Japan's Kagawa joins United

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The wasteful quest for immortality

Mary Midgley, the nonagenarian philosopher, believes that living forever is overrated: quality of life ? not quantity ? is more important

You've been speaking a lot lately about immortalism. What exactly is this?
Immortalism is the idea that not only should life go on getting longer, but that it should go on forever - that medical technology will see to it that we simply don't die. It is a kind of ideology, almost a religion, and is much more prevalent in the US than in the UK. It is in part an overconfidence in technology from the 20th century, and has got mixed up with science fiction.

Why is the desire to live forever a problem?
My charge against immortalism is that it is wasteful - the idealism that gets hooked onto it is going in a useless direction and needs to be deflected. There are too many people already, and you can't put up with an infinite number. Another difficulty is inequality. As things stand, the most privileged would live forever while everybody else would be dying at the normal rate.

What else are you unhappy about?
Even at the pace our lifespan has been increasing, we are beginning to run into trouble. The indignation that people express at not getting their pensions until they're 67 shows that the idea of a life cycle is firmly rooted and may be fairly essential to human life. I'm talking about the degree of activity at different times of life, and that is not something which changes frequently, or that changes much from culture to culture.

What we respect has also changed: we have a high regard and respect for youth, which makes the situation harder for the old.

So even without immortalism, is the current lengthening of life problematic?
Doctors have a habit of trying to make each individual live a bit longer. I think it runs very deep. They should be given a better idea of health that doesn't necessarily mean living longer.

How can we reinvent older age?
We need to improve quality of life, not quantity. For example, the distribution of work is ridiculous. People in their middle years work far too long and are suddenly expected to stop. Part-time work is a good idea, but it hasn't been fitted into our society half enough. It is very important for women with children but also very important for the old.

When he found he was dying of cancer, Steve Jobs made this interesting remark, that it was the best thing that ever happened to him because it made his priorities clear. He said nobody wants to die but it is life's best invention, it is the mechanism of change. He had a point.

What about your life now you are in your 90s?
We haven't recovered from the idea that growing old is an awful disaster, which must somehow be put off. I never bought that one. If nothing awful happens to you, you go on doing what you're doing and looking for more. I'm lucky to be in the sort of job I am in, where you can simply go on doing what you like and not be forcibly retired. I've got somewhat feeble and ailing but I haven't got seriously ill. It's the thought of a futile life that is the problem.

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Ohio 'personhood' push faces hurdle

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) ? An anti-abortion group in Ohio is facing a significant shortfall in the number of signatures needed to ask voters in the presidential battleground this fall whether the state constitution should declare that life begins when a human egg is fertilized, throwing up another obstacle for the "personhood" movement.

With less than two weeks before a crucial July deadline, the group's director says it has close to 20,000, or 5 percent, of the roughly 385,000 signatures required for the proposed personhood constitutional amendment to appear on November ballots.

Stacks of signatures have yet to be counted, and more arrive each day.

Still, Patrick Johnston, the director of Personhood Ohio, acknowledges that the group might not get enough signatures in time to make the ballot for this year's presidential election.

"I don't know what I'm going to get the last week of this month, but it needs to be a ton to get it by July 4," Johnston said in an interview this week with The Associated Press.

The personhood movement has already faced setbacks in other states this year. Supporters fell short of the required number of signatures to qualify for the November ballots in Nevada and California. And in Oklahoma, the state's highest court halted an amendment effort there to grant personhood rights to human embryos, saying the measure is unconstitutional.

Voters have rejected similar proposals that made ballots in 2008 and 2010 in Colorado. They also defeated the initiative last November in Mississippi, which has some of the nation's toughest abortion regulations.

Organizers say personhood amendments have a good chance to qualify for fall ballots in Montana and again in Colorado. Each state has a lower threshold of required signatures than Ohio. About 86,000 signatures are needed by early August in Colorado, while fewer than 49,000 are required by Friday in Montana.

The measures vary in some details, but in general they define human life as beginning with fertilization and are intended to ban virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. Many physicians have said the measures could make some birth control illegal and deter in vitro fertilization.

Supporters in Ohio have hoped to alleviate those concerns by rephrasing their proposed amendment to say it wouldn't affect "genuine contraception" or in vitro fertilization procedures.

Backers of the state constitutional amendments hope to spark a legal challenge to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 that gave women a legal right to abortion.

The proposal hasn't attracted support from some traditional supporters of Ohio's anti-abortion measures.

The anti-abortion group Ohio Right to Life is not involved. And while it hasn't taken a formal position, the Catholic Conference of Ohio is not encouraging its 785 parishes to gather signatures.

Mike Gonidakis, Ohio Right to Life's president, said the organization believes the best way to overturn Roe v. Wade is by electing an anti-abortion president who will appoint sympathetic Supreme Court justices. Pointing to the amendment's previous defeats in Colorado and Mississippi, he said, "we would lose ... It would be really difficult to compete with the Hollywood money that would come into Ohio."

Other conservative groups that support the personhood amendment say they don't have the time or money to spend on it.

"We have to choose our battles," said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values. "And this year, our battle is getting our people to the polls."

The amendment is also trying to gain traction at the same time as the so-called heartbeat bill, which would outlaw abortions at the first detectable fetal heartbeat, sometimes as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

Denver-based Personhood USA is helping state personhood campaigns. It's spent money on mailings and robocalls in Ohio, but the group doesn't plan to hire paid circulators to help gather signatures in the final weeks, said Keith Mason, the organization's president. Instead, the Ohio amendment's fate will hinge on what volunteers collect.

Activists from across the political spectrum say getting an issue on Ohio's ballots is a daunting task.

The We Are Ohio campaign, which successfully sought the 2011 repeal of the state's collective bargaining law, hired paid signature gathers even with the support of well-funded labor unions, the Ohio Democratic Party and thousands of volunteers.

Dennis Willard, communications director for We Are Ohio, described the paid circulators as "a guaranteed backup plan."

Burress, who headed the campaign that successfully promoted passage of the state's 2004 amendment to ban gay marriage, said the personhood group is going to need close to 500,000 signatures ensure they have enough.

"Unless a miracle occurs, they are probably going to be looking at 2013," Burress said.

Johnston said Personhood Ohio volunteers will push hard in the final days to circulate petitions in churches on Sundays and sign people up at conferences, fairs and festivals.

"I pray we make it," Johnston said.

And if they don't? "We're going to keep working until we get the signatures and see that everyone's child is protected by love and by law," he said.

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'Seeking a Friend' is a feel-good doomsday film

Penny (Keira Knightley) and Dodge (Steve Carell) in "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World."

By Stephen Dalton , The Hollywood Reporter

REVIEW: The end of the word is nigh in this enjoyably offbeat rom-com from the first-time writer-director Lorene Scafaria. Very nigh indeed -- in a few short weeks, a gigantic asteroid will slam into Earth, wiping out all of mankind. Which is especially bad news for Steve Carell's newly single insurance salesman. Because the only thing worse than dying in an apocalyptic firestorm, this film suggests, is dying alone and unloved. Essentially, Scafaria has re-imagined Lars Von Trier's planet-smashing gloomfest "Melancholia" as a quirky road movie in the spirit of Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt."

Scafaria is best known for scripting the 2008 young-adult comedy "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." ?Her directing debut is a superior effort, its slightly uneven tone redeemed by the reliably sympathetic Carell in a typically deadpan suburban everyman role. With its sharp script and bittersweet humor, the audacious premise feels fresh enough to earn a large word-of-mouth audience among moviegoers who normally would avoid a more conventional rom-com, potentially becoming a left-field breakout hit in the mode of "Juno" or "Little Miss Sunshine."

VIDEO: Steve Carell's "Seeking Friend" trailer

Looking a little more gaunt and haunted than usual, Carell plays Dodge, a timid middle-rank office drone whose life clearly has been a series of quiet defeats and creeping disappointments. With the apocalypse looming, fate deals Dodge an extra slap when his wife walks out on him to spend her final few weeks with her previously secret lover. The brief cameo appearance by Carell's real offscreen wife Nancy is a neat in-joke here.

Lonely and suicidal, Dodge resists invitations from his friends to spend their final few weeks immersed in one long booze-addled swingers party. Instead, his life takes a bizarre new turn after he is saddled with an abandoned dog and becomes a reluctant love-life confidant to his emotionally fragile young English neighbor Penny, portrayed by Keira Knightley with just the right degree of irritating kookiness. A free spirit with an amusingly self-absorbed musician ex-boyfriend (Adam Brody) and a fetishistic love for the smell and sound of vintage vinyl, Penny is a kind of fantasy girl-geek designed for maximum appeal to middle-aged male indie-rock fans. Scafaria clearly knows her target audience well.

STORY: 3 female filmmakers stake out their turf at LAFF 2012

Forced from their apartment block by a rioting mob, die-hard romantic Penny persuades Dodge to take her on a cross-country road trip that potentially could reconnect her with her family and him with his long-lost childhood sweetheart, Olivia. Commandeering a stolen truck whose owner has arranged his own macabre suicide by execution, they cruise along spookily empty back roads and eerily depopulated suburban streets. Their journey becomes a succession of odd characters and eye-catching spectacles: military-trained survivalists, overzealous traffic cops, a mass baptism in the ocean. Inevitably, sexual tension develops between this odd couple of lost souls.

Just as the real subject of "Melancholia" was not planet-crunching sci-fi spectacle but soul-crushing depression, the true theme of "Seeking a Friend" is the finite nature of time and how foolishly we ignore it. Scafaria never once shows the approaching asteroid or the doomed "Armageddon"-style shuttle mission that fails to arrest it, instead laying out her premise with admirable economy via TV and radio news reports. Her end-of-days plot is essentially an allegory for everyone's limited lives, the accelerated deadline adding an extra edge of futility to most human activity, whether sweating at the gym or striving for promotion at work.

Shooting her nonspecific Southern California locations in bright hues and constant sunshine, Scafaria maintains a cheerfully ironic and unpredictable tone for the first half of the movie, scoffing at vanity and self-delusion with sharply observed social observation. Like the suburban dinner party that degenerates into a desperate bucket-list orgy: "Put Radiohead on!" one guest demands, "I wanna do heroin to Radiohead!" Later, in a stand-out comic set piece, Dodge and Penny visit a T.G.I. Fridays-style roadside diner apparently staffed by a cult of free-love stoners. Amplifying the happy-clappy weirdness normally found in such places by just a few degrees, this is inspired satire.

The cynical screenplay softens a little during its final act, bowing to familiar Hollywood tear-jerking tropes -- a screen legend makes a late appearance as Dodge's estranged father, adding a superfluous twist of unresolved Daddy Issues. In fairness, Dodge's search for his lost childhood sweetheart resists clich? with an agreeably ambivalent offscreen farewell. But Scafaria's take-home message, that budding romance with a virtual stranger is the best comfort in the face of impending apocalypse, feels a little too corny.

After 100 minutes of gallows humor and surprise left turns, "Seeking a Friend" leaves us with a disappointingly banal observation: All you need is love. It is hard to imagine Payne or Von Trier letting such fortune-cookie whimsy sweeten life's harsh lessons. But that said, Scafaria and her two likable leads have made a witty, warm-hearted and impressively original addition to the rom-com ranks.

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Top 5 Exercise Apps for the Working World | Illinois Technology ...

Posted on Jun 20, 2012

Working full time can put a damper on your daily fitness agenda, as you find yourself busy with work, stress and excuses. But incorporating exercise throughout the day doesn?t have to be a burden. It?s important to find the time to take care of yourself and maintain your health. Starting small can give you the positive attitude to achieve your new physique and continue?excelling?at the workplace. ?Here are the top 5 exercise apps for the working world.

PostureScreen
Sitting at a desk all day can do quite a number on your posture, leading to muscle aches and pains if unaddressed.? PostureScreen provides a fresh perspective on where you are?and where you need to be. The app allows you to take pictures on a grid, highlighting any imbalances in your posture.

Office Yoga
Sometimes all you need are a few deep breaths to get re-centered and energized, the opportune time for Office Yoga.? This app offers 75 stress-relieving stretches for anywhere from the elevator to the conference room. With organized workouts and fun illustrations, Office Yoga is useful for beginners and experts.

Calorie Tracker ? LIVESTRONG.COM
The Calorie Tracker app helps you set and reach your fitness goals by creating a comprehensive platform to track your daily intake and exercise. With a nutrition database of more than 1.3 million food and restaurant items, the calorie tracker is remarkably accurate.? The app is also a companion tool for the website, featuring an online community of support groups, forums, and expert Q & A.

Cardio Trainer
Not all your health and fitness needs can fit into your workday, so finding an app like Cardio Trainer can really help motivate you in the off-time. The app is ideal for outdoor activities, with GPS tracking, a pedometer, music integration and an autopause when you stop moving at stoplights. To stay social, you can even play a game called ?Move Your Bot? with your friends to raise your fitness level.

Fitness Builder
To enhance your time at the gym, Fitness Builder features over 750 workouts and 5,600 images and videos to help you design your own personalized workouts. The app is account based, allowing you the most targeted workout for your fitness level. It also features access to a live personal trainer.

Start simple by assessing your posture and taking office yoga breaks. As you work up to staying more conscious of your plate and your time spent at the gym, you?ll be on the road to improved health. One app at a time.

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Microsoft's Pretty, Prosaic Thing

The newly announced -- but not yet available anywhere -- Microsoft Surface tablet looks to be quite a cool device. Judging by the outside design, it looks well-made and pleasing. That's a great start. It gets better after a guy like me grudgingly appreciates the built-in, snap-off keyboard covers.

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