Friday, April 30, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Asha Rangappa
Thursday, April 29, 2021
Just Finished Reading The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
I first saw the movie The Tin Drum back in 1981 when HBO had it in their lineup...I was able to see both the English audio version as well as the original German version with English subtitles...the latter seemed more powerful. It's based on the Günter Grass novel with the same title, first published in 1959 in German with the title Die Blechtrommel and which I finally just got around to reading (the English translation). Both the author and his protagonist, Oskar Matzerath, grew up in the formerly German city of Danzig (now Polish Gdańsk) in the late 1920s during the Weimar Republic and in the 1930s and 40s while Hitler was in power and experienced World War II from the side of the Germans. The book conforms in large part to the movie, with a few minor variations, up to the last part (the years after the war) which the movie omitted. In the book version, while in a mental hospital in the 1950s, Oskar narrates his life story, all the way from birth: an important detail since he claims he was born imbued with an adult's thinking and viewpoint of the world. Like Grass, Oskar distinguishes his national identity using his mother's lineage as Kashubian...neither Pole nor German: like the movie he goes back to relate how his grandmother met his anarchist, arsonist grandfather. By the time Oskar turns three, he is fed up with the duplicity and hypocrisy of the adult world. For his birthday his mother gives him a tin drum, to which he quickly bonds. And then he makes the Peter Pan-like decision to stop growing: he maintains his three-year old height at 3'1" until the war ends in his early adulthood. Oskar's narration occasionally returns to his mental institution and his keepers and visitors, but he is primarily focused on relating significant events in his earlier life. His mother has been involved in a long-term romantic triangle between Pole Jan Bronski (whom Oskar considers to be his true father) and her husband, German Alfred Matzerath. Not to give away all that happens, but in film and book both it turns into a story of attrition, with little Oskar always seeming to be a sort of catalyst in the unfolding tragedies while coming out of them himself unscathed. He is obsessed with his tin drum, which he beats with fervor and force, constantly wearing out the one he has and needing to replace it. He also discovers a special talent: he can break glass with his high-pitched, loud shrieks, rendering him virtually immune from discipline. The film version seemed to make a connection between the rise of Nazism and Oskar's decision to drop out of the growth process, but the book isn't at all clear on this. Grass makes the point, I think, that you can have an adult's perspective without the necessary accompanying knowledge and character: that is certainly the case with Oskar. And to that extent I identified with this singular fictional character, recalling my own younger years...not that I possessed any magical ability to suspend my own physical growth. When I first saw the movie I was greatly impressed...it won an Academy Award for best foreign movie and the soundtrack music was hauntingly beautiful. But a few years later a controversy arose about whether the actor portraying Oskar, David Bennett, a minor at the time, had been improperly used for a sex scene. After some censorship of the movie, an investigation ensued, the director exonerated...but still there is a shadow hanging over it: regrettable, for while very intense and disturbing in places, I consider The Tin Drum to be one of the greatest films ever made. Since I already knew pretty much what was going to happen having watched the movie, the book was a bit anticlimactic...although I enjoyed Oskar's intellectual wit and defiance at the world that came out better on paper. Good book, good movie: take your pick...
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1970 Science Fiction, Part 4
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Game of the Week: Solitaire
Solitaire is a family of card games that, as its name suggests, are to be played by one person alone. I tend to forego all the varieties and stick with the standard version, as pictured above using a deck of cards I got from the Hampton Inn (see the picture on their back). After shuffling the cards, they are dealt in rows, first card turned up, with each succeeding row beginning one card shorter from the above one...until the last row is a single upturned card. The object is to fill each suit with cards, going in order from Ace to King, before the game's rules prohibit any advancement in play. I've played it so many times, going back to childhood, and still play it on my phone app...which of course is much more convenient without cards to shuffle or a needed surface to play on. Since I don't "win" most games, I keep score by playing games until I lose five, counting the number of cards "on top" for each one...since it's Solitaire, everyone can play it the way they like. Like most card games, there is a mixture of luck and strategy in it...my strategy is so automatic now that I spend almost no time between moves. I tend to play it more on my work breaks or when I'm tired...very little intellectual or physical effort required here...
Monday, April 26, 2021
Our Brief Stay at Daytona Beach
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from the Bell Science Series
Saturday, April 24, 2021
Just Finished Reading Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman
Summer Bird Blue is a 2018 young adult novel by Akemi Dawn Bowman. Rumi Seto loves her little sister Lea, as they grow up in Washington, D.C. with their mother after their selfish father left them following Lea's birth. The two teenage girls are avid musicians, Rumi on the piano and Lea with the guitar...and are heavily into writing their own songs, both music and lyrics...they have a technique by which they call out three words randomly and use that as a basis for a new song: the latest one is "summer", "bird", "blue". But one day while they're all together in the car there is an accident and Lea dies from it. Left without her very best friend, Rumi sinks further into despair and anger when she discovers that she is being shipped out to live with her aunt in Hawaii...how could her mother abandon her like this? Most of the book is about how Rumi deals with her grief and anger...she gets to know her neighbors on either side of her temporary new home: teenager/surfer boy Kai and the elderly, gruff Mr. Watanabe. In all her interactions with others Rumi is blunt and critical, both of them and herself...and she cannot experience anything without being reminded of her dead sister. During the course of this grief period she has memory flashbacks of the two of them, including their conflicts and Rumi's jealousy of Lea's popularity and her mother's perceived favoritism toward her sister. Rumi has promised her departed sister that she will finish writing that final song Summer Bird Blue, but in her current state she finds herself blocked. Along with the main story line is Rumi's examination of her own attitudes toward sexuality as well as the ethnically diverse composition of the characters...the latter is interesting and welcome but the relationships and personalities here are universals that could easily transfer to other settings. If you can put up with the adolescent self-absorption and explosive rage that Rumi displays throughout the book, I think you, like myself, will find it a difficult, but enlightening look at what the loss of a very close person in one's life can bring out. I was touched by the grace shown by those around Rumi as she went through her pain...
Friday, April 23, 2021
Quote of the Week...from C.S. Lewis
Thursday, April 22, 2021
Enjoying Sitting Outside My Favorite Gainesville Starbucks
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1970 Science Fiction, Part 3
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Game of the Week: Basketball
Monday, April 19, 2021
Constellation of the Month: Ursa Major
Sunday, April 18, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from the Ed Sullivan Show
Saturday, April 17, 2021
About Republican Election Reform and Voter Participation
Friday, April 16, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Stephen King in 11/22/63
Thursday, April 15, 2021
Puzzled by the FDA's Pause of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccinations
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1970 Science Fiction, Part 2
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Game of the Week: Jumanji
Monday, April 12, 2021
Life is Sometimes Like Being on Jury Duty in a Never-Ending Trial
The current televised murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin over the death-in-custody of black resident George Floyd last April has brought back memories of the times I was drafted into jury duty over the past few years. I detest serving on juries so much that I studiously avoid watching these public trials and always avoid those annoying "Judge Bozo" types of programs...heck, I won't even watch Perry Mason! I never was on a jury detail when either my workplace or the court's clerical staff didn't make my jury duty documentation difficult for me to return to work afterwards...so many times have I sat there in the courtroom or stood outside in the hallway in a state of anxiety wondering if I was getting into trouble for doing something I was required by law to do...instead of actually paying my full attention to the proceedings. The uncertainty and open-endedness involved in jury selection is very problematic as well...I go there with no clue as to what my future will be for the rest of the week and possibly further on. The attorneys arguing both sides of the case in question never cease to irritate me with their self-importance...they remind me of an old classmate of mine in high school who used his debate skills to intimidate others (including me). And I have never to date deliberated as a juror on a case in which there was an obvious witness or crucial piece of evidence that wasn't deliberately withheld from the jurors' consideration...so as a result the verdict probably didn't reflect what the judge, lawyers, defendant and probably a few witnesses actually knew to be true about the case. Also, in every jury experience I've had there was always a pain-in-the-ass fellow juror trying to prod everyone else into giving a quick verdict...as if the rest of us had nowhere else we'd rather be. But even though it's been more than two years since I was last subjected to this humiliation, I have noticed that in some ways just going through my day-to-day experiences in life mirrors some things about serving on juries. I don't think there is a social institution I've ever been involved with in which important information hasn't been withheld from me...yet I am held accountable nonetheless to exhibit proper judgment in my actions and speech. The entire legal/law-enforcement environment prevalent in the courthouse is designed to humble people...just as so many other institutions seek to control people like herded sheep. The behavior of the opposing attorneys toward witnesses, depending on whether they support or oppose their case, hits me hard: if a witness agrees with the questioning attorney then they are honest and decent...if they offer testimony running counter to the "agenda" then they are cast as liars and...well, maybe deluded or confused. Isn't this how the hosts on TV opinion shows and talk radio treat people of different political persuasions? So no, I'm not too keen on jury duty, and I'm more than a little cynical about the way our society seems to be structured to manipulate and control me in ways similar to being a drafted juror...then again I've always been pretty much a solitary type anyway and naturally suspicious of those trying to put their hooks in me...
Sunday, April 11, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
THE LOST WORLDS OF PLANET EARTH is Episode #9 of the thirteen-part 2014 television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Narrated by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, this series resurrected the spirit of the original Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, from 1980 and featuring the late astronomer Carl Sagan. The Cosmos series are an excellent introduction to science and the history of scientific discoveries and those who made them...this particular episode is no exception. It focuses upon a subject that has always fascinated me: Earth's cataclysmic mass extinctions, of which the Permian Extinction was the most severe. It occurred about 250 million years ago, wiping out some 90% of the world's species and caused by massive supervolcano eruptions over the course of hundreds of thousands of years in what is now Siberia and their toxic interaction with masses of underground coal deposits and undersea methane stores. This episode also goes into the late Cretaceous meteor strike that caused another mass extinction including that of the dinosaurs, the development of the theory of plate tectonics that explained continental drift, and how gravitational effects from other planets may have influenced our past ice ages. Tyson, like his predecessor Sagan, is a compelling and effective communicator: I highly recommend both the 1980 and 2014 series. Last year a third Cosmos series (subtitled Possible Worlds) also aired, but I have yet to see any of its episodes, again hosted by Tyson. When I was a kid in elementary school, we had a film series presented by Bell Science with Dr. Frank Baxter as its host, produced in the late 1950s and early 60s for television. I feel that Cosmos is the continuation of a great tradition of popularizing science that these old programs began...
Saturday, April 10, 2021
Just Finished Reading (Again) The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
I first read thriller fiction writer Robert Ludlum's 1980 novel The Bourne Identity in 2013...never got around to read the entire trilogy, though. Recently I ran across the same-named 2002 movie starring Matt Damon in the TV listings, so I decided to take the plunge and read all three books, starting by rereading the first one. In it a young man finds himself shot repeatedly out in the Mediterranean Sea in a boat, and then loses his memory of who he is as well as his past...yet he retains great fighting and espionage skills. A disgraced expatriate English doctor cares for him and gives him the implant removed from his hip giving an Swiss bank account number...the man after six months of recovery goes that Zurich bank in search of his own identity. While discovering he is apparently "Jason Bourne" with several million dollars to his account, he is also pursued by gunmen bent on killing him. He takes as hostage a Canadian woman who is in Zurich for an economics convention...the two have their adventures, which point to Paris as the next logical place. The background for this story is that of Carlos, an international terrorist/assassin who apparently really existed...Ludlum opened his novel with real newspaper accounts. As Jason...or whoever he is...gradually learns more about himself, he becomes gravely concerned that he, too, is a terrorist. His connections with American intelligence become revealed as well as his past leading up to the present crisis. I felt that the author did a masterful job at presenting his characters...be they good or bad...as complex people, each with their own stories and perspectives. After finishing it (again), I checked out that 2002 movie from my library and began to watch it, only to discover that it bore very little similarity to the book other than the characters Jason Bourne and Alexander Conklin and that even those two had vastly differently personalities and backgrounds. Yes, there was a wounded, amnesiac Bourne rescued at sea and Zurich and Paris...American intelligence was involved here, too, but in the movie it was presented as more cutthroat and amoral, not at all like in the book. So I say that if you haven't experienced The Bourne Identity in either book or movie form, go for the book first. That's not to say that the acting and action in the movie wasn't excellent and gripping: it's simply a different story. My plan now, though, is to skip the movie sequels and just stick with Ludlum's books...
Friday, April 9, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Zbigniew Brzezinski
Thursday, April 8, 2021
China, Russia, and the USA: It's Complicated
Although I was a history major in college, I make no claim to be an expert in that area...or in the highly complicated field of international relations. But it should be clear to anyone that for the United States, China and Russia represent serious challenges. Both are vast autocratic nations with great military power and highly developed intelligence services, designed both to steal business and government secrets as well as unduly manipulating American public opinion through false plants in social media. Both nations have demonstrated aggression in their foreign policy...one might claim that we in America have as well...and to an extent the argument can be made that as great nations they are asserting themselves within their respective spheres of influence. But as I see it, both Russia and China are much, much more sensitive to American and Western criticism of their treatment of their own people than of their foreign policy. I think the reason is clear: neither nation sees much of a military threat from others, but their respective regimes depend on suppressing any dissent within their borders from catching on and growing into a movement that challenges their hold on power. Trump never called Russia on its internal human rights abuses, but after Biden became president relations between the two countries have cooled considerably...our President, as Head of State, should have been more reserved with his comment about Russian president Putin. China brokers no criticism whatsoever of their reported policies toward Hong Kong, the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and their role in the COVID-19 outbreak, often invoking charges of racism in regard to their critics. Since last year the United States have seen a sharp increase in assaults and intimidation of Americans of Asian descent, the main reason seeming to be that they are somehow to blame for the coronavirus pandemic as scapegoats. Equating the actions of a foreign country or organization with its primary ethnic composition and acting in a hostile, racist way isn't new: following 9/11 nearly twenty years ago, Americans appearing to be Middle Eastern...even Sikhs...were exposed to attack and harassment, as if any of them had anything remotely to do with the events in the news. President Trump kept calling COVID-19 the "China Virus", but his sloppy criticism was always directed at the communist Chinese state and what he saw as its mishandling of the initial outbreak in Wuhan along with suppressed and misleading reporting henceforth. And here's an interesting problem: if people criticize the Russian government and policies, nobody says they are racist or are inciting people to attack Americans of Russian ancestry...after all, most of them are white and blend into the background population. But critics of China's policies often find themselves wrongly accused of prejudice against Chinese people, an idea which that government itself promotes. Russia and China clearly have adversarial relationships with America, but we also have productive, positive relationships in different areas. In space exploration, Russia and the USA have cooperated throughout the bumpy roads the two countries have gone through over the years, and with China we do an incredible amount of business (like both Trump and Biden, I think some of the ground rules need reform, though). And that's the way it should be, if great, rival nations like these three are to live together in peace with each other. Should I ever find myself privileged to visit Russia or China, it will not be my role while there to criticize their political systems or leaders but rather to comply within the parameters of what it means to be a guest in a different culture while under its authority during the course of my stay. Do I wish they had more democratic political systems and greater individual liberties? Sure, but I also know that this is my country and they have theirs. As an American I reserve my right to give my opinion about any government and its leaders...especially my own. But that commentary does not necessarily imply condemnation...on the contrary, I like both Russia and China and their people, to the extent where I have extensively studied both the Russian and Chinese languages: they are great societies with absorbing histories and much to offer the rest of the world...
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1970 Science Fiction, Part 1
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Game of the Week: Sagrada
Monday, April 5, 2021
Updated Cumulative Running Race Record
2-14-10 HM 2:17:10 Five Points of Life Gainesville
3-27-10 15K 1:23:55 Climb for Cancer Haile Plantation
4-24-10 5K 23:05 Run Amuck NFR Office Park
5-22-10 5K 25:00 Somer's Sunshine Run Orange Park
6-05-10 5K 23:23 Cpt. Chad Reed Mem. Cross City
7-04-10 3m 23:04 Melon Run Westside Park
11-16-10 HM 2:01:41 Tom Walker Memorial Hawthorne Trail
1-23-11 M 6:04:35 Ocala Marathon South of Paddock Mall
11-12-11 HM 1:59:38 Tom Walker Memorial Hawthorne Trail
1-01-12 HM 1:56:07 De Leon Springs De Leon Springs
7-04-12 3m 25:45 Melon Run Westside Park
11-22-12 10K 53:10 Turkey Trot Tacachale
1-20-13 HM 1:55:20 Ocala Half-Marathon South of Paddock Mall
3-03-13 HM 1:50:53 Orange Blossom Tavares
11-09-13 2m untimed Gator Gallop University Ave, SW 2nd Ave
2-01-14 5K 25:53 Education for Life Westside Park
2-16-14 HM 2:07:36 Five Points of Life Gainesville
11-27-14 10K 56:56 Turkey Trot Tacachale
12-12-14 HM 2:03:30 Starlight Half-Marathon Palm Coast
1-31-15 15K 1:18:21 Newnan's Lake West of Newnan's Lake
2-15-15 HM 1:58:48 Five Points of Life Gainesville
3-14-15 10K 56:24 Run for Haven Tioga
12-05-15 6.5m 1:03:52 Lumber Around the Levee Micanopy
1-30-16 15K 1:31:20 Newnan's Lake West of Newnan's Lake
3-12-16 10K 59:00 Run for Haven Tioga
5-14-16 5K 28:36 May Day Glow Run Tioga