I'm currently watching the first round of the U.S. Open tennis tournament on ESPN. Tennis has always seemed much easier on television than it really is to play. I learned to play tennis in my late teens in the early-to-mid 1970s and never played or practiced enough to achieve a reasonable level of competency in it. I remember running mile after mile in after-school track practice in high school and then later going out to a nearby tennis court with my sister and, after practicing our serves a little, just volleying the ball back and forth to get better with our forehand and backhand swings...no matter how tiring the running had been just an hour or so earlier. And simply hitting the ball back and forth over the net...no one keeping score...has always been how I've enjoyed "playing tennis". Yet I remember taking an introductory tennis course at college in the summer of 1975 to fulfill some of my physical education requirements (back when colleges had physical education requirements). I remember my teacher, who seemed like he thought he was a real cool badass dude, sneering at me with disgust as I "aced" my serving exam by meekly placing each one squarely in the correct place...with absolutely no force or spin on the ball. Yet I knew how to get an "A" and got it...not that I was any better in it afterwards. No, after a humiliating game in 1979 I played with a college friend from Brazil in which he thoroughly demolished me and thought no one could play that badly, I put away my racket and would subsequently use tennis balls to play fetch and keep-away with my dogs. Yet I do enjoy watching tennis on television...with one exception. For some inexplicable reason (maybe they think they're intimidating their opponent), certain professional women players from Eastern Europe (like Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, and Simona Halep) have this extremely annoying habit of giving loud voice to their exhalations each time they hit the ball, resulting in a horrible sounding sequence of grunts and chirps with each volley. It's gotten so that not only to I automatically root against these players, but I also mute the sound to avoid hearing that crap. Oh well, maybe some people think what they do is cool...you never know what makes someone think something's cool. And in the late 1970s when I was making the transition from adolescence to adulthood, there were two activities that people overwhelmingly (but not me) thought were cool: disco dancing and tennis. They've both declined over the years as participatory activities, but I've always enjoyed watching a good tennis match...and I think I'd better leave my opinion on disco unsaid...
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Monday, August 30, 2021
Jeopardy!'s Process for Selecting Permanent Host Foolish and Demeaning
Ever since I was a kid in the 1960s when Art Fleming hosted the popular quiz show Jeopardy!, I have enjoyed pitting my own prowess at getting the right "questions" to the different posed "answers" in diverse categories of knowledge against the three on-screen players. I thought that Fleming did his job well guiding each episode and interacting with the contestants, but the idea of slavishly following him as some kind of superstar idol never occurred to me. Not did it ever when Alex Trebek helped to resurrect the series' mass popularity from the 1980s until his tragic death from cancer last November. In my book, it doesn't take much to host this show. You need to possess some degree of literacy, as well as quickly learning how to pronounce some of the more challenging material presented in the answers, but I always assumed that both Fleming and Trebek would go over them with the writers before each taping anyway. You need to display tactful humor and goodwill toward each contestant, as well as a healthy respect for the wide world of learning. Jeopardy! hosts should not be shock jocks who titillate the viewing audience with sexual innuendo and vulgar attempts at humor as does the host of Family Feud (among sadly too many other game shows) but rather communicate a sense of decorum and attentive enthusiasm for the episode at hand. You want to host Jeopardy!, do you? I really don't care what your political views are or whether you foolishly said offensive things on a podcast years earlier or posted a controversial tweet in a moment of foolishness. I think the producers of Jeopardy!, following Trebek's sad departure, made a really dumb mistake by having a procession of guest hosts each week and making the new permanent replacement a farce with popularity surveys on the Internet listing who's hot and who's not. As for me, with every episode I've seen of late...and that spans quite a number of different guest hosts...there hasn't been a single one in which the host didn't do a commendable job of carrying the show properly in the areas I've mentioned above. I think it's kind of humiliating to lead on the different candidates like this, something I doubt that neither Art Fleming nor Alex Trebek would have stood for themselves. And once a particular candidate seems to be favored, then there is a mad rush to delve back in their pasts to uncover dirty laundry about them...disgusting, as if anybody is so perfect as to judge others like this. Just draw the name of the "winning" permanent host at random out of a hat from those candidates who've hosted it already and be done with it all, for crying out loud...
Sunday, August 29, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from The Andy Griffith Show
Saturday, August 28, 2021
Potentially Catastrophic Hurricane Ida Threatens Louisiana
For the past few days, meteorologists have been projecting that a tropical storm, named Ida, would form and pass from the northwest Caribbean Sea and through the western end of Cuba while achieving hurricane status. Once it entered the Gulf of Mexico, the consensus opinion was that it would rapidly intensify from being in the warm Gulf waters while avoiding any substantial wind shear...and eventually hit the coast of eastern Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130-140 mph. This makes the heavily populated New Orleans-Baton Rouge region of the state a bulls-eye target, presenting the greatest threat to the area since Katrina in 2005 swept through, causing levee breaks and sending New Orleans...situated under sea level...into a catastrophic state of flooding and causing many deaths and much suffering. I'm writing this a little past 8 pm EDT, and this hour's advisory has the storm temporarily holding at a Category 2 level with 105 max. sustained winds and the barometric pressure...an indicator of a hurricane's true intensity...dropping from 976 to 969 millibars: much intensification expected in the next few hours. The eye of Ida is expected to make landfall tomorrow morning, but tropical force winds and heavy rainfall will be making their way inland during the night...the one saving grace in all of this is that the storm is traveling along its course relatively rapid. Louisiana isn't the only area seriously affected: virtually the entire state of Mississippi is threatened by flash flooding, and western Tennessee and Kentucky are also on severe weather alert. The Weather Channel...I love these guys...have their meteorologist personalities stationed in place, reporting live from various targeted locales in the area: my television is locked on it (until I go to sleep later, that is). My prayers are with the many people of these region for their lives, health and property in the hours and days to come...
Friday, August 27, 2021
Quote of the Week...from John Quincy Adams
Thursday, August 26, 2021
The Great Charlie Watts, 1941-2021
I was saddened to hear about the recent passing of Charlie Watts, the acclaimed drummer for the Rolling Stones all these years. He was 80. Charlie was, at I see it, a stabilizing element for the band who refused to take sides in his bandmates' squabbles while always conducting himself in public with dignity and grace. He was dedicated to his craft and humble enough to recognize his own limitations. He was born in 1941, which brings to my mind all those bands back in the mid-1960s like the Stones and Beatles: they're all getting old...the ones who are still left, that is. Watts' bandmates Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards were born in 1936, 1943, and 1943 respectively...Ringo Starr entered the world in 1940 and Paul McCartney in 1942. It's going to be a sad time when all these great musicians of my childhood are gone...of course, over the last few years I've had to hear of the deaths of various artists I've followed: when you love many you also mourn many. As for Charlie Watts, in an industry loaded with prima donnas and excessive living, here we had someone who kept to his own standards while respecting and working with others with vastly different lifestyles and attitudes: what a class act...
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1975 Science Fiction, Part 4
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Game of the Week: Chess
When I was a kid we often played checkers, but never chess. Chess to me was always this kind of advanced game that tested the players' intelligence. In high school some of my classmates would spend their lunch hour and breaks playing chess with each other, but other than just learning enough of the rules to be able to follow it at a primitive level, I steered clear of the game. Still, I have a few observations about it. I'm always impressed when a game is going on and one of the players moves a piece and says something like "checkmate in 5 moves". To me, each turn in chess is like a brand-new game: you may think that you have an intricate strategy at one time, but then your opponent moves their piece and everything is upset, and you have to start all over with your strategy the next move. I'm very impressed by those who have learned to play the game at a level of competency, but I also know that success in chess doesn't necessarily mean you're smart in everything...just in playing chess. When I turned 60 a few years back, I qualified to become a member of the local seniors recreation center just down the road, a mile from my home. But even knowing that every Wednesday they had a chess group and were open to beginners, I have never taken advantage of the opportunity to go there and see what happens. But who knows, once this Covid crap dies down I may just try it out...
Monday, August 23, 2021
The Recent "We Love NYC" Concert in Central Park
Sunday, August 22, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from Batman
Early in 1966 ABC began airing the series Batman, starring Adam West as the caped avenger and Bert Ward as his teen-age sidekick. I was nine at the time and didn't pick up on the fact that this series was loaded with tongue-in-cheek comedy, instead focusing on the adventures of the caped crusaders as they fought various criminal masterminds in Gotham City. Each weekly story was split into two half-hour episodes, with the announcer at the end of the first one (always with Batman and Robin in dire danger) reminding the audience to stay tuned to the "same Bat-time, same Bat-channel". Since at the time I seemed to have this thing for long-haired blondes, I suppose it was inevitable that I would fall for the series' chief female villain: Catwoman, played by Julie Newmar (of My Living Doll fame). The first Catwoman story was aired in March of '66 with the episodes titled The Purr-fect Crime and Better Luck Next Time. Normally I'd be rooting for Batman and Robin to defeat the bad guys, but never with Catwoman...but since I knew the "good guys" would prevail at the end it got to be a bit depressing to watch all the Catwoman episodes knowing she'd end up losing. I remember at the time being an avid Batman trading card collector, and enjoyed borrowing a friend's Batman books to read...my favorite one, naturally, focused on Catwoman and her alter ego, Selena Kyle. Later in the series Newmar left Batman for the movies and Eartha Kitt was hired to play her role, but by then my age had caught up with me and I had lost interest in the series. A few years ago there was a critically-panned movie titled Catwoman starring Halle Berry...to this day I consider it as one of my favorites while just about everyone else on the planet thinks it sucked...
Saturday, August 21, 2021
Still Recovering Gradually at Home from Surgery
I continue to "shelter in place" as I recover from my July surgery. On the second day after my operation all hell seemed to break loose about Covid-19, with its Delta variant spreading explosively among the unmasked and unvaccinated population. I was informed, while lying in my ICU bed, that the visitation policy was changed and that I could name exactly two people who would be permitted to visit me in my room...any others would have to stay in the waiting area until I could be eventually wheeled out to see them. All throughout my two-week stay in the hospital news kept growing of the disease's resurgence...the day after I was finally discharged, it was announced by UF Health that they were indefinitely postponing elective surgeries in order to ensure ICU beds for the dramatically rising Covid cases...that would no doubt have included my own surgery had it been scheduled just a little later. And now here I am, some three weeks later, and there's no sign of abatement in the infection and death numbers. But at least I'm getting better...but it looks like I'm back to mask-wearing in public once I am again able to venture forth into this disease-ridden world. Because my rib cage was separated for my open heart surgery to replace a defective aortic valve and repair an aortic aneurism, my recuperation has centered around the re-fused sternum area growing back together while preventing water buildup within my chest. Also, following surgery my heart twice went into a-fib (no regular sinus heart rhythm), but a procedure called Cardioversion restored normal beating which I have maintained since. I am looking forward to a full recovery and getting back to work. A physical therapist has been visiting twice a week and helping me, both to exercise those parts of my body that are safe to exercise, and to take it easy on those parts that are still vulnerable...my walking has dramatically improved. But I don't know what to make of this coronavirus resurgence, except for the fact that it was completely preventable if more people had simply worn a mask in public and gotten vaccinated...oh, the folly of the prideful...
Friday, August 20, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Neil deGrasse Tyson
Thursday, August 19, 2021
Watching Sports on TV During Recovery
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1975 Science Fiction, Part 3
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Game of the Week: Wordscapes
Monday, August 16, 2021
Constellation of the Month: Aquila (the Eagle)
Sunday, August 15, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from M*A*S*H
THE GENERAL FLIPPED AT DAWN to me was the funniest episode of M*A*S*H, a half-hour CBS comedy series that spanned eleven years...even though its setting, the Korean War, only lasted two. The abbreviated title stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and the main character is Hawkeye Pierce, a very skilled and clever surgeon played by Alan Alda and who sees the war for what it is. The particular episode I chose was from Season 3, originally aired in September, 1974. General Steele visits the medical camp and arbitrarily commands that it all be moved five miles down the road. His kooky behavior quickly alienates most everyone there, and when Hawkeye sends off a helicopter with an injured soldier and refuses to make it come back for the General's personal transportation, he court-martials Hawkeye. Harry Morgan, who a year later would come back and portray a completely different character, Colonel Potter, to the series' end, played the bonkers General Steele in this episode. With its original cast including Wayne Rogers as Captain John McIntyre, McLean Stevenson as Lt. Colonel Henry Blake, and Larry Linville as Major Frank Burns in the early years, I really liked watching M*A*S*H. But as each of these three departed, the show progressively became more serious and intellectual and I tended to avoid it. Ironically, it was the final years of the series that garnered most of its awards, critical acclaim and high ratings...
Saturday, August 14, 2021
Recovering at Home from Surgery
Just to keep this blog more or less continuous, I'm writing today's article. It's been two weeks since I was discharged from the hospital following my aortic aneurism/valve replacement surgery and then two weeks in the hospital. Melissa has been taking good care of me in just about every phase of my slow recovery. And sometimes the patient himself doesn't see any improvement in his condition...but I've been told I'm doing much better: very encouraging. My physical therapist has been giving me different projects to work on and I have found them helpful. On the second day after surgery, Shands hospital policy drastically limited to two named people those allowed to visit me...all because of the Delta variant resurgence of Covid-19. And just as I was being discharged they formulated their policy of postponing elective surgery because of the shortage of ICU beds...had they scheduled my surgery for August as originally planned, I have no doubt that my operation would have been put off. In any event, I managed to get it in under the wire and am very glad to be at home...
Friday, August 13, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Frank Zappa
Thursday, August 12, 2021
Communal Jigsaw Puzzles
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1975 Science Fiction, Part 2
Below are my reactions to two more science fiction short stories as they appeared in the anthology Donald A. Wollheim Presents The 1976 Annual World's Best SF, which covered sci-fi published the previous year. I ran my longest single run until the year 2010, 14.4 miles, in March of 1975, making five loops around the giant block in Davie where I went to elementary school, high school and community college...I wouldn't top it until 2010. Gerald Ford was our president, Cambodia and South Vietnam fell to the communists, and the Miami Dolphins just missed the playoffs...for the first time since Don Shula became head coach. But enough of memories and history, let's delve into those two tales...
Next week I review more science fiction short stories from 1975...
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Game of the Week: Scrabble
Scrabble is one of the board games in my house...and I also played it way down yonder in Hollywood when I was growing up. My mother, sister, and I would sit there with our letter tiles, trying to figure words that would optimize the points scored, with strategies such as creating two words at once and/or placing the tiles on special squares on the board that doubles or triples the letter, or squares doubling or tripling the entire word's value. I believe that I've grown pretty good at Scrabble, but I do have one pet peeve about the game. My mom had a penchant for coming up with words that neither Anita nor I had ever heard of, and for the most part they were indeed credible words after consulting the dictionary. I remember back in the 1990s here in Gainesville the Books-a-Million store would hold Scrabble games once a week, with the winners' names published in the Gainesville Sun...but that would involve interfering either with my sleep or working hours, so I never participated. There is to me an adequate mixture of luck and skill in this game, for players cannot tell in advance which letters they are picking up from the table top...but sometimes making the best of what appears to be an impossible situation is more enjoyable than making a long word...
Monday, August 9, 2021
Watched Tokyo Olympics
When I was in the hospital for two weeks following open heart surgery, I had available a TV to watch, both when I was in the intensive care unit and when I was moved one story below to a more general room. Once I felt capable enough, I watched a lot of the Tokyo Olympics...which were shown on NBC, NBCSports, USA Network, and CNBC. I focused on the events for which judges did not play a dominant role in determining scores, opting instead for games and races. Volleyball, basketball, table tennis, water polo, swimming, badminton, fencing, soccer, bicycle track racing, team handball, field hockey, softball...I enjoyed watching them all, noting that badminton looks pretty brutal when played on a high level. I somehow missed out on many of the track and field events...in perspective this was most likely due to the fact that they were mostly held after my discharge from the hospital. But my favorite events, which I enjoyed greatly, were the women and men's marathons...they were among the final events there. But for the most part I skipped on the diving, gymnastics, artistic swimming, and skateboarding due to the objectivity factor of the judges. I also thought the rock climbing competition was mesmerizing. The Tokyo organizers minimized spectator presence due to the pernicious pandemic...understandable. For the same reason they decided not to stage awards with the winning country's national anthem...for me it was refreshing as I had long believed that the Olympics had become way too divisive with the nationalism. Still, I admit that I would consistently root for the "home" team or contestant. In just a few months China will be hosting the Winter Olympics...I sincerely hope I won't be back in the Krankenhaus when it takes place...
Sunday, August 8, 2021
Great Old TV Episodes...from The Bob Newhart Show
OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS, from the sitcom comedy series The Bob Newhart Show, was originally aired in November, 1975. The series has Newhart portraying a Chicago psychologist married to Emily (Suzanne Pleshette) with the scenes generally split between their high-rise city apartment and Bob's work floor, where receptionist Carol (Marcia Wallace) and orthodontist Jerry (Peter Bonerz) also work. The Hartleys have a neighbor down the hall, Howard, a passenger jet pilot played by Bill Daily of I Dream of Jeannie renown. The series lasted from 1972 to 1978 and benefited from its weekly schedule on CBS at 9:30 pm, right between The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Carol Burnett. I always enjoyed this series, typified by running gags reappearing throughout each episode. In this particular episode, when Emily is absent traveling one Thanksgiving, lonely Bob decides to share it with friends Howard and Jerry...along with obnoxious patient Carlin (Jack Riley) for an evening turkey dinner...with just a little too much booze thrown in. It featured a great running gag of a knock-knock joke, which gets ludicrous and twisted toward the end. And Newhart's "more goo to go" line has never left me to this day. Like Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett, this series was moderately funny, but I was caught completely off-guard when I saw this Thanksgiving-themed episode and lost it laughing to the point that I was crying. I would never see knock-knock jokes in the same light again...
Saturday, August 7, 2021
Recovery from Surgery Impacts Blog for Next Few Weeks
I'm still recovering at home from heart surgery, and this will go on for a few more weeks. As for this blog, for obvious reasons I got out of the habit of writing daily articles...the ones preceding today's were almost all written in advance of the operation. I had been writing weekly features on it: Sunday was for my favorite TV episodes, Tuesday I discussed specific games, Wednesday was about science fiction short stories I've read, and Friday I presented a meaningful quote from someone. I may or may not stick to this pattern, and I may also skip some days writing as I recover...
Friday, August 6, 2021
Quote of the Week...from Charles Barkley
Thursday, August 5, 2021
Just Finished Reading Mental Immunity by Andy Norman
About three weeks ago I was with Melissa in Books-a-Million browsing around when my eyes fell on Andy Norman's book Mental Immunity in the "self-help" section. I briefly surveyed the contents and discovered that the author, one of those rare professional philosophers among us, wrote it largely in response to some of the things I was noticing about how people were adopting really, REALLY bad ideas that they were picking up from friends, the Internet, TV and radio. But how does one reverse the tide of "alternative facts" and confront those who believe in them? After all, aren't we all entitled to our own opinions? Norman hones in on this assumption and challenges it, concluding that no, that while legally we may be so entitled our own flawed views...even when the "facts" supporting our positions are false...we are in no way morally entitled to them...even with matters of religious faith. And, in fact, the idea of NOT challenging those pushing false beliefs is in itself immoral. Norman doesn't just come up with his notions spontaneously, but bases them on the historical development of philosophy, going back to that of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and progressing up to the century-old dispute about faith between William James and William Kingdon Clifford, the latter of whom promoted a more scientific approach to philosophy...and in particular epistemology, that is the study of knowledge, its truth value and use...and with whose perspective the author essentially agrees. James, on the the other hand, made one's faith and core belief system a kind of unassailable fortress, basically giving rise to the notion that what people thought was somewhat a sacred right and to confront them was out of line...it was James' approach that won the day, and according to Norman this is causing a great deal of trouble in our time with conspiracy theories and slanted narratives running rampant and people bubbling themselves off with others who share their peculiar beliefs. It is necessary to dissipate the aura of sacredness regarding one's own beliefs and open them up to the open, public scrutiny that they merit. As for me, I often find myself standing back from disputing what I hold to be unwarranted assumptions from others around me, falling back on that old James-inspired "everyone's entitled to their own opinion" mantra as a kind of cop-out excuse for avoiding possibly unpleasant and awkward engagement. Mental Immunity is a very rigorous introduction to philosophy, particularly the branch of epistemology, and there are sections in which I experienced difficulty keeping up with Andy Norman's narrative. Norman is a philosophy professor, and his evolving teaching approach to the subject reveals part of his strategy for stemming the tide of bad ideas infecting our culture. After seeing that his lectures weren't getting anywhere with his students, he changed his teaching tactics to include their in-class input...while politely questioning their various assertions as to where they got them from. The book is an attempted balance between the author trying to justify his views on the state of affairs in our misinformation society of today and explaining in as much detail as he can, with his academic background and knowledge that he uses to back up those views. It's a tough balancing act, and I respect his efforts. I'm sure a rereading will help me better understand Norman's approach. He seems to have rejected the parade of philosophies over the ages, finally setting on a modified version of Socrates' in which the search for truth is marked, not necessarily by rationalization and proof, but rather by inquiry with the notion of commonly-held presumptions playing a major role. For example, when confronting someone with "bad ideas", politely-leveled questions leading to clarification and giving the source of those ideas helps to keep that party off the defensive, with the dialogue more likely to lead to mutual enlightenment. At the book's end, Norman has an elaborate strategy laid out for this...I'm gonna have to go back to it...
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
Weekly Short Stories: 1975 Science Fiction, Part 1
Tuesday, August 3, 2021
Game of the Week...Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune has become a deeply established fixture in American culture, with its co-hosts Pat Sajak and Vanna White going back many decades. I usually see it on Saturday evenings at 7 on my local Channel 4 station, just preceding the Jeopardy! broadcast. The game show's premise is for contestants (three of them) to solve the on-screen mystery word puzzle...hinted at by its topic...by alternately guessing letters and spinning the wheel, which usually lands on a dollar amount for each time the letter appears in the solution...but sometimes also landing on "bankrupt" or "lose a turn". At the end of the show, which halfway through has a puzzle bonus game awarding expenses-paid travel to some exotic location, the player with the most accumulated winnings goes on to the final bonus round, where if they solve the usually very difficult puzzle they win lots more money...or a new car. Although I prefer Jeopardy! to Wheel of Fortune, I have always enjoyed Sajak's sly wit and the way he has fun, often at his contestants' expense. Back in 1989-90 he had his own late night TV talk show...which I liked...but apparently few others did and it was soon canceled. I like the way that contestants who are unlucky with the wheel's spin still have chances to win a lot of money on special challenge games in the show, and that no one leaves with less than $1000 even if they never won a round. There's a kind of corny, old-fashioned, relaxed and friendly spirit permeating this series, a real feel-good kind of vicarious experience. And I get a kick out of solving the puzzles before someone else does...
Monday, August 2, 2021
Recovering from Surgery
On Thursday, July 15th I underwent aortic valve replacement surgery as well as aortic aneurism repair, at the Shands Cardiovascular hospital. It was necessary to perform open heart surgery that involved splitting my ribs, so recovery has necessarily been a more painful and drawn out process than had I only needed the valve replaced. After some post-operatic concerns I was finally released this past Saturday and am now at home. In case you're wondering how I wrote daily blog articles through all this, I didn't, having written about three weeks of articles in advance. I was first diagnosed with the aneurism and bicuspid valve, the latter a defect that I've unknowingly had my whole life, in early 2012 and had been getting annual examinations as to the aneurism's size and the valve's appearance. My thoracic surgeon, who I've had through this whole process, this past April decided it was time for the operation, and after some initial hesitancy I agreed. He had given me his assent to engage in physical activity (such as running) that did not involve lifting heavy weights...while being careful to monitor my reactions. After I've fully recovered I want to return to running, but for now my goal is to gradually get better while keeping my lungs cleared...