He’s a founding member of the iconic Mid-West cult act The Godz, toured the world for years with Bob Seger, and lent his licks to more records than you can shake a stick at. Now, Mark Chatfield is a member of Grand Funk Railroad, taking the place of the recently departed Bruce Kulick in the fall of 2023. He’s got a legacy to uphold, but he’s unafraid. With a pedigree—and licks—as strong as Mark Chatfield’s, one can see why. But all that rock ‘n’ roll vigor has to come from somewhere, which is why during a break in the action, The post Mark Chatfield of The Godz: 11 Albums That Changed My Life appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

An American company is in possession of a “world-class,” and “mind-boggling” deposit of subterranean helium gas, which has them excited for way more than just the potential to sell it to party supply stores. Despite being the second most abundant gaseous element in the universe, helium is rare on Earth, and in Babbit, Minnesota, a […] The post Massive Helium Reservoir in Minnesota Is Even More ‘Mind-Boggling’ Than Thought–Valuable for Rockets and Med appeared first on Good News Network.

Books Ursula K. Le Guin Revealing a Graphic Novel Edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Masterpiece A Wizard of Earthsea Artist Fred Fordham brings new life to Le Guin’s iconic fantasy classic. By Reactor | Published on July 18, 2024 Photo credit: Jack Liu Comment 0 Share New Share Photo credit: Jack Liu Ursula K. Le Guin’s timeless classic A Wizard of Earthsea is reimagined in a richly expansive graphic novel by artist Fred Fordham, creator of stunning adaptations of To Kill a Mockingbird and Brave New World. We’re thrilled to share the cover of A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel—publishing March 11, 2025 with Clarion Books. Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea is a literary phenomenon, hugely popular among fantasy readers—young and older—since publication of the first book, A Wizard of Earthsea, in 1968. The books of Earthsea have received a Newbery Honor Medal, National Book Award, and the Nebula, Hugo, Locus  and World Fantasy Awards. Le Guin, described by Margaret Atwood as one of the literary greats of the 20th century and by Stephen King as a literary icon, redefined fantasy in her story of Ged, a young sorcerer whose hunger for power looses a terrible shadow upon the world. Now, for the first time, A Wizard of Earthsea has been adapted as a graphic novel. Working closely with Le Guin’s estate, artist Fred Fordham imagined Earthsea as an expansive, stunning visual odyssey. Fordham’s process is rooted in the original text, taking great care in its interpretation of the tale of a young man’s testing: how Ged masters the mighty words of power, bests an ancient dragon, and crosses death’s threshold to restore balance in the world. Ged was the greatest sorcerer in Earthsea, but in his youth he was the reckless Sparrowhawk. In his hunger for power and knowledge, he tampered with long-held secrets and unleashed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tumultuous tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death’s threshold to restore the balance.Experience the bestselling first adventure of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle as a masterly crafted graphic novel. Fred Fordham brings new life to Le Guin’s iconic fantasy classic with his breathtaking illustrations and thoughtful text adaptation. From artist Fred Fordham: “For all its influence, A Wizard of Earthsea still feels unique to me. It’s the most poignantly written and mysterious portrayal of magic and personal development that I’ve encountered in a fantasy story. It’s been great working with Theo Downes-Le Guin to try to faithfully adapt such beautiful words into a new medium. Daunting, but great.” Cover art by Fred Fordham; Design by Joe F. Merkel and Rick Farley Cover art by Fred Fordham; Design by Joe F. Merkel and Rick Farley Cover art by Fred Fordham; Design by Joe F. Merkel and Rick Farley Buy the Book A Wizard of Earthsea Ursula K. Le Guin Adapted and illustrated by Fred Fordham Buy Book A Wizard of Earthsea Ursula K. Le Guin Adapted and illustrated by Fred Fordham Adapted and illustrated by Fred Fordham Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleIndieBoundTarget Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes twenty-three novels, twelve volumes of short stories, eleven volumes of poetry, thirteen children’s books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and SFWA’s Grand Master, along with a PEN/Malamud Award and many others. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016, she joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America. Fred Fordham is an artist and author of multiple acclaimed graphic novels. He most recently adapted and illustrated the graphic novel versions of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (“Brilliant. A book that will keep your bedside light burning long into the night.” —Guardian) and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (“Gorgeously rendered.” —USA Today). He has also designed and drawn several other comics and produced illustrations for The Phoenix, the Guardian, Aces Weekly, Delcourt, and others. He currently resides in London. Find Fred online at fredfordham.com. The post Revealing a Graphic Novel Edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Masterpiece <i>A Wizard of Earthsea</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Books book recommendations Over the Hill: Five Not-So-Youthful SFF Protagonists Adventure tends to favor the young and sprightly, but some of these protagonists are practically middle-aged! By James Davis Nicoll | Published on July 18, 2024 Photo by Aron Visuals [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Aron Visuals [via Unsplash] There are a myriad of novels about young adventurers. No surprise, given their boundless energy, flexible lower backs, functional knees, and frequent orphan status. However, human beings are fully capable of living beyond the age of twenty-nine—sometimes they manage to cling to life even after reaching their thirties! More astonishingly, many ancients refuse to allow their manifest decrepitude stop them from pursuing activities providence clearly intended to be the exclusive province of the young. Consider, for example the libidinous display with which Tunnel in the Sky’s teen protagonist Rod found himself confronted: Rod did so, remembered to shake hands with the Deacon. It was all right, he guessed, but—well, how old were they? Sis must be thirtyish and the Deacon… why the Deacon was old—probably past forty. It did not seem quite decent.But he did his best to make them feel that he approved. After he thought it over he decided that if two people, with their lives behind them, wanted company in their old age, why, it was probably a good thing. Many—well, maybe not many, but at least five—authors have embraced Rod’s open-minded reaction to his aged sister and somehow even more aged mentor’s voluptuary grappling. Don’t believe me? Here are five elderly protagonists who believed, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that active life continues past twenty-nine. As astonishing as that may seem to some. T. Wallace Wooly, Jr.The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith and Norman Matson (1941) Boundless dynamism made widower T. Wallace Wooly, Jr. a millionaire. Alas, it was Wooly’s late father’s boundless dynamism, not Wooly’s. Middle-aged Wooly is no person’s idea of an adventurer1. Nevertheless, Wooly takes his honorary position of fire department vice-chief quite seriously. When the opportunity to rescue a naked Jennifer Broome from a burning hotel presents itself, Wooly embraces it and Jennifer as well. The conflagratory meet-cute leads to romance, then marriage. A complication presents itself. Wooly is a steadfast, quite conventional, Episcopalian. Jennifer is a full-powered, infernal-goat-riding witch. Were this clash of cultures not awkward enough, Jennifer suspects with good reason that Wooly is all too fond of his secretary, Betty2. Fear the wrath of a jealous witch. Thorne Smith died in 1934, which is why Matson had to finish the novel for him. For this reason, this may be the least of Smith’s comic fantasies. Nevertheless, the novel occupies an interesting role in American culture. The Passionate Witch is the basis for the 1941 film I Married a Witch, which along with 1958’s Bell, Book and Candle inspired the television show Bewitched. Jack HollowayLittle Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper (1962) Old Jack Holloway is considerably older than twenty-nine. How much older is hard to say, thanks to the peculiarities of superluminal travel, but nobody could deny he is the very opposite of young. Despite his advanced years, Jack works alone, prospecting for sunstones on the planet Zarathustra. Charmed by the small, furry humanoid he encounters, Jack offers “Little Fuzzy” food and shelter. The repercussions are planetary in scale: Jack realizes Little Fuzzy isn’t a bright animal, but a person. That means that the charter for the Chartered Zarathustra Company is invalid… unless the Fuzzies are eradicated before the Federation3 learns about them. It’s perhaps not so surprising that Company boss Victor Grego seriously considers eradicating the Fuzzies with extreme prejudice, that Jack must defend himself against a Company hired gun, or that the plot quickly transitions into a thrilling legal drama over the definition of intelligent being. What is astounding is that Grego manages to rehabilitate himself into the role of protagonist in the sequel. Valérie Beaulieu and Hector AuvrayThe Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2017) As a young woman, Valérie fulfilled her familial duty by rejecting her true love, charming but penniless Hector Auvray, in favor of the less charming but wealthy Gaetan. This romantic sacrifice accorded financial security to Valérie’s family. Years later, Hector Auvray returns to the city of Loisail. Hector has parlayed his telekinetic powers into wealth and fame. Valérie is still very much out of Hector’s reach. Valérie’s naïve niece Antonina is different matter…unless Antonia’s furious aunt can somehow steer Antonia away from the dashing but socially unsuitable Hector and towards a judicious, unsatisfying marriage like Valérie’s. You may not find yourself cheering for Valérie or Hector in this dangerous liaison. Why? Neither one is especially pleasant. The subject of this piece is older people who do interesting things, not old people who are nice. Miles VorkosiganMemory by Lois McMaster Bujold (1996) Thirty-year-old Miles has rarely met a challenge he could not circumvent through the application of sufficient determination, cunning, and fast talk. Brain damage from a recent death proves beyond even his willpower to overcome. Proud Miles tries to conceal his condition. His boss Simon rebukes and fires Miles. Miles is at a loss how to proceed. Depressed, he considers ending it all. Then fortune smiles on Miles. Something is seriously amiss with Simon. Someone needs to determine what is wrong and what must be done. Many former activities may now be beyond Miles, but solving this mystery is not. Nameless protagonistA Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon (2022) Twenty-nine-years-old, an orphan, and faced with overwhelming debts, the protagonist quietly decided it would be better to die. Having selected a method of suicide that will not inconvenience people, she is saved at the last moment by Clairvoyant Magical Girl Ah Roa. The twenty-nine-year-old4 isn’t a helpless nonentity: Ah Roa asserts that the protagonist is the Magical Girl of Time, the most important Magical Girl of all, the savior of all humanity. The twenty-nine-year-old accepts Ah Roa’s claim at face value. Alas, Ah Roa is only half correct. The twenty-nine-year-old is a magical girl. She is not the Magical Girl of Time. The actual Magical Girl of Time has no intention of saving humanity. Rather she will destroy it…unless somehow the protagonist, who knows neither what her own powers are or how to use them, can save the world. Blame the patriarchy for superhumans being Magical Girls and not Magical People. Whatever grants powers selects powerless people in moments of dire need. In this world at this time, those are almost always women. There must be many more middle-aged protagonists in SFF, powering through the infirmities that beset all people aged twenty-nine and above. Perhaps you know of some I didn’t mention? Feel free to tell us about them in comments below.[end-mark] T. Wallace Wooly, Jr.’s secretary Betty adores him. Why this should be is both inexplicable and unexplained. ︎Wooly is smitten with Betty. Why this should be is both inexplicable and unexplained. I think the real moral of The Passionate Witch is “Jennifer could do better.”. ︎The Federation in Little Fuzzy is not ︎The novel is told from the twenty-nine-year-old’s point of view. It’s only because I’m not writing from her POV that I keep having to describe her as “the twenty-nine-year-old.” I often start reviews with the protagonist’s name. Not this section, for the obvious reason. Were I to review A. Lee Martinez’s The Nameless Witch (which is not Natalie C. Parker’s The Nameless Witch), I would also have to circumlocute. ︎The post Over the Hill: Five Not-So-Youthful SFF Protagonists appeared first on Reactor.

The Biden administration’s prosecution of a Texas surgeon who exposed a hospital’s sex-change procedures on children appears “political,” says a former Department of Health and Human Services official who enforced the law the surgeon is accused of violating.  The Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino spoke to The Daily Signal about the prosecution of Dr. Eithan Haim, who leaked records of secret transgender procedures for minors at Texas Children’s Hospital last year. The files, published by City Journal, showed the hospital misled the public by falsely asserting it had stopped its transgender medicine program in response to a state investigation.  President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice charged Haim in May with violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, alleging he illegally accessed and released private patient information with “malicious intent.”  But Haim maintains that his motive was to expose unethical activity—and based on the evidence, he does not “fit the bill” of a doctor-turned-criminal, said Severino, Heritage’s vice president for domestic policy. Severino led the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights under then-President Donald Trump. The office processes all HIPAA claims and may refer them to prosecutors, as it did in Haim’s case.  “Generally speaking, if somebody’s doing whistleblowing, you wouldn’t have that sort of personal criminal intent that would warrant dropping a nuclear bomb on them [over] HIPAA, which really suggests that this is a political prosecution more than anything else,” Severino told The Daily Signal.   HIPAA referrals from the HHS are “extremely rare,” he said, because they are typically reserved for “the most extreme, knowing, and willful violation of the law that would be designed for some sort of personal financial gain.”  Haim, who redacted children’s names from the records he leaked, was only “trying to blow the whistle to show that there was evidence of wrongdoing and that the hospital was lying,” Severino stressed.   Haim previously told The Daily Signal he would not “bend the knee” to Biden’s bureaucrats and “their evil ideology.” He could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine if convicted.  Severino, who also worked as a trial attorney for the Justice Department, said the Biden administration is using HIPAA “to intimidate people who oppose their radical agenda that’s steeped with a hard-edged gender ideology.” Official HHS data shows the agency has resolved more than 99% of HIPAA complaints it receives without reporting them to prosecutors as of May. Severino did not recall any such referrals during his tenure and said the Office for Civil Rights usually resorted to civil claims “because the level of criminal intent wasn’t there.”  “You wouldn’t see this sort of prosecution if it weren’t political,” he told The Daily Signal.  The HHS Office for Civil Rights and its current director, Melanie Fontes Rainer, did not respond to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment before publication.  The post HHS ‘Weaponizing’ Medical Privacy Law to Protect Child Sex Changes, Former Department Official Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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The Natural: America Meets JD Vance

The Lincoln Project Turns Down the Heat By Calling Trump Hitler

I am a fan of freedom of thought, not dependency of thought. What about you?You’ve been churched that true blackness is a political expression. That to be black is to be a Democrat.Am I wrong? And if I’m right, should anyone think that this serves black people’s best interests?No, it doesn’t. The iron law of politics is that which is taken for granted is never cared for.You know what you will be called if you try to escape the mental and political guardrails of the brother’s keeper party and plantation. You will be called an “Uncle Tom” or “Aunt Tammy.” A traitor to your race. A servant to the power that is an enemy to his own. It’s the deepest of insults. Being called an Uncle Tom is the worst thing a black person can say to another. It’s worse than being called the N-word by a white person who knows what he is saying and means it.Reward bad behavior and failure, and you will get more of it. It’s just common sense. But progressive sense is the opposite of common sense.It’s meant to ostracize not only those who step outside the plantation and its orthodoxy. It also makes clear to others who might be thinking it’s time to think and vote outside the lines to get back in line, to keep their mouths and minds shut, and to stay on the plantation, or else.Sadly, it’s more likely an "Uncle Tom" or "Aunt Tammy" is the type of man and woman worth checking out. And the person saying it loudly might better fit the description.This mindset is re-enslaving your people. It needs to end. For your sake and the sake of our country.We are right to worry about black bodies. But black bodies will continue to suffer until black souls liberate themselves for their present, brother’s keeper care.How is the new, “new normal” of the brother’s keeper plantation working out for you and yours? What are your lying eyes showing you?Joe Biden promised in 2020 to return America to “normal.” He was elected on that promise. How is his restoration of “normalcy” working out for you and yours? Are you better off personally? Is the nation better off as a whole? Are black communities safer? Hell, no!Progressive policies are incentivizing the young to act violently. Defund the police? Sure. Then, watch as organized gangs rob department stores in broad daylight and watch as neighborhood pharmacies lock up all their merchandise — assuming they don’t close entirely.Instead of jailing bad guys and defending law and order, their policies are turning black and brown communities into prisons for the innocent.Of course, public schools are a subsidiary of the Democratic Party. Your kids and their future — as well as their moral development — are in their hands. How well is that monopoly serving your kids? Are they being schooled for success? Or something else?Schools that were already hanging on the margins collapsed after COVID-19. Fourth grade and eighth grade math and reading scores plummeted on the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as “the Nation’s Report Card.” The “achievement gap” that taxpayers have spent tens of billions of dollars to close is as wide as ever.Here is a sad fact to wrap your heads around. People who build prisons look at the failure rate of the fourth grade reading exam to get a read on how many prison beds they’ll need. Most of those kids who fail and are headed for jail are black and brown.Yet, black Americans continue to vote for a party that systemically and disparately underserves their children. We all know that charter schools work in the very communities where failure is concentrated. A vote for the Democratic Party is a vote against the schools that could empower your kids.Incentives matter. Give people a $6,000 tax credit to buy a Tesla, and you’ll sell more electric cars. Reward bad behavior and failure, and you will get more of it. It’s just common sense. But progressive sense is the opposite of common sense.We are seeing in real time, and for a long time, that progressive dreams are black and brown nightmares. The Democratic Party has done its best to undermine the black family and work ethic. It has turned a safety net into a hammock designed to create intergenerational poverty.Why would your purported representatives do this to you? In moments like this, it’s best to ask simply, “Who benefits?”My take is that the intergenerational continuation of your people’s nightmare feeds your keepers’ dreams. That your people’s misery serves the interest of your keepers. You are being used to sustain an idea that fuels itself on your misery. You have been subjected to intergenerational systemic racism, done by the hand of a brother’s keeper state, and it has left its mark on all those who are under its “care.” You are being held down on purpose.This hustle serves a few, not the many. In case you haven’t noticed, the chronic care of your people is a big-jobs program for an ever-growing keeper class.A notable example: Al Sharpton has climbed the latter of respectability. He has carried your message to the mainstream, and, by every metric, he has done well for himself in doing so. Has Reverend Al’s good fortune trickled down to you? To ask that question is to answer it.Might the folks — who are quick to dismiss as “Uncle Tom” anyone proposing a better way — have a motivation outside of your best interest for doing so? Might they be the real Uncle Toms and Aunt Tammys?Give this thought a week in your head.