In August I ran for a total of 84 miles, with my longest single run still a rather short one at 3.8 miles...well, at least that's up from July's max of 2.7. I skipped running on four days...probably should have taken off more. Getting myself motivated to run during this extremely hot, humid, and rainy summer has been an almost insurmountable task...I'm just running on momentum and routine habit. In order to increase my endurance, I've been riding an exercise bike on high resistance as well as occasionally using the elliptical cross-trainer machine at my local gym. Both are excellence cardio exercises that are no-impact, saving wear and tear on my legs and feet...
In September I plan to do more of the same while gradually getting my weight down with more prudent eating. I would like to experience some occasionally longer runs, but until the weather begins to cool down and get dryer, I doubt that will happen. If a 5K race suddenly presents itself in the Gainesville area, I might run it just to keep a public aspect to my running...but so far none seem to be in store anytime soon...
Thursday, August 31, 2017
8/27 Sermon: No One is an Island, Pt. 4
Continuing in the current message series No One is an Island, which stresses the importance of community within the church, senior pastor Philip Griffin of The Family Church here in Gainesville last Sunday again discussed the importance of service, the talk appropriately titled Why Serve? and focusing in scripture on Mark 10-33-45, available in the New International Version through Bible Gateway by the following link: [link]. In this passage, Jesus has revealed his impending death and resurrection...but two of his disciples, James and John, seem only interested in being elevated to the top of the disciples' pecking order. Jesus gently rebukes them and states that whosoever among his followers seeks to be great must also be a servant...as he himself had come on Earth to be...
Pastor Philip gave four reasons to serve: it breaks the grip of pride, it gives meaning to one's life, it builds up the church family, and it makes one more like Christ. With pride, service in itself is an attitude of humility and tempers the arrogance that too many of us are burdened with. Pecking orders may work for chickens, but not members of the family of God. By serving, life is more purposeful as one interconnects with others and God's love and grace spreads both within and outside the church. It builds the church family: the mission statement of The Family Church is "We exist to help all people discover family in Christ by reaching those far from God and making disciples who build God's kingdom." And, as Jesus pointed out to James and John, he who is the greatest deliberately and voluntarily took onto himself the role of servant. To be Christ-like is to serve...
The Family Church weekly messages can be seen on YouTube...here's a link to this sermon: [link]. This fellowship meets each Sunday morning at 9:30 and 11. The church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and the services feature the weekly sermon, praise music, prayer, and opportunities for fellowship...
Pastor Philip gave four reasons to serve: it breaks the grip of pride, it gives meaning to one's life, it builds up the church family, and it makes one more like Christ. With pride, service in itself is an attitude of humility and tempers the arrogance that too many of us are burdened with. Pecking orders may work for chickens, but not members of the family of God. By serving, life is more purposeful as one interconnects with others and God's love and grace spreads both within and outside the church. It builds the church family: the mission statement of The Family Church is "We exist to help all people discover family in Christ by reaching those far from God and making disciples who build God's kingdom." And, as Jesus pointed out to James and John, he who is the greatest deliberately and voluntarily took onto himself the role of servant. To be Christ-like is to serve...
The Family Church weekly messages can be seen on YouTube...here's a link to this sermon: [link]. This fellowship meets each Sunday morning at 9:30 and 11. The church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and the services feature the weekly sermon, praise music, prayer, and opportunities for fellowship...
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Weekly Short Story: Beyond the Wall of Sleep by H.P. Lovecraft
After Edgar Allen Poe in the nineteenth century and before Stephen King and a plethora of successful horror fiction writers in the past one, there was H.P. Lovecraft, who in the early twentieth century wrote a number of short stories and novellas in this genre. His tales were marked by an extraordinarily detailed and diverse imagination, with his descriptions of bizarre places and entities reading as if from one who experienced it all firsthand. One of my favorite short stories of his is Beyond the Wall of Sleep...
In 1901 there is a man incarcerated in a mental institution who had killed several people on a violent rampage. It seems that this man, who is uneducated and ignorant, has recurring dreams of vivid and bright intensity in which he is flying among the stars and pursuing his enemy who had wronged him...although in his waking life on Earth he has no such adversary. Upon awakening from these disturbing dreams, Joe Slater is extremely violent and speaks incoherently of the wonders he has experienced. An intern there, interested in knowing exactly what Slater is experiencing but unclearly expressing, has invented an untested telepathic device and decides one night to surreptitiously connect his mind to the dreamer's...
Beyond the Wall of Sleep brings up a common theme in fiction of different genres: that dreams contain aspects of objective reality and truth, and are not just one's own subjective mental constructions. And in our time we're accustomed to the notion of "hitching a ride" on another's dreams through the movie Inception. The author combined these two ideas to create a window to an interstellar battle, although his scientific knowledge was sorely lacking: at one point an observer from Earth notes a simultaneous event near the star Algol, which happens to be 90 light-years distant...
H.P. Lovecraft writes in a highly ornate literary language, but his stories in essence are more like ghost tales told around a campfire...it's in this sense that I read his literature. He can get a bit carried away with his descriptive language and can also be somewhat frantic about his storytelling, but it does have the effect of riveting the reader's attention. Also, reading Lovecraft stories isn't a very big investment of time due to their brevity. And they are all now available in the public domain...here's a link to Beyond the Wall of Sleep: [link]...
In 1901 there is a man incarcerated in a mental institution who had killed several people on a violent rampage. It seems that this man, who is uneducated and ignorant, has recurring dreams of vivid and bright intensity in which he is flying among the stars and pursuing his enemy who had wronged him...although in his waking life on Earth he has no such adversary. Upon awakening from these disturbing dreams, Joe Slater is extremely violent and speaks incoherently of the wonders he has experienced. An intern there, interested in knowing exactly what Slater is experiencing but unclearly expressing, has invented an untested telepathic device and decides one night to surreptitiously connect his mind to the dreamer's...
Beyond the Wall of Sleep brings up a common theme in fiction of different genres: that dreams contain aspects of objective reality and truth, and are not just one's own subjective mental constructions. And in our time we're accustomed to the notion of "hitching a ride" on another's dreams through the movie Inception. The author combined these two ideas to create a window to an interstellar battle, although his scientific knowledge was sorely lacking: at one point an observer from Earth notes a simultaneous event near the star Algol, which happens to be 90 light-years distant...
H.P. Lovecraft writes in a highly ornate literary language, but his stories in essence are more like ghost tales told around a campfire...it's in this sense that I read his literature. He can get a bit carried away with his descriptive language and can also be somewhat frantic about his storytelling, but it does have the effect of riveting the reader's attention. Also, reading Lovecraft stories isn't a very big investment of time due to their brevity. And they are all now available in the public domain...here's a link to Beyond the Wall of Sleep: [link]...
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Tuesday's List: Hurricanes Striking Florida Since 1960
In light of the ongoing disaster in coastal Texas because of Hurricane Harvey, I thought I'd be a little reflective and list the hurricanes striking Florida since I began to "follow" them.
Oh, I suppose I could have made the following list more comprehensive and list all of the Atlantic hurricanes and/or tropical storms hitting land in the United States...or in any other country for that matter...as well as going back further in time. But this happens to be a personal blog and so I decided to list those hurricanes that struck somewhere in my home state of Florida since 1960, when I was three years old and experienced my first hurricane while living with my family in Opa-Locka, a suburb of Miami. And I left out tropical storms as well...let's face it, they're just nowhere near as memorable as hurricanes. On the list I capitalized the names of the hurricanes that directly affected me where I lived at the time (1960-76: South Florida, 1977-Present: Gainesville). As for my Gainesville encounters with these storms, none of them were technically hurricane "experiences", but they affected us here anyway...even if they only, like David, Elena, Charley, and Matthew, at times seemed to have us directly in their "sights"...
Which of the below affected me the most? I'd have to say it was Cleo in 1964: the eye passed directly over us in West Hollywood and the winds nearly blew in our front door...pretty scary stuff, especially when you're just seven years old...
1960 DONNA...only a toddler when it hit, I just remember a big storm with others worried
1964 CLEO...house boarded up, door almost lost, eye passed over us
1964 Dora...much damage in Jacksonville and Lake City
1964 ISBELL...not a direct hit, but plenty of wind and rain
1965 BETSY...fortunately turned south of us and hit mainly in southern Dade county
1966 Alma...passed in Gulf parallel to coast, caused damage upstate, hit Apalachicola
1966 INEZ...threatened us from SW but just grazed south Florida
1968 Gladys...hit from Gulf north of Tampa, passed through Ocala
1972 Agnes...didn't directly hit us but merging with front caused much rain, hit Panhandle
1975 Eloise...Category 3 impact at Panama City
1979 DAVID...looked like it would hit on the NE Fla coast, but steered by us
1985 ELENA...was poised to come inland at G'ville from Cedar Key, but did an about-face
1985 Juan...although it technically hit Louisiana, spin-off bands soaked us for days
1985 Kate...rare well-organized November hurricane hit around Pensacola
1987 Floyd...grazed south Florida from SW
1992 Andrew...this Category 4 storm spared my parents' Hollywood home when it veered to south Dade
1995 Erin...crossed state from Vero Beach, then hit west Panhandle
1995 Opal...Category 4 impact near Pensacola
1998 Earl...hit Panama City from SW
1998 Georges...passed through Keys, extensive flooding in Panhandle
1999 Floyd...mass evacuations, but eye stayed off NE Fla coast, bands hit inland
1999 Irene....hit Keys, then south Florida
2004 CHARLIE...originally projected to hit Gainesville, missed us but devastated Punta Gorda
2004 FRANCES...lots of wind and rain, we escaped widespread power outages
2004 Ivan...hit hard in Mobile, Ala/Pensacola area
2004 JEANNE...we lost power for 3 hrs, tropical storm winds tore off trim on side of house
2005 Dennis...June storm hit Pensacola/Mobile, Ala area
2005 Katrina...passed though S. Florida on way to New Orleans and Mississippi
2005 Rita...passed through Fla. Keys on way to eastern Texas, western Louisiana
2005 Wilma...slammed into south Florida with high winds from SW, moved fast
2016 HERMINE...hit just north of us from Gulf but feeder bands caused widespread damage in state
2016 MATTHEW...flirted with hitting northern Fla before passing east in Atlantic
This list isn't truly complete without me mentioning the terrible Storm of the Century that hit the eastern United States on March 12, 1993. Although technically a winter cyclone and not a hurricane, it had the same devastating effects and caused a lot of damage in Gainesville...including essentially finishing off our privacy fence...
Some of these storms, like Katrina and Rita, made their biggest impact elsewhere in the country while others devastated the Caribbean area, causing many casualties and much damage before approaching Florida. And considering what is going on right now in eastern coastal Texas, I feel that we have been extremely fortunate and blessed over the years to have escaped such disaster...
Oh, I suppose I could have made the following list more comprehensive and list all of the Atlantic hurricanes and/or tropical storms hitting land in the United States...or in any other country for that matter...as well as going back further in time. But this happens to be a personal blog and so I decided to list those hurricanes that struck somewhere in my home state of Florida since 1960, when I was three years old and experienced my first hurricane while living with my family in Opa-Locka, a suburb of Miami. And I left out tropical storms as well...let's face it, they're just nowhere near as memorable as hurricanes. On the list I capitalized the names of the hurricanes that directly affected me where I lived at the time (1960-76: South Florida, 1977-Present: Gainesville). As for my Gainesville encounters with these storms, none of them were technically hurricane "experiences", but they affected us here anyway...even if they only, like David, Elena, Charley, and Matthew, at times seemed to have us directly in their "sights"...
Which of the below affected me the most? I'd have to say it was Cleo in 1964: the eye passed directly over us in West Hollywood and the winds nearly blew in our front door...pretty scary stuff, especially when you're just seven years old...
1960 DONNA...only a toddler when it hit, I just remember a big storm with others worried
1964 CLEO...house boarded up, door almost lost, eye passed over us
1964 Dora...much damage in Jacksonville and Lake City
1964 ISBELL...not a direct hit, but plenty of wind and rain
1965 BETSY...fortunately turned south of us and hit mainly in southern Dade county
1966 Alma...passed in Gulf parallel to coast, caused damage upstate, hit Apalachicola
1966 INEZ...threatened us from SW but just grazed south Florida
1968 Gladys...hit from Gulf north of Tampa, passed through Ocala
1972 Agnes...didn't directly hit us but merging with front caused much rain, hit Panhandle
1975 Eloise...Category 3 impact at Panama City
1979 DAVID...looked like it would hit on the NE Fla coast, but steered by us
1985 ELENA...was poised to come inland at G'ville from Cedar Key, but did an about-face
1985 Juan...although it technically hit Louisiana, spin-off bands soaked us for days
1985 Kate...rare well-organized November hurricane hit around Pensacola
1987 Floyd...grazed south Florida from SW
1992 Andrew...this Category 4 storm spared my parents' Hollywood home when it veered to south Dade
1995 Erin...crossed state from Vero Beach, then hit west Panhandle
1995 Opal...Category 4 impact near Pensacola
1998 Earl...hit Panama City from SW
1998 Georges...passed through Keys, extensive flooding in Panhandle
1999 Floyd...mass evacuations, but eye stayed off NE Fla coast, bands hit inland
1999 Irene....hit Keys, then south Florida
2004 CHARLIE...originally projected to hit Gainesville, missed us but devastated Punta Gorda
2004 FRANCES...lots of wind and rain, we escaped widespread power outages
2004 Ivan...hit hard in Mobile, Ala/Pensacola area
2004 JEANNE...we lost power for 3 hrs, tropical storm winds tore off trim on side of house
2005 Dennis...June storm hit Pensacola/Mobile, Ala area
2005 Katrina...passed though S. Florida on way to New Orleans and Mississippi
2005 Rita...passed through Fla. Keys on way to eastern Texas, western Louisiana
2005 Wilma...slammed into south Florida with high winds from SW, moved fast
2016 HERMINE...hit just north of us from Gulf but feeder bands caused widespread damage in state
2016 MATTHEW...flirted with hitting northern Fla before passing east in Atlantic
This list isn't truly complete without me mentioning the terrible Storm of the Century that hit the eastern United States on March 12, 1993. Although technically a winter cyclone and not a hurricane, it had the same devastating effects and caused a lot of damage in Gainesville...including essentially finishing off our privacy fence...
Some of these storms, like Katrina and Rita, made their biggest impact elsewhere in the country while others devastated the Caribbean area, causing many casualties and much damage before approaching Florida. And considering what is going on right now in eastern coastal Texas, I feel that we have been extremely fortunate and blessed over the years to have escaped such disaster...
Monday, August 28, 2017
Just Finished Reading Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
After having recently read Chicago-area literary great Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March, I thought I'd continue right along and read another of his works. To this end I checked out the 1975 novel Humboldt's Gift...and just finished reading it. The characters are all different, of course...yet I sensed that once again Bellow has put much of his own personality and life into his main character and first-person narrator, in this case Charlie Citrine, a famous writer out of Chicago. The "Humboldt" is a once-esteemed poet, Von Humboldt Fleisher, whom Charlie idolizes and befriends early in his own career as a writer. The two, once close, have an acrimonious falling-out: just before Humbolt's death Charlie sees him living in poverty in Manhattan...but regrettably flees the opportunity for reconciliation...
Although Humboldt is the title character, Humboldt's Gift is about Charlie Citrine and how he is trying to come to grips with his life as he approaches 60...he has writer's block and has fallen behind with his commitments to publishers. His ex-wife continues to take him to court to extract more and more money as his own funds dwindle. A pseudo-gangster named Rinaldo Cantabile relentlessly hounds him, first to claim payment on a spurious gambling debt and then to get Charlie to help his wife with her literary thesis. Charlie's girlfriend Renata wants to be his wife, but his cynicism about marriage stands in his way in spite of his clear affection for her. And then there is Humboldt: it seems that the late poet had left some papers behind for Charlie: his "gift"...
Humboldt's Gift is not exactly driven by its plot, but rather by the various different situations and people that Charlie finds himself stumbling into. People almost without exception are telling him to his face what's wrong with his thinking and behavior and giving him unsolicited advice as to how to change for the better. Through it all, Charlie reacts with grace and equanimity...except for that ornery Cantabile, whom he treats with deserved contempt. Charlie Citrine loves people and their company, but really wants to have peace in his personal life to develop his "higher thoughts". He has been on a long-term, unfulfilled project to explore the concept of "boredom" and its effect on modern Western society. And he is starting to come around to a faddish new philosophy dealing in metaphysics that others belittle him for...as well as for his continued interest in Humboldt...
I liked Humboldt's Gift because it deeply explored the thoughts and motivations of the protagonist...and by inference Saul Bellow himself. As in The Adventures of Augie March, there is an overbearing and very materialistic older brother who disparages and openly criticizes the main character, in this case Charlie...Bellow had such a sibling in his life. And as I discovered after finishing the book, Humboldt Fleisher was also based on a real poet whom the author knew. But I also got a great kick out of Rinaldo Cantabile...what a character! And there was a lot of good material here about philosophy, society, and relationships. So Humboldt's Gift was another book of Saul Bellow's that I enjoyed...and recommend...
Although Humboldt is the title character, Humboldt's Gift is about Charlie Citrine and how he is trying to come to grips with his life as he approaches 60...he has writer's block and has fallen behind with his commitments to publishers. His ex-wife continues to take him to court to extract more and more money as his own funds dwindle. A pseudo-gangster named Rinaldo Cantabile relentlessly hounds him, first to claim payment on a spurious gambling debt and then to get Charlie to help his wife with her literary thesis. Charlie's girlfriend Renata wants to be his wife, but his cynicism about marriage stands in his way in spite of his clear affection for her. And then there is Humboldt: it seems that the late poet had left some papers behind for Charlie: his "gift"...
Humboldt's Gift is not exactly driven by its plot, but rather by the various different situations and people that Charlie finds himself stumbling into. People almost without exception are telling him to his face what's wrong with his thinking and behavior and giving him unsolicited advice as to how to change for the better. Through it all, Charlie reacts with grace and equanimity...except for that ornery Cantabile, whom he treats with deserved contempt. Charlie Citrine loves people and their company, but really wants to have peace in his personal life to develop his "higher thoughts". He has been on a long-term, unfulfilled project to explore the concept of "boredom" and its effect on modern Western society. And he is starting to come around to a faddish new philosophy dealing in metaphysics that others belittle him for...as well as for his continued interest in Humboldt...
I liked Humboldt's Gift because it deeply explored the thoughts and motivations of the protagonist...and by inference Saul Bellow himself. As in The Adventures of Augie March, there is an overbearing and very materialistic older brother who disparages and openly criticizes the main character, in this case Charlie...Bellow had such a sibling in his life. And as I discovered after finishing the book, Humboldt Fleisher was also based on a real poet whom the author knew. But I also got a great kick out of Rinaldo Cantabile...what a character! And there was a lot of good material here about philosophy, society, and relationships. So Humboldt's Gift was another book of Saul Bellow's that I enjoyed...and recommend...
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Two Presidents: Dr. Teleprompter and Mr. Spontaneous
I remember the Oscar-winning 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind in which mathematics genius John Nash hits upon a life-changing revelation: in economic and conflict scenarios the best result does not come about with each party working solely in their own best interests, but rather with each party working both in their own best interests AND in those of the group as a whole. This principle of duality, which Dr. Nash worked out with mathematical precision, eventually won him a Nobel Prize. Yet how many of us practice it in our lives? But today I'm looking up at the leadership of my country, and wonder how one elected by a particular constituency can remain loyal to them and their interests while at the same time administering to the interests of the country as a whole: in other words, duality practiced on a national level. To this end I am examining the presidency of Donald Trump, now a little more than seven months old...
On some level I think Mr. Trump...as well as his predecessors...understands the principle of duality described above. But instead of integrating the general national interests with those of his supportive voting base, he has apparently undergone a bizarre schism...much like Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On one hand, "Dr. Teleprompter", with his prepared texts, delivers relatively reasonable and rational messages that tend to persuade and unify the entire country behind his policies. But then he'll slip into a different personality: "Mr. Spontaneous", expressing himself through Twitter, rallies, and interviews, emotionally panders to "his" people and rips into anyone or any institution that he even remotely suspects opposes him...in other words, a thoroughly divisive persona...and in that mode he often contradicts his "Dr. Teleprompter" speeches, in spirit if not also in essence. So I have to ask myself: Who's the President?
That's the question an old friend asked me when I pulled up at his Checkers drive-through window one evening way back in late November of 2000. Although his intention was to elicit whether I thought Bush or Gore had won the recent controversial and then still-disputed election, I had a quick, smart-ass reply: "Why, Bill Clinton of course!" Now I'm asking the same question to myself and, looking at the answer, I see nothing at all funny...
On some level I think Mr. Trump...as well as his predecessors...understands the principle of duality described above. But instead of integrating the general national interests with those of his supportive voting base, he has apparently undergone a bizarre schism...much like Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On one hand, "Dr. Teleprompter", with his prepared texts, delivers relatively reasonable and rational messages that tend to persuade and unify the entire country behind his policies. But then he'll slip into a different personality: "Mr. Spontaneous", expressing himself through Twitter, rallies, and interviews, emotionally panders to "his" people and rips into anyone or any institution that he even remotely suspects opposes him...in other words, a thoroughly divisive persona...and in that mode he often contradicts his "Dr. Teleprompter" speeches, in spirit if not also in essence. So I have to ask myself: Who's the President?
That's the question an old friend asked me when I pulled up at his Checkers drive-through window one evening way back in late November of 2000. Although his intention was to elicit whether I thought Bush or Gore had won the recent controversial and then still-disputed election, I had a quick, smart-ass reply: "Why, Bill Clinton of course!" Now I'm asking the same question to myself and, looking at the answer, I see nothing at all funny...
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Just Finished Reading John Grisham's Calico Joe
Legal fiction author John Grisham doesn't always write in that genre: sometimes he goes down other paths, as he did with his 2012 baseball novel Calico Joe. Calico Joe's title character is that of the fictional Joe Castle, a 21-year-old rookie from rural Arkansas called up from the minors to play for the 1973 Chicago Cubs. His story is told retrospectively in the first person by Paul Tracey, who in 1973 is a Little League pitcher whose father Warren is a starter for the New York Mets...also fictional. I say this because just about everything and everyone else in the story about the Mets and Cubs from this year are real...the National League's East Division is up for grabs with all six teams vying for the postseason. Warren Tracey is a mean-spirited, alcoholic, womanizing, and abusive father and husband...plus he has a reputation for throwing pitches at batters' heads. When Joe Castle begins his major league career with 19 consecutive hits-at-bat, an all-time record, his popularity soars into the stratosphere even with fans of other teams rooting for his success. And he continues to excite and inspire, both with his batting and his gracious behavior toward the public. The Cubs in late August find themselves with a comfortable lead and are in New York for a four-game series with the second-place Mets...Tracey will pitch to Castle for the first time ever. That game will change everything: Joe's, Warren's, and Paul's lives will never be the same again...
Calico Joe is about redemption and forgiveness, and this comes on a number of fronts. It's a difficult story to describe without giving away the defining moment, which should be the choice of the prospective reader to make and not mine to reveal in an untimely manner. It's a shorter tale than most of John Grisham's works and very satisfying, looking back on it. But although of course there never really was a Joe Castle or Warren Tracey, I still have my own memory of that 1973 season. If any teams seemed to me destined to win that East Division and go on to the playoffs, it was either the St. Louis Cardinals or Pittsburgh Pirates...but they both floundered at the end and only managed 81-81 and 80-82 records, respectively. The Mets seemed doomed to obscurity, being stuck in last place for much of the season but put on a furious surge at the end, improbably finishing first with a paltry 82-79 record. Yet they came within a game of winning the World Series!
Calico Joe is now one of my favorite John Grisham novels. Why not go to the library, check it out like I did, and read it at your leisure...
Calico Joe is about redemption and forgiveness, and this comes on a number of fronts. It's a difficult story to describe without giving away the defining moment, which should be the choice of the prospective reader to make and not mine to reveal in an untimely manner. It's a shorter tale than most of John Grisham's works and very satisfying, looking back on it. But although of course there never really was a Joe Castle or Warren Tracey, I still have my own memory of that 1973 season. If any teams seemed to me destined to win that East Division and go on to the playoffs, it was either the St. Louis Cardinals or Pittsburgh Pirates...but they both floundered at the end and only managed 81-81 and 80-82 records, respectively. The Mets seemed doomed to obscurity, being stuck in last place for much of the season but put on a furious surge at the end, improbably finishing first with a paltry 82-79 record. Yet they came within a game of winning the World Series!
Calico Joe is now one of my favorite John Grisham novels. Why not go to the library, check it out like I did, and read it at your leisure...
Friday, August 25, 2017
Quote of the Week...from Regina Spektor
They made a statue of us
And put it on a mountaintop
Now tourists come and stare at us
Blow bubbles with their gum
Take photographs have fun, have fun
---Regina Spektor, from her song Us
Given the furor and controversy going on today about statues...particularly any glorifying the Confederate side in the American Civil War, Regina Spektor could well add a stanza or two to her great 2004 song Us, which has statues as one of its themes. The push has been on in recent years to remove old statues honoring soldiers and politicians on the Southern side...and for obvious reasons: the Confederacy was fighting to uphold the institution of slavery, and for that reason alone the statues represent an affront to every African-American and only serve to further divide an already too divided country. Those who claim that it's only history and that folks shouldn't be so sensitive need to understand that it is the revision of history itself that is the root of the problem with these monuments...
A Facebook friend recently posted a short film of historical interest: a promotional movie for Gaineville, Florida made around 1960. It covered a lot of ground, just about every aspect of the city I live in...except of course that everything was a lot older, the city was smaller, and the businesses were different. Oh yeah, one other detail: in spite of the myriad Gainesville residents depicted in this "historical" movie, not a single one of them was black! Now, on one hand...as with the issue of the statues...you can argue that this film was of historical interest. But very telling in both cases was the censoring of the experiences, accomplishments...and ultimately the presence itself...of the African-American community. And so it is with both film and statues: they tell more about the historical mindset of those who produced them than they do about what they depict: an all-white Gainesville with recognition and glory to those war heroes who fought to continue the subjugation of a very large segment of the population...and to erase that segment's historical memory. I don't want that sort of presence in my community...at least on public land. It reminds me of a bumper sticker I read a few years ago: Your "Heritage" is my Slavery...
But then again I have a built-in bias against statues anyway: they all tend to bum me out. I suspect that Regina Spektor, who was born in the old Soviet Union before moving with her family to America, was referring in her song to the old Communist Party "heroes" like Lenin and Stalin and how every town had to have a statue of them...and then Stalin fell out of official favor in 1956 and the regime itself fell in 1991, after which these statues became controversial. My disdain for this form of public idolization is for that very reason: I strongly oppose making idols of anybody. It especially riles me to see football players and coaches glorified in this manner on college campuses...that current prima donna Alabama coach is the worst example. On the other hand, once a statue is up it's easy to mock it: there's an old statue of a historical University of Florida figure sitting there near the main library...from time to time a prankster will put a whiskey bottle in his open hand...
And put it on a mountaintop
Now tourists come and stare at us
Blow bubbles with their gum
Take photographs have fun, have fun
---Regina Spektor, from her song Us
Given the furor and controversy going on today about statues...particularly any glorifying the Confederate side in the American Civil War, Regina Spektor could well add a stanza or two to her great 2004 song Us, which has statues as one of its themes. The push has been on in recent years to remove old statues honoring soldiers and politicians on the Southern side...and for obvious reasons: the Confederacy was fighting to uphold the institution of slavery, and for that reason alone the statues represent an affront to every African-American and only serve to further divide an already too divided country. Those who claim that it's only history and that folks shouldn't be so sensitive need to understand that it is the revision of history itself that is the root of the problem with these monuments...
A Facebook friend recently posted a short film of historical interest: a promotional movie for Gaineville, Florida made around 1960. It covered a lot of ground, just about every aspect of the city I live in...except of course that everything was a lot older, the city was smaller, and the businesses were different. Oh yeah, one other detail: in spite of the myriad Gainesville residents depicted in this "historical" movie, not a single one of them was black! Now, on one hand...as with the issue of the statues...you can argue that this film was of historical interest. But very telling in both cases was the censoring of the experiences, accomplishments...and ultimately the presence itself...of the African-American community. And so it is with both film and statues: they tell more about the historical mindset of those who produced them than they do about what they depict: an all-white Gainesville with recognition and glory to those war heroes who fought to continue the subjugation of a very large segment of the population...and to erase that segment's historical memory. I don't want that sort of presence in my community...at least on public land. It reminds me of a bumper sticker I read a few years ago: Your "Heritage" is my Slavery...
But then again I have a built-in bias against statues anyway: they all tend to bum me out. I suspect that Regina Spektor, who was born in the old Soviet Union before moving with her family to America, was referring in her song to the old Communist Party "heroes" like Lenin and Stalin and how every town had to have a statue of them...and then Stalin fell out of official favor in 1956 and the regime itself fell in 1991, after which these statues became controversial. My disdain for this form of public idolization is for that very reason: I strongly oppose making idols of anybody. It especially riles me to see football players and coaches glorified in this manner on college campuses...that current prima donna Alabama coach is the worst example. On the other hand, once a statue is up it's easy to mock it: there's an old statue of a historical University of Florida figure sitting there near the main library...from time to time a prankster will put a whiskey bottle in his open hand...
Thursday, August 24, 2017
8/20 Sermon: No One is an Island, Pt. 3
The sermon series No One is an Island at The Family Church here in Gainesville continued with the third installment, titled Three Questions and which dealt with the sheep-like nature of Christ's followers and the need for service. The Biblical scripture of focus was Matthew 25: 31-40, which you can read in the New International Version via Bible Gateway through this link: [link]...
Senior pastor Philip Griffin preceded his "three questions" by delineating "three uncomfortable truths" regarding what happens after death: judgment awaits all of us, not everyone makes it, and no one gets to argue their case. Jesus in the selected verses likened believers to sheep and the unbelievers to goats. Mixed together in this life and world they may on the surface seem indistinguishable from one another, but in the afterlife the Lord will separate them out. A sheep follows its shepherd, who leads it...a goat follows its own appetites and must be driven. Sheep flock together...goats are independent. Philip's first question was "Am I a sheep?" The answer is yes if I know the Lord, not just intellectually but also relationally. The second question was "Am I being led into acts of service?" and the third is "Do I actively care for the overlooked and the vulnerable?" As Philip pointed out, with these two it is not a matter of me striving in my own power and will to accomplish good deeds, but rather to live within the Spirit and let God's grace lead and empower me to serve and care...
You can watch this message on the church's YouTube video site, available through the following link: [link]. The Family Church, located at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11. The weekly message, praise music, prayer, fellowship...and free coffee...all come together to make a morning well spent...
Senior pastor Philip Griffin preceded his "three questions" by delineating "three uncomfortable truths" regarding what happens after death: judgment awaits all of us, not everyone makes it, and no one gets to argue their case. Jesus in the selected verses likened believers to sheep and the unbelievers to goats. Mixed together in this life and world they may on the surface seem indistinguishable from one another, but in the afterlife the Lord will separate them out. A sheep follows its shepherd, who leads it...a goat follows its own appetites and must be driven. Sheep flock together...goats are independent. Philip's first question was "Am I a sheep?" The answer is yes if I know the Lord, not just intellectually but also relationally. The second question was "Am I being led into acts of service?" and the third is "Do I actively care for the overlooked and the vulnerable?" As Philip pointed out, with these two it is not a matter of me striving in my own power and will to accomplish good deeds, but rather to live within the Spirit and let God's grace lead and empower me to serve and care...
You can watch this message on the church's YouTube video site, available through the following link: [link]. The Family Church, located at 2022 SW 122nd Street, holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11. The weekly message, praise music, prayer, fellowship...and free coffee...all come together to make a morning well spent...
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Weekly Short Story...Nerves by Lester Del Rey
In 1942 it was the middle of World War II and the top-secret Manhattan Project was underway to outrace the Germans in the desperate struggle to be the first to successfully design and construct an atomic bomb. It wouldn't be until three years later when the United States finally successfully detonated one, and then used two more on Japan to end the war...changing the world forever. 1942 was also thirteen years before the first operational nuclear reactor and 37 and 44 years before the nuclear reactor meltdowns at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, respectively. Yet it was in 1942 when Lester Del Rey, a popular science fiction author of that era, wrote Nerves...which was about a nuclear reactor's meltdown...
Nerves is a pretty long "short" story (74 pages), appearing in the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 4 (1942) (DAW Books, 1980). Del Rey wrote "hard" science fiction, meaning that he possessed a considerable amount of scientific knowledge and understanding beyond what most people had...and inserted it into his stories. Of course, in Nerves he used different words to describe what he had envisioned: "atomics" and "converter" were used in place of our "nuclear" and "reactor"...but they were in essence the same. True, the author had the common sense to put his "converters" on Callisto, a moon of Jupiter...safely far away from Earth. But as I read through this tale of systems failures in the presence of extremely volatile radioactive substances, I kept having to remind myself that this story was a chilling prophecy of what was to come on our home planet; even with his more advanced scientific knowledge, how could Lester Del Rey have known?
Other than the amazing feature of a nuclear meltdown written from pre-atomic times, Nerves is a pretty standard pulp fiction tale of characters testing themselves against each other and overcoming personal hang-ups. The protagonists are two physicians, the elderly Ferrel and the young, inexperienced Jenkins, assigned to the atomics plant. As the casualties start to come in from the developing disaster, there is a lot of desperate, quick thinking and action as they all try to stem what is already a serious accident from becoming a conflagration. What happens...well, naturally you'll have to read it for yourself to find out...
I recently read that Lester Del Rey later expanded this short story into a novel, probably to make more money in that more lucrative market. To me, though, Nerves was already too long...there were too many subplots in this provocative tale that distracted from the main flow. Well, that's just my opinion...I'd be interested in hearing other viewpoints...
Nerves is a pretty long "short" story (74 pages), appearing in the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 4 (1942) (DAW Books, 1980). Del Rey wrote "hard" science fiction, meaning that he possessed a considerable amount of scientific knowledge and understanding beyond what most people had...and inserted it into his stories. Of course, in Nerves he used different words to describe what he had envisioned: "atomics" and "converter" were used in place of our "nuclear" and "reactor"...but they were in essence the same. True, the author had the common sense to put his "converters" on Callisto, a moon of Jupiter...safely far away from Earth. But as I read through this tale of systems failures in the presence of extremely volatile radioactive substances, I kept having to remind myself that this story was a chilling prophecy of what was to come on our home planet; even with his more advanced scientific knowledge, how could Lester Del Rey have known?
Other than the amazing feature of a nuclear meltdown written from pre-atomic times, Nerves is a pretty standard pulp fiction tale of characters testing themselves against each other and overcoming personal hang-ups. The protagonists are two physicians, the elderly Ferrel and the young, inexperienced Jenkins, assigned to the atomics plant. As the casualties start to come in from the developing disaster, there is a lot of desperate, quick thinking and action as they all try to stem what is already a serious accident from becoming a conflagration. What happens...well, naturally you'll have to read it for yourself to find out...
I recently read that Lester Del Rey later expanded this short story into a novel, probably to make more money in that more lucrative market. To me, though, Nerves was already too long...there were too many subplots in this provocative tale that distracted from the main flow. Well, that's just my opinion...I'd be interested in hearing other viewpoints...
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Tuesday's List: My Top 25 Stephen King Novels
Over the years my favorite author has been Stephen King and I've read the great majority of his works. King's fiction can be divided into novels and short fiction. His short fiction consists of novella collections (Different Seasons, Four Past Midnight, Hearts in Atlantis, Full Dark No Stars) and short story collections (Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Everything's Eventual, Just After Sunset, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams). I plan to list my favorite stories of his short fiction sometime in the future, but today I'm just looking at Stephen King's novels. Some of them I never read because I saw the movies first (Firestarter, Misery, The Green Mile). And I have to admit that my memory of a lot of them is a bit blurry due to my having read them many years ago. Because of this I plan to reread the ones I remember as having liked a lot. But in the meantime here's a list of my top 25 Stephen King novels. And the top three are absolutely fantastic: I strongly recommend 11/22/63 if you're into the time travel/alternative history themes commonly found in science fiction...
Oh, one other thing: many of the listed novels have been adapted to film. Unfortunately, the movie versions sometimes stray drastically from the original stories, so my listing of a particular novel in no way implies that the movie is worth seeing...I'm thinking of The Shining as a "shining" case in point...
1 11/22/63
2 LISEY'S STORY
3 IT
4 INSOMNIA
5 THINNER
6 THE SHINING
7 PET SEMATARY
8 DARK TOWER 4: WIZARD AND GLASS
9 BAG OF BONES
10 DARK TOWER 1: THE GUNSLINGER
11 NEEDFUL THINGS
12 'SALEM'S LOT
13 THE STAND
14 THE LONG WALK
15 DARK TOWER 2: THE DRAWING OF THE THREE
16 DARK TOWER 3: THE WASTE LANDS
17 THE REGULATORS
18 JOYLAND
19 THE DEAD ZONE
20 THE TALISMAN (in collaboration with Peter Straub)
21 THE TOMMYKNOCKERS
22 DARK TOWER 7: THE DARK TOWER
23 DUMA KEY
24 DARK TOWER 5: THE WOLVES OF THE CALLA
25 CHRISTINE
Oh, one other thing: many of the listed novels have been adapted to film. Unfortunately, the movie versions sometimes stray drastically from the original stories, so my listing of a particular novel in no way implies that the movie is worth seeing...I'm thinking of The Shining as a "shining" case in point...
1 11/22/63
2 LISEY'S STORY
3 IT
4 INSOMNIA
5 THINNER
6 THE SHINING
7 PET SEMATARY
8 DARK TOWER 4: WIZARD AND GLASS
9 BAG OF BONES
10 DARK TOWER 1: THE GUNSLINGER
11 NEEDFUL THINGS
12 'SALEM'S LOT
13 THE STAND
14 THE LONG WALK
15 DARK TOWER 2: THE DRAWING OF THE THREE
16 DARK TOWER 3: THE WASTE LANDS
17 THE REGULATORS
18 JOYLAND
19 THE DEAD ZONE
20 THE TALISMAN (in collaboration with Peter Straub)
21 THE TOMMYKNOCKERS
22 DARK TOWER 7: THE DARK TOWER
23 DUMA KEY
24 DARK TOWER 5: THE WOLVES OF THE CALLA
25 CHRISTINE
Monday, August 21, 2017
In Case the Clouds Don't Cover Today's Solar Eclipse
I wasn't planning on watching the partial solar eclipse this afternoon in Gainesville...besides, they seem to be forecasting cloudy if not stormy weather here. But just in case, I Googled "shoebox solar eclipse" and got the needed link to YouTube giving directions on how to build a safe viewer (please don't directly look at the sun during the eclipse, it will cause vision damage). I went into the garage, found a box resembling a shoebox, and then went to work on it, cutting small square holes in the lower small side and, in the corner of the adjacent long side, another one. I cut a small patch of unwrinkled aluminum foil and taped it covering the small side hole. Then, on the inside end of the box opposite the aluminum foil I taped some white paper. I pricked a tiny pinhole in the aluminum foil and then closed up the box, covering any inadvertent openings with duct tape. Then I took it outside and tried it on the sun. I held the box with my back to the sun and let the sunlight go through the foil's pinhole and project onto the white paper inside. I looked through the side opening: voilà, it works, there's the sun on the paper! You can get a sense of my contraption by the photo...the foil is on top and the viewer hole is below it on the adjacent side...it's really quite easy to assemble: most of the time spent involved me looking for stuff...
When the partial eclipse hits its peak at 2:47 pm in Gainesville, I'll most likely be on the road to work. Maybe I'll get to see it, maybe I won't. I think it's kind of funny how in our society a threshold can be crossed with public interest about something and it becomes a mass mania...I hear it's pretty congested right now in the "total eclipse" band spreading west across the country from South Carolina to Oregon. On one hand I'm happy about any public interest in astronomy...on the other, I doubt it will adequately transfer to greater sustained interest about space exploration...
Sunday, August 20, 2017
1967's So-Called "Summer of Love"
The August/September edition of AARP's glossy magazine has a cover with a fancy and colorful Peter Max drawing on it: it is a tribute to the "Summer of Love" back in 1967...50 years ago. I'm not sure that's what folks were calling it back then: the label seems to be one of those retroactive captions placed on a historical moment...and it's not in the least bit accurate...
The late Scott McKenzie released his iconic hit single San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) in May of 1967 and it was a big summertime hit, setting the stage for the counterculture movement that was concentrated in that west coast city. I remember seeing in late June a BBC production called Our World that showed live various things going on all over the planet...one of the features was the Beatles recording their hit single All You Need is Love. Around this time so-called "mind-expanding" drugs like LSD became very popular in some circles, and art imitated the psychedelic...hence the Peter Max kind of spaced-out imagery. The new generation was going to change everything...after all, the oldsters were giving them war, poverty, injustice, pollution, and racism. And how was this great change to come about? Why, by tuning in (to drugs, I suppose) and dropping out (meaning disengaging from the very society they wanted to change). I never bought into any of this, but I did come away with a lot of great music from this strange time. And no, I didn't ever see this as a "summer of love"...maybe a couple of examples will explain why not...
On July 2, 1967, in what is officially called Operation Buffalo, the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone saw the worst one-day casualty day for the U.S. Marines in the Vietnam War with 84 dead and 190 others wounded after being ambushed by the North Vietnamese regular forces. Looking at 1967 as a whole, 11,153 Americans were killed in the war, up more than 5,000 from 1966...the following year the total would go up another 5,000. It definitely was no "summer of love" in this part of the world...
Another term for this period in our history is quite different from the way some nostalgia buffs portray it: "The Long Hot Summer" refers to the numerous race riots that broke out in the summer of 1967 across the country, with the worst being in Newark and Detroit. There were numerous reasons for their outbreak, but I see a great similarity between then and the general situation now: profiling and brutality from the police, a sense among many blacks of isolation and discrimination from the fruits of the greater American society, and a feeling of hopelessness when it comes to opportunities for economic betterment for themselves and their families. After all, the civil rights victories of the previous 13 years hadn't done anything for their lives...and now where are we, a half-century later?
And where was I during the so-called "Summer of Love"? I was ten and a half years old and on vacation between the fifth and sixth grades at Davie's Nova Elementary School. I spent much of my time at the nearby Boulevard Heights Elementary School (which I attended for grades 1-3) since they had a good summer recreation program going on there, including many games, the school's library...and many good pine trees to climb. For me personally, the summer of '67 was neither a war, that long hot summer (although it was long and hot), nor a summer of love...it was the Summer of Tree Climbing. I got to be pretty good at it, too, and tended to climb higher (and take more chances) than most everyone else. I also became bold at jumping down from heights...not just from trees, but also from the tops of buildings. Looking back on it, I wonder how I managed to survive that summer or at least avoid broken bones. During the first few weeks after school resumed, I came down badly with the flu, unusual for this time of year...my temperature shot up to over 105 and when I finally recovered, I was even thinner than I normally was (a classmate innocently asked me if I had polio)...I call it the "Late Summer of Sickness"...
So yeah, we can all get caught up with putting labels on different periods...and sometimes it can get a little extreme and distorted. My take on the Summer of Love that AARP and others are promoting is that it was a commercially hyped gimmick designed to sell culture and fashion through a feel-good sensibility that masked the despair and hopelessness that the country was slipping into from a never-ending war and civil unrest...
The late Scott McKenzie released his iconic hit single San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) in May of 1967 and it was a big summertime hit, setting the stage for the counterculture movement that was concentrated in that west coast city. I remember seeing in late June a BBC production called Our World that showed live various things going on all over the planet...one of the features was the Beatles recording their hit single All You Need is Love. Around this time so-called "mind-expanding" drugs like LSD became very popular in some circles, and art imitated the psychedelic...hence the Peter Max kind of spaced-out imagery. The new generation was going to change everything...after all, the oldsters were giving them war, poverty, injustice, pollution, and racism. And how was this great change to come about? Why, by tuning in (to drugs, I suppose) and dropping out (meaning disengaging from the very society they wanted to change). I never bought into any of this, but I did come away with a lot of great music from this strange time. And no, I didn't ever see this as a "summer of love"...maybe a couple of examples will explain why not...
On July 2, 1967, in what is officially called Operation Buffalo, the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone saw the worst one-day casualty day for the U.S. Marines in the Vietnam War with 84 dead and 190 others wounded after being ambushed by the North Vietnamese regular forces. Looking at 1967 as a whole, 11,153 Americans were killed in the war, up more than 5,000 from 1966...the following year the total would go up another 5,000. It definitely was no "summer of love" in this part of the world...
Another term for this period in our history is quite different from the way some nostalgia buffs portray it: "The Long Hot Summer" refers to the numerous race riots that broke out in the summer of 1967 across the country, with the worst being in Newark and Detroit. There were numerous reasons for their outbreak, but I see a great similarity between then and the general situation now: profiling and brutality from the police, a sense among many blacks of isolation and discrimination from the fruits of the greater American society, and a feeling of hopelessness when it comes to opportunities for economic betterment for themselves and their families. After all, the civil rights victories of the previous 13 years hadn't done anything for their lives...and now where are we, a half-century later?
And where was I during the so-called "Summer of Love"? I was ten and a half years old and on vacation between the fifth and sixth grades at Davie's Nova Elementary School. I spent much of my time at the nearby Boulevard Heights Elementary School (which I attended for grades 1-3) since they had a good summer recreation program going on there, including many games, the school's library...and many good pine trees to climb. For me personally, the summer of '67 was neither a war, that long hot summer (although it was long and hot), nor a summer of love...it was the Summer of Tree Climbing. I got to be pretty good at it, too, and tended to climb higher (and take more chances) than most everyone else. I also became bold at jumping down from heights...not just from trees, but also from the tops of buildings. Looking back on it, I wonder how I managed to survive that summer or at least avoid broken bones. During the first few weeks after school resumed, I came down badly with the flu, unusual for this time of year...my temperature shot up to over 105 and when I finally recovered, I was even thinner than I normally was (a classmate innocently asked me if I had polio)...I call it the "Late Summer of Sickness"...
So yeah, we can all get caught up with putting labels on different periods...and sometimes it can get a little extreme and distorted. My take on the Summer of Love that AARP and others are promoting is that it was a commercially hyped gimmick designed to sell culture and fashion through a feel-good sensibility that masked the despair and hopelessness that the country was slipping into from a never-ending war and civil unrest...
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Just Finished Reading The Cobra by Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth is most known for his early novels The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File, but this British author/journalist/spy has continued his writing through the decades, coming out with The Cobra in 2010. I hadn't read any of Forsyth's works before I picked up The Cobra...I was impressed with this book although I found it difficult at times to keep up with some of the rather technical military information conveyed in it as well as many nautical and aeronautical terms...
The Cobra features two characters from an earlier Forsyth story, Avenger, as former spyboss Paul Devereaux hires his old nemesis Cal Dexter to head an extremely ambitious project authorized by the president (who too closely resembles Obama) to rid the world of organized cocaine trafficking. It seems that processing and transportation operations are almost exclusively controlled by a single Colombian cartel run by Don Diego Esteban... He has on his "board" men who are responsible for different crucial aspects of the organization and runs it with an iron fist...he's very soft-spoken but also very cruel and vengeful when he suspects betrayal. Also very soft-spoken and ultimately cold-blooded is Devereaux, who convinces the "Obama-like-but-not-really-Obama" president to reclassify cocaine trafficking as terrorism in order to greatly curb those pesky due process civil rights that the suspected are entitled to for their criminal activity. This irked me and reminded me of several crime novels I've read...most notably by James Patterson...in which the bad guys are always taking advantage of the legal system to escape justice, implying that it might be better to just get rid of that annoying due process nonsense...
The very intricate plan developed by Devereaux and carried out by Dexter works nearly perfectly...before too long the cartel loses an enormous percentage of its cocaine and Don Diego soon sees traitors in his organization everywhere. It all implodes and final victory...i.e. the end of large-scale illicit cocaine trade...seems in sight. And then the author inserted some plot twists to bring it all back to reality...after all, I don't think that cocaine trafficking ever got eliminated, did it?
In spite of the heavy handed way in which smaller players were handled by the "good guys", I did appreciate Forsyth's "mission impossible" intricacy as the various parts of his plan came together to choke off the enemy. But what I liked the most was that aforementioned plot twist at the end, and how the decisions that Devereaux and Dexter made at this point led to one of the best closing lines I've read in a novel...but you'll have to read it for yourself to find out...
I recommend The Cobra, but I suspect that Frederick Forsyth's earlier works were better...well, I guess I'd better go find out...
The Cobra features two characters from an earlier Forsyth story, Avenger, as former spyboss Paul Devereaux hires his old nemesis Cal Dexter to head an extremely ambitious project authorized by the president (who too closely resembles Obama) to rid the world of organized cocaine trafficking. It seems that processing and transportation operations are almost exclusively controlled by a single Colombian cartel run by Don Diego Esteban... He has on his "board" men who are responsible for different crucial aspects of the organization and runs it with an iron fist...he's very soft-spoken but also very cruel and vengeful when he suspects betrayal. Also very soft-spoken and ultimately cold-blooded is Devereaux, who convinces the "Obama-like-but-not-really-Obama" president to reclassify cocaine trafficking as terrorism in order to greatly curb those pesky due process civil rights that the suspected are entitled to for their criminal activity. This irked me and reminded me of several crime novels I've read...most notably by James Patterson...in which the bad guys are always taking advantage of the legal system to escape justice, implying that it might be better to just get rid of that annoying due process nonsense...
The very intricate plan developed by Devereaux and carried out by Dexter works nearly perfectly...before too long the cartel loses an enormous percentage of its cocaine and Don Diego soon sees traitors in his organization everywhere. It all implodes and final victory...i.e. the end of large-scale illicit cocaine trade...seems in sight. And then the author inserted some plot twists to bring it all back to reality...after all, I don't think that cocaine trafficking ever got eliminated, did it?
In spite of the heavy handed way in which smaller players were handled by the "good guys", I did appreciate Forsyth's "mission impossible" intricacy as the various parts of his plan came together to choke off the enemy. But what I liked the most was that aforementioned plot twist at the end, and how the decisions that Devereaux and Dexter made at this point led to one of the best closing lines I've read in a novel...but you'll have to read it for yourself to find out...
I recommend The Cobra, but I suspect that Frederick Forsyth's earlier works were better...well, I guess I'd better go find out...
Friday, August 18, 2017
Quote of the Week...from Pete Hamill
Boxing is one of those leftovers from a more primitive past that should be finished off and killed. I don't love it anymore. ---Pete Hamill, a New York journalist and author.
The other night on Jimmy Kimmel, he had as a guest professional boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who will be fighting against Connor McGregor of the UFC on August 26th. Mayweather was all smiles and only seemed to want to talk about all the money he was going to make from this upcoming bout...I'd be thinking about something else if I were him...
Mayweather is at his career peak and has succeeded in large part to his skill at avoiding being hit in the head...but on the other hand he has inflicted much damage to his opponents over his 49-0 professional span, included 26 knockouts. And knowing how much head blows contribute to the disease known as dementia pugilistica and seeing the tragedy of how Muhammad Ali's life was drastically impaired by his boxing-induced Parkinson's, I personally cannot fathom how anyone in this day and age could go out there with a clear conscience and cause brain damage in others over and over again...even if they were adroit at fending off their opponents' blows to their own heads...
Speaking of Ali, the last boxing match I followed was the October, 1980 event between him and Larry Holmes. Unknown to the viewing public, Ali was already beginning to suffer the cumulative effects of his bouts and had recently entered a Mayo clinic with results showing slurred speech and lack of coordination...foreshadowers of his Parkinson's ordeals. But the fight went on and Holmes pummeled Ali, with a TKO in the tenth round putting it to a much belated end. Before that I had watched a lot of boxing over the years...especially Ali's fights...but afterwards lost heart in this brutal and debilitating sport after realizing how it ultimately destroys the lives of so many of these great athletes. And quite frankly, I don't have much respect for the public followers of boxing either...and this includes the hybrid sport of UFC...their bloodlust to me rivals that of the ancient world's Roman Coliseum spectators of gladiator contests...
By all accounts, Floyd Mayweather is charming and likable and seemingly indestructible...but so was Muhammad Ali in his prime. I've never watched Connor McGregor fight nor heard him speak, but he's in the same boat as Mayweather. I read that McGregor stands to make $75 million off this upcoming fight and Mayweather a whopping $100 million. But what good is all that money if down the road your mind is mush and your life a greatly shortened one full of disability and heartbreak?
The other night on Jimmy Kimmel, he had as a guest professional boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who will be fighting against Connor McGregor of the UFC on August 26th. Mayweather was all smiles and only seemed to want to talk about all the money he was going to make from this upcoming bout...I'd be thinking about something else if I were him...
Mayweather is at his career peak and has succeeded in large part to his skill at avoiding being hit in the head...but on the other hand he has inflicted much damage to his opponents over his 49-0 professional span, included 26 knockouts. And knowing how much head blows contribute to the disease known as dementia pugilistica and seeing the tragedy of how Muhammad Ali's life was drastically impaired by his boxing-induced Parkinson's, I personally cannot fathom how anyone in this day and age could go out there with a clear conscience and cause brain damage in others over and over again...even if they were adroit at fending off their opponents' blows to their own heads...
Speaking of Ali, the last boxing match I followed was the October, 1980 event between him and Larry Holmes. Unknown to the viewing public, Ali was already beginning to suffer the cumulative effects of his bouts and had recently entered a Mayo clinic with results showing slurred speech and lack of coordination...foreshadowers of his Parkinson's ordeals. But the fight went on and Holmes pummeled Ali, with a TKO in the tenth round putting it to a much belated end. Before that I had watched a lot of boxing over the years...especially Ali's fights...but afterwards lost heart in this brutal and debilitating sport after realizing how it ultimately destroys the lives of so many of these great athletes. And quite frankly, I don't have much respect for the public followers of boxing either...and this includes the hybrid sport of UFC...their bloodlust to me rivals that of the ancient world's Roman Coliseum spectators of gladiator contests...
By all accounts, Floyd Mayweather is charming and likable and seemingly indestructible...but so was Muhammad Ali in his prime. I've never watched Connor McGregor fight nor heard him speak, but he's in the same boat as Mayweather. I read that McGregor stands to make $75 million off this upcoming fight and Mayweather a whopping $100 million. But what good is all that money if down the road your mind is mush and your life a greatly shortened one full of disability and heartbreak?
Thursday, August 17, 2017
8/13 Sermon: No One is an Island, Pt. 2
This past Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville, Aaron Read delivered the second sermon in the series No One is an Island. The title was Encourage One Another and referred to Hebrews 10:24-25...shown here in the New International Version via Bible Gateway:
24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Aaron began the message by discussing the then-ongoing conflict in Charlottesville, Virginia as Neo-Nazis and other white supremacist groups demonstrated there and were confronted with counter-protesters, with three total fatalities so far. He deplored the bigotry expressed there and strongly stressed that there is no place within the Christian faith for any of these hateful beliefs...I appreciated his comments. Then Aaron went into the body of the message, which is what we need to know if we are going to encourage one another: the place, the power, and the perspective. With the place, he stressed the importance of meeting regularly, not just for the weekly service, but also in small groups where believers could get to know and help one another...he used a word picture in the form of the wild African savannah, where a lion preys on a zebra herd and attacks the one zebra bent on going on its own. With the power, Aaron focused on how words can be powerful either for good or evil, and how we need God's grace and wisdom to be able to discern when not to speak and what to say (and in what way) when speech is called for. And with the perspective, this is that of Jesus, the one who perfects our faith and whose return is coming...
You can see Aaron's Read's message for yourself through the church's YouTube video by the following link: [link]. The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and meets for services at 9:30 and 11 each Sunday morning, with praise music, the weekly sermon, and opportunities for prayer and fellowship...
24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Aaron began the message by discussing the then-ongoing conflict in Charlottesville, Virginia as Neo-Nazis and other white supremacist groups demonstrated there and were confronted with counter-protesters, with three total fatalities so far. He deplored the bigotry expressed there and strongly stressed that there is no place within the Christian faith for any of these hateful beliefs...I appreciated his comments. Then Aaron went into the body of the message, which is what we need to know if we are going to encourage one another: the place, the power, and the perspective. With the place, he stressed the importance of meeting regularly, not just for the weekly service, but also in small groups where believers could get to know and help one another...he used a word picture in the form of the wild African savannah, where a lion preys on a zebra herd and attacks the one zebra bent on going on its own. With the power, Aaron focused on how words can be powerful either for good or evil, and how we need God's grace and wisdom to be able to discern when not to speak and what to say (and in what way) when speech is called for. And with the perspective, this is that of Jesus, the one who perfects our faith and whose return is coming...
You can see Aaron's Read's message for yourself through the church's YouTube video by the following link: [link]. The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and meets for services at 9:30 and 11 each Sunday morning, with praise music, the weekly sermon, and opportunities for prayer and fellowship...
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Weekly Short Story: Strikebreaker by Isaac Asimov
Sometimes the genre of science fiction can offer commentary about our contemporary society...even when the setting is far off in both time and space. In light of last weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Virginia when an outside group of white supremacists demonstrated there over the University of Virginia's planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue and one of them ran over counter-protesters, killing a young woman and injuring several others, I thought I'd pick a short story highlighting the theme of bigotry. And Isaac Asimov, the great author of the Foundation series, provided one with Strikebreaker...from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories #19 (1957)(DAW Books, 1989)...
It is far into the distant future and humanity has settled the galaxy far and wide. On a small planetoid called Elsevere, every cubic foot of space is being utilized...with recycling of everything an absolute requirement for sustainability. But there has developed a problem...growing into a planetary crisis...and Steven Lamorak has arrived from Earth to investigate. In a nutshell, the society on Elsevere has been divided into strict castes according to the jobs that the people perform. Lowest and most shunned is the person (and family) responsible for operating the machinery that processes all of the waste (including excrement and the dead) and recycles it for consumption: an indispensable job. The operator, Ragusnik, has had enough of his and his family's forced isolation from society and has declared a strike until they are allowed equal access to Elsevere. So the waste is accumulating to dangerous levels...and it is up to Lamorak to try and negotiate a solution. The irony is that Ragusnik is no different from anyone else and his job only involves pushing buttons and turning dials: he never even remotely gets close to the waste that others shun him for being involved with...
Strikebreaker is about how a society can make divisions among itself that can seem for its own members to be important to its function but to an outside observer seem completely arbitrary and discriminatory. The extremists wanting to exacerbate racial divisions in our own country may think that they are "saving" their society...but to any reasonable person observing them, they come across as narrow-minded bigots. Seeing what's been recently happening in Charlottesville, Virginia should serve as a wake-up call to us...
It is far into the distant future and humanity has settled the galaxy far and wide. On a small planetoid called Elsevere, every cubic foot of space is being utilized...with recycling of everything an absolute requirement for sustainability. But there has developed a problem...growing into a planetary crisis...and Steven Lamorak has arrived from Earth to investigate. In a nutshell, the society on Elsevere has been divided into strict castes according to the jobs that the people perform. Lowest and most shunned is the person (and family) responsible for operating the machinery that processes all of the waste (including excrement and the dead) and recycles it for consumption: an indispensable job. The operator, Ragusnik, has had enough of his and his family's forced isolation from society and has declared a strike until they are allowed equal access to Elsevere. So the waste is accumulating to dangerous levels...and it is up to Lamorak to try and negotiate a solution. The irony is that Ragusnik is no different from anyone else and his job only involves pushing buttons and turning dials: he never even remotely gets close to the waste that others shun him for being involved with...
Strikebreaker is about how a society can make divisions among itself that can seem for its own members to be important to its function but to an outside observer seem completely arbitrary and discriminatory. The extremists wanting to exacerbate racial divisions in our own country may think that they are "saving" their society...but to any reasonable person observing them, they come across as narrow-minded bigots. Seeing what's been recently happening in Charlottesville, Virginia should serve as a wake-up call to us...
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Tuesday's List: My Top 15 Favorite Musical Acts Over the Last 20 Years
During the last twenty years, my musical tastes gravitated more and more toward alternative rock and so-called "indie" music. Thanks in large part to a local radio station (WHHZ/100.5 "The Buzz") and specialized Internet music stations, I was able to hear acts that had escaped mainstream radio and the MTV conglomerate of music video channels. You may not be familiar with some of the following names, but they are all quality acts worth a hearing. Of the fifteen, only two are no longer active: R.E.M. amicably disbanded seven years ago and David Bowie sadly passed away last year...Gorillaz had broken up but just recently got back together...hooray!
Well, here's that list of my favorites...with their three best songs (since 1997). Note: several of the listed acts have great songs from 1996 and earlier...these songs are not included here...
1 REGINA SPEKTOR
Us
Firewood
Man of a Thousand Faces
2 RADIOHEAD
These Are My Twisted Words
Faust Arp
Morning Bell
3 KASABIAN
Switchblade Smiles
Reason is Treason
Treat
4 BECK
Timebomb
Think I'm in Love
Motorcade
5 SUFJAN STEVENS
Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head
Casimir Pulaski Day
Jackson
6 ARCADE FIRE
Neon Bible
Rococo
Rebellion (Lies)
7 SPOON
The Ghost of You Lingers
Merchants of Soul
Goodnight Laura
8 DAVID BOWIE
Blackstar
Looking for Satellites
Days
9 METRIC
Calculation (Theme)
Soft Rock Star
Combat Baby
10 GORILLAZ
To Binge
Stylo
Last Living Soul
11 R.E.M.
Imitation of Life
Suspicion
Walk Unafraid
12 RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
Tell Me Baby
Scar Tissue
Around the World
13 FOO FIGHTERS
Something from Nothing
Everlong
Headwires
14 SARAH MCLACHLAN
Building a Mystery
Sweet Surrender
Fallen
15 TWENTY ONE PILOTS
Ride
Heavydirtysoul
Heathens
Honorable mention: Jet, Death Cab for Cutie, MGMT, PJ Harvey, Tegan and Sara, Franz Ferdinand, Andrew Bird, The Strokes, U2, Beyoncé, Korn, Tool, Linkin Park, Beastie Boys
Well, here's that list of my favorites...with their three best songs (since 1997). Note: several of the listed acts have great songs from 1996 and earlier...these songs are not included here...
1 REGINA SPEKTOR
Us
Firewood
Man of a Thousand Faces
2 RADIOHEAD
These Are My Twisted Words
Faust Arp
Morning Bell
3 KASABIAN
Switchblade Smiles
Reason is Treason
Treat
4 BECK
Timebomb
Think I'm in Love
Motorcade
5 SUFJAN STEVENS
Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head
Casimir Pulaski Day
Jackson
6 ARCADE FIRE
Neon Bible
Rococo
Rebellion (Lies)
7 SPOON
The Ghost of You Lingers
Merchants of Soul
Goodnight Laura
8 DAVID BOWIE
Blackstar
Looking for Satellites
Days
9 METRIC
Calculation (Theme)
Soft Rock Star
Combat Baby
10 GORILLAZ
To Binge
Stylo
Last Living Soul
11 R.E.M.
Imitation of Life
Suspicion
Walk Unafraid
12 RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
Tell Me Baby
Scar Tissue
Around the World
13 FOO FIGHTERS
Something from Nothing
Everlong
Headwires
14 SARAH MCLACHLAN
Building a Mystery
Sweet Surrender
Fallen
15 TWENTY ONE PILOTS
Ride
Heavydirtysoul
Heathens
Honorable mention: Jet, Death Cab for Cutie, MGMT, PJ Harvey, Tegan and Sara, Franz Ferdinand, Andrew Bird, The Strokes, U2, Beyoncé, Korn, Tool, Linkin Park, Beastie Boys
Monday, August 14, 2017
Extraordinarily Wet Gainesville Summer Weather Difficult to Bear
This 2017 summer season has proven, at least to me, to be nearly unbearable here in north central Florida with the heat, humidity...and overwhelming precipitation. Sure, summers in this area are usually associated with wetter weather, but since June the ground in town and around my house has become supersaturated...there's no place for the water to settle anymore. Sometimes I like to do my running training in my backyard, but recently it's been no fun slogging through what is becoming more of a mud pit in places than a lawn. And even when I decide that road running in the rain would be okay...may even a welcome respite from the extreme heat when the sun is out...it is almost always accompanied by thunder and lightning. What will come for the rest of August and beyond? I don't know, but here in Gainesville the rainfall for June and July were 16.86 and 16.70 inches, well over double the average monthly amount of 6-7 inches during this season...I expect a similarly high figure for August as the rain simply will not let up...
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Some Sports Talk
It's been a while since I wrote anything about sports on this blog. Well, there's not that much going on...baseball's regular season is more than two thirds of the way through and the Florida teams aren't doing so well...Tampa Bay in the American League has fallen to .500 at 59-59 and Miami in the National is continuing to do slightly worse with a 55-60 record: at least both teams have remained competitive...so far. Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Washington, Chicago Cubs, and L.A. Dodgers are leading their respective divisions, although the Cubs are only percentage points ahead of resurgent St. Louis. In Major League Soccer, Orlando City continues their downward slide after having won six of their first seven matches...they're now mired firmly out of playoff position with little hope of turning things around. Portland, on the other hand, seems like they'll make the postseason this year after missing it in 2016 (they won the championship the year before). In English soccer, the Premier League opened its season this weekend with three promoted teams: Newcastle, Brighton, and Huddersfield. Defending champion Chelsea was upset at home against Burnley while 2016's champion Leicester City lost a close one on the road against Arsenal. In Mexico's premier league, "my" UANL Tigres are only 1-1-1 after three matches...I wonder whether they still have it within them make another run for the title this season...
And then, of course, there's football. Living in Gainesville, I hear plenty of press about this 2017 edition of University of Florida football...hopes are high for the offense to reestablish itself for the first time in many years, but the Gators' stellar defense lost many seniors and are a big question mark. UF might do really well this year...or things might just as well fall apart. In the pros, the Miami Dolphins snubbed their valuable backup quarterback Matt Moore after he carried the team last year into the playoffs...for the first time since 2008...following starter Ryan Tannehill's season-ending injury. He's out again for this year and Miami opted to coax retired QB Jay Cutler to join the team as Tannehill's starting replacement. Who wants to bet that Moore won't be back in there after just a few weeks? I'm disappointed in the Dolphins' choice of Cutler, but I'll still be rooting for him to succeed...
And then, of course, there's football. Living in Gainesville, I hear plenty of press about this 2017 edition of University of Florida football...hopes are high for the offense to reestablish itself for the first time in many years, but the Gators' stellar defense lost many seniors and are a big question mark. UF might do really well this year...or things might just as well fall apart. In the pros, the Miami Dolphins snubbed their valuable backup quarterback Matt Moore after he carried the team last year into the playoffs...for the first time since 2008...following starter Ryan Tannehill's season-ending injury. He's out again for this year and Miami opted to coax retired QB Jay Cutler to join the team as Tannehill's starting replacement. Who wants to bet that Moore won't be back in there after just a few weeks? I'm disappointed in the Dolphins' choice of Cutler, but I'll still be rooting for him to succeed...
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Just Finished Reading The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
When I was recently writing about another book I just read, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, I discovered a listing of what a couple of literary critics from Time Magazine deemed as the best American novels since 1923, the year of that publication's founding. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow was on it, and since I had already read another of his books, Herzog, I decided to check out this one, too. I'm glad I did...
The character of Augie March narrates his own life story as he traces his relationship from childhood through his adolescence and young adult years. The setting is the 1920s through the 40s as Augie recounts his Chicago upbringing in a Jewish family, largely by "Grandma", an unrelated elderly fellow tenant who dominates his abandoned, simple-minded mother, himself, his older brother Simon, and his younger brother George, also intellectually challenged. As Augie matures, he finds his life a string of passages from one set of circumstances and relationships to another, both in regard to career, friendships, and romance. It seems that he is constantly running into situations in which he is acting in subservience to another's agenda...and begins to develop his own philosophy of life: one in which he is the driving force and not others. But can Augie escape his life's pattern of relationships? I guess that is something that we all have to ask ourselves: whether fate will steer us unobligingly in its own direction or whether we can change it ourselves...
The Adventures of Augie March, while presenting a very sympathetic character, also vividly portrayed what life in urban Chicago must have been like back in the early-to-mid twentieth century...including the Great Depression and World War II years. This book is loaded to the hilt with humor, and I found myself chuckling at different points. Saul Bellow, I imagine, wrote a lot of his own life into Augie's story...including his own sometimes tempestuous relationship with his older brother. He breathed depth and life into all of the characters...even minor ones...and gave them a sense of real existence that few authors have been able to accomplish. But we are speaking about Saul Bellow, of course: a great American author...
And now I'm starting on my third Saul Bellow book: Humboldt's Gift...
The character of Augie March narrates his own life story as he traces his relationship from childhood through his adolescence and young adult years. The setting is the 1920s through the 40s as Augie recounts his Chicago upbringing in a Jewish family, largely by "Grandma", an unrelated elderly fellow tenant who dominates his abandoned, simple-minded mother, himself, his older brother Simon, and his younger brother George, also intellectually challenged. As Augie matures, he finds his life a string of passages from one set of circumstances and relationships to another, both in regard to career, friendships, and romance. It seems that he is constantly running into situations in which he is acting in subservience to another's agenda...and begins to develop his own philosophy of life: one in which he is the driving force and not others. But can Augie escape his life's pattern of relationships? I guess that is something that we all have to ask ourselves: whether fate will steer us unobligingly in its own direction or whether we can change it ourselves...
The Adventures of Augie March, while presenting a very sympathetic character, also vividly portrayed what life in urban Chicago must have been like back in the early-to-mid twentieth century...including the Great Depression and World War II years. This book is loaded to the hilt with humor, and I found myself chuckling at different points. Saul Bellow, I imagine, wrote a lot of his own life into Augie's story...including his own sometimes tempestuous relationship with his older brother. He breathed depth and life into all of the characters...even minor ones...and gave them a sense of real existence that few authors have been able to accomplish. But we are speaking about Saul Bellow, of course: a great American author...
And now I'm starting on my third Saul Bellow book: Humboldt's Gift...
Friday, August 11, 2017
Quote of the Week...from Christopher Hitchens
The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy - the one that's absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes. ---Christopher Hitchens
When I think of totalitarianism, three different images come to my mind. One is the maniacal third-generation tyrant of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, and how utterly obsequious everyone is around him within his dominion...they all know that one slipup...even just a frown instead of a big smile in the wrong situation...can mean that it's all over for them! Another is an image of ISIS, or Islamic State, as they prey upon the native Muslim and Christian populations of northern Syria and Iraq, imposing their own extreme ideology on all...and the people had better respond in heartfelt, grateful, and complete agreement with their "liberators"! And the third is an old Twilight Zone episode titled It's a Good Life, adapted from the same-titled short story by Jerome Bixby. It depicts a young boy, played by Billy Mumy of Lost in Space fame, who completely subjugates his rural American home community by getting into the minds of all around him, discerning their intentions...and then mentally sending them off dead into the cornfield if they don't meet his standards. All three are examples of what the late intellectual giant Christopher Hitchens would call the totalitarian...and they are very different from "authoritarians"...
In an authoritarian system, the leadership...like that of the totalitarian...is unchallengable, and there are usually many limits placed on the population's freedoms, especially that of dissent. Yet the people in general are allowed to go about their own lives and practice their own beliefs as long as they don't challenge the authorities or associate with any who do. I'd put Russia's present ruler Vladimir Putin in the category of authoritarian, while the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was totalitarian...as were Germany's Hitler, China's Mao, Japan's Tojo, Cambodia's Pol Pot, and our own home-grown Jim Jones, to name some of the more infamous of this lot. Fortunately we live in neither an authoritarian nor a totalitarian society. However...
Sometimes I get the feeling that I am being unduly pressured by others to conform to certain patterns of speech, presentation, and behavior that reflect a particular group's way of seeing things. And it's true that, within various organizations, either political, religious, business, or otherwise, there is a collective philosophy and expectation as to how the members express and present themselves on various issues...some of them not necessarily directly related to the aims of the groups themselves. But although there may sometimes be a feeling of totalitarianism in these situations, remember that in the final analysis these groups are the results of the voluntary free association guaranteed to us in this wonderful country by our Constitution...we're not compelled to stay in these groups if we don't want to. It is wholly natural for folks to want to associate with each other according to common interests and beliefs as well as try to persuade others to their mindset...but if you find yourself around a bunch who seem wedded to a certain conformity pattern that goes against what you stand for, why then hang around? Of course, underworld crime organizations and cults are two examples of groups that can have a totalitarian grip on their members...both involve isolating people from mainstream society and simultaneously placing them in a dependency relationship with their "masters" for physical needs while holding out the real threat of serious punishment for perceived disloyalty or a desire to leave...beware of these and avoid them at all costs...
So yes, I agree with Christopher Hitchens that the totalitarian is my enemy. Sometimes, though, I feel that we are too quick with our sometimes overly-sensitive natures to realize that we have a lot more power in our lives then we like to imagine...and should refrain from tacking that pejorative label on people and groups that are only expressing themselves in the context of a free, open society but who come across as too pushy or intolerant of opposing views and lifestyles...
When I think of totalitarianism, three different images come to my mind. One is the maniacal third-generation tyrant of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, and how utterly obsequious everyone is around him within his dominion...they all know that one slipup...even just a frown instead of a big smile in the wrong situation...can mean that it's all over for them! Another is an image of ISIS, or Islamic State, as they prey upon the native Muslim and Christian populations of northern Syria and Iraq, imposing their own extreme ideology on all...and the people had better respond in heartfelt, grateful, and complete agreement with their "liberators"! And the third is an old Twilight Zone episode titled It's a Good Life, adapted from the same-titled short story by Jerome Bixby. It depicts a young boy, played by Billy Mumy of Lost in Space fame, who completely subjugates his rural American home community by getting into the minds of all around him, discerning their intentions...and then mentally sending them off dead into the cornfield if they don't meet his standards. All three are examples of what the late intellectual giant Christopher Hitchens would call the totalitarian...and they are very different from "authoritarians"...
In an authoritarian system, the leadership...like that of the totalitarian...is unchallengable, and there are usually many limits placed on the population's freedoms, especially that of dissent. Yet the people in general are allowed to go about their own lives and practice their own beliefs as long as they don't challenge the authorities or associate with any who do. I'd put Russia's present ruler Vladimir Putin in the category of authoritarian, while the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was totalitarian...as were Germany's Hitler, China's Mao, Japan's Tojo, Cambodia's Pol Pot, and our own home-grown Jim Jones, to name some of the more infamous of this lot. Fortunately we live in neither an authoritarian nor a totalitarian society. However...
Sometimes I get the feeling that I am being unduly pressured by others to conform to certain patterns of speech, presentation, and behavior that reflect a particular group's way of seeing things. And it's true that, within various organizations, either political, religious, business, or otherwise, there is a collective philosophy and expectation as to how the members express and present themselves on various issues...some of them not necessarily directly related to the aims of the groups themselves. But although there may sometimes be a feeling of totalitarianism in these situations, remember that in the final analysis these groups are the results of the voluntary free association guaranteed to us in this wonderful country by our Constitution...we're not compelled to stay in these groups if we don't want to. It is wholly natural for folks to want to associate with each other according to common interests and beliefs as well as try to persuade others to their mindset...but if you find yourself around a bunch who seem wedded to a certain conformity pattern that goes against what you stand for, why then hang around? Of course, underworld crime organizations and cults are two examples of groups that can have a totalitarian grip on their members...both involve isolating people from mainstream society and simultaneously placing them in a dependency relationship with their "masters" for physical needs while holding out the real threat of serious punishment for perceived disloyalty or a desire to leave...beware of these and avoid them at all costs...
So yes, I agree with Christopher Hitchens that the totalitarian is my enemy. Sometimes, though, I feel that we are too quick with our sometimes overly-sensitive natures to realize that we have a lot more power in our lives then we like to imagine...and should refrain from tacking that pejorative label on people and groups that are only expressing themselves in the context of a free, open society but who come across as too pushy or intolerant of opposing views and lifestyles...
Thursday, August 10, 2017
8/6 Sermon: No One is an Island, Pt. 1
At The Family Church here in Gainesville, a new sermon series has begun: No One is an Island. The first message, presented by senior pastor Philip Griffin last Sunday, was titled Why Church? and addressed the reasons why Christians need a church, as opposed to going on their own. The Biblical passage of focus was in the New Testament book of Hebrews, Chapter 10 Verses 19-25...you can read it in the New International Version through the following link to Bible Gateway: [link]...
Pastor Philip structured his message around our need for the church, elucidating four areas where fellowship among believers helps us: we are strengthened when our hope wavers, we receive spoken truth into our lives from others, we are shaped by an environment of grace, and we are motivated into acts of service. Philip, drawing from the passage in Ephesians about putting on the Shield of Faith, made an analogy with the Roman army, in which the soldiers would lock shields during battle, thus protecting each other all around, not just in front...that is kind of like what being in community is like when our faith is attacked or under stress. With speaking truth, believers need to have deep spiritual relationships with others marked by transparent, mutual accountability. As for the environment of grace, part of experiencing God's grace is experiencing it through others with whom we are in purposeful community. And regarding service, we each have our own role to play and can discover that calling by engaging with other believers. In sum, church is not just a "crowd" that meets and disperses on Sunday mornings, but rather an interdependent spiritual body. No one is an island...
The Family Church has a YouTube channel through which you can watch past messages...here is a link for last Sunday's: [link]. Sunday morning services, which feature the weekly sermon, praise music, and prayer, meet at 9:30 and 11. The church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street...
Pastor Philip structured his message around our need for the church, elucidating four areas where fellowship among believers helps us: we are strengthened when our hope wavers, we receive spoken truth into our lives from others, we are shaped by an environment of grace, and we are motivated into acts of service. Philip, drawing from the passage in Ephesians about putting on the Shield of Faith, made an analogy with the Roman army, in which the soldiers would lock shields during battle, thus protecting each other all around, not just in front...that is kind of like what being in community is like when our faith is attacked or under stress. With speaking truth, believers need to have deep spiritual relationships with others marked by transparent, mutual accountability. As for the environment of grace, part of experiencing God's grace is experiencing it through others with whom we are in purposeful community. And regarding service, we each have our own role to play and can discover that calling by engaging with other believers. In sum, church is not just a "crowd" that meets and disperses on Sunday mornings, but rather an interdependent spiritual body. No one is an island...
The Family Church has a YouTube channel through which you can watch past messages...here is a link for last Sunday's: [link]. Sunday morning services, which feature the weekly sermon, praise music, and prayer, meet at 9:30 and 11. The church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street...
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Weekly Short Story: The Cage by A. Bertram Chandler
The 1957 science fiction short story The Cage appears in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories #19 (1957), DAW Books, 1989. I first read it many years ago and the final, amazing line stuck with me. It is well into the future as an interstellar expedition finds itself crashing on an distant planet. Although the explorers survive the hard landing, the ship is utterly destroyed and the omnipresent fungi consume the rest of their technology and clothing. They are stuck on an extremely humid and warm world, with no means to even start a fire or make tools...although at least the fungi are edible and the temperatures, although uncomfortable, aren't extreme. In deep survival mode, they have to assume that no rescue party will come anytime soon and that they will have to make their own society in this place, complete with rules for mate selection. In the middle of a staged fight for a mate, an alien ship comes down and whisks four of them away. They find themselves caged and quickly realize that their captors, rational beings but physically very different from humans, regard them as lower, unreasoning animals...and there is no way to convince them otherwise with no technology, fire, or even clothing that might signify higher intelligence on their own part. How this situation gets resolved...well, there's that last line I was talking about...
The Cage is only fifteen pages long, an example of how much bang one can get out of a story if the author sets it up carefully...and provides that knockout finish to make it memorable. I've looked over the Internet but haven't been able to find it, so the copyright must still be in effect. Still, it's in a lot of anthologies...might be worth looking into, especially if you like reading good science fiction short stories like I do...
The Cage is only fifteen pages long, an example of how much bang one can get out of a story if the author sets it up carefully...and provides that knockout finish to make it memorable. I've looked over the Internet but haven't been able to find it, so the copyright must still be in effect. Still, it's in a lot of anthologies...might be worth looking into, especially if you like reading good science fiction short stories like I do...
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Tuesday's List: My Favorite Classical Music Pieces
Although I thoroughly enjoy having classical music playing in the background wherever I am, and have at different times of my life identified certain pieces as personal favorites, I am usually somewhat lost when it comes to identifying what I'm hearing. With the classical radio station I listen to the most...Gainesville's 102.7 WUFT/Classical...I'm usually driving and if I don't catch the title and composer of whatever is on before I reach my destination, then that piece remains unknown even if I like it a lot. The following list of my personal favorite classical music pieces would assuredly be richer and longer if I knew the names of all the composers and works I've enjoyed over the years...maybe in the future I'll have such a revised list to present...
My parents...especially my mother...were big classical music fans and she loved to listen to Tchaikovsky. So I got in early to listening to such works as the 1812 Overture and the ballets Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. As they added to their record collection I became acquainted with Schubert and his great "unfinished" Eighth Symphony, along with Beethoven's more renowned symphonies. I took a music appreciation class at college in 1975 and learned about the prodigious works of Bach, among others. During this period I began to enjoy listening to the music of several late nineteenth-to-early twentieth century French and Russian composers. One of the French composers, Debussy, I discovered through a popular 1974 LP of electronic music that Isao Tomita made called Snowflakes are Dancing. Over the ensuing decades, my list of classical favorites grew erratically, but I've still managed to compile a small one...what are your favorites?
And here is that list of my personal favorite classical music pieces:
1 PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION............Modest Mussorgsky/Maurice Ravel
2 POLOVTSIAN DANCES..........................Alexander Borodin
3 SYMPHONY no. 3 (OF SORROWFUL SONGS) ....Henryk Górecki
4 SYMPHONY no. 8 ("UNFINISHED") ......Franz Schubert
5 SWAN LAKE.............................................Peter Tchaikovsky
6 BOLERO....................................................Ravel
7 CANTATA no. 140 (WACHET AUF, RUFT UNS DIE STIMME) ......Johann Sebastian Bach
8 NOCTURNES............................................Claude Debussy
9 GRAND CANYON SUITE........................Ferde Grofé
10 REVERIE.................................................Debussy
11 PIANO CONCERTO no. 1......................Tchaikovsky
12 RHAPSODY IN BLUE...........................George Gershwin
13 MLADI (YOUTH)...................................Leoš Janáček
14 ARABESQUE no. 1.................................Debussy
15 THE ENGULFED CATHEDRAL...........Debussy
16 AN AMERICAN IN PARIS....................Gershwin
17 EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIC..............Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
18 SLEEPING BEAUTY.............................Tchaikovsky
19 CLAIR DE LUNE....................................Debussy
20 SYMPHONY no. 9..................................Ludwig van Beethoven
21 CANTATA no. 147 (JESU, JOY OF MAN'S DESIRING) .......Bach
22 SYMPHONY no. 6 (PATHETIQUE) .....Tchaikovsky
23 THE PLANETS.......................................Gustav Holst
24 SYMPHONY no. 5..................................Beethoven
25 SYMPHONY no. 40................................Mozart
26 SYMPHONY no. 6 (PASTORAL) .........Beethoven
27 ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA........Richard Strauss
28 1812 OVERTURE...................................Tchaikovsky
29 THE NUTCRACKER.............................Tchaikovsky
30 SYMPHONY no. 3 (EROICA) ..............Beethoven
My parents...especially my mother...were big classical music fans and she loved to listen to Tchaikovsky. So I got in early to listening to such works as the 1812 Overture and the ballets Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. As they added to their record collection I became acquainted with Schubert and his great "unfinished" Eighth Symphony, along with Beethoven's more renowned symphonies. I took a music appreciation class at college in 1975 and learned about the prodigious works of Bach, among others. During this period I began to enjoy listening to the music of several late nineteenth-to-early twentieth century French and Russian composers. One of the French composers, Debussy, I discovered through a popular 1974 LP of electronic music that Isao Tomita made called Snowflakes are Dancing. Over the ensuing decades, my list of classical favorites grew erratically, but I've still managed to compile a small one...what are your favorites?
And here is that list of my personal favorite classical music pieces:
1 PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION............Modest Mussorgsky/Maurice Ravel
2 POLOVTSIAN DANCES..........................Alexander Borodin
3 SYMPHONY no. 3 (OF SORROWFUL SONGS) ....Henryk Górecki
4 SYMPHONY no. 8 ("UNFINISHED") ......Franz Schubert
5 SWAN LAKE.............................................Peter Tchaikovsky
6 BOLERO....................................................Ravel
7 CANTATA no. 140 (WACHET AUF, RUFT UNS DIE STIMME) ......Johann Sebastian Bach
8 NOCTURNES............................................Claude Debussy
9 GRAND CANYON SUITE........................Ferde Grofé
10 REVERIE.................................................Debussy
11 PIANO CONCERTO no. 1......................Tchaikovsky
12 RHAPSODY IN BLUE...........................George Gershwin
13 MLADI (YOUTH)...................................Leoš Janáček
14 ARABESQUE no. 1.................................Debussy
15 THE ENGULFED CATHEDRAL...........Debussy
16 AN AMERICAN IN PARIS....................Gershwin
17 EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIC..............Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
18 SLEEPING BEAUTY.............................Tchaikovsky
19 CLAIR DE LUNE....................................Debussy
20 SYMPHONY no. 9..................................Ludwig van Beethoven
21 CANTATA no. 147 (JESU, JOY OF MAN'S DESIRING) .......Bach
22 SYMPHONY no. 6 (PATHETIQUE) .....Tchaikovsky
23 THE PLANETS.......................................Gustav Holst
24 SYMPHONY no. 5..................................Beethoven
25 SYMPHONY no. 40................................Mozart
26 SYMPHONY no. 6 (PASTORAL) .........Beethoven
27 ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA........Richard Strauss
28 1812 OVERTURE...................................Tchaikovsky
29 THE NUTCRACKER.............................Tchaikovsky
30 SYMPHONY no. 3 (EROICA) ..............Beethoven
Monday, August 7, 2017
Just Finished Reading VOR by James Blish
James Blish was a science fiction writer mainly known for his popular Star Trek books that helped keep fan enthusiasm high for the original series after its cancellation in 1968. He also wrote his own original sci-fi novels and was a critic of others' works. I hadn't read anything of his until my sister Anita recently handed me a copy of his 1958 novel VOR, which my father had bought decades before...and presumably read..."way back then"...and happened to get passed on down the family line. And so I read it, although the brittle pages had a tendency to break off in my hands...
The immediate reaction I got from VOR is that Blish wrote it quickly to get it out to the publisher, make some quick dough, and pay his bills. Its premise is the landing in rural Michigan of a highly radioactive, overheated alien spaceship that instantly scorches the ground and contaminates it for miles around. The military and government agencies converge on the site and discover the alien, who is the source of the intense radioactivity and whose insides are hotter than the sun. Marty Petrucelli is a reserve airman who was a war hero but now refuses to fly...and his beautiful young wife Pat has grown distant to him and closer to his rival on the nearby base, Al Strickland. This love triangle annoyed me to no small degree because it was such an unnecessary distraction from the main story and also depicted the people involved as being awfully shallow and unlikable. In any event, the alien allows itself to be questioned and is discovered to respond to colors: it refers to its own "name" with the colors violet, orange, and red: hence the designation "VOR". Why did it come to Earth? VOR has one adamant response: it wants to be killed...but how does one kill something that on one hand seems invulnerable and on the other might well destroy the Earth with its internal energy were that successful? The dilemma leads one of the scientists, Kovorsky, to discern the true goal of the alien's mission as well as how to get rid of it without ending life on Earth...but naturally our reluctant hero Marty will first have to get in a plane and fly again...
This "war hero refuses to fly again" scenario sounds like the script from the movie Airplane, which I just discovered was a parody of an earlier 1950s movie with that same cornball scenario...who knows, maybe Blish got his idea from that same movie. And the manner in which the story is resolved in the end sounds like something that Captain Kirk said to get rid of the dangerous probe Nomad in the Star Trek episode The Changeling. I wasn't too happy with VOR, and apparently most others weren't either...my dad certainly never mentioned it...and it's not one of James Blish's more known works. If this book happens to fall into your lap and you have absolutely nothing else to do with your time, you might just consider reading it...assuming the pages don't fall apart in your hands. Otherwise, I'd just give it a pass...
The immediate reaction I got from VOR is that Blish wrote it quickly to get it out to the publisher, make some quick dough, and pay his bills. Its premise is the landing in rural Michigan of a highly radioactive, overheated alien spaceship that instantly scorches the ground and contaminates it for miles around. The military and government agencies converge on the site and discover the alien, who is the source of the intense radioactivity and whose insides are hotter than the sun. Marty Petrucelli is a reserve airman who was a war hero but now refuses to fly...and his beautiful young wife Pat has grown distant to him and closer to his rival on the nearby base, Al Strickland. This love triangle annoyed me to no small degree because it was such an unnecessary distraction from the main story and also depicted the people involved as being awfully shallow and unlikable. In any event, the alien allows itself to be questioned and is discovered to respond to colors: it refers to its own "name" with the colors violet, orange, and red: hence the designation "VOR". Why did it come to Earth? VOR has one adamant response: it wants to be killed...but how does one kill something that on one hand seems invulnerable and on the other might well destroy the Earth with its internal energy were that successful? The dilemma leads one of the scientists, Kovorsky, to discern the true goal of the alien's mission as well as how to get rid of it without ending life on Earth...but naturally our reluctant hero Marty will first have to get in a plane and fly again...
This "war hero refuses to fly again" scenario sounds like the script from the movie Airplane, which I just discovered was a parody of an earlier 1950s movie with that same cornball scenario...who knows, maybe Blish got his idea from that same movie. And the manner in which the story is resolved in the end sounds like something that Captain Kirk said to get rid of the dangerous probe Nomad in the Star Trek episode The Changeling. I wasn't too happy with VOR, and apparently most others weren't either...my dad certainly never mentioned it...and it's not one of James Blish's more known works. If this book happens to fall into your lap and you have absolutely nothing else to do with your time, you might just consider reading it...assuming the pages don't fall apart in your hands. Otherwise, I'd just give it a pass...
Sunday, August 6, 2017
The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
My work shift ends at midnight and I waste no time getting to my car and skedaddling on home...Fred Flintstone would be proud of me. During my eight-mile drive I listen to the radio, my favorite station being on 102.7, which plays classical music here in Gainesville. After midnight they tend to play shorter pieces and excerpts from longer ones...some of them with vocals, to my annoyance. One night last week I was listening on my way home and one of these was on the air...but it had a completely different effect on me. The woman's singing was slow, haunting, and sad...no way was I going to switch to a different station. Afterwards the announcer said that it was the second movement of the late Polish composer Henryk Górecki's Third Symphony, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. This 1976 composition has three movements, all of which I have subsequently heard...each one features a different "sorrowful song", all performed by the same soloist in Polish. The first song is a lament of Mary, mother of Jesus. The second, which I first heard that night driving home, is of a girl's prayer written on the wall of a concentration camp during World War II asking for her family. And the third is of a mother searching for her lost soldier son during the Silesian Uprising in eastern Germany immediately following World War I. All three involve the separation of families and their longing to be reunited...the last two are a searing indictment of war, something that easily comes to my mind on this 72nd anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima...
Górecki's Third Symphony, musically speaking, is relatively simple even to my untrained, amateur ears...but the slow buildup at the beginning and the repetitiveness at its close somehow enhance the experience of the mournful singing in the middle. It is around 55 minutes in length, a good span for a CD recording. In fact, when a recording of Górecki's masterpiece was released in 1992, it set all kinds of records in sales for classical music. But until that night last week I had never heard of it...now I understand that part of it was put on the soundtrack for the superhero movie Suicide Squad...
I don't have as extensive a listening experience with classical music as I do with rock, and I'm confident that a lot of folks out there could compile a much more comprehensive list of classical greats, many of which I am unfamiliar with. But I still have my own list of favorites, which I plan to put out on this blog in a couple of days. And rest assured: the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs will be very highly placed on it...
Górecki's Third Symphony, musically speaking, is relatively simple even to my untrained, amateur ears...but the slow buildup at the beginning and the repetitiveness at its close somehow enhance the experience of the mournful singing in the middle. It is around 55 minutes in length, a good span for a CD recording. In fact, when a recording of Górecki's masterpiece was released in 1992, it set all kinds of records in sales for classical music. But until that night last week I had never heard of it...now I understand that part of it was put on the soundtrack for the superhero movie Suicide Squad...
I don't have as extensive a listening experience with classical music as I do with rock, and I'm confident that a lot of folks out there could compile a much more comprehensive list of classical greats, many of which I am unfamiliar with. But I still have my own list of favorites, which I plan to put out on this blog in a couple of days. And rest assured: the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs will be very highly placed on it...
Saturday, August 5, 2017
Just Finished Reading The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
Karen Thompson Walker is an editor for a book publishing company who came out with her first novel, The Age of Miracles, in 2012. The story centers around a nightmare dystopian scenario in which the Earth inexplicably begins to slow down in its orbit, causing all sorts of disasters and eventually threatening the human race...as well as life on our planet in general...with extinction. In the middle of this calamity, Julia, an eleven-year-old middle-school student, is going through the pangs of early adolescence in her home California town while struggling with her social relationships. Let's see if I can recognize them from my memories of this long-gone period in my own life: bullying ✓, snobbery ✓, family dysfunction ✓, puppy-love crush ✓, indifferent teachers ✓, and feelings of isolation, inadequacy, and alienation ✓. Yep, they're all there, except that I wasn't having to deal with the end of life as we know it on Earth...although when I was her age back in 1968 I suspected that one day when I became of age, I would be drafted and sent over to Vietnam to die for my country in that endless war. Oh yeah, don't forget that while (fictional) Julia and I were going through our typical teenage angst periods, the kids around us all openly pretended as if everything was totally hunky-dory in their own lives (and what's wrong with us)...✓
So The Age of Miracles, to me, came across as a story with a split personality. On one hand there is the developing drama of a world slowing down and how humanity copes with the increasing problems of ecological disasters, earthquakes, solar radiation, and the destruction of the Earth's magnetic field...to name just a few. On the other hand, there is the intense personal drama of Julia's life, family, and school. And then there is the issue of time: as the planet's rotational day lengthens, a conflict grows between those who want to retain the strict 24-hour/day system regardless whether it is light or dark and those who want to adapt their day to keep in harmony with sunrise and sunset...those favoring the latter approach soon find themselves isolated and persecuted by the majority, which to me is the author's commentary on how irrationally cruel people can become when in groups and looking for scapegoats for their hardships...
From the beginning of this story I had my doubts about Karen Thompson Walker's adherence to established science...but hey, it's just a story and I'm not one of those "hard" science fiction readers who are obsessed with discovering "errors" in obviously fantastic tales. Instead, I try to discern what the author was trying to say. In this case, The Age of Miracles, the title of which is what early adolescence has been referred to in the past, is more about what kids have to go through during that difficult time in their lives than the sci-fi part. The impending doom of the "slowing", to me, was just Walker's way of externalizing the internal struggles that Julia was having to deal with, anyway. In the end, I liked this story and recommend it, but more because of the human angle to it, not the science fiction part. The author accomplished something crucial to a story: she created a character I could identify with...
So The Age of Miracles, to me, came across as a story with a split personality. On one hand there is the developing drama of a world slowing down and how humanity copes with the increasing problems of ecological disasters, earthquakes, solar radiation, and the destruction of the Earth's magnetic field...to name just a few. On the other hand, there is the intense personal drama of Julia's life, family, and school. And then there is the issue of time: as the planet's rotational day lengthens, a conflict grows between those who want to retain the strict 24-hour/day system regardless whether it is light or dark and those who want to adapt their day to keep in harmony with sunrise and sunset...those favoring the latter approach soon find themselves isolated and persecuted by the majority, which to me is the author's commentary on how irrationally cruel people can become when in groups and looking for scapegoats for their hardships...
From the beginning of this story I had my doubts about Karen Thompson Walker's adherence to established science...but hey, it's just a story and I'm not one of those "hard" science fiction readers who are obsessed with discovering "errors" in obviously fantastic tales. Instead, I try to discern what the author was trying to say. In this case, The Age of Miracles, the title of which is what early adolescence has been referred to in the past, is more about what kids have to go through during that difficult time in their lives than the sci-fi part. The impending doom of the "slowing", to me, was just Walker's way of externalizing the internal struggles that Julia was having to deal with, anyway. In the end, I liked this story and recommend it, but more because of the human angle to it, not the science fiction part. The author accomplished something crucial to a story: she created a character I could identify with...
Friday, August 4, 2017
Quote of the Week...from Margaret Mead
Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
---Margaret Mead
The above quote by renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead may seem terribly ironic...even humorous, by laying out a profound truth in the form of two superficially contradictory statements. Yes, each of us is unique, and it's healthy to regard oneself that way...think for yourself, I like to say, and don't ever buy into others judging you because of some category like race, gender, age, politics, religion, national origin, disability, etcetera. By the same token, there's Part Two of Ms. Mead's quote that exhorts each of us to recognize the unique nature of others and to refrain from the same arbitrary judgmental attitude that we should reject when done to us. Or, in a more Biblical sense: Do to others as you would have them do to you...
On the other hand, our uniqueness doesn't exempt us from social responsibility and we shouldn't use our specialness as an excuse to avoid them...especially when we hold the rights that are recognized for us by society in such high regard. Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand...one cannot exist without the other in a context of liberty...
It's a shame that I grew up in a social environment that refused to recognize and respect my own unique nature...instead I was subjected to taunts and bullying at school and the bus stop, and my perspective on things...even those directly concerning me...was ignored and/or discouraged by authority figures in my young life: no respect whatsoever. My experiences in this are probably not unique: many of us have to spend pretty much the rest of our adult lives struggling to set our brains straight and in a positive direction after being force-fed so much crap in our youth: heeding Margaret Mead's quote is a good step to begin with...
---Margaret Mead
The above quote by renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead may seem terribly ironic...even humorous, by laying out a profound truth in the form of two superficially contradictory statements. Yes, each of us is unique, and it's healthy to regard oneself that way...think for yourself, I like to say, and don't ever buy into others judging you because of some category like race, gender, age, politics, religion, national origin, disability, etcetera. By the same token, there's Part Two of Ms. Mead's quote that exhorts each of us to recognize the unique nature of others and to refrain from the same arbitrary judgmental attitude that we should reject when done to us. Or, in a more Biblical sense: D
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Just Finished Reading Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
Kathleen Rooney's 2017 novel Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk is a fictionalized loose biography of Margaret Fishback, who like the protagonist was a famous poet in her time of the early-to-mid twentieth century and was, with her job at Macy's Department Store, the highest paid woman advertiser of her time and a stalwart, confirmed New Yorker. The details that first-person narrator Lillian brings out about her own life, family and friends, and philosophy of life, on the other hand may or may not be based in reality. I do know this: I really enjoyed reading this story, and on several fronts...
Ever since I visited New York City...in particular Mid-and-Lower Manhattan...seven years ago, I have keenly noticed any references to the city in the books I've read, especially those focusing on it. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk takes the reader on a walk through Manhattan, going back in time to the 1920s, 30s, 40s...and on up to New Years Eve 1984 as the lead character...85 years old...decides to make an adventurous and reflective trek through town. I enjoyed the geography refresher, although my 2010 Manhattan experience came after later mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg empowered the police and drove out the porno shops...no complaints from me as a pedestrian tourist about that although it appears that minority residents may have been unfairly targeted by the cops in their zeal. But the main attraction of this book to me was an examination of this remarkable woman's attitudes and philosophy of life...
Lillian Boxfish shows an intriguing mixture of bold assertiveness and gracious tact in her interactions with others. Being a groundbreaker in her advertising profession for women, both skills are indispensable as well as the need to balance them...and she develops them to an art. Her overriding philosophy is that civility in everything is paramount...you can express your feelings or thoughts, but it must be done with grace and empathy toward whomever you are communicating with...hey, I want to be like that! As she remembers parts of her life while on her long evening walk, Lillian also touches upon a very difficult period when she was around 55 and came down with deep depression marked by anhedonia: the lack of pleasure or of the capacity to experience it. Her recounts of this time made a deep impact on me...
At first when I was reading Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, I thought that the author was an elderly woman who was drawing upon her own experiences. Then when I discovered that Kathleen Rooney is actually very young, I thought she must be a remarkable genius. Well, I still think that to an extent about Ms. Rooney, but it wasn't until I finished reading the book that I found out that her Lillian Boxfish character was based on a real person...so I have to add my accolade that the author is also a great researcher. This story is a big winner in any case, and I urge anyone to get a copy and read it...
Ever since I visited New York City...in particular Mid-and-Lower Manhattan...seven years ago, I have keenly noticed any references to the city in the books I've read, especially those focusing on it. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk takes the reader on a walk through Manhattan, going back in time to the 1920s, 30s, 40s...and on up to New Years Eve 1984 as the lead character...85 years old...decides to make an adventurous and reflective trek through town. I enjoyed the geography refresher, although my 2010 Manhattan experience came after later mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg empowered the police and drove out the porno shops...no complaints from me as a pedestrian tourist about that although it appears that minority residents may have been unfairly targeted by the cops in their zeal. But the main attraction of this book to me was an examination of this remarkable woman's attitudes and philosophy of life...
Lillian Boxfish shows an intriguing mixture of bold assertiveness and gracious tact in her interactions with others. Being a groundbreaker in her advertising profession for women, both skills are indispensable as well as the need to balance them...and she develops them to an art. Her overriding philosophy is that civility in everything is paramount...you can express your feelings or thoughts, but it must be done with grace and empathy toward whomever you are communicating with...hey, I want to be like that! As she remembers parts of her life while on her long evening walk, Lillian also touches upon a very difficult period when she was around 55 and came down with deep depression marked by anhedonia: the lack of pleasure or of the capacity to experience it. Her recounts of this time made a deep impact on me...
At first when I was reading Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, I thought that the author was an elderly woman who was drawing upon her own experiences. Then when I discovered that Kathleen Rooney is actually very young, I thought she must be a remarkable genius. Well, I still think that to an extent about Ms. Rooney, but it wasn't until I finished reading the book that I found out that her Lillian Boxfish character was based on a real person...so I have to add my accolade that the author is also a great researcher. This story is a big winner in any case, and I urge anyone to get a copy and read it...
7/30 Sermon on Everyday Heroes, Part 5
This past Sunday at The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin continued the series Everyday Heroes, spotlighting various figures from the Bible and how God worked through them to build his kingdom. This message was about Barnabas, whose story is told in the New Testament of Acts. Philip drew upon four different passages, which you can read in the New International Version via Bible Gateway through the following four links:
ACTS 4:36-37 9:26-28 11:24-26 15:37-41
Barnabas was an early Christian who played an integral role in Paul's ministry. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, his words and actions revealed this influence in his life as he gave freely of his possessions, valued people like Paul and Mark as he vouched for the former to those who still feared him for his past persecution of Christians and worked with the latter after Paul had given up on him. So how one deals with possessions, people, and problems reflects on one's spiritual state, as the pastor pointed out. Philip also emphasized that conflicts can be good, change can be productive, and confrontation can be healthy...but certain principles should be followed: in a confrontation, just keep it between the other and yourself, make it face-to-face, truth must be spoken in love and not anger, and the goal should always be reconciliation and not revenge. As for money and possessions he also noted that they can easily become the biggest God substitutes...i.e. idols...in our lives...
You can view Philip's message about Barnabas on the church's YouTube video website...here is a link to it: [link]. The Family Church meets each Sunday morning at 9:30 and 11. There is the weekly sermon, along with praise music and opportunities for prayer. The folks are friendly and the coffee is free! I wonder what the message will be next time around...
ACTS 4:36-37 9:26-28 11:24-26 15:37-41
Barnabas was an early Christian who played an integral role in Paul's ministry. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, his words and actions revealed this influence in his life as he gave freely of his possessions, valued people like Paul and Mark as he vouched for the former to those who still feared him for his past persecution of Christians and worked with the latter after Paul had given up on him. So how one deals with possessions, people, and problems reflects on one's spiritual state, as the pastor pointed out. Philip also emphasized that conflicts can be good, change can be productive, and confrontation can be healthy...but certain principles should be followed: in a confrontation, just keep it between the other and yourself, make it face-to-face, truth must be spoken in love and not anger, and the goal should always be reconciliation and not revenge. As for money and possessions he also noted that they can easily become the biggest God substitutes...i.e. idols...in our lives...
You can view Philip's message about Barnabas on the church's YouTube video website...here is a link to it: [link]. The Family Church meets each Sunday morning at 9:30 and 11. There is the weekly sermon, along with praise music and opportunities for prayer. The folks are friendly and the coffee is free! I wonder what the message will be next time around...
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Weekly Short Story: The Red-Headed League by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
For many years I have been an ardent fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed Sherlock Holmes mystery stories. At first I began by watching all of the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies, made in the 1930s and 40s...they often diverged widely from the stories, especially those World War II movies where they're riding around in cars and protecting a scientist who designed a bombsight for a bomber plane: Doyle's stories were set in the late nineteenth century! But the flicks did capture the spirit of super-sleuth Holmes even if they did portray his sidekick Dr. Watson as a bit of a silly stumblebum. Since then I've read all of the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories and quickly downloaded them onto my Kindle after discovering that they were free, being in the public domain. Of course, you can read any of them from a variety of sources on the Internet, including the story I'm discussing today: The Red-Headed League, from the collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...
In The Red-Headed League, Holmes has a new client: Jabez Wilson, a red-headed pawnbroker who has answered an ad in the paper. It seems that a wealthy-but-eccentric red-headed gentleman has passed on and willed that an organization...hence the title of this story...be set up as a benefactor to those who, like him, have red hair. A good-paying part-time job is available and Mr. Wilson seeks it along with many others in town of his hue...he gets hired and goes off to work, handing off his business during those hours to his newly-hired assistant. The "work" consists of sitting in a room for four hours and copying the Encyclopedia Britannica by hand, with the stipulation that he cannot for any reason leave the room until those four hours are up. An easy, but very strange job indeed. He continues doing this for weeks until one day he reports to work and discovers that the room is locked and a notice attached: the Red-Headed League is dissolved!
Holmes and Watson set off to investigate, and of course the wily detective figures it all out, knowing just the right questions to ask. And that's really what it's all about: learning how to ask the right questions...questions the answers for which will lead to ultimate enlightenment. So now I'd like to pose something more general: are we asking the right questions to ourselves and others in our own lives? In order to do this, though, we need to know, like Sherlock Holmes, what our goals are in the end...and I'm afraid that too many of us haven't a "clue"...
It was refreshing to reread one of the good old Sherlock Holmes stories...I'll have to do it again soon...
In The Red-Headed League, Holmes has a new client: Jabez Wilson, a red-headed pawnbroker who has answered an ad in the paper. It seems that a wealthy-but-eccentric red-headed gentleman has passed on and willed that an organization...hence the title of this story...be set up as a benefactor to those who, like him, have red hair. A good-paying part-time job is available and Mr. Wilson seeks it along with many others in town of his hue...he gets hired and goes off to work, handing off his business during those hours to his newly-hired assistant. The "work" consists of sitting in a room for four hours and copying the Encyclopedia Britannica by hand, with the stipulation that he cannot for any reason leave the room until those four hours are up. An easy, but very strange job indeed. He continues doing this for weeks until one day he reports to work and discovers that the room is locked and a notice attached: the Red-Headed League is dissolved!
Holmes and Watson set off to investigate, and of course the wily detective figures it all out, knowing just the right questions to ask. And that's really what it's all about: learning how to ask the right questions...questions the answers for which will lead to ultimate enlightenment. So now I'd like to pose something more general: are we asking the right questions to ourselves and others in our own lives? In order to do this, though, we need to know, like Sherlock Holmes, what our goals are in the end...and I'm afraid that too many of us haven't a "clue"...
It was refreshing to reread one of the good old Sherlock Holmes stories...I'll have to do it again soon...
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Tuesday's List: The 88 Celestial Constellations...from North to South
Constellations are artificial divisions in the celestial sky, originally designed to connect stars that roughly reveal patterns corresponding to mythology, animals, instruments, and other objects. The Chinese have a completely different system corresponding to their own traditions, but I grew up with the Western version, composed of 88 constellations. Since I have lived mostly in the latitude range from 26 to 30 degrees North, there are certain constellations...called "circumpolar"...that for me have always been above the northern horizon, neither rising nor setting. On the other end of the sky, there are also those constellations in the far south that are always hidden from my view. starting around number 65 (except for #78 Carina...its first magnitude star Canopus is on its far north side): to see them I need to travel south...to see the south celestial pole I would need to go south of the Equator...
You can access interactive star maps from a variety of sources on the Internet: here's a link to one of them: [link]. On the list below, zodiac constellations are italicized while those with first magnitude stars (the brightest) are in bold print, with those stars listed following the entry. I could have arranged the constellations by their right ascensions, which corresponds to Earth's longitude system, and which would give a better idea of what you would see walking out and looking up at any particular time or season...maybe I'll work on that one sometime in the future. Anyway, here's that list, from north to south:
1 Ursa Minor
2 Cepheus
3 Camelopardalis
4 Draco
5 Cassiopeia
6 Ursa Major (including "Big Dipper")
7 Lynx
8 Lacerta
9 Perseus
10 Cygnus...Deneb
11 Auriga...Capella
12 Canes Venatici
13 Andromeda
14 Lyra...Vega
15 Corona Borealis
16 Leo Minor
17 Triangulum
18 Boötes...Arcturus
19 Hercules
20 Vulpecula
21 Coma Berenices
22 Gemini...Pollux
23 Aries
24 Cancer
25 Pegasus
26 Sagitta
27 Taurus...Aldeberan
28 Pisces
29 Leo...Regulus
30 Delphinus
31 Equuleus
32 Canis Minor
33 Serpens
34 Orion...Rigel, Betelgeuse
35 Aquila...Altair
36 Monoceros
37 Sextans
38 Virgo...Spica
39 Cetus
40 Ophiuchus
41 Scutum
42 Aquarius
43 Hydra
44 Libra
45 Crater
46 Capricornus
47 Corvus
48 Lepus
49 Canis Major...Sirius
50 Scorpius...Antares
51 Pyxis
52 Sagittarius
53 Eridanus
54 Piscis Austrinus...Fomalhaut
55 Puppis
56 Fornax
57 Sculptor
58 Antlia
59 Columba
60 Microscopium
61 Caelum
62 Corona Australis
63 Lupus
64 Grus
65 Vela
66 Centaurus...Alpha Centauri, Beta Centauri (Hadar)
67 Phoenix
68 Telescopium
69 Norma
70 Horologium
71 Pictor
72 Ara
73 Dorado
74 Indus
75 Reticulum
76 Crux...Acrux, Mimosa
77 Circinus
78 Carina...Canopus
79 Triangulum Australe
80 Pavo
81 Tucana
82 Volans
83 Hydrus
84 Musca
85 Apus
86 Mensa
87 Chamaeleon
88 Octans
You can access interactive star maps from a variety of sources on the Internet: here's a link to one of them: [link]. On the list below, zodiac constellations are italicized while those with first magnitude stars (the brightest) are in bold print, with those stars listed following the entry. I could have arranged the constellations by their right ascensions, which corresponds to Earth's longitude system, and which would give a better idea of what you would see walking out and looking up at any particular time or season...maybe I'll work on that one sometime in the future. Anyway, here's that list, from north to south:
1 Ursa Minor
2 Cepheus
3 Camelopardalis
4 Draco
5 Cassiopeia
6 Ursa Major (including "Big Dipper")
7 Lynx
8 Lacerta
9 Perseus
10 Cygnus...Deneb
11 Auriga...Capella
12 Canes Venatici
13 Andromeda
14 Lyra...Vega
15 Corona Borealis
16 Leo Minor
17 Triangulum
18 Boötes...Arcturus
19 Hercules
20 Vulpecula
21 Coma Berenices
22 Gemini...Pollux
23 Aries
24 Cancer
25 Pegasus
26 Sagitta
27 Taurus...Aldeberan
28 Pisces
29 Leo...Regulus
30 Delphinus
31 Equuleus
32 Canis Minor
33 Serpens
34 Orion...Rigel, Betelgeuse
35 Aquila...Altair
36 Monoceros
37 Sextans
38 Virgo...Spica
39 Cetus
40 Ophiuchus
41 Scutum
42 Aquarius
43 Hydra
44 Libra
45 Crater
46 Capricornus
47 Corvus
48 Lepus
49 Canis Major...Sirius
50 Scorpius...Antares
51 Pyxis
52 Sagittarius
53 Eridanus
54 Piscis Austrinus...Fomalhaut
55 Puppis
56 Fornax
57 Sculptor
58 Antlia
59 Columba
60 Microscopium
61 Caelum
62 Corona Australis
63 Lupus
64 Grus
65 Vela
66 Centaurus...Alpha Centauri, Beta Centauri (Hadar)
67 Phoenix
68 Telescopium
69 Norma
70 Horologium
71 Pictor
72 Ara
73 Dorado
74 Indus
75 Reticulum
76 Crux...Acrux, Mimosa
77 Circinus
78 Carina...Canopus
79 Triangulum Australe
80 Pavo
81 Tucana
82 Volans
83 Hydrus
84 Musca
85 Apus
86 Mensa
87 Chamaeleon
88 Octans
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