My Personal Running Report for April

Today is the last day of the month, and as such I will discuss how my running went.  In April I managed to barely exceed my monthly goal of total 100 miles, coming in at 101.  I managed to run at least a little on every day of the month, although for some of the days it was just a very small, token amount (due to sickness, among other reasons).  I don't know exactly how long my longest run of the month was since I tended to break up my runs over the course of the day into smaller runs and then add up the total.  This isn't the direction I want to be headed in, but for April it had to suffice and was better than simply abandoning running.  I do intend to get back into longer runs in May, even if it entails taking more days off in between for recovery...

Two Aspects to the Donald Sterling Controversy

The controversy surrounding the racist comments of the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has dominated the sports (and news) headlines during the last few days.  New NBA commissioner Adam Silver yesterday banned him from the league for life, as well as fining him $2.5 million and setting into motion the process that would eventually lead to him selling his team.  Sterling's comments were atrocious...there is no argument about that.  He had to go because the brand name of the NBA and its reputation was at stake.  Apparently, this guy had a low opinion of blacks and of associating socially with them: so why did he buy an NBA team?  Probably, I'm guessing, to make a big profit (which he did) and to look like a bigshot in the media (which he also did).  After Silver's announcement, there was a long procession of people reacting with praise for his strong actions against Sterling.  And I understand how Silver needed to protect the league.  But there's one important element largely missing from this discussion, an element that I only heard brought up on Fox News Channel (on Megyn Kelly, not Bill O'Reilly)...

The comments attributed to Donald Sterling that got him into so much hot water were all part of a PRIVATE phone conversation he had with his girlfriend, who very well may have illegally recorded it (violation of California state law) without his permission and then released it.  Sterling had neither said nor written anything of the kind for public consumption: this wasn't one of those gaffes you hear about from time to time coming out of the ignorant mouths of public figures.  No, this was an INVASION OF PRIVACY!  A commentator on CNN today said that the girlfriend claimed that Sterling had given her permission to make the recording...and that may well have happened...but in the absence of any tangible proof supporting that claim or of Sterling's own confirmation thereof, the burden is on her to prove her claim.  After all, anyone can violate someone else's privacy and then claim the other's spoken permission...

Think about it: are any of us immune to saying things about others that don't reflect well on us?  Don't we believe that we should be protected from having our private discussions made public without our permission?  Sterling is reputed to have $2 billion to his credit and isn't likely to be financially ruined...not by a longshot.  But for the rest of us, having personal, private information illegally leaked to the public could well cause financial ruin for ourselves as well as make it difficult to recover after the public scrutiny and humiliation. I'm thinking of all of the celebrities who lined up to condemn Sterling and laud Silver's harsh judgment and wonder how many of them, if not all, have said things in private that, were they publicized, would have ruined them as well.  Think about it, and then ask yourself why the invasion of Donald Sterling's privacy is receiving such a relative lack of media attention...

Premature Summertime Weather Here

Well, it's starting to look as if the typically long Floridian summer has begun.  No, I know summer doesn't officially start until late June, but where I live here in Gainesville, temperatures are skyrocketing.  It's in the low 90s right now; last night around ten, when I left to go to work, it was a stifling 78 degrees!  I think that's what bothers me the most about the summertime weather here...I can take scorching hot temperatures in the middle of the afternoon, but I can't get any relief in the nighttime. At least the humidity hasn't been too bad so far, but I expect suffocating heaviness in the nighttime air to couple with the heat during the next few weeks.  And don't get me going about how bad the mosquito nuisance can get.  Not a very pleasant place to hang out, the outdoors at night in northern Florida.  I think I may just stay cocooned for as long as possible in a cooled, insulated indoor environment. Hooray for air conditioning!

Players and Pieces

In George R.R. Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, the first book is titled A Game of Thrones.  Game of Thrones is also the title of the HBO television series that is the on-screen adaptation, largely (but not exclusively) for those not wanting to be unduly hampered with the possibly arduous task of actually reading something.  The title in itself suggests a way of looking at life...a worldview, so to speak.  In the struggles for power among hereditary houses of nobility on the make-believe continent of Westerlos, individuals seeking that power engage in a mishmash of schemes, conflicts, and alliances to defeat enemies and elevate themselves.  Some, like Queen Cersei and Petyr Baelish, wholeheartedly participate in this "game of thrones".  They also tend to recognize what they are doing and show respect to those like-minded, whom they appropriately designate as "players".  And what do they call anyone who isn't in on the "game"?  The pejorative term "piece".  You're just a "piece" (applied to doomed Lord Eddard Stark in the series) to be used and disposed of at the convenience of the players. And it's apparently the fault of those "pieces" who refuse to play the game...because they're in it whether they want to be or not.

Martin's fantasy world has its own limitations regarding its applicability to our real world, but the player-or-piece choice is present in our lives, whether we want to admit it or not.  Let's say you don't want to be a player in politics and stay home from the polls on election day, as does most of the electorate on a consistent basis.  Then by refusing to "play the game", you are then empowering a small number of very powerful people to unduly influence elections with heavy campaign spending targeted at getting their own voters motivated to go to the polls.  These "players" depend on you staying out of the process; by your absence you become a useful "piece" in their designs. Also, as a adult you are likely to be at least nominally involved in a number of groups, be they professional, religious, educational, charity, and so on.  It is the rule, rather than the exception, for people to jockey for power within even the most benignly reputed groups...and this can make someone like me want to just avoid them altogether.  For which, I'm sure, many within them regard me as a useful "piece"...although I doubt that they'd put it exactly that way. Still, I would be no more a "player" were I to become more actively involved...because there are two sets of rules: the outwardly expressed charter of beliefs and missions of an organization...and the inwardly unspoken rules of the "game of thrones", which tend to rule the day.  No, I don't want to play the "game of thrones"...and I don't want to end up like Eddard Stark either, not even figuratively...  

Two Blown Baseball Games

I was sitting through two different major league baseball games last night, both involving Florida teams playing on the road.  That they were "away" games is important, because this figures into what happened in the bottom of the ninth inning, when the home teams were up at bat. The Miami Marlins overcame a deficit they had endured for almost the entire game and scored a couple of late runs to take a 3-2 lead over the New York Mets, going into the bottom of the ninth.  For New York's last chance, the Marlins had as their regular closer Steve Cishek, who I understand hadn't blown a save opportunity since June of last year.  Which is saying a lot, since Miami wasn't very good last year!  Unfortunately, for this game Cishek just didn't have his usual stuff and the Mets batters hit him hard, culminating in a walk-off hit that won the game for them 4-3.  I was disappointed that Miami had lost, but I understand that sometimes your ace reliever is just having a bad night.  And sometimes the other team is having a good one!  And then, there was the Rays game...

The Tampa Bay Rays were in Chicago playing the White Sox (by the way, I'm following both the White Sox and Mets and root for them whenever they are NOT playing a Florida team).  The game, which the Rays had threatened to blow wide open in the second inning, was locked 4-4 before Evan Longoria put them ahead late with a two-run homer.  Then, it was the bottom of the ninth and manager Joe Maddon brought in his own closer, Grant Balfour.  Balfour, who had been picked up by the Rays to be their closing relief this year, has not been very effective for them.  I remember another game in which he was trying to protect a slim lead and it looked for a long time as if he wasn't capable of throwing a strike.  Well, if anything, he was worse last night and walked batter after batter.  The lead had been whittled down to 6-5 and the bases were loaded with two out.  Balfour pitched to Jose Abreu and did manage to find the strike zone on one of his pitches.  Which the Chicago batter then proceeded to hit for a game winning grand slam home run.  Final score: Chicago 9, Tampa Bay 6.  The Rays closer managed to pitch only two thirds of an inning while giving up FIVE runs!!  My problem isn't just with Balfour, though.  Why didn't Maddon intervene when anyone could see what was going down and bring in someone else?  There's only one reason I see for him sitting on his hands: maybe he's letting this sorry performance be Balfour's swan song as a closer and he'll switch to someone else.  Otherwise I don't know whether I even want to watch the end of a close Rays game if they're going to bring him in again.  I understand and appreciate that Balfour is trying his hardest to be a good pitcher and help his team out, but, unlike with Cishek, he has not inspired any degree of confidence with his appearances this year.  I say keep him on as a middle reliever and let someone else get a shot at closing. Who knows, maybe he'd use the time in middle relief to get his effectiveness and confidence back...

Just Finished Reading The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

The Great Hunt is the second book in Robert Jordan's lengthy The Wheel of Time fantasy series. I'm determined to go ahead and try this series out: so far, so good.  Two books down, twelve to go...

The objects of the "great hunt" are two items: the Horn of Valere, a device when blown would call into service an army of the dead from eons past (sound familiar, all you Tolkien fans?).  The other is an enchanted (with evil) dagger that one of the protagonists, Mat, is bound to and must possess in order to avoid death.  Rand, the main hero in this epic, is more interested in recovering for his friend the dagger, which along with the horn has been taken by Padan Fain, a powerful servant of the dark lord (and Rand's arch-nemesis) Ba'alzaman.  The quest takes Rand and his party to a land recently conquered by a cruel society invading from across the ocean.  It is here that the struggle to recover the missing items reaches its climax, culminating in another big confrontation between Rand and Ba'alzamon (I'm beginning to suspect that this will be the case at the end of each book).  A subplot within the story is the ordeal of the women Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, and Min as they are betrayed into slavery to the conquering Seanchan by an Aes Sedai named Liandrin and struggle on their own to escape.  There are several other characters who figure into the story, including some from the first book Eye of the World and a few newly introduced here.

If there is a theme to be examined here in The Great Hunt, and in the Wheel of Time series as a whole, it is the struggle between the notions of free will and predestined fate for an individual.  Rand, like so many other protagonists in other series (Richard Raul, Frodo, Harry Potter, Neo, etc.) is deemed "The One", upon whom everyone else depends to deliver them from the clutches of the evil one.  And like the others I've mentioned, he rebels against his seeming helplessness to resist the various forces that relentlessly drive him toward accepting the role of savior that he so strongly wants to deny.  With the Wheel of Time alluded to by the series title, time itself is circular and reincarnation the rule: Rand is forced into confrontation after confrontation with his evil counterpart through life after life...it reminds me of an old Star Trek episode in which two men from different universes are forced into eternal battle in a kind of "middle" zone, between one who wants to cross a boundary and cause complete annihilation of everything, and the other who sacrifices himself to prevent this and save all of creation.  I expect more of the same in future books.  I like this series so far, but I also see so many subplots going on with so many characters (with a lot more to come, I'm confident) that it's starting to resemble the chaotic world in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.  I'm beginning to see how, in the end, it might well take up to fourteen volumes in order to just tie up all the loose ends...

Delving Back Into Old Science Fiction Short Stories

I have a large collection of old science fiction short story anthologies.  Back in the 1980s Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg undertook a project to assemble what they considered to be the best sci-fi short stories published each year from 1939 through 1963, a span of time that they termed "The Golden Age of Science Fiction".  I tend to agree with that appellation: these stories tend to tower above others within this genre. I know this because I bought every volume in the series!  Each book is titled The Great SF Stories, followed by a number.  "1" represents 1939, "2" is 1940...and so on to "25" (1963).  After this series ended, Donald A. Wollheim began his own series, titled The [year] Annual World's Best SF Stories, covering material originally published from 1964 through 1990.  I own those as well. Since then, Gardner Dozois has been engaged to this day editing his own popular annual science-fiction short story anthologies. And there have been other "year's best science fiction" series as well.  But my favorite series is the older Asimov/Greenberg one.

In recent years I've gone more for full-length novels than short stories, and those old anthologies have fallen into storage instead of use.  But I'm thinking of pulling them back out and reading them.  This would be a lot easier if I could digitalize them and put them on my Kindle...  

Just Finished Rereading C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair

I just finished rereading another book in the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.  This one, titled The Silver Chair, is the next-to-last book in this series, at least as the narrative unravels chronologically...although I believe that Lewis wrote it before a couple of others.  It is one of only two novels that completely exclude any of the Pevensie children (Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy) who are the series' main characters (besides Aslan, that is).  However, there are other visitors from our world as Eustace (from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) returns from Earth to the fantasy world of Narnia, this time along with a girl named Jill as they go there to escape bullying from their "experimental" school (reminds me where I went to school).  Although Eustace and Jill believe that they made their choice to get to Narnia by their own free will, their encounters with the Narnian lion lord Aslan indicate that it was he who put the idea into their heads...and that he has an important mission for them.  They are to seek out and free from bondage Rilian, the imprisoned son of now-very-old King Caspian (of two previous books). The Prince just happens to be in the Underworld under a spell cast by a witch queen very reminiscent of the enemy in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  But first Aslan gives Jill specific instructions about what to do at specific times...instructions that both Jill and Eustace (when he hears of them) generally fail to implement.  But Aslan is faithful to his own plan for Rilian's deliverance and engineers events to aid the children in their quest in spite of their mistakes.  One crucial element is the addition of a peculiar man-like Narnian named Puddleglum, a "marshwiggle" with a comically morose and spindly appearance and demeanor...who entertains a completely erroneous notion of how others see him.  Puddleglum tends to take over the story with his antics and turns out to be a great hero in the effort to release Rilian.  I can see that Lewis had a lot of fun developing this character!

The "silver chair" in the story's title is an enchanted silver chair that the evil witch queen binds Rilian to whenever her enchantments on him, which cause him to forget who he is and place him under her domination, begin to wear off.  This chair to me symbolizes the spiritual bondage that Christians suffer at times in their walk through life.  That makes sense, because after all, the entire Chronicles of Narnia series is an allegory of Christianity, with the lion Aslan representing the Christ of mercy, justice, redemption, and divine power.

Ultimately, as in all of the other Narnia tales, Aslan must intervene in order to set the wrongs to right and mete out justice and mercy in his own measure.  Specifically how it all ends...I'll leave that to you, the reader, to find out for yourself.  The Silver Chair, although not one of my favorite Narnia books, is worth reading if for no other reason than for its depiction of that Puddleglum, a depiction that somehow reminds me of gloomy and hilarious Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy fame. Who knows, maybe Lewis, a contemporary of Laurel, used him as a model...

Seasonal Change and My Running

With it currently being in the middle of spring, my home region of north central Florida is kicking in to the warm, and eventually hot, weather.  Along with this comes an unofficial end to the competitive running season in this area, at least as far as the longer distances are concerned.  I did manage to get in one half-marathon race a couple of months ago, but for various reasons never got around to another. With the exception of the Lake Minneola half-marathon down in Lake County this coming weekend, I don't see anything offered in Florida besides those sadistic-sounding trail races near Miami, held once a month during the worst of the summertime. There are, to be sure, still those local fundraising 5K events that appear on the racing calendar: there's one this Saturday on the University of Florida campus and one several miles west, in the town of Bell.  And on Saturday, May 10, an interesting early evening 5K is set for Tioga, just west of Gainesville.  Maybe I'll enter one of these, but regardless I think it's time I begin to seriously consider getting myself into better condition for the longer races in the fall.  And this  doesn't just involve running longer and harder in practice: I've gained quite a bit of weight over the past year or so and have to deal with that extra load each time I plant my foot on the ground and push ahead on each run.  Time to be more rational with my eating...

I just underwent an annual medical exam that cleared me for another year regarding a condition that I have been afflicted with since birth but didn't find out about until a little less than three years ago.  Did the tests I just underwent show any worsening? No, if anything, things seem to be better, so I am happy to feel empowered and medically cleared to go back to my running...although those days of training for full-length marathons may be a past memory.  I'm also going to have to figure out a way to handle this problem of my seasonal respiratory allergies, with all of this pollen in the air...   

Discussing Languages As I Plod Along

I'm currently about 70% through reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  In it the protagonist, a young man named Theo, has as a dubious friend someone named "Boris", with whom he went to high school for a spell.  Boris speaks several languages fluently, including Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian..all of which he picked up from early childhood and from living in countries that spoke them. Theo, who speaks only English, tries to learn more Russian by taking classes...his progress is naturally slow.  When he meets back up with his old friend after a few years' absence, Boris quickly dismisses the worth of all of Theo's linguistic endeavors, claiming that all he needed to speak Russian was to spend a month in Moscow.  Or, I might add, to either have been born there or to have had parents who spoke it to him from early childhood.  I think that's how a lot of people see learning languages as well...that it's a waste of time to study it on your own away from where the targeted language is spoken seems to be the consensus opinion. I never run across others like me who enjoy gradually getting to know different languages by self-study.  No, either they speak whatever language it is as a first language or they picked it up by living abroad.  I know a couple of people who underwent intense language training in the military and used their abilities in intelligence work.  But none can relate to me about language in the way that I see it. Even if I go somewhere, even to Moscow as fictional Boris suggests to fictional Theo, and learn to speak Russian...and there's nothing wrong with that, maybe it's a good idea...I'm still left with the other languages I like to study as well.  What am I supposed to do, become a travel junkie?

Once I was taking a class in Polish at the University of Florida.  At the time, in the late 1970s, UF had a student exchange arrangement with a college in Poznan, Poland...hence the existence of this class, largely to train students planning to go there.  I took the class because I wanted to know more about Polish.  One of my classmates, who wasn't going on the study abroad trip to Poland but had learned Russian by dint of having been in military intelligence, was also taking the class. One day before class we were speaking casually and I happened to bring up to this individual something specific to how some nouns in Polish were declined (Polish is linguistically, like Latin, a very synthetic language in which declensions and conjugations abound). This dude suddenly broke in on me and curtly told me in no uncertain terms that he did not go for discussing grammar like that: that wasn't how "he" looked at languages.  End of conversation...that put a serious damper on my ability to communicate with this talented but self-centered and rude individual. His irrational abruptness at my having brought up an aspect of Polish grammar, in a Polish language class no less, may seem to be an extreme case, but it is an example of the irony of people who refuse to discuss aspects of the languages they speak.  It reminds me of those scenes in the The Matrix when Trinity suddenly finds herself in need of knowing how to fly a helicopter, or when Neo wants to learn martial arts.  They both simply have the knowledge and ability downloaded by computer straight into their brains in a matter of minutes. There's no way they could discuss with anyone how they learned what they learned; such conversations would be meaningless to them.  I think that people in general nowadays see language learning that way: if it doesn't come quickly and effortlessly, then you're a fool for trying it. And don't dare ever to try discussing Polish grammar with a linguistic diva...

The Way I Like to Watch Baseball

Although I take an interest in how various major league baseball teams are doing in the standings, while at the same time usually rooting for one team over another while watching a particular game, winning or losing is not why I enjoy watching baseball...and by that I mean "watching baseball on television".  No, it doesn't matter whether the score is close or not, or how late or early it is...covering an inning in baseball is like a mini-game in itself.  Or should I say "half-inning".

Each half-inning is a little, complete story in itself...furthermore, each at-bat within each half-inning is its own story, too.  It's all about base positions, the ball-strike count, and how each individual hitter strategizes to handle the strategies of the pitcher.  This fascinates me, and also enables me to tune in and out of baseball games with ease, half-inning by half-inning.  Add to that the familiarity I am gradually attaining about the players on the teams I follow and baseball doesn't have to be the boring spectator sport that I've heard so many describe it to be.  Plus, there are little aspects to it here and there that give it a flavor peculiar to the sport.  For example, in a Miami Marlins home game yesterday one of the batters hit a long home run that landed in a pool.  One of the fans then promptly dove into it to retrieve the ball (with his cellphone hand held high out of the water).  Or when the bat girl in left field foul territory promptly scooted over and deftly fielded a ground ball...that had just been ruled fair.  Or the tale end of last night's Yankee-Rays game when New York manager Joe Girardi, seeing his team hopelessly behind 14-1 to Tampa Bay with one more inning to pitch, decided to send utility infielder Dean Anna  in to pitch it instead of using up someone from his pitching staff.  Anna gave up a couple of runs, and his pitches all looked like they were being thrown in slow motion...but he got a lot of them over the plate in the strike zone.  The cameras panned the Tampa Bay dugout, showing the grinning and laughing pitchers (including their ace David Price) watching this display.  I liked that stand-in pitcher if for no other reason that he took almost no time between pitches...how refreshing!

I'm looking forward to seeing more "diamond duels" this spring and summer, half-inning by half-inning...

Major League Baseball Standings So Far

It has been almost three weeks since the start of the Major League Baseball regular season.  Too early at this point to discern many significant trends, it's still fun to check up and see how teams are doing in the standings, especially in the East Divisions where I'm concentrating my attention (as well as the Chicago and Los Angeles teams in the other divisions).

In the American League East, first and last place are separated by only three games, with the New York Yankees on top at 10-7 and the Boston Red Sox in the cellar at 7-10.  Everyone else is bunched in the middle, around .500: Baltimore (8-7), Toronto (9-8), Tampa Bay (8-9).

 In the National League East, Atlanta has propelled itself into first place (11-5), largely through excellent pitching and early dominance over Washington.  The Nationals at 10-7 are right behind, doing it with their bats and benefiting from early-season dominance over Miami, which largely because of their difficulty in beating the Nationals is in last place at 7-10, just behind Philadelphia at 7-9.  The New York Mets, which just dealt away first-baseman Ike Davis to Pittsburgh, are in the middle at 8-8.

The Chicago teams, both in the Central Divisions, are struggling a little, the Cubs more in the National League (4-11, dead last) than the White Sox in the American (8-9, fourth place but only a game out of first).  The Cubs have displayed some really poor fielding over the games I've seen them play...but there was one inning yesterday when their pitcher Jeff Samardzija teamed up with first baseman Anthony Rizzo to execute three consecutive sparkling ground ball plays at first.  But that sort of play regrettably has been the exception, not the rule. The surprise standout team in their division has been the Milwaukee Brewers (12-5), not the three other teams from it that made the playoffs last year (St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati)

The Los Angeles clubs seem to be faring well, with the NL Dodgers tied for the lead in their West Division at 10-7, despite having their premier starting pitcher Clay Kershaw out with a back injury for the start of the season.  The Angels in the AL are smack in the middle at 8-8.

It's too early to tell how all of these teams will do over the course of the season.  Right now, besides noting the promising performances of the Braves and Dodgers, and the slipshod play of the Cubs, it seems that all the others are just trading wins and losses with each other right now...  

Foreign Languages...and Me

I am an enthusiast for the study of foreign languages...although I am in no way an expert on them, either from the standpoint of being a linguist or of being terribly fluent in any.  But it is part of the tapestry of who I have become over the years that I am attracted to different languages and enjoy studying some of them on a regular basis. 

Spanish was "my" foreign language that I took through high school.  It a seemed a logical choice to study because, after all, I was living in close proximity to Miami.  But it wasn't until I left high school and went to college that I actually developed an interest in learning it.  The first foreign language I studied as a personal interest turned out to be German, starting in 1974. At this time I began to watch more Spanish-language television as well.  My German teacher (and one of my all-time favorite educators), Fred Curry, was methodical and clear about presenting the basics...and because of this I realized that I could take upon myself more individualized study of other languages.  He later began teaching Russian in 1976...at this time I learned the Cyrillic script used in that language and can write and read in it as well as in the Roman script.  I also took a class in introductory French in which I learned that, all surface appearances to the contrary, written French is quite easy to pronounce as long as you know the rules.  During the summer of that year, while listening to my shortwave radio one night, the mainland Chinese international  English language service had a program teaching Mandarin (the official national dialect of Chinese).  It was then that I was introduced to the concept of tones, which are important in Chinese (as well as other languages like Vietnamese, Thai, and Burmese).  Later, in 1981, I purchased the entire set of Chinese textbooks by Doug DeFrancis (published by Yale University Press) and went through them all, learning the writing system and amassing about 1,700 characters, which I continue to review on a weekly basis from memory.  In spite of this, I in no way felt competent in the language and have always regarded it as a work in progress...as is the case with the other languages I have been studying.  From 1979 and into the early 1980s I knew a few Vietnamese people who put up with me practicing their language with them when they probably would have just preferred practicing their English with me.  Of all the languages I've studied, it is Vietnamese that I have used the most in direct communication with others. I also briefly studied Polish and Arabic...and took a class in introductory Japanese in 1989 at UF. 

Currently I am engaged in studying seven different languages: Chinese, German, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Hindi, and Hungarian.  Daily I write out sentences and practice vocabulary in them, using the learning site Quizlet to help with vocabulary.  My progress is painstakingly slow...especially by the standards of the world.  But I enjoy it as much as (or more so than) someone watching their favorite TV shows or going out to play golf.  It is a satisfying, positive, and progressive kind of recreation for me. I have no doubt that living for a time abroad and becoming completely immersed in a particular language would dramatically expedite my learning, but I currently have no such plans.  Still, who knows what the future will bring... 

NBA Playoffs Approaching

The National Basketball Association has finally reached the end of its long 82-game regular season and is now ready for the playoffs. Although there are some surprise teams that made it this year (Toronto, Charlotte, and Washington), the great majority of this year's 16-team field are experienced in the post-season.  This is all in spite of the supposed parity in the league that would provide the best of the new entering talent in the annual draft to the teams at the bottom.  Instead, though, we have the same teams year after year fighting it out for supremacy.  So ancient San Antonio walks away with the best overall record and Oklahoma City is right on their heels in the Western Conference.  The familiar faces of Houston, Los Angeles (Clippers), Portland, Golden State, Dallas, and Memphis round out the field there and promise some pretty competitive series in the weeks to come.  The Eastern Conference had been dominated by Indiana and two-time defending champion Miami, but each has floundered in the closing weeks and don't seem much better than the rest of the field...especially teams like Brooklyn, Chicago, and aforementioned Toronto. And Atlanta somehow managed to avoid missing the playoffs with a late-season surge, in spite of their momentous mid-season slump and overall losing record.  But I expect both the Pacers and the Heat to pick things up and keep advancing toward a repeat showdown with each other.  I'm looking forward to all the playoff action...

As for the teams I'm rooting for the most, I'd like to see Miami and Brooklyn do well in the East and San Antonio and Memphis succeed in the West.  I think a Heat-Spurs repeat finals would be perfect...

Presidents Past, Present, and Potential

Ever since the so-called "Bridgegate" scandal that I believe was designed by the opponents of New Jersey's governor Chris Christie to eliminate from presidential consideration the one Republican in the country who was consistently outpolling Hillary Clinton, his name has faded and suddenly, almost out of the blue, former Florida governor Jeb Bush has been getting a lot more press attention.  H-m-m, I'm sure that's just a coincidence, or is it...

I've always had a higher opinion of Jeb than his brother George W., and wish that he instead had served as president from 2001 to 2009.  But back in 1994, when the two brothers were simultaneously running for governor in two important states, George won Texas in a squeaker over Ann Richards while Jeb lost Florida, also in a squeaker, to Lawton Chiles.  This gave George the political advantage over his brother by already having been in office for more than one term before the 2000 election.  Meanwhile Jeb, who ran again in Florida and won in 1998, was only in there a couple of years and was behind his brother on the national political scene.  Had things happened just a tiny bit different in Texas and Florida in '94, our history no doubt would have been vastly different.  Of course, the same could be said about the 2000 presidential election when, in Palm Beach, Florida, a misguided "butterfly" ballot design caused thousands of voters to vote for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore, handing that state (and the election) over to Bush by just over a 500-vote margin.

George W. Bush, who liked to pride himself as being a "decider" while in office, nevertheless was heavily dependent on his vice-president and advisors for the direction that led to his "deciding".  From my experience living in the state for which he was governor for eight years, I feel that Jeb is someone who tends to think more for himself and uses those around him more for information and less for direction.  But please don't get the notion that George W.'s emphasis was necessarily wrong: our current president Barack Obama also seems crystal clear about his own sense of direction for the country...but unfortunately often seems to display an unsettling and frustrating degree of indecision.

Rachel Maddow on MSNBC continues her almost nightly obsession to nail Chris Christie as the mastermind to the bridge closings on the Hudson River late last year that tied up traffic for a while.  But this story has lost its traction and I don't hear too many others, even on MSNBC, which is noted for its more liberal, pro-Democratic Party leanings, pushing this story.  But the damage has been done to Christie, at least in the short term.  Don't think that I'm being partisan here, though.  What happened to Christie recently is nothing compared to what I believe will be unleashed against Hillary Clinton in the next couple of years by HER opposition in the media (especially on Fox News Channel)...

Just Finished Reading (Again) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

In my reexamination of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series, I just finished reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, his third written and published of the series and the fifth in the chronological order of the ongoing narrative.  In this book, Edmund and Lucy find themselves visiting their spoiled, selfish cousin Eustace...and are all suddenly sucked up through a picture of a sailing ship in the bedroom. The next thing they know, they are back in the company of King Caspian of Narnia, this time on the open sea as he is sailing eastward with his crew on a boat naturally called "Dawn Treader" on a quest to find and return seven loyal lords of his father who had fled when his usurping uncle had murdered him and assumed the throne.  Also, it has been rumored that beyond the very end of the world, which lies at the edge of this sea, stands the Lion Lord Aslan's kingdom where his subjects can live throughout eternity with him.  Reepicheep, a talking Narnian mouse, who is known for his bravery and chivalrous honor and was introduced in the previous book Prince Caspian, is on the Dawn Treader for this expressed purpose. They encounter a number of adventures on their quest, including being captured and sold into slavery (and subsequently rescued by one of the lords they are looking for).  Eustace learns a lesson about selfishness, greed, and caring for others on an island when he walks away from the others and eventually finds himself in a dragon's lair in a hidden valley.  This story-within-the-story, of Eustace and the nature of the dragon he "encounters" upon awakening there is my favorite section of the book.  Hint: Aslan figures greatly in the resolution of the adventure and Eustace's safe return to his companions on their trip.  For most of the rest of the voyage, they engage in a sort of island-hopping, meeting up with peculiar situations and people (including a young woman with whom Caspian becomes enamored) as they eventually account for the remainder of the missing lords.  The most memorable of these visits is on a mysterious island populated by invisible people who demand that Caspian and his friends find, in their magician lord's book of spells, a way to make them visible again.  Lucy bravely undertakes this task and then undergoes her own personal temptations, for which Aslan suddenly appears to help her deal with.  They meet the magician, who turns out not at all as sinister as the Dufflepuds, who are what those invisible strange folks call themselves, had been claiming. The spell is reversed, the Dufflepuds are rendered visible once again, and their true appearance is, well, quite a surprise.  As well as is the true identity and origin of that magician.

At the very end of Dawn Treader, they suitably reach the very end of the world, and Reepicheep sees his opportunity.  Aslan is there, too, and he has sobering news for Caspian, Edmund and Lucy. But I'll leave all that to you, the reader, to discover for yourself.

When I first read through The Chronicles of Narnia a few years ago, I decided then that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite of all the books.  I still like it a lot, but now I prefer The Horse and His Boy. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has also been made into a movie (I hear that it didn't do too well at the box office).   I'd like to watch it sometime if, nor no other reason, than to see how the movie treated the written versions of Eustace's dragon adventure and the account of those strange characters, the Dufflepuds... 

Houston Should Pick Manziel in First Round of NFL Draft

From time to time I tune in to one of the sports talk radio shows on my AM radio dial.  Sometimes they are discussing football matters, which can be a little difficult to listen to in April, on the opposite side of the year from the football season.  Still, the folks running college and professional football are shrewd enough to schedule essentially around-the-year events to draw interest, even this far away from any games (except arena football, which also in a shrewd way is going on right now).  One of the premier events about to happen is the NFL draft.  Naturally, the greatest interest spent here is the first round, when the top prospects coming out of college get picked by teams, usually by order of how badly those teams did the previous year.  And this time around, there's no team that was as bad in 2013 as was the Houston Texans.  The consensus pick among the sports media seems to be that the Number One overall choice, and hence Houston's first round pick, will be defensive end Jadeveon Clowney from South Carolina. However, just a few miles from Houston, Texas, on Interstate 45 lies College Station, the site of Texas A&M University where "Johnny Football" quarterback Johnny Manziel just completed his exciting college football career.  Manziel decided after his junior year to enter the NFL draft and is expected to go high, probably in the first round.  But the talking heads on sports radio seem to think that he isn't up to the level of the National Football League, and that the Texans should select Clowney or someone else and bypass Manziel.

One of Houston's glaring problems this past season has been its lack of an effective quarterback, ultimately the most crucial and central position on a team.  Manziel has consistently shown his passing talent, as well as an ability to adjust quickly to opposing defensive schemes.  Against Alabama in a losing effort last year, Manziel helped spur his team, in a close game, to 42 points against what was generally regarded as the best college defense in the country. One of the criticisms against him is that he is too small for the NFL, but then so was Drew Brees, or all-time record rusher Emmitt Smith for that matter...if you believe the experts.  The most important trait I see in an effective quarterback is the ability to QUICKLY size up, at the start of each play, what's going on with the defense and what the options are to get around them.  A good offensive line will help buy time to do this, but if a quarterback can't quickly adjust and put the ball into play then it won't do much good anyway.  Conversely, a sharp quarterback can compensate for a deficient offensive line.  I believe that Manziel has the ability to be like those successful NFL quarterbacks who can make those decisions and move the ball down the field.  Besides, with the automatic huge fan base Manziel brings to Houston and the southeastern Texas area, sellouts are most likely to become commonplace with the Texans should they make him their franchise quarterback.  But neither business acumen nor successful team-building is necessarily the rule when it comes to the draft...

In 2010, after Tim Tebow finished his Heisman Trophy/two national championship stint at the nearby University of Florida in Gainesville, the Jacksonville Jaguars, desperate for a decent quarterback, had a chance to draft him.  It's true that Tebow isn't the archetypical NFL quarterback prospect.  For one, he's a bit off with his passing accuracy.  For another, he seems to have some difficulty with sizing up defensive strategies as a play is developing.  But Tebow is a strong exhorter and leader, and makes a team better than its parts.  He also is a terrific rusher and can poke gaping holes in opposing defenses just by taking the ball and plowing on ahead.  But even more than that, Tim Tebow would have solved Jacksonville's consistently woeful attendance problems by filling up their stadium game after game.  So what did they do? They bypassed him...and still have quarterback problems after awful 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 seasons.

Houston may be about to make a similar mistake with Manziel... 

Just Finished Reading Terry Goodkind's Chainfire

I have just completed my reading of Chainfire, which is the ninth book in Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth fantasy series.  Depending on where you get the information from, I now either have just two more books to go through until I finish the eleven-part series or there are more books as well...for Goodkind continues to write novels about protagonists Richard and Kahlan to this present day.  But for my own sake I will cap it at eleven.  I expect some serious resolution to this series in the next two books, titled Phantom and Confessor. Maybe in the subsequent books a new story line begins (I hope).

Chainfire is a mystery novel, even regarding the cryptic nature of its title. It revolves around the disappearance of Kahlan and the erasure of anyone's memory of her ever having existed...with the one exception of Richard, who spends a great amount of time and effort trying to convince all of the doubters around him.  In spite of his (and ultimately my) frustration with this, it all is explainable in the end.  But Richard, in order to find out what has happened to her, has to go on his own quest in the face of being regarded as mentally ill by others, who think that he has invented Kahlan in his mind.  Since I already wrote about Kahlan being in subsequent novels, I suppose you can assume that she IS real (in the context of this work of fantasy fiction, that is).  It's a little touchy for me to decide how much to tell about how Chainfire ends because, as is the case with stories in general, I don't want to ruin the experience for anyone interested in tackling this series for themselves.  But I will say that Chainfire is not a complete story like the previous eight Sword of Truth books; there are many significant loose threads and perils that must be dealt with in the last two books of what is essentially a trilogy embedded within an eleven-volume series.  But I felt good about the ending and am quite eager to embark on Phantom, the next book...

Our Overwhelmingly Ignored City Commission Election

The final run-off vote for the open Gainesville City Commission at-large seat was held this past Tuesday.  Melissa and I managed to get out to our precinct late in the afternoon and vote our preferences in this race, which happened to be the only thing on the ballot.  Two Democrats, the more traditionally liberal Helen Warren and the more conservative Annie Orlando with her curious environmentalist/Sierra Club ties, had been running neck-and-neck in the first election.  Who knows who would win this run-off election?  So once again, while continuing to note stories being put out on MSNBC about how different states under Republican administrations were trying to suppress the vote, more than 85% of the eligible Gainesville voters freely decided on their own NOT to participate in this particular election.  As it turns out, Warren won in a squeaker by just a little more than a hundred votes.  One of my acquaintances, who has a passionately hard-right orientation to her political opinions and has all politicians starkly divided between the "good guys" and the "bad guys", was infuriated that Orlando could lose to Warren.  For myself, I could have accepted either result; my main gripe is about the overwhelming "vote" among our citizens to abdicate their hard-fought-for right and ignore the election.  We had our brave young men and women sent over as soldiers to Iraq and put their lives on the line, in part to help bring democracy to that suffering land...and those Iraqis bravely responded on a massive scale to vote, even in the face of death threats.  But look at how casually we take voting for granted over here. We have compulsory jury duty...I don't see 85% of those summoned failing to respond to their summons.  How is voting essentially different from jury duty?.  Aren't both crucial civic duties for a democratic republic that is ruled by law? I think we've got our priorities confused if we think of mandating people to buy health insurance policies from private companies before mandating them to get off their butts and go vote...

Some Comments on Gutfeld

Greg Gutfeld is an interesting character.  He is a commentator on the Fox News Channel, hosting his own show called Red Eye as well as appearing regularly on their The Five, which appropriately comes on at 5 PM weekday afternoons. Politically, he is staunchly in the camp of the conservative Republicans, venting much of his righteous wrath with angry-sounding tirades against Obama and Obamacare. In spite of this, though, I get the impression that it's all a mischievous, fun game to him.  Sometimes I agree with him and sometimes I don't.  One issue that I'm on Gutfeld's side about is the suffocating degree of political correctness regarding what you can't say if you don't want to be accused of being a "hater" (read my recent article about two politically incorrect words).  In this he is also, like me, sensitive to the double standard I see where it's apparently O.K. to trash practicing Christians but it's bigotry and hate if you say anything critical about Islam.  I say let all the criticism flow freely about any faith and its practitioners ...and put it all out there on the table for discussion.

Greg Gutfeld is funny and makes me smile, even when he is off on one of his anti-Obama rants (I tend to be more supportive of the President). His show Red Eye, though, makes little sense to me with all of the nauseatingly silly, giggling guests sitting around the table trying to sound witty.  They aren't witty.  No, Gutfeld's best show is definitely The Five.  But he said something the other day on it that I have to take issue with: his contention that the Republicans are better on civil rights because they were the party of Lincoln and they freed the slaves and brought about Reconstruction. That may have been true from the time that the Republican party was formed in 1854 until the great financial crisis rocking this country in 1873...when they essentially decided to abandon Reconstruction and the rights of freed blacks in the South and instead became the party of the wealthy and big business.  They stacked the U.S. Supreme Court with justices who took the crucial Fourteenth Amendment that would grant equal rights to blacks and allowed individual states to apply it as they saw fit by drastically restricting its application to cases strictly involving interstate activity.  Instead, incredibly, they then applied the due process clause contained within that amendment to protect big business in case after case that they heard for a period spanning decades.  And of course the Republicans were only too happy to abandon Reconstruction and their "Radical" label in 1876 when, after stealing that year's presidential election between their guy Rutherford Hayes and the real winner Samuel Tilden, they played the card of withdrawing federal troops enforcing Reconstruction from the South to appease southern states that had voted for Tilden in the election but whose electoral votes had been handed over to Hayes. 

But that's all pretty old history, anyway, as far as I can see it. I like to think that, on some issues at least, people in general have become more enlightened.  I think things with race are better than they were, but I also think we still have a long, long way to go.   But Gutfeld's historical take on it leaves something to be desired.  Those pro-segregationist white Southern Democrats he speaks of who opposed civil rights for blacks for decades went over in droves to the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s. So with this flip-flop regarding parties, it is pointless to go back in history and try to credit your political party now for something that happened in the distant past.
   
Greg Gutfeld has a new book out now titled Not Cool, which I am currently in the process of reading.  More on this later...

Enjoying Major League Baseball on TV

For the past week and a half, I have been enjoying the opening games in the Major League Baseball regular season.  As I had written in an earlier article, I decided to focus my attention on the East Division teams in each league, with the intent on getting to know the lineups by position, batting order, and pitching rotations.  It's been fun looking these things up on the computer...ESPN is a great reference.  I click on "MLB", then "Teams", then the team in the pop-up window, then either its depth chart or "Transactions" (which lists players out with injuries).  Some of the teams I've seen play more than others...naturally I see more of the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins but also the Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies, and especially the Washington Nationals.  So far the only team in the East I've missed has been the New York Mets, but it's just a matter of time before they show up on my screen.  The team that impresses me the most so far is Washington.

I also decided that it would be a good idea to take the other four divisions in baseball and pick one team in each to follow and get to know as well.  Logically, I picked the biggest markets...so I am also following the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels in the American League and the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers in the National. 

I was lucky this first week in April in that my local cable provider was giving us a free sneak preview to both HBO and the Major League Baseball channels.  So for a while I was channel surfing back and forth among several games at a time...as well as Game of Thrones (which seemed to be going on 24/7 on one of the HBO channels).  But that freebie is over now, and I am confined to watching either the Rays/Marlins games on a couple of Florida sports channels, Cubs/White Sox games on WGN, assorted games on the MLB Network (which isn't a premium channel on my cable lineup), or whatever ESPN happens to be offering.  As it turns out, the MLB Network is the only one right now offering a game, but it is a good one: Boston Red Sox at the New York Yankees!   

Just Finished Reading Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World

I have embarked on a new fantasy series at the same time that I am nearing the end of another (Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth) and am waiting for the next entry of a third (George R.R. Martin's ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire).  The new series I've started pursuing is the late Robert Jordan's 14 volumes of The Wheel of Time.  Sadly, the author died before he could finish this ambitious project and Brandon Sanderson filled in to write out the final three books.  From what I could gather, this series is highly regarded, so here I go. And I have just finished book #1, titled The Eye of the World.

With The Eye of the World, we once again find ourselves in a different world with a different map and history.  Magic runs rampant here and is connected to two opposing forces: one female and pure...and one male and tainted.  The premise as I see it is that the ultimate hero and the ultimate villain are locked in a continual struggle against each other for the control of the world, a struggle that transcends individual lives (as the "Wheel of Time" turns).  The same entities resurface through different people over the course of time and reengage with the conflict.  The last confrontation had been disastrous, with terrible destruction and loss of life brought down upon the world...apparently the fault of the "good guy".  But the main story in this book takes place much later and revolves around the lives and exploits of three young men named Rand, Mat, and Perin...along with three women Egwene, Nynaeve, and Moiraine.  Moiraine is a member of the Aes Sedai, a group of magically endowed people who are connected to the female force.  She has a protector with her, the Warder Lan.  Also with the group is a traveling entertainer, called a "gleeman", named Thom Merrilin. The story flows around the efforts of these to flee evil forces pursuing them, and how the past figures into the present regarding the true historical identities of Rand and his two friends.  The antagonists chasing them are composed of the murderous trollocs, who I suppose are Jordan's version of J.R.R. Tolkien's orcs (only more animal-like) and their leaders the Myrddraal, all who serve the evil lord Ba'alzamon. 

There are parallels between this book and the first book The Fellowship of the Ring in Tolkien's Lord of the Ring series: (1) the fleeing from evil pursuers dominating the narrative, (2) the obsession of Mat about an evil dagger reminiscent of the pull of the Ring on people, (3) a wizard-like protector of the group (Moiraine instead of Gandalf) (4) a brave and mysterious man, Lan, who bears a degree of similarity to ranger Aragorn in the Ring trilogy, and (5) the Shire-like unassuming home town of the heroes, the isolated Emond's Field.  But that having been said, Jordan's story is ultimately distinctively different and plays upon different themes...as well as giving the lord of evil a more active, interactive role in the story. He repeatedly has unpleasant conversations with Rand, Mat, and Perrin through their dreams, continually inviting them to either join him under his authority or be destroyed.  

Without giving away the ending to The Eye of the World, I will just say that it was satisfying in that a complete story was delivered here...while ensuring that future volumes will be needed to clear up mysteries and resolve the ultimate conflict.  Overall, I liked this first book in a long series although it got a little muddled with all of the inevitable new terminology, complicated historical background material, and new "rules of magic" that get put out with any new fantasy series... 

This Blog Now Seven Years Old

It is now exactly seven years to the day since I began this blog, and I have tried with mixed results to produce daily articles.  It is personally-themed, partially about stuff going on in my life and partially about my opinions on different topics I pick up on in the media.  But most of all, it represents a daily discipline of writing for me...along with the presentation of that writing for public inspection.  Hope you enjoy reading it!

As of today, my blog contains 2,262 articles.  You are welcome to go through the archives, which you can access in the upper left margin.  If there is a special topic, then by clicking on a label at the bottom of an entry (this entry naturally contains the labels ANNIVERSARY, BLOG), this will reveal the articles I've written that include the theme you're interested in.  Or, you might just want to pick out a block of time in the past and see what was going on then.

I try in this blog to be upbeat about my personal life, while steering clear of anything hinting of gossip.  Sometimes I do make some statements about society and people in general, and I will discuss public figures by name since, well, they are public.  If you discern where I'm at politically (and I don't hold back in this area), then in all probability it won't exactly be where you are politically...please keep in mind that I respect others who don't share my opinions on the issues and also to please don't take things personally: in the end I'm just one person among some seven billion!

During the past few weeks I have begun posting links to my blog on Facebook and Twitter.  I enjoy reading others' posts on these two remarkable social media sites, but my main purpose here is to make my writing more available for reading.  Maybe at some time in the future I'll be more interactive with Facebook, but for now this blog will just have to suffice...

Two Politically Incorrect Words

With all of the problems facing people nowadays, there are some who are obsessed with words that people use.  I don't mean the hateful epithets of the type that Norman Lear satirized coming out of the mouth of bigot Archie Bunker in that old groundbreaking series All in the Family.  No, I'm talking about words like "bossy" and "thug" that describe behaviors and are applicable across the board, regardless of race, sex, or religious beliefs.

There has been a strange movement afoot among some feminists to stigmatize the use of "bossy" because it supposedly is only aimed at women.  That's strange to me, because I have heard it used quite often to describe men's behavior as well.  "Bossy", as I have come to learn of its general usage definition, is used to describe the behavior of someone toward others that goes beyond the agreed-upon authority level that said person possesses in his or her relationships.  So perhaps a manager or supervisor in the workplace somewhere might tell a subordinate to get for him (or her) a cup of coffee or exert pressure to contribute to a personally favorite charity...or a kid in a school class small group may automatically assume the role of "leader" and assign tasks to members without any authorization from them.  Apparently, though, some women feel that "bossy" is just used at them and not at men.  To me this is a preposterous statement.  "Bossy" may not be the most diplomatic, love-inspiring thing to call someone, but it doesn't come under the heading of "hate speech" either. I've used it myself...and haven't slanted my use to make women seem more bossy than men.  To me, bossiness is something that people sometimes need calling out on...I have a right and, ultimately, a social responsibility, to assert myself against overly aggressive people who go beyond their established, specified authority over me. Maybe using the word "bossy" isn't the most diplomatic way to go about this, but it is an accurate description of the problem...

The term "thug" is another example of a term that one group...or at least one representative of that group, i.e. professional football's Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, deems inappropriate.  In his case, he thinks it is used in a racist sense against blacks...maybe he has a point here, though.  You see, I would myself employ the word "thug" to describe a bully...with weapons.  So the appellation as "thugs" of the groups of (white) armed pseudo-soldiers who occupied Crimea a few weeks ago seems fitting.  This obviously has nothing to do with race.  But I heard the word "thug" thrown around Sherman after his outspoken comments following last year's NFL championship  game...and it didn't make any sense to me either.  Sherman is brash, to be sure, but he is also a well-liked pillar of his community and is no "bully with weapons".   Maybe here we are seeing a special use of "thug" that stereotypes a certain type of cultural presentation within the African-American community that somehow tries to imply that it is inherently criminal.   

I would like everyone on Earth to get along and have sparkling personalities and never hurt one another or make mistakes.  But since none of this is true, then our language needs to have some words that serve a criticizing and corrective function to educate and guide those exceeding the norms of acceptable behavior.  And sometimes, although it may be hurtful, hearing someone call you "bossy" or that you are acting like a "thug" may be an important warning sign that there is a problem with your behavior that needs your attention. I understand the well-intentioned reasons behind those seeking to ban the use of these words, but the only thing that this will accomplish is to raise up substitute euphemistic language that conveys the same meanings. Anybody from any segment of society can be "bossy" or a "thug". If you eliminate these words, the problems won't go away...talking about them will just be made taboo...
   

Condolences, Congratulations in NCAA Men's Final Four Hoops

Condolences and congratulations are both in order after the Final Four games in the 2014 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament.  Condolences to Wisconsin and (especially) Florida after their respective losses to Kentucky and Connecticut, who in turn receive my congratulations.  The victors will face off on Monday to determine this year's national championship. 

It is ironic that Kentucky, a team that Florida beat three times this season, might well end up with the title...but the Gators don't have a say in that matter anymore since they were just decisively defeated by the Huskies.  Florida's shooting was atrocious in yesterday's game: usually when some players were cold, then someone else would step in and be able to make the crucial shots...not the case with this game.  They just didn't have anything going on the outside, and UConn defended very well in the paint. 

I'm not sure which team to root for in tomorrow evening's game.  Part of me wants the Southeastern Conference to do well nationally, but part of me recognizes the serious rivalry between Florida and Kentucky in basketball.  So I don't know...frankly, I'm not all that interested anymore in who wins.  Had Florida not advanced, I had been hoping that Louisville would have gotten to this final title game.  But Kentucky had already knocked them out earlier in the tourney.

Still, looking back on the season, it's been a great run for Florida.  They won 30 in a row, went 18-0 in the SEC regular season, and did make it to the Final Four...all fantastic accomplishments.  Yes, ultimately it's congratulations, not condolences, that are due to them for what they achieved...

Beck's New Album: Morning Phase

It has been about six years since alternative rock musician Beck Hansen, more popularly known as simply "Beck", has issued a new album.  Finally, he's got one out now, titled Morning Phase.  Being a big fan of his music, I promptly went out and bought it.  As with his previous works, this new album has its own special personality.

The songs on Morning Phase are much slower in tempo than the typical Beck album, hearkening back to his equally-slow Sea Change from 2002.  But that album was marked by the melancholy tone of its songs; Morning Phase is much more positive (and a little more mysterious).  Still, I found myself gravitating to the more fast-paced tracks (which would have been "slow" on almost all of his other albums).  With this in mind I found myself most drawn to tracks 3, 5, 9, and 11, titled Heart is a Drum, Blue Moon, Blackbird Chain, and Turn Away, respectively.  Of these my favorite is Blackbird Chain...so much my favorite that I now regard it as my personal "song of the year" so far for 2014.  But having stated my favorites from Morning Phase, I must emphasize that the entire album is very listenable...but you need to understand this along with the acceptance that this is a different kind of Beck album than the ones that produced past hits like Loser, Where It's At, or Think I'm in Love.  I'm sure that this talented artist will speed things up a bit on his next release...I'm just happy to see him out there with something new.  And it's good, maybe one of his best...

The Myth of Voter Suppression

It's been a recurring theme of the political left that the Republican Party, on a state-by-state level, has been actively and deliberately engaging in a campaign of voter suppression by either demanding photo identification from voters at the polls or purging lists of ineligible voters (such as those with felony records).  Opponents of the latter action point out that there is a higher prevalence of potentially Democratic voters among those purged voters and that the GOP is trying to rig the elections in their favor.  And I've heard the argument as well that asking for adequate ID at the voting precinct is tantamount to those earlier Jim Crow era literacy test demands that discouraged blacks from voting.  I'm a little at a loss here...are they saying that having a photo ID is a racial issue?  And if it is, then who exactly is responsible for that situation? 

As for the voter-roll-purging accusation against the Republicans, an equally charged argument can be made that Democratic administrations deliberately refused to purge those ineligible votes in order to tip the numbers in their favor.  And that the Republicans are just cleaning up someone else's mess.  Regardless how you look at it, if they are complying with the demands of the law, I don't see the problem...except that I think that if you're a free person, past felony conviction or not, you should get to vote.  But with that it's the law, not its enforcement, with which I take issue.

As for asking for a photo ID before voting, I can't recall a time in recent memory when the worker behind the table at the polling station didn't ask for mine anyway...new law or not.  To me this is just common sense and does not mean anything...except that the Republicans seem to be the only party interested in mandating it. However, according to critics, in close elections, the demand for a photo ID can suppress Democratic-leaning voters and give the Republicans narrow victories in close contests.  So this isn't fair, is it?

Well, regarding voter suppression, I have to just come right out and state for the record that it IS happening, and on a scale much larger than what may or may not be going on with voter ID laws or the purging of ineligible voters. And this suppression I guarantee does very often tip elections...and also contributes greatly to the problem of wealthy corporate fatcats "buying" elections with expensive media campaigns.  This voter suppression is nothing other then the self-suppression by the large majority of the registered voters who don't think it is worth their time and effort to just pull off the road into their local precinct for a few minutes on election day and cast their ballots.  Even in heated elections for president, upwards to 40% of the registered voters simply don't vote...and it has nothing to do with supposedly nefarious voter suppression laws. But then, what about non-presidential elections?

Nearly a month ago, we here in Gainesville had a local election for three city commission seats. This is our local government and affects everyone living here...how much taxes do we pay, how is that tax revenue spent, what are the priorities with various issues such as the roads, parks, police, business zoning, and so on.  I went late in the afternoon on election day to cast my ballot.  The senior recreation center, where my precinct is, happens to be located directly across the street from a Super Wal-Mart.  The rec center was full, as I walked through it, but not of voters...just elderly folks enjoying the facilities.  I walked into the voting center in a back room and discovered that I was the only voter there.  So lonely. When the worker opened up the voting register to the page where my name was, the ENTIRE PAGE was empty: I was the first one on it to vote...at about four in the afternoon!  And yes...crime of all crimes, they asked for my photo ID, so I forked out my drivers license.  And voted.  Meanwhile, across the street Wal-Mart was packed with customers. Going there and waiting in insanely long lines apparently wasn't too inconvenient for people...but then, I suppose we're talking about food and "stuff" here...not civic responsibility. Oh by the way, the official city-wide voter turnout for this election was 15%: 85% of the registered voting population FREELY CHOSE not to vote!  Now THAT is voter suppression...and it's the voters themselves doing it, not any evil political party with ulterior designs on power.  This lack of general voter interest and civic responsibility is what I believe is driving the skyrocketing corporate campaign spending.  The ads that are mailed out or shown on TV aren't necessarily aimed to change people's minds as much as they are to motivate their targeted voter group to get all emotional (usually in a negative sense involving outrage against the opposing candidate) and flock to the polls in droves.  This is why Barack Obama could win Florida in 2008 and 2012, but in 2010 Rick Scott, a far-right tea party candidate, could win the governor's race with a much lower overall voter turnout.  And why he also stands a good chance for reelection this year.  If the registered voters would just step up and perform their duty consistently in every election, the effect of specially motivated voting blocks would be minimized and we'd have a more consistent representation of the general population's preferences...

Just Finished Reading Prince Caspian (Again)

I never did see the film adaptation to C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia story Prince Caspian, but I have read the book three times.  I suppose that I might want to see if Netflix has it and see for myself how the movie stacks up against the book...and how much they changed it to make it look better on the screen.  Prince Caspian was originally the second book released in this series, although chronologically the events place it as the fourth book...and that's the order I'm using to reread this series.

It's been centuries since the legendary Narnian Golden Age of the Two Kings and Two Queens.  But Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy have only aged one year since their return to the planet Earth after their The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Horse and His Boy adventures.  The four are about to board a train together when they are summoned back, out of thin air, to Narnia by Prince Caspian, who is fleeing for his life from his cruel, usurping uncle.  Caspian, you see, is the legitimate heir to the kingdom of Narnia...his supporters refer to him already as "King Caspian".  Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy find themselves suddenly back at the castle from which they reigned earlier...and it's in ruins now and is on an island, separated after so many years from the mainland and reputed to be a haunt for ghosts.  Then they rescue a dwarf from execution, after which he fills them in on Caspian's plight.  From this point the story forks into two narratives: Caspian's tale as told by the dwarf and the efforts of the Four to reach him and aid in fighting back. 

As in all of the Chronicles of Narnia stories, the great lion lord Aslan makes his indispensable appearance...first to ever-faithful Lucy and then to the other doubting three.  Aslan leads them all to victory over the oppressors, who as it turns out are not native to Narnia in the first place.  The peculiar life forms, such as talking animals and dancing trees, that had been driven into hiding by the usurper, are once again welcomed back into the kingdom as full citizens. But although Aslan expects the "good guys" to put in the effort and be willing to make the necessary sacrifices in this struggle, ultimately it is he who determines victory.  And as in The Horse and His Boy, at the end he delivers his own special brand of justice to the vanquished.

I felt that the story Prince Caspian was the weakest of all the Narnia tales as far as the plot was concerned.  Lewis seemed instead to be much more interested in describing the world of Narnia and its special creatures in great detail.  I'm not sure how this translates to film, but I'm looking forward to finding out.  Speaking of Narnian film adaptations, the book Voyage of the Dawn Treader has also been made into a movie.  And it also happens to be the next book in the series I'm going to read...

TV and Baseball's Diversity of Parks

I was watching the season opening game for the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox the other day on TV when I noticed a peculiar thing.  Looking out toward right field, just past the ball park and in surrounding Baltimore starkly looms a large beige building...with numerous windows facing the park.  It was as if whoever put it there was daring any slugger to break one of them with a tape measure home run.  Of course, perceived distances can sometimes be deceptive...especially on TV.  So I don't know exactly how far away from the park that building is.  But the view is impressive regardless. 

Each baseball park has its own "view" past the outfield...some are more enclosed and all you see is more seating.  Others, like Boston's Fenway Park with its Green Monster wall in left field, have peculiar features that clearly distinguish them from the other ball parks. And although the dimensions of the infield in baseball are strictly measured, the outfields are incredibly different in size from one park to the next. This diversity in baseball of its ball parks makes its presentation on TV markedly different from other sports like basketball, hockey, and football, although with the last the existence of domed stadiums in some cities precludes the sight of snow or rain in their games.  But visually, except for blimp shots from above, the games in these sports don't reveal their locations to the degree that they do in baseball: just follow a long fly ball into the outfield (or beyond) and you'll get a glimpse (sometimes) of the city beyond.  And since baseball parks tend to be more downtown oriented, the view can be pretty interesting: the open-ended outfield in Baltimore inspired some there to create a pretty shopping/dining area just outside...and it is showcased on TV with every home game. Now I want to go there...I just saw something similar with the Chicago White Sox ball park.  I wonder how it is in St. Petersburg, where the Rays play their home games...

Just Finished Reading Terry Goodkind's Naked Empire

As I continue along with my reading of fantasy writer Terry Goodkind's twelve-part series The Sword of Truth, I was gratified to discover that it only has eleven books (if you exclude an added prequel).  That doesn't necessarily mean that I dislike this series, but rather that perhaps the author will sooner get around to resolving matters instead of just inventing new lands and characters in order to further his philosophical beliefs.  There's nothing wrong with that, though: fiction can be a very effective way for someone to promote their own worldview, as long as they don't come out sounding as if they are lecturing the reader in the process.  Unfortunately, Goodkind has this flaw, and book #8, titled Naked Empire, has him continuing with his "teaching" without any attempt at subtlety.

In Naked Empire, protagonists Richard and Kahlan are still fighting the Imperial Order...which they've been doing since book #2, as a matter of (fictional) fact.  They discover a people called the Bandakar that had been isolated by magic from the rest of the world. Bandakar is composed of non-magical people who fancy themselves as being civilized (and therefore superior) and everyone else as barbarian (and inferior)...including Richard and Kahlan.  When the magical barrier comes down and the Imperial Order overruns them, one of Bandakar's former leaders enlists our heroes to help them defeat their conquerors by being the "barbarians" they refuse to be themselves.  In other words, get the uncivilized outsiders to kill off the enemy that they themselves are too "good" to stand up to. The philosophy of the Bandakar has them continually making excuses for the cruel, oppressive rule of the Imperial Order while refusing to lift a finger to resist them in any way...even chastising those of their own who act or even speak against their oppressors.  I can't help but think that this is a not-so-oblique analogy of Goodkind to the tendency that some in the West have had to go out of their way to apologize for and explain away the oppressive and militarily aggressive Soviet Union and its proxies...and, later, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda...while roundly criticizing any resistance to them from the U.S. and its allies (aka "blame America first"). I also believe that Goodkind is indirectly criticizing some of America's allies who benefit from their protection without making any appreciable sacrifices in terms of money and human lives...while many of their people condemn the actions of their protectors.  While I think that Goodkind has a good point to make here, I still think that in recent years we've been too eager to go off to war without first leveraging our military advantage to gain diplomatic solutions to conflicts (Iraq comes prominently to mind).  Also, turning our brave soldiers into "nation builders" under PROTRACTED OCCUPATIONS of hostile lands isn't protecting anyone...least of all our precious young men and women serving so selflessly.  Maybe Goodkind would agree with this last opinion of mine...especially when the leaders of countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, whose very regimes have depended on our presence there, often speak out as if we were the enemy and our (and their) enemies were their friends. In this regard they sound a lot like Goodkind's Bandakars.

One thing that appeals to me in this Sword of Truth series, the soapbox philosophizing notwithstanding,  is the way I have come to know and like its main characters.  This skill at character development, as I see it, is Terry Goodkind's great strength and it keeps me reading on.  I have read that the concluding books 9, 10, and 11 represent a trilogy in themselves, which I find a bit perplexing...since each book in the series directly leads into the next anyway...