John Nash and Me

I don't hallucinate. I don't think that people around me are all talking about me. I don't think that the people on my TV set can see me. I don't think that conspirators are trying to kill me with microwaves and fluoridated water. I don't think that everyone in the world is waiting with baited breath for the next "big thing" I say or do. I know that I am not Napoleon, Hitler, Jesus Christ, John Lennon, or Albert Einstein. I don't think I'm on a clandestine cloak-and-dagger mission for a secret government agency. I neither have an alternative memory of my life nor alternative personalities embedded within me. I don't think that people are following me or eavesdropping on everything I do or say.

Got all that? Good, now please don't call the folks in the white suits when you read what follows.

The personality of John Nash, as portrayed by Russell Crowe in the movie A Beautiful Mind, brings out a high degree of empathy from me. I understand this character, all of his mental illness notwithstanding (remember my first paragraph). For John Nash has a problem: handling the overwhelming, crushing nature of the world and the absurdly complex and manipulative nature of social interaction. Having this problem does not imply schizophrenia: I see it as a combination of two factors.

One, I am very sensitive to what goes on around me. I am painfully attuned with the emotions of those in my environment.

Two, I am much more sensitive to audio input coming in at me from multiple sources than are "normal" people. By that I mean that there are many crowded, bustling, and noisy situations where I can hardly contain the anxiety building up within me while the people around me actually seem almost ecstatic in the midst of this noise. It wasn't until I was well into adulthood before I realized this distinction between others and myself; I'm certain, though, that there are a few other kindred spirits out there who react to these situations as I do.

I can't say what the real John Nash was/is like; I never met him or read the book A Beautiful Mind. All I have to go on is the Ron Howard movie. But if what I've seen there is any clue to Nash's personality, then I can relate to his generally cynical regard for people, his suspicions about the motivations of others, and his tendency to severely judge himself according to standards that he expects no one else to live up to. The schizophrenic element to him and the way that Howard presented it in the movie made the movie more exciting, but it was the more subtle, sane characteristics of his personality that made the greatest impression on me in the long run. And I bet I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Senator Specter Switches Parties

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has decided to change his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, giving the majority party 59 votes (including two pro-Democrat Independents), and 60 once Franken is (ever) sworn in as Minnesota's junior senator. This would give the Democrats (and President Obama) the needed 60 votes needed to defeat Republican stonewalling tactics through their filibustering.

Senator Specter reportedly didn't switch for this reason, though. He recognized that his base of support among Pennsylvania Republicans was with the party's moderates. And many of them switched parties last year. So he knew that he would have a difficult time next year winning his own party's nomination for his Senate seat against a hard-line conservative, former Representative Pat Toomey, who was leading Specter among Pennsylvania Republicans in a recent poll. Specter, as a Democrat, may also have challenges in the primary next year, but his political ideology is not that much different from his Democratic Senate colleague Bob Casey (although Casey is pro-life and Specter pro-choice). I believe that this move was wise on the part of Specter, and the way should be clear now for him to win another term of office.

I have written before of my admiration and support of Arlen Specter. During the Republican period as the Senate majority party, he showed great fairness as the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman during a time of intense partisan rancor regarding Bush judicial appointees. My main concern now is for his health, for he has been suffering for some years now from cancer (Hodgkin's lymphoma) and has twice had to submit himself to periods of chemotherapy. I wish the best for him, both politically and personally.

Colds, Allergies, and the Swine Flu

All around me, throughout my family, workplace, city, and region, are people with issues concerning coughing, sneezing, and sinus congestion. A lot of this (such as my case) has to do with seasonal allergies. But it seems that, at this late time in April, the cold season has peaked around us as well. And that's awfully unusual, isn't it?

Everyone in my family has coughing and sneezing to contend with. I can't go to a grocery store or a Starbucks where there aren't several people who act "contagious" with their sniffling and coughing. And my recent trips to Jacksonville revealed loads of them.

And now, here we are with a swine flu outbreak, spreading from Mexico. That a flu epidemic can begin in mid-spring is also pretty unusual, isn't it? One wouldn't have to go to Mexico and back in order to spread it around others. Schools are letting out for the summer soon and families will be traveling around to other parts of the country and back. If the swine flu spreads just even a little more by then, we could see a critical situation developing in this country.

Although, in comparison with the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic that killed millions, the fatality rate for this swine flu is relatively low (I've heard the figure of around 4% maximum), it must be taken into account that back in 1918, the first wave of that Spanish flu was also relatively benign. And then it mutated into its deadlier strain and returned with a vengeance.

I don't want to sound like a doomsayer, but this swine flu does have me quite a bit worried. And with so many people around me (loudly) dealing with their colds and allergies, it seems more like winter than spring.

More Sufjan Stevens, Etc.

A couple of months ago, I discovered the musical artist Sufjan Stevens and have come to appreciate his works. Last week, I bought his 2006 release The Avalanche, which contains ever more good tracks. This album is full of material that Stevens left off his acclaimed Illinois album. I've also heard other songs of his, so I now have some new personal favorites to recommend:

From Enjoy Your Rabbit:
Year of the Monkey
Year of the Rooster
Year of the Dog
Year of the Boar
Year of the Ox
Year of the Tiger

From Michigan:
Flint
For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head
Sleeping Bear, Sault Ste. Marie

From The Avalanche:
The Avalanche (title track)
Dear Mr. Supercomputer
Adlai Stevenson
No Man's Land
The Perpetual Self
Pittsfield

From his Christmas albums:
Jupiter Winter
That Was the Worst Christmas Ever
Star of Wonder
Winter Solstice

And Niagara Falls, from his Michigan Outtakes.

Of the above, I like Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head, Niagara Falls, and Pittsfield the most.

Besides Sufjan Stevens, I've also recently been listening to Andrew Bird and Iron and Wine. Bird is a violinist singer/songwriter based in Chicago. So far I like his songs Heretics, Lull, and Masterfade the most. His lyrics are very clever and thought-provoking. Iron and Wine is actually independent/folk artist Sam Beam from Texas. I haven't been able to obtain much of his material, but I like what I've heard so far: the songs Boy With a Coin, Innocent Bones, Naked As We Came, and Lion's Mane.

I'm developing a good sense of the type of music I enjoy listening to the most and am using AOL Radio and LastFM.com to discover new artists.

Gainesville 15K Run and Coverage

I had signed up in advance over the Internet (and paid $30) to run in a 15-kilometer road race west of Gainesville Saturday. As many as 1000 runners were touted as being in the event (divided between 5K, 10K, and 15K runs). But the night before the race, I knew that I was physically feeling too bad to run it. So I skipped it, in my mind counting the $30 fee as a donation to the race's organizers (a non-profit group promoting cancer research). But it did make me feel that it would be better in the future for me to just wait until race day to sign up to run.

The Gainesville Sun was one of the local companies sponsoring this event. So, with its support and the large number of runners, I presumed that they would publish the race's results the next day. I presumed wrong. Although they did have enough space in the paper to publish a lengthy article by someone (once again) claiming that 89.1/WUFT (Gainesville's Public Radio station) plays too much classical music. Which it doesn't. Much of the sports section wasn't about actual sports events, but rather about the NFL Draft (which I couldn't care less about).

But back to the race: when I went to see the race course beforehand, I was told that it was over a 5K course. All three races would start simultaneously. The 5K runners would do one lap, the 10K runners two laps, and the 15K runners three. I drove around the course, which was simply a lot of zigzagging through the neighborhoods in the area.

If I am going to run a 15K road race, I would like the course to be more interesting. And not a matter of running laps! I wasn't there for the race Saturday, but I can imagine how confusing it must have been for the various runners of the three different distances at the lap marker.

In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't run. My body needs to recuperate and I didn't need to tax it any more than necessary. The above criticisms were more annoyances than anything else, so those alone wouldn't have kept me from the race. It's just too bad that my local newspaper once again is displaying its misplaced sense of priorities. Here was a community event with many participants, and for a good cause.

Blog Reprint from April 29, 2007

From time to time, I may reprint a blog article of mine from the past. This one is from nearly two years ago. I hope you enjoy it.

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EXISTENCE, SKEPTICS, AND SUBJECTIVITY

I have heard and read from many who refuse to subscribe to any belief pertaining to the ultimate nature of our existence except in terms of what the accepted current cumulative body of science has proven. When talk comes up about a person's sense of self, inevitably the response, with some possible variations, is that all that a person thinks or feels is determined by biochemical processes in their own body, particularly in their nervous system, and acted on by the other systems as well. Perhaps works are sited that show a person's spiritual experiences to correspond to heightened neural activity in specific parts of the brain.

Another objection these skeptics have to any nonmaterialistic view of existence, such as religion or spiritualism, is that they cannot accept knowledge of something that transcends our studied physical plane, especially when it concerns our mortality, by relying on the words of people who have claimed, whether it be from the ancient past or in the present, that they were closer to God (or, in the words of Desiderata, whatever they conceive him to be) then other people. For they see prophets, priests, shamans, imams, gurus, lamas, and all of the others who play this type of role as ordinary human beings tied to this material life and who are no further removed than anyone else from its restrictions, most importantly the restriction of eventual death. But the same skeptics should understand that this conclusion about religions and their leaders neither proves nor disproves the content of what the religions espouse. Subjective religious experience is valid and real for those who experience it. Which brings me to the problem I have with the first conjecture.

The problem I have with the explanation that all subjective experiences that an individual may have can ultimately be explained through biology and chemistry is that it is incomplete. Woefully incomplete, for there is a fundamental question that underlies the spiritual quest for meaning that I have not heard being asked. That question is not "Who am I?" or "What is my purpose in life?" (both obviously very important questions), but rather "What is the here and now?". This question can only be answered accurately by the person asking it and cannot be generalized or explained away. The answer is spiritual and real and it inspires a second question, "Why am I here and now, instead of there (another place, body) or then (another time)?" Science cannot answer the first question, and since the second follows directly from the first, it cannot answer either. For within the tenants of the philosophy of scientific investigation, the "here and now" is imbedded within the axiomatic role of the observer, a separate role on which depends the entire body of observed, empirical results of experiments that the totality of scientific expression rests. It also lies unanalyzed within the scientific process, not only as designer of the hypothesis and writer of the report, but also as the creative dreamer who conceives of which topic to investigate according to its relevance to science and society.

A doubter to this proposition may respond that any person's sense of here and now is due to their body's biochemistry, but this doesn't begin to address either the question of "what does here and now mean", or the corollary question of "why am I here at this time in this body and not someone else at another time?" I can address these questions by giving an honest answer: "I don't know! ---But I'm working on it."

One final point: when I earlier chose "skeptic" as a depiction, I used it not disparagingly, but rather to describe a generic belief system that many people abide by that discounts anything unproven by established science. However, there is a more precise usage of this term, whereby a skeptic does not necessarily believe something is untrue if scientifically unproven but rather objects to the unproven being portrayed as scientific. In this narrower definition I am a skeptic, too, acknowledging at the same time that reality cannot in its entirety be explained by science.
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I still hold to what I wrote in the above article. The bottom line to all of this is that, for me, life contains a big element of uncertainty, or mystery if you will. And I think that it always will. Perhaps others see it differently.

Rooting For Slytherin

At the end of the first Harry Potter book (and movie) The Sorcerer's Stone, the Hogwarts Academy student body and faculty are assembled to determine the house champion. For those unfamiliar with this, Hogwarts is divided into four houses: Gryffindor (Harry Potter's house), Ravenclaw, Hufflepump, and Slytherin (the "bad guys'" house). Throughout the school year, Slytherin has gradually been building up its seemingly insurmountable lead over the others. And Gryffindor is in last place, 150 points behind. The assembly hall is already decorated with the Slytherin colors, and the students at the Slytherin table are in high spirits. Then Headmaster Dumbledore, himself from Gryffindor, stands up to give the house champion award. But just before he does this, he gives Harry and his two Gryffindor classmates Hermione and Ron each 50 points. This ties Gryffindor with Slytherin for the lead. Then Dumbledore credits Gryffindor with 10 more points for another student's efforts to stop these three from doing what they did to earn the other 150 points! The results? Suddenly (surprise, surprise) Gryffindor finds itself in the lead, wins the championship, and the colors around the hall suddenly switch from Slytherin's to Gryffindor's.

What a rip-off! Sure, Harry and his friends were heroes and all that sort of stuff, but this last-second action of Dumbledore's smacks of a big fix to me. I was already ticked off at Potter for refusing a handshake with his soon-to-be arch rival Draco Malfoy, but this outrage at the end of the school year made me wonder whether or not I wouldn't be better off rooting for the bad guys. Sure, I know that in the end they will probably lose, but at least in the Harry Potter series, I always thought that Slytherin was easily the coolest and most interesting house. What does that say about me?

Some Observations

--I applaud President Obama for his willingness to communicate with other national leaders, especially of those countries with which the U.S. has strained relations. Like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea. He also doesn't practice the ridiculous and pointless social shunning that his predecessor made a fool out of himself doing. I'm sitting here looking at a picture of President Obama shaking hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Sure, there have been some harsh words coming out of Chavez's mouth about the U.S. (and Obama), but these ARE the leaders of these two important nations and they should show the decorum and dignity that their offices demand of them.

--The Fox News Network is quickly becoming a parody of itself, sinking into a quicksand of conspiracy talk, a phony tax revolt, calls for a Christian theocracy, and personal attacks against anyone associated with Obama or the Democrats on a national level. Sean Hannity can hardly open his mouth without regurgitating something slimy about last year's worn-out primary campaign story about Obama's old pastor, Reverend Wright. I can understand why conservatives wouldn't want to watch MSNBC with their liberal slant, but they can always tune in to CNN if they want to maintain some contact with reality!

--Madonna is getting a lot of negative attention in the press lately for adopting (and lately trying to adopt) children in the extremely poor southern African nation of Malawi. Instead of worrying what Madonna's agenda is in all of this, the media should be focusing on the attention she is bringing on the abject poverty and disease pervading this area. The way I see it at least, what is really annoying the public is that the pop singer is making them think about this very-neglected part of the world, instead of virtually ignoring it.

Gators' Donovan Unresponsive to Criticism

The University of Florida men's basketball coach Billy Donovan is experiencing a drawn-out mutiny of sorts, with four of his assistant coaches leaving for other jobs over the past four years and three of his players for this past year expressing plans to turn pro or transfer. I can understand that, with the two national championships that the Gators won in 2006 and 2007, opportunities for advancement would naturally arise for assistant coaches. But earlier, freshman guard Allan Chaney expressed plans to transfer to another school because he wasn't being given enough playing time. Star guard and leading scorer Nick Calathes will most likely (try to) turn professional after only this his sophomore year. And now starting center and number two scorer Alex Tyus has said that he is leaving UF for another college because he feels that he is more a power forward than a center, which is the position that Donovan insists he play. Donovan's reaction to all this seems to be to blame everyone else but himself. His explanation for the players leaving the way they are is that, with such a turnover in assistant coaches, the recruiting had suffered and UF didn't get the players who were really hungry to win and play as a team. In other words, he is insulting his own players! When one player leaves, that's one thing. But when several leave, a picture begins to form around a coach who is so certain of his correctness in everything that he regards his own stubbornness as a virtue.

Pat Dooley, the sports editor of my local newspaper The Gainesville Sun, wrote a column essentially sucking up to Donovan and exonerating him of any responsibility in recent Gator defections and dissent. Why would Dooley take this road? Could it be that he realizes that Donovan will be the one left in town and that he wants to cultivate a friendly, sympathetic relationship with the Florida coach to make his own job easy? If so, it raises a question about how legitimate local sports journalism is and can be. Or is the term "sports journalism" in itself an oxymoron?

I understand that Billy Donovan played a big role in Florida playing an excessively soft out-of-conference schedule these past two seasons. And that factored heavily in Florida being passed over for the NCAA post-season tournament. But since the Florida coach seems incapable of assimilating criticism, I expect more of the same next year. With Billy Donovan learning nothing, accepting no criticism, blaming others, and receiving accolades from his newspaper buddy Pat Dooley.

I'm planning to continue rooting for Billy Donovan's Florida Gators, but I'm afraid that their future success ultimately depends on an unlikely major attitude adjustment on the part of their coach. But I also acknowledge that Donovan has his own "formula" for winning (and winning is the bottom line for his employment here) and he doesn't want to stray from it. Even if it alienates his own players.

Just recently Richard Pitino, a Louisville assistant coach under his father Rick Pitino, was hired to be Donovan's new assistant coach. Hopefully, this new addition will be more in line with the Florida coach's "formula" and add some stability to the program.

UNF Starbucks

Right next to the library on the University of North Florida campus in Jacksonville is the largest Starbucks I have ever seen (being the backwoods rube that I am). Tables and seats abound everywhere. And along the very long window, facing the campus walkway, is an "endless" table with stools and chairs for students to study at. I wish Gainesville had a place like this. Well, maybe it does, I don't know. I haven't been to the Reitz Student Union at the University of Florida lately, and they have renovated the place quite a bit recently. I probably wouldn't recognize it if I went there. Still, this UNF Starbucks beats everything! Of course, it is specifically designed for the UNF students and faculty to use, so there would be an added emphasis on seating. But the sometimes very long lines move very quickly, due to the organized and efficient procedure the employees use to process orders. The only complaint I might have is that they probably need to turn up the air conditioning a bit. And it's awfully noisy (but what do I expect, anyway?). I could always take my drink to a table outside if I wanted to, though....

....and now I'm sitting at an even better (though smaller) Starbucks, located within the huge Barnes and Nobles bookstore on Town Center Road, still here in Jacksonville. It's actually a few days after the first part of this article (I really don't spend my entire life sitting in coffee shops). This quieter Starbucks is a welcome break from the UNF Starbucks, and the demographics are comfortably spread out enough across the population spectrum (at 52, I tend to stand out in that college crowd).

Florida Water Wimps

It never fails to amaze me how people around me panic whenever a little rain is falling on them. Out go the umbrellas, even for a little drizzle. And if no umbrella is handy, watch out! People who never run are suddenly transformed into world-class sprinters, madly dashing through the rain. As if they were going to dissolve from the water.

When I'm trying to maneuver my car around a crowded parking lot while it's raining, I have to be especially careful. For pedestrians, or simply people going to their cars, will often forget the most fundamental safety measures in their haste to get out from it.

I have lived my entire life (discounting my early infancy) in Florida. So I know what I'm talking about when I say that rain, and getting wet from it, goes with the territory. It cracks me up to be walking out of a building while it is raining, even lightly, and see a crowd of people standing huddled under a shelter, waiting for the shower to abet. What are they, water wimps? My words of advice to them is that they're Floridians, so they're supposed to get drenched in downpours every now and then! When it rains, they need to be bold: just walk right out there in the middle of it and shout to the world, "I'm a Floridian! I'm all wet!... and I'm proud!"

Knowing (The Movie)

I recently saw the new Nicholas Cage film Knowing. I don't think I'm giving anything away that hasn't been shown in the previews by stating that Knowing is about a mysterious document full of numbers that, when decoded, reveals a series of disasters that happened (after that document was written). And some pretty serious predictions about the future. Cage plays a widowed astrophysicist (with one child, a boy) who comes across the numbers and stumbles upon their meaning.

Once Cage figures out the document's code, he begins to extrapolate events revealed on it that haven't yet happened. And it is here that I have a serious problem with the way previews are cut from movies. Having previously seen the movie's preview, I already knew that Cage would be standing outside on a miserable, rainy day and witness a horrible jet plane crach up close. Before I walked into the theatre, I knew this. So when that particular scene of the movie unfolded, I already knew what was coming. And so did just about anybody else who saw the preview. But the crash scene was obviously crafted with the intent of completely catching the viewer off guard. But I suppose the movie's promoters figured that their desire to attract more paying customers outweighed any desired to uphold the integrity of the viewing process. What a shame.

For special effects, mood, and acting, Knowing was quite good. I thought that the explanations of the mysteries brought out in the movie were, however, stale and stupid.

For the above reasons, I recommend Knowing, but with reservations. Nicholas Cage enchances the value of any movie that he's in, and he went far to save this one for me.

Conspiracy Drums Beating Again

Immediately after Bill Clinton became President in 1993, the extreme right wing militia movement, along with certain radio talk show hosts, stepped up what was already simmering as a paranoid conspiracy rant. The claim was that there were certain bad types in positions of authority (tending to be Democrats, of course) who were plotting for a one-world government that was anti-religious, totalitarian and even aiming to severely depopulate the planet. Concentration camps were supposedly being built in various locations, and the evil black helicopters were continually being sighted hovering around doing something insidiously evil (or threatening to). All of this craziness culminated in the tragic terror bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, exactly 14 years ago. The perpetrators of this foul act were militia sympathizers with the typical nutcase conspiracy beliefs. After that, the conspiracy mood dissipated somewhat but resurfaced after 9/11. But that time the Republicans were in the White House and the loony accusations generally came from the fringe left.

Now Democrat Barack Obama is in office and here we go again. New concentration camps are supposedly being built to hold future dissidents. Socialists are supposedly plotting to take over the country. Obama is supposedly going to turn U.S. national sovereignty over to international organizations. But the problem I have the most with this new wave of nonsense is that much of it seems to be coming from the mainstream in the Republican Party, not just fringe societal elements.

So let me get this straight: a solid majority of voters put the Democratic Party into power in 2006 and 2008, creating the scenario where they control the Presidency, Congress, and most state Governorships. All by the elective process. How is that a conspiracy? It seems to me that any conspiracy charges should be laid at the feet of those who would subvert the election results by contesting already-decided elections (like the Minnesota U.S. Senate seat won by Al Franken) and stonewalling legislation and presidential nominees through procedural tactics.

NBA Playoffs Approaching

We've once again arrived at that time of the year when the National Basketball Association determines its champion through the playoffs, comprising the top eight teams in each of the two conferences. My favorite team, the Phoenix Suns, narrowly missed the playoffs this year, although had they been in the Eastern Conference their regular season record would have been good enough for them to be seeded fifth out of eight teams.

So I'm left with picking out other teams to root for. In the East, I have four favorites: the Florida teams Orlando Magic and Miami Heat (their lousy "conceptual" nicknames notwithstanding), the Atlanta Hawks (with former UF Gator Al Horford), and the Chicago Bulls (with former UF Gator Joakim Noah). In the West, I like the Houston Rockets (with Yao Ming and Ron Artest) and the Utah Jazz. I think Jazz guard Deron Williams is one of the great clutch players in the game. If those two go down in the playoffs, I'll probably end up rooting for the aging San Antonio Spurs to try to get one more great playoff season in.

All of my playoff preferences notwithstanding, I expect the NBA final championship series to be between either the Boston Celtics or the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East and the Los Angeles Lakers in the West. With the incredibly talented Kobe Bryant leading his Lakers to the championship.

On a side note, although I'm not specifically rooting for either of them, I plan to watch a little of two teams in the playoffs: the Detroit Pistons and the Denver Nuggets. Why? Because they feature players who tend to whine and complain a lot at the officials (and draw technical fouls). Especially when they're losing. I get a perverse pleasure watching the clownish act these crybabies put on!

Skydiving Accident

I just read how a 59-year old Ohio skydiver was killed during a jump when his parachute wouldn't open (and the reserve chute was opened too close to impact to avert fatal injuries). Apparently, the diver spent too much time with the first chute before resorting to the backup. And this sort of incident is the one thing keeping me from "taking the plunge" myself.

But why should it? Fatalities from skydiving accidents always get played up heavily in the press, but I doubt that the hazards associated with this activity are really any worse than getting in one's car and driving a few blocks down the road to the grocery store. Or riding a bicycle around the block. Or running on a treadmill for a few minutes. Or simply getting up out of bed in the morning. Or staying in bed!

I feel sorry for the man who died in this skydiving tragedy, as well as for his family and friends. But these sorts of incidents need to be analyzed: did the accident occur because of some endemic reason, or was it avoidable? Like many things, people can cut their odds of calamity down drastically by stringently following safety procedures. I don't plan to give up the idea of getting involved with skydiving at some future date. You can't go about your daily life totally consumed about avoiding accidents. Even if you just stayed at home, something bad could happen. Case in point: the man who died when his home in Binghampton, New York was hit by a crashing plane.

River Flood Threat

If it isn't one thing, it's another. As I have discussed in earlier articles, northern central Florida has had a problem in recent years with very dry weather and resulting widespread forest fires. This year, it looked for a while as if this would happen again. And it still might, but right now we're experiencing a hazard on the opposite end: the Santa Fe and Suwannee Rivers are rising to flood state, due to recent storms and torrential rains. And more rain is expected.

Although, from this I could conclude that our environment is "out of whack", it could simply be a case of what's really the norm for our area: alternating periods of flooding with dry spells and their concomitant fires. That this doesn't seamlessly fit in with the agendas of humans and human society doesn't necessarily mean that, environmentally speaking, this is such a bad thing. But it still is distressing.

I suppose that this sort of thing occurs just about any place that people set foot on and decide to stay a while. They may at first like the weather, but that's never the same. I remember the ending of Mosquito Coast (starring Harrison Ford and River Phoenix), when the fanatical father (played by Ford) decides that his family will live on an apparently idyllic-looking stretch of tropical beach. Only problem was that heavy storms, typical for that area, came in during the night and wiped out their new home, nearly wiping them out in the process.

I don't think there's any place on Earth immune from some sort of natural hazard or another. The temptation would be to assign a general cause for environmental disasters (air pollution, ozone layer depletion, acid rain, global warming). And sometimes this may be true. But sometimes "bad" things happen as a normality, not as an aberration.

Waldo and Lawtey: Speed Traps?

Recently, I've had the occasion to drive back and forth between Gainesville and Jacksonville a few times. On the way to Jacksonville, I hit US-301 in Waldo (a few miles northeast of Gainesville) and drive to I-10, which takes me into Jacksonville. Along US-301 there are two towns, Waldo and Lawtey, that have been designated as "speed traps" by the American Automobile Association. There are even billboards outside each city warning motorists that they are speed traps. But are they really?

Both Waldo and Lawtey are small, sleepy towns (especially Lawtey) that have that one major federal highway running through them. US-301 is a major road connecting Jacksonville with central Florida. Large semi-trucks continually thunder down it. It is normal for the speed limit in the countryside to be 65 mph. But within the city, it's necessary to bring it down (in Waldo to 35 mph and in Lawtey to 45 mph). Gainesville certainly does this with US-441, with a 30 mph speed limit in the University of Florida area. The only problem with Waldo and Lawtey is that drivers tend to ignore the reduced speed limit signs and speed through these towns, which are only trying to protect their own people.

Lawtey and Waldo have statistically handed out more tickets for their population than have surrounding communities. But a Waldo policeman, recently interviewed, stated that they don't pull drivers over unless they are driving more than 10 mph over the speed limit. And there are a series of signs on each side of both Lawtey and Waldo clearly warning of the coming reduced speed limit, as well as a clear statement: "speed limit strictly enforced".

Critics of these two towns argue that they are taking advantage of their strategic location along US-301 to nab passing motorists for the purpose of increasing their own revenue. And while the result make accomplish this aim, I believe that they are completely justified in enforcing their speed limit laws.

It is very frustrating to me, as a driver, to decelerate upon entering small towns along major highways while cars around me plow on through at the same speed, as if they were on the Interstate Highway System. It is even more than frustration when I witness drivers of large trucks doing this. If I were a citizen of Lawtey or Waldo, I would stand up in applause for their policies. Instead of them lightening up on their enforcement of speed laws within their boundaries, other cities in the area should emulate them and also strictly enforce speed limits. Not if someone is going just a little over the limit. But those cases when drivers hurtle through, not respecting the importance of slowing down through populated municipalities, should be enforced. Regardless of whatever the AAA says (or however many billboards opponents put up). Perhaps if this were the norm instead of the exception, we would see a reduction in traffic accidents and fatalities.

People these days are way too impatient in most everything they do. They are in a big, big, hurry to get from Point A to Point B. Not that they won't completely waste their time once they get to Point B! But God help anybody who slows them down one iota!

Presumption of Private Property

Since I like to run, I tend to look around my city and try to find feasible routes that I could train on. One very promising route takes me from straight from my house around a three mile loop and back. I wouldn't be running past house after house (which can be a liability over time, with ferocious dogs occasionally getting loose from their back yards), except for a small stretch of the run. No, most of the course has me running on sidewalks, asphalt or grass along main roads. But there is one small stretch of this route that involves me running behind two subdivisions and possibly crossing over into private property for about 100 yards. I've looked it over on GoogleEarth; there seems to be a pathway that I could run on, although there is also a clump of trees standing in my way as well. Should I just go ahead and see what happens if I run that stretch? I have never seen any "Private: No Trespassing" signs anywhere. Or is there automatically some kind of presumption of private property that I must make?

When I was a junior in high school, I was on the track team as a two-mile runner. Part of our practice involved long cross-country runs, some exceeding ten miles in length. We would run down all sorts of country dirt paths behind our school, which was (then) located in a rural area. Sometimes we would later be notified by our coach that certain areas were off-limits, since they were private property (with complaining occupants). But here too, there weren't any signs around to let us know this. My main concern back then (which is still a concern of mine nowadays) is that some of the folks whose land we were running through might have had some mean, biting dogs running around loose. And that wouldn't be a pleasant prospect at all.

So here I am, trying to decide whether or not to see if I can "complete my loop" by running this backstretch of possibly verboten land. Oh well, you only go around once in life, go for it!

The "Old Country"

I am currently sitting (at this writing) outside a new Dunkin' Donuts here in Gainesville near the intersection of Archer Road and SW 34 Street, a few minutes before I go in to work, about a mile down the road. Even on a relatively light traffic day as this, it is heavily congested in this part of town. The irony is that, back in 1980, I moved to this section of Gainesville because then it was so peaceful and quiet (and very close to my workplace)!

I still refer to this part of town as "The Old Country". I lived and worked here for six years and, if you include my present job, have worked here for eighteen more. I also met my wife here. The area began to drastically change in 1987, when a large field adjacent to my apartment became the site of a Wal-Mart/Lowes shopping center. Then restaurants were built lining up and down Archer Road. And finally, an expansive network of shopping centers were built further west, almost reaching Interstate-75. If I were to be transported in time from 1984 25 years into the future to 2009, I wouldn't recognize the place. But thanks to DD, it's a convenient, pleasant place to stop off at on the way to work!

Still, I prefer to hang out at the Magnolia Parke Starbucks on NW 39 Avenue, away from this incredible (for me) congestion. I honestly don't know what I'd do if I had to be in a big city like Chicago or New York for any substantial period of time.

Submission

In religious circles the concept of submission is often bandied about. One must submit to God, the church (or whatever the religious establishment is called), one's elders, one's spouse, the particular religion's scriptures, and so on. Sometimes people who have experienced this demand for submission within a religious body will rebel and abandon it, possibly even renouncing that religion (and any others) altogether. And I sympathize with these people, considering the enormous potential and temptation there is within religions for manipulation and abuse. But is submission in itself a dirty word?

Naturally, as social creatures, we all have to submit to laws and social norms in order to effectively function in our daily lives. That is a reasonable application of submission. But also, in order to accomplish anything worth accomplishing, we also must foster a habit of self-discipline. And that involves defining for ourselves our own standards, to which we then submit ourselves. This can be a most difficult form of submission, since there is ample opportunity for self-deception and backsliding without immediate social consequences. But I hold that it is ultimately the most important form of submission there is.

Some people interpret the concept of freedom as being freedom from submission. But in order to be a viable, responsible adult, one must have the self-discipline to submit him/herself to standards that ultimately enhance freedom by opening up opportunities and enabling positive social feedback from achievements. But one also needs to develop the wisdom to distinguish that from manipulation on the part of others who seem to have issues with control and power.

On Second Thought...

I had written up an article for yesterday on this blog and was about to publish it when I read it over one last time. And then concluded that I had written stuff that I didn't really believe. It concerned a distant memory, more than thirty years past, and the behavior of an individual within that memory. In my article, I had sugar-coated that behavior, which in reality had badly offended me. So I'm going to have to rewrite that article and probably use a different example to make my point. It's hard for me to forgive certain people in my past, especially since they themselves couldn't care less. They may also be in a position, like that particular individual, where they are unable to care less, due the fact that they are dead.

This tendency to distort one's memories of childhood is highlighted in the very disturbing hour-long Twilight Zone episode titled The Incredible World of Horace Ford. In it, a grown man has created an alternative memory of his own childhood that he eventually must come to grips with in order to survive in the present, real world. Being a kid isn't all fun and games. And some of the negative experiences can have a scarring effect throughout one's life. I think that, as an adult, it is important to be honest with myself about those experiences while recognizing that my reality is in the present, not my distant past.

The Useful Enemy

President Barack Obama had better be careful with his attempts to bring down Al-Qaeda, solve the Afghanistan War by engaging with the Taliban, improve relations with adversaries Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, and have more cooperative relationships with other nations. He may be left without a "useful enemy" against which he can rally his country around him. After all, that is what his predecessor, George W. Bush, was a master at. But, perhaps our new president has his own ideas about who (or what) our enemies should be.

I believe that Barack Obama is a true idealist (as opposed to W., a cynic) in that he sees the challenges ahead as not fighting enemies, but solving problems. He sees this country's abandonment of its manufacturing base, the diminishing and politicizing of our science, our overdependence on foreign sources of energy, the state of health care and its debilitating effect, both economically and psychologically, on the people, and the growing threats to our environment. And of course, terrorism. He believes that the U.S. should reach out and engage in cooperative efforts with other nations to tackle these challenges.

Still, President Obama may find that fighting concepts may not carry the same political clout as fighting tangible, named targets. I wonder whether, in a year or two, we'll have a new set of "enemies" to get all worked up over.

In this vein, I also wonder who in Obama's staff will emerge to shape and manipulate this concept of who and what our adversaries are. You can be assured of one thing: we will always have our enemies, if for no other reason than that our leaders need them for us to feel that we need our leaders to protect us from them.

2009 Major League Baseball Starts

The start to the 2009 Major League Baseball season began Sunday, with the Atlanta Braves defeating defending World Series champion Philadelphia 4-1. One game down, only 161 more to go! How can anyone get interested in individual games that mean so little? The only redeeming factor would be if the actual games were interesting to watch. But to me, baseball is so-o-o boring!

I should be tickled that my home state Tampa Bay Rays won the American League pennant last year. But I was only mildly happy about it. They're probably going to settle down this year to a respectable third-place finish in their division behind Boston and New York. I generally root for the Yankees anyway, so that doesn't bother me.

In the National League, it is time for the Florida Marlins to peak during their six-year cycle and win it all. They won the World Series in 1997 and 2003, and here we are in 2009. Ironically, even with two championships behind them, they've never won their own division! But it doesn't matter. Even if the Marlins have a lousy spring season, they'll surge in late summer and make the playoffs. Assuming they conform to the "pattern" (I hope). I guess by this you can conclude that I'm not exactly very scientific in my baseball analysis.

I've given up trying to pick the different divisional winners. One team can do really lousy one year and, with little change to their lineup, will burn up the league the next season. Or the reverse.

I suppose that, as in previous years, I will continue to make the Atlanta Braves my traditional team of choice to root for. But I don't even know most of their players, and I don't see myself setting aside time to watch their games. Oh well, it's spring. Maybe by July or August I'll see things differently.

Most Wanted?

I'm not sure whether to just laugh or to express my gratitude at the "apparently" diminishing rate of serious crime in my home county. For at the bottom of page ten in Monday's Independent Florida Alligator newspaper is a "Most Wanted" ad, showing a mug shot of a 32 year-old man. The horrible crimes for which he is wanted and the ad and his picture posted? "Resisting Officer Without Violence, False ID Given To Law Enforcement Officer and Driving While License Suspended 2nd Offense." A phone number is given at the bottom of the posting for any snitch inclined to turn the poor loser in.

Now I have a theory concerning the police and our society's level of criminal activity. I believe that, regardless of how "criminally" people are behaving, the police are going to get in their quota of citations and arrests. If the community were suddenly to stop all felonious crimes, and even desist from serious misdemeanors, the police would be handcuffing people and hauling them in for jaywalking or loitering. Wait, come to think of it, they may already be doing this for loitering. Night after night, on my way home from work, I see a number of police cars parked at one of my local public parks (which has no closing times). I wonder what would happen if, some night, I were just to pull in to the park, park my car, get out, and just go sit on a park bench to gather my thoughts. I wonder how long before they slapped the 'cuffs on me! Or if I escaped their grasp, would my picture grace the next day's paper? What's really sad is that, a few years ago, I would have regarded this as a paranoid rant if I heard it coming from someone else's mouth. Now I'm not so sure. I know in my heart that the police are protecting me from criminals who would do me harm. But I also feel that many of our police regard me (and others in general), not as a citizen under their charge to protect, but rather as a prospective arrest to be plucked "out of the crowd". This makes them seem more like predators than protectors. The fact that police testimony during trials is usually accepted without question by juries just increases my disquiet.

Me Studying Chinese

Having decided a little while ago to concentrate my foreign language study on learning Chinese, I have begun to set aside time in the day to accomplish this. I am in the process of writing out the characters I am learning that will make my total at about 3,500 (from 1,700). This should enable me to more effectively follow the text in Chinese newspapers and give me a more fighting chance at understanding spoken Chinese. I did have a bit of a setback on the Internet: I can't seem to get the VOA Mandarin Chinese webcasts, which I had been planning to download on to my MP3 to listen to at work . However, as I reported in yesterday's article, I did find some podcasts from the BBC and Australia in Chinese that I was able to download. Also, I have a Chinese reader that I study from time to time. But I find myself disappointed for not having spent enough time studying Chinese.

So, in summation my strategy with Chinese for now is to learn the new characters, find some way to download webcasts onto my MP3, listen for long stretches to those webcasts, read Chinese text off the Internet, and continue to study my graded Chinese readers. I don't have someone with whom I am have regular contact to practice speaking Chinese with. Should that change, I'll have another dimension added to my study.

Exploring and Downloading Podcasts

I've just discovered the enormous quantity and variety of podcasts available for free downloading. I am currently using the site Podcast Alley to find various types of podcasts which suit my interests. So far, I've downloaded Dan Carlin's Hardcore History (about history, of course), Dump Runners Club (a Colorado-based runner gives some pretty good running tips), and Chess is Cool with Chess Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk (ranked #5 worldwide for women). And I've only begun to explore what's out there. At first, I had wanted to get some political podcasts, but the ones I found, both pro-left and pro-right, were so crude and hate-filled that I decided to defer that for a while. But there are many other categories to explore. And I can listen for long stretches of time at work on my MP3 player. Much better than the radio!

I also discovered sites that enable free, legal downloads of music that (some) artists provide to promote themselves. The best one I've been using is BetterPropaganda. You're not going to get the Beatles or Rolling Stones, but some of the more obscure acts can be quite generous in providing some free samples of their works.

I've also discovered that certain radio stations, such as BBC and Radio Australia, have downloadable podcasts in Chinese, the language I am currently learning. So I can also listen to those podcasts at work, as well.

One "down" side to this is that, since I've been devoting so much time to listening to my MP3 player, I haven't been keeping up with the news as much. So a lot of what's going on has been passing me by. Maybe I should just set aside a certain time each day to just catch up with the news. But I can accomplish this by perusing my daily newspaper and click on a couple of news websites (like CNN.com). I don't need to keep up-to-date on what the professional spin-doctors are doing.

ID Check

One of the problems I've heard that our national intelligence services have in infiltrating terrorist cells is that they are usually very small and intimate, as well as cut off from each other. The members don't protect the security of the cells by wearing identification badges on their shirts; they simply recognize each other by sight and voice. But for domestic U.S. citizens, going about on their daily work business, we've gone "ID Crazy". Just take where I work.

I suppose that, if there were any place in which security measures are justified, then the U.S. Postal Service would be high on the list. It has suffered from highly-publicized attacks of violence in the past, as well as the anthrax terrorist attack in 2001 that killed some of its employees. So I'm all in favor of security. But the way they are trying to accomplish this leaves me a little confused. Take the identification check, for example.

On a regular basis, floor supervisors are required to walk around the workroom floor and check to make sure that all employees under their authority are sporting their own official (with picture) ID badge. The supervisors go around with a clipboard and check off names as they do this. This is supposed to be a security-enhancing procedure. But how? In doing this, the supervisor is only checking people that (s)he already recognizes as being legitimate employees, not suspicious outsiders. And the different floor supervisors and managers all have a pretty basic understanding about who is supposed to be there and who isn't. By recognition, not by badges. When a "stranger" (such as an outside auditor) does make an appearance on the workroom floor, heads turns everywhere, and a "buzz" goes around, through employees and their supervisors, regarding the "strange" presence. There is nothing official about this; rather, it is the same type of security sense that those subversive cells use to keep out intruders. It is much, much more sophisticated and difficult to crack than the crude official methods that management concocts.

Conversely, if a person who was unfamiliar to anyone did happen to show up wearing an "official" badge, this would in itself do little to alleviate concern about his/her presence there. That individual would stick out like a sore thumb!

There is also a segment to this argument regarding the actual security of entrances, and how restricted the access to the building's interior really is. But discretion tells me that perhaps this blog isn't a very appropriate forum in which to discuss it. That is regrettable, because actual entry to the facilities is much more important within the discussion of security than inane ID badge checks.

Sufjan Stevens

A few weeks ago, I was listening to AOL Radio, on their "Indie Rock" channel. I lucked out, getting a string of great songs (later on I found out that this wasn't the norm). In the middle of it was a song titled Chicago by someone called Sufjan Stevens. It was the best of the lot, and I investigated this artist on the Internet.

Sufjan Stevens is an independent/alternative popular musician who grew up in Michigan, lived in Chicago, and now resides in New York. He has made several albums since since his debut A Sun Came in 2001. Stevens put out an electronica album titled Enjoy Your Rabbit, based on each of the signs of the Chinese Zodiac (Year of the Monkey, Year of the Tiger, etc.). He has released five Christmas albums as well as an album of original Christian-themed folk songs (Seven Swans). But his best works, in my opinion, are his "fifty-state project" albums.

Around 2003, Sufjan Stevens released an album titled Michigan, which then examined various aspects and locales of that state. A couple of years later, he repeated the process with his Illinois (technically titled Sufjan Stevens Invites You to Come On Feel the Illinoise). Illinois received much critical praise and several awards in 2005, but didn't break through to the general radio airwaves. It contains 15 full songs, each of which I regard as excellent. And the themes are, naturally, Illinois-based: cities like Chicago, Decatur, and Jacksonville; the holiday Casimir Pulaski Day; the Palisades; the Sear's Tower (transformed by Stevens into The Seer's Tower); the depraved serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr.; and the nineteenth century Black Hawk War, to name a few topics. By the way, if you count the or's, The Black Hawk War, a two-minute wordless-but-sung track, is the longest title that I have ever encountered: The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!' .

Stevens is an accomplished musician in several instruments and sings with a soft, soothing voice. But his lyrics are often very cutting, and his clear vocal delivery gives the listener little opportunity to miss anything he has to say. He also recorded his albums with multiple tracks. On Illinois, he separated the lengthy instrumental endings of some of its songs by calling them separate pieces. That gave two alternative endings for some of the songs.

Various rumors have floated around as to whether Sufjan Stevens will follow through on his expressed plan to record albums about all fifty states. He is a bit of a prankster, so who knows. But Illinois came out about four years ago, so he needs to "get cranking" if he wants to accomplish this before the "Star Trek Era" commences around 2060 (my way of saying "before hell freezes over")! I personally doubt that he will continue his "states" theme much longer, seeing that his first two, Michigan and Illinois, have strong autobiographical themes to them. I expect much of the same in any later works as well.

Here are my favorite Sufjan Stevens songs so far (with their albums in parentheses):

1: Casimir Pulaski Day (Illinois)
2: Jacksonville (Illinois)
3: Chicago (Illinois)
4: Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois (Illinois)
5: Come On Feel the Illinoise (Illinois)
6: In the Devil's Territory (Seven Swans)
7: All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace! (Michigan)
8: Decatur (Illinois)
9: The Henney Buggy Band (The Avalanche)
10: Jason (A Sun Came)

But We Need the Rain

North central Florida, today, tomorrow, and Friday. Flood watch until then. Take THAT, you pesky forest fires!