything to make sure we are getting what we deserve. ... People ask me that all the time but honestly, I dont [think it will fail]. If anybodys going to do it, its going to be her.

She excitedly points to the growing number of female coaches in the NFL and Central Methodist University safety Toni Harris, the first woman to get a football scholarship, as evidence that its a great time for women in the sport.

I think having little girls who, before I even signed this contract were like, I want to play football. I want to go out there and do what my brothers are doing, and to me its so fulfilling to know that they now have a home, she said. They can now dream just like their brothers when theyre 5 and 6 years old of going to the NFL and [taking care of] their family and things like that. These little girls now can have the same opportunity, and just knowing that I can really tell these children: If you want something, you can have it.

I tell children all the time, If you want it, go get it. No questions asked, no excuses. If you want it, you can have it but you have to go get it. And thats what I live by; its what Ive always lived by. If you put in the work, the time and the effort and keep yourself on a straight-and-narrow path and keep God first, you can literally have whatever you want to have.

Visit Makers.com for more stories in celebration of Women's History Month.

Here is the original post:
A mix of Flo-Jo and Barry Sanders, Santia Deck hoping to pave next generation of women's football - Yahoo Sports

Kasey Cohen from Below Deck Mediterranean wants her community to know that shes here to help if anyone needs assistance during the coronavirus threat.

Cohen shared a video message to Twitter that shed be happy to help any elderly members of the community or those with a compromised immune system get groceries and supplies. If any elderly individuals or individuals more susceptible to getting coronavirus need assistance in picking up groceries, supplies or medications in the Long Island area, Id be happy to help, she posted along with her video.

She added that being young and healthy puts her in a position to help others. Fans were overwhelmed by her kindness, some pointing out that residents could also get supplies through online delivery. But Cohen understood that not everyone can afford the higher fees associated with online delivery. So she wanted to offer an option to her community.

Captain Sandy Yawn was extremely proud of her former third stew. Thank you @kaseylcohen! We are all in this together! Also consider those who need daycare while schools are closed. Some parents, like medical and emergency personnel, will be working to help us. So consider helping as you can, Yawn tweeted along with Cohens post.

Yawn has also been trying to maintain an upbeat attitude and provide as many uplifting messages to her followers. She has been tweeting and re-tweeting positive messages along the way. Including some of the efforts being taken by Bethenny Frankel from The Real Housewives of New York City. She also supported the efforts being made by the nurses and doctors on the frontlines.

Thanks to all the medical personnel, doctors, & nurses, who are helping us fight the #CoronavirusPandemic. You have always been heroes, but lets get them an extra shout out right now. Be safe. Be smart. We are all in this together, she tweeted.

News footages have shown throngs of people crowding local grocery and warehouse stores, stocking up on supplies. Empty shelves and long lines show that many people went into panic buying. The public was advised to have 14 days worth of food, medicine, and supplies on hand. Despite a number of events and schools being canceled for a few weeks, the government has not imposed a mandatory lockdown on residents.

A number of people hoarded so many items, none were left for others. Several grocery chains are closing early each night to restock shelves. It is like pandemonium, Lou Scaduto Jr., president and CEO of Food Circus Super Markets told USA Today. They are literally buying everything I have never seen so much toilet paper go off the shelf.

The panic is largely unnecessary because most retailers are able to replenish products fairly quickly, Neil Saunders, managing director of the retail consultancy Global Data told USA Today. Also, products like toilet paper are not being used more than usual so people who have already stocked up will not keep buying them.

See the original post here:
'Below Deck Med' Cast Member Offers to Help Those in Need During Coronavirus Threat - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

edge, the highest outdoor sky deck in the western hemisphere, has welcomed its first visitors. rising 1,100 feet (335 meters) above hudson yards, the mixed-use development on manhattans west side, the observation platform has been designed to take visitors out of their comfort zone. located on the 100th floor of the sites tallest building, the deck has been conceived as an open plaza complete with a partially glass floor and angled glass walls. the platform, as well as the rest of the skyscraper, has been designed by KPF, with rockwell group responsible for the buildings interiors.

image courtesy of related-oxford

edge is accessed via the shops & restaurants, hudson yards indoor shopping mall. visitors are first greeted with an immersive multimedia arrival experience, designed by LAB at rockwell group, before a 52 second elevator ride brings visitors to the 7,500 square foot (700 square meter) outdoor viewing area. extending out almost 80 feet (24 meters) from the buildings 100th floor, the sky deck reveals panoramic views of new york famous skyline and beyond a distance encompassing more than 80 miles (129 kilometers).

image courtesy of related-oxford

at the heart of the sky deck, guests are dared to traverse a glass floor that offers a view of the city streets 100 stories below. visitors are also encouraged to lean against the decks nine-foot-tall (2.7 meter) glass walls, which are angled outwards to maximize views. an even higher perspective is offered from an outdoor stair and seating area that allows guests to look out over the glass from a seated position.

image designboom

bolted together and anchored to the east and south sides of the building, the sky deck comprises 15 main sections, each weighing between 35,000 and 100,000 pounds (16-45 metric tons). most observation decks are on a terrace, theyre part of the building, but here we did something very different, explains marianne kwok, director at KPF. we didnt want to scaffold up and build it and then take the scaffold down. it was manufactured in italy, and we put together the whole thing in italy to test it. then it was taken apart and shipped over. each section was then craned into place. it was constructed in such a short time because it was almost prefabrciated.

image designboom

we really wanted to create something that would give you a different view of the city and a different experience, continues marianne kwok. so there are no metal supports on the glass, and the glass is held slightly apart so that a cell phone camera can be put between and you can get a clean photo. one level up, the 101st floor is home to a restaurant, bar, and event space. the projects light show, which will take place through april, was designed by lobservatoire international, who also designed the overall lighting of the deck. edge is open from 8am to 12 midnight, 365 days per year.

image courtesy of related-oxford

image courtesy of related-oxford

image courtesy of related-oxford

image courtesy of related-oxford

image courtesy of related-oxford

project info:

name: edgelocation: 100th floor of 30 hudson yards, new yorkdesign: KPF (building), rockwell group (interiors)status: open to public from march 11, 2020times: 8am to 12 midnight, 365 days per yearprice: adult admission starts at $36

philip stevens I designboom

mar 09, 2020

Continue reading here:
edge is the highest outdoor sky deck in the western hemisphere - Designboom

On February 6, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognised the Pune-based National Institute of Virology (NIV) as one of the 15 laboratories that would provide reference testing support for the novel coronavirus.

The number of COVID-19 cases remained constant at three for nearly a month in India, but now it is going up steadily. Anticipating such a scenario, more labs are screening COVID-19 samples now. Besides the 52 labs belonging to the Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratories network of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 10 labs under the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have been included for testing COVID-19 samples.

Till recently, all the 52 labs were allowed to only screen samples; only NIV was authorised to confirm positive cases. With more suspected cases piling up, a long delay in confirming positive test results would have become inevitable for NIV. So, in a welcome move, ICMR has pre-empted such a scenario. Four-five days ago, 13 labs were authorised to confirm positive cases without sending them to NIV. Another 17 labs will be authorised to do so on March 11 and the remaining labs on March 13, says Nivedita Gupta of ICMR. With the 10 labs under the NCDC regularly confirming positive H1N1 cases, we can expect these labs to be authorised to also confirm positive COVID-19 cases.

Unfortunately, several national labs have not been brought up to speed to perform other vital functions during an outbreak.

NIV is the only lab in India which has a bio-safety level-4 (BSL-4) facility to culture pathogenic, novel viruses, study the origin of such viruses and provide a comprehensive characterisation of them by sequencing the entire viral genome. NIV has sequenced the SARS-CoV-2 genome collected from two patients in Kerala.

When the entire genome is sequenced it helps researchers understand the arrangement of the four chemical entities or bases that make up the DNA or RNA. The differences in the arrangement of the bases make organisms different from one another. Sequencing the genome of SARS-CoV-2 will help us understand where the virus came from and how it spread.

In the last decade or so, many national laboratories have developed the expertise to sequence the entire genome of viruses and bacteria using the latest equipment (next-generation sequencing, or NGS). About a dozen labs have a BSL-3 facility to inactivate the virus and sequence the genome using advanced equipment. They also have the expertise to undertake such work.

It is therefore puzzling why India relies solely on NIV for undertaking genome sequencing. If theres a compelling need to have all hands on deck to sequence the genome, it is now.

While NIV sequenced two of the three COVID-19 samples collected from Kerala in late January-early February, it is not clear if more samples have been sequenced. Contrast this with how other countries have responded. Many of the 263 sequences shared with the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), a public platform started by the WHO in 2008 for countries to share genome sequences, are by universities and hospitals. In mainland China, many of the sequences are shared by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which is present in all the 31 provinces. At 90, China has posted the most sequence data on GISAID. This is followed by the U.S. (37).

We tested around 75,000 samples of H1N1 during the 2009-2010 outbreak. We have a BSL-3 facility and the latest sequencing equipment. We are ready to help out if ICMR reaches out to us, says Professor V. Ravi, Head of the Department of Virology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, about sequencing.

It is time for team building, not the time to work in silos, says Dr. Chitra Pattabiraman from NIMHANS. If we are not given an opportunity to develop these skill sets and not encouraged to participate, then how are we ever going to get good at it?

During the 2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala, a lab outside NIV, the Manipal Centre for Virus Research, successfully proved that given an opportunity it could not only diagnose the novel virus but also partially sequence it. The Manipal Centre confirmed the Nipah virus in 17 of the 24 samples it received from Kerala. Unfortunately, since April 2019, the Manipal Centre has been directed to restrict itself to processing the samples of pathogens specific to the BSL-2 facility. It is not even one of the designated labs to test for the novel coronavirus.

Virologist Professor Gagandeep Kang, executive director of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, however feels that given that the number of COVID-19 cases in India is still under 60, NIV does not feel overwhelmed.

While agreeing that many labs/ institutions in India have the ability to sequence the viral genome, Professor Kang emphasises that sequencing is useful to know where the virus strain came from and to check if the strain is evolving, but does not inform us of the immediate strategy to control the outbreak or its spread.

With the latest sequencing equipment widely available in many research labs and the cost of sequencing falling, researchers are using genome sequences for genomic epidemiology. This becomes possible as scientists already know the number of mutations that arise on an average in a month in the case of COVID-19, its incubation period, and the average time between cases in a chain transmission (serial interval). Using this data, it has become possible to identify the index case even when the source of infection is not known, and find the link between two seemingly unconnected outbreaks.

China was completely unprepared when the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) struck in 2002-2003. The outbreak infected over 8,000 people globally and killed nearly 800. The bird flu (H5N1) outbreak that followed in 2003 underscored the need for influenza detection and response in China. This led to a collaboration between the Chinese National Influenza Center and the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2004 to build capacity in influenza surveillance in China.

For the next 10 years the collaboration worked in many ways: it led to developed human technical expertise in virology and epidemiology, a comprehensive influenza surveillance system, strengthened analysis, the dissemination of surveillance data, and improved early response to influenza viruses with pandemic potential. By 2014, the national influenza surveillance and response system included 408 labs and 554 sentinel hospitals.

Today, there is a Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in each of the 31 provinces in mainland China. The infrastructure and capacity-building that was put in place by China for influenza surveillance stood in good stead when the H1N1 pandemic struck in 2009.

prasad.ravindranath@thehindu.co.in

Follow this link:
India needs all hands on deck - The Hindu

Spilling the tea! Below Deck Sailing Yacht stars Georgia Grobler and Parker McCown revealed their true thoughts on costars Paget Berry and Ciara Duggans relationship in an exclusive interview with In Touch, since it seems like the couple is still together.

I think theyre great as individuals, and I think they are very, very good couple, Georgia dished. Parker added, Yeah. I think theyre great for each other. They compliment each other, like in their personalities, I think.

Georgia continued, I think they emphasize, I mean not really emphasize, but I mean there is obviously bickering and, well not bickering, but they do bash heads like while working. But, I do think they are still a very good example of how couples can interact without being with too much PDA, or like making anyone else uncomfortable. I mean, Im sure its not easy to keep it completely separate.

But things could get awkward since it seems like Paget may have a crush on Georgia.Watch In Touchs exclusive interview above to see Georgias response to Pagets possible crush!

Below Deck Sailing Yacht airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.

Read more:
Below Deck's Georgia Reveals Thoughts on Paget and Ciara's Relationship - inTouch Weekly

In high school, my best friend and I would spend hours ensconced in her bedroom reading each others tarot cards. She had an intuitive talent for the deck of increasingly battered cards, but I did my best to return the favor using the slim booklet that came with it. Her bedroom walls were decorated with quotes and art prints and postcards the things creative, book-loving teens collected like magpies and the room glowed like warm, pink amniotic fluid against the night. We shuffled like Vegas card sharks, cutting the cards and spreading them before us so we could choose without knowing what was on them beforehand.

The slap of the well-worn cards on the bedspread felt satisfying as we laid them out one by one in a 10-card layout called the Celtic Cross, in which each card represents different aspects of the person whose cards are being read and their life. Although different readers use different layouts or techniques, every tarot is a narrative of which you are the hero (and the card in the middle), and the surrounding cards represent issues or people affecting you and the story of your life.

Any given tarot deck consists of the 78 cards, sorted into whats called the minor arcana and the major arcana. The minor arcana looks sort of like a deck of playing cards it has four suits, as well as kings, queens and jacks though there are 56 cards in tarot and just 52 in a standard deck, while the major arcana are the 22 cards we normally associate with the tarot in pop culture Death, the Devil, etc.

Even beyond that, each card is packed with information some systems rely on numerology (i.e. where the card falls in the deck), astrology, and the Kabbalah to give deeper or slightly different levels of meaning and each deck is even slightly different. The Rider-Waite deck, though, is the one with which many tarot newbies begin, not only because its the most common and easiest to find but because illustrator Pamela Colman Smiths images are so colorful and clear and packed with symbols to indicate what the card itself means.

Get the think newsletter.

Theres no one deck or way to read, though, which is why I leave it to the experts. No matter how many books on tarot and decks of cards I amass like dust bunnies, I dont fluently speak the language of tarot and its more obscure meanings; its the equivalent of trying to read Proust in the original French when you stopped taking the language in third grade. I can pull one or two, three cards at most for a past/present/future spread, but, beyond that, Im not ever really sure what Im looking at.

At its most basic, tarot tells stories about the cycles of our lives. Shuffling the deck, picking out cards and laying them out in order reveals what different trials and tribulations we might face during any given journey. However, the cards in the major arcana don't necessarily represent us in a given reading; they might represent someone else in our lives, or symbolize more general issues. Tarot is a complex language, and every reading is different; similarly, every reader and the methodology they use to interpret the way the cards interact is different.

The people I have seen over the years to do my readings have all come from different backgrounds, have different styles of reading cards and use their own unique flourishes to work with clients, such as incorporating astrology and/or mediumship, or from a trauma-informed therapeutic background. (They all have told me more or less the same thing, though: Leave the manic pixie dream boys alone, and finish your damn book.) For the most part, they dont do fortune-telling per se; its more about the deeper psychological symbols of the tarot and how we can apply them to everyday life.

A lot of the time, though, tarot simply brings up more open-ended questions instead of offering answers.

In 2017, for instance, I interviewed the famous Chilean-French surrealist director Alejandro Jodorowsky about his movie Endless Poetry. In addition to his work as a beloved cult filmmaker, Jodo is also an extraordinary tarot reader and expert; he spent years reconstructing the Tarot de Marseille with Philippe Camoin, whose family had been printing the deck for centuries.

Years before, Id attended a glamorously bizarre Halloween screening of his cult classic, The Holy Mountain, at the Museum of Modern Art, where my friends and I rubbernecked at Yoko Ono, Courtney Love, Martha Stewart and Willem Dafoe. During the audience question period, a nervous member asked Jodorowsky to give her a reading. In turn, he asked her to pick a few numbers between one and 22. She didnt understand what the point was, but I realized that whatever numbers she chose would correlate to cards in the major arcana, and he would be able to give her a verbal reading on the fly. He did, and it left her stunned.

I was thus determined asked him to pick a card for me after my interview something I could concentrate on or learn from. Hed reportedly been doing free tarot readings at a French caf for years; as recently as 2017, a Facebook user posted that he still appeared on Wednesdays, as did a TripAdvisor reviewer.

He pulled a deck from his breast pocket apparently, he carries the major arcana from the Marseille deck with him everywhere and picked out The Lovers card. Everyone usually gets excited when The Lovers shows up in a reading, since we all assume that it means good things for our love life; but it doesnt necessarily indicate romantic love at all. It can mean partnership, balance or even a choice. Every deck has its own nuances, and every reader has their own interpretations.

In most decks, the Lovers shows two people (usually a man and a woman) in a garden with an angel hovering in the sky above them, maybe in the Garden of Eden. The Marseille shows three people, and a grumpy-looking cherub aiming an arrow at them from above. Jodo pointed to the sun at the top of the card, from which said cherub was emerging.

The sun, he said, in his elegant, heavily accented English. The sun loves everyone. Im still not entirely sure what he meant, but Im positive if I ever figure it out, it will solve everything.

Jenni Miller is a freelance writer who covers movies, TV, sex, love, death, video games and assorted weirdness for a variety of publications online and in print.

Read the original post:
Tarot cards don't predict the future. But reading them might help you figure yours out. - NBC News

League of Legends has been a household name in the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre ever since it launched in 2009. The 10 years since it was introduced has seen it blow up from a simple Dota clone, to become its own fast-paced, intense game that has its own multi-million dollar esports brand, complete with a massive player base. It even has expanded beyond the gaming industry, and has even teamed up with fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, and even launched a K-Pop song to boot.

But this time, the focus is on Riot Games new free-to-play card game set in the League universe: Legends of Runeterra. An unlikely, but awesome new addition to the League spinoff games, LoR serves to scratch the itch of fans who want to experience the expansive universe in the form of a digital collectible card game (CCG).

Currently in open beta, LoR has been receiving rave reviews from testers, and has grown quite the strong presence in the card game community of late. Having played the demo when it was first announced back in October 2019, weve found that its most striking aspect is the champion-centric gameplay that features heavily in LoR. For fans of the original game, many will be delighted to find that a lot of decks are centred around some of the more popular champions that currently exist in League, and a lot of the deckbuilding is based around their unique mechanics.

But while champions certainly do add a ton of character to Legends of Runeterra, what the team felt was tantamount to the foundations of the game was to retain its MOBA identity from League.

Theres a League of Legends in our minds as developers, as people who are deeply steeped in the lore and understand the backstory of the world that were trying to bring, explained Design Director Andrew Yip in a recent interview with Geek Culture. But we also need to be cognizant of players in that League of Legends is basically a MOBA. And we need to find a line where it feels familiar and resonant, but also feels like its introducing a territory of what we believe people believe the IP to be.

True enough, this design aspect was heavily considered after numerous iterations in the LoR sweatshop led by Yip and Executive Producer Jeff Jew, over the games development period of over three years. This creative license eventually led to the subtle and clever inclusion of a lane as depicted in the main game as the playmat of a game of LoR. Other features that are highly reminiscent of League include the aspect of minion cards being led by champions, farming for coin, leveling up and upgrading cards, and so on. It was a carefully-thought-out process, but a smart one nonetheless, as it eases the transition from the original game to this one rather easily for seasoned League players.

That brings us to the aspect of accessibility. Despite boasting a universe (heck, lets just call it a multiverse now with all the alternate worlds that have spawned) with a decades worth of lore, champions and stories, another challenge for the team was to make it so that the years of backstory attached to League dont weigh down the experience of new players.

As with any MOBA out there, champions are essentially the lifeblood of the League of Legends IP. To date, there are a staggering 148 champions (and counting) in the original game, which if all were to be implemented into LoR right away, would be instantly overwhelming to new players. Hence, there are only 24 champions that were taken from the main pool as part of LoRs launch, with more to be slowly introduced in future updates. The teams focus for making the launch a strong one was to include some of the most iconic and popular champions in the base game, and build solid thematic foundations and concepts around them so it will instantly make the game accessible to everyone and anyone.

One of the initial questions that we asked ourselves is what is League of Legends?. And I think from our point of view, it often starts with champions, said Yip, who personally has over 13 years of game development experience and has grown up on Magic: The Gathering and other CCGs. Were still trying to iterate and figure out what are some of the main considerations when it comes to selecting champions and which ones are more important than others [to make it to launch]. So some of them have a lot to do with popularity, Like which champions are popular among players right now.

Some of the motivations that were actually more unique to our game was that we have divided all the cards into different regions [as part of the world of Runeterra]. One of the goals with our initial selection of champions for a lot of the initial sets is actually what champions reflect the common characteristics we think should be true for many of the cards from that region, to basically help establish and crystallise not just what does that champion do, but also what other champions, minion and spell cards from this region do.

I would say [the frozen region of] Freljord is a good example of this, where you see a diversity of different effects that manifests and are driven by the champions themselves. So Ashe is a very frostbite-heavy champion. Tryndamere is just a giant barbarian that pursues you relentlessly and never dies. And Braun has a big shield.

While Yips aspiration is to include all current and future League champions in LoR eventually, he also is grounded with the stance that the content has to be slowly introduced over time to not only slowly immerse franchise newcomers into the lore, but also to help with getting the player base up to speed with mechanics.

I think well see how far we can get. I think [over time] well start to recognise the structural pattern of our sets, and be able to extrapolate how long it would take to cover the roster of champions. [The entire champion roster] is definitely something we want to cover because, obviously, every champion is some players favourite, but we also know that there are a lot of opportunities with revised champions [in the original game], so its an aspiration.

And while implementing all nearly 150 champions into LoR might be a daunting task, Yip believes that having a character unique to LoR being adapted as a playable champion in League is a more realistic prospect, much to his excitement. Already, the player base has been fantasising about seeing the likes of Tiana Crownguard and Scarmother Vrynna being included in the main game something that Yip reveals to be, as Thanos would call it, inevitable.

Of course its a conversation that weve been having to do a collaboration with [the main League dev team], exclaimed a passionate Yip. What players maybe dont know yet is that actually many of the things that weve developed on the LoR team have already started to bleed into other [League] media. So not necessarily League proper yet, but a lot of the the cinematics and collaborations though comics with Marvel is a reflection and starting point of the concepts that we created on our own team. So thats definitely something that I would say is inevitable, though I would not put a specific date on [the releases].

With League already establishing itself as a powerhouse in esports, its only natural to assume that Legends of Runeterra will one day enter the competitive scene as well. While Riot Games hasnt officially announced its esports plans for LoR yet, Yip and his team arenot surprised that the community has already been clamouring for some tournaments to start soon.

This is a conversation that were actively having, of course, because the most dedicated and passionate players really enjoy playing competitively, Yip explained excitedly. In terms of basic game rules and depth, we think our game is well-suited for esports, in having really interesting strategic moments, as well as bluffing and high drama. We understand that our existing players already want [competitive games]. Were not surprised that they want it. Then, its a continuing conversation of how do we best support it?.

I would say that one of the strategies [to introduce competitive matches] is trying to avoid building the competitive pyramid from the top down. Were much more interested in actually creating competitive experiences that all players feel like they can have access to first, and then building the pyramid from the bottom up. And the fact that we worked at Riot before esports [became popularised] is a good signal towards that.

Keep in mind that this game is releasing in a market which is dominated by the likes of Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering. Moreover, the recent commercial flop of MOBA competitor Dota 2s own card game, Artifact, shows that just having an established IP isnt enough to sustain the game. Knowing this, the LoR team obviously had to play their cards right (ahem) make sure their game can survive, but is ultimately successful in an equally fast-paced and cutthroat market.

Yeah, you could say that the [CCG] genre is kind of congested right now. I dont take personal offense to that said Yip coolly. Honestly, for me, I look upon the genre with a little bit of grief insofar as, like, I feel the reasons that the genre got converted to digital were for many of the wrong reasons. So I think the concise answer is we wanted to make a card game because we loved cartoons growing up, and we felt like the direction that digital games were taking with card games left a lot of opportunities.

With Legends of Runeterra heading into full launch very soon, Yip and his team are already one foot firmly set in the future, with plans of releasing new card sets, expanding the champion roster, and introducing more gameplay balances and fixes to even the playing ground a lot more. Though he still admits that the games development is still a process of figuring things out with the dev team and community alike, he is confident in the staying power of the game in time to come.

Legends of Runeterra is currently in open beta, but is slated to launch very soon. No exact release date has been announced yet.

Marion has a serious RPG addiction. Sometimes it bleeds into real life; he forgets to sleep because he thinks he has a Witchers body clock. Forgive him in advance if he suddenly blurts out terms such as Mind Flayer and Magic Missile, because never once does he stop thinking about his next Dungeons & Dragons game.

Go here to see the original:
Geek Interview: Building Decks In Legends of Runeterra From The Ground-Up With Design Director Andrew Yip - Geek Culture